Month: March 2011

Lenten Meditation: Brightness of your Dawn

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Copper Ridge at dawn near Hannegan Pass, photo by Josh Scholten http://www.cascadecompass.com

See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the LORD rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.
Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
Isaiah 60:2-3

Is there anything darker than what the world is witnessing in the shocked and bewildered faces of the Japanese refugees who have lost everything?  Their homes and possessions, their livelihoods, their friends and family?

Is there anything worse than a mother describing how she lost her grip on her daughter’s hand, to watch her swept away in the waters?

Is there anything  thicker than the darkness that covers these stoic people with the deep despair of fear of the unknown, especially the potential of long term radiation exposure and spread?

As we watch the unending  pictures and videos from Japan there is realization we ourselves are not exempt from such catastrophe, never immune from a similar tragedy on our own soil.   It can happen here.  It has happened here.

There is something darker.  Darkest of all is separation from God.   There is no loss to compare with that abyss.

As Job said in the midst of his desperation, after he too lost everything, all at once:

“I know my Redeemer lives…”

He had lost everything,  but not that certainty.

And with that certainty, there is a new dawn.

Photo by Josh Scholten

Lenten Meditation: Arise, Shine

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Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.
Isaiah 60:1

We’ve not known major natural catastrophe here in the northwest for many generations–our crises are mercifully small scale compared to a Japan or New Orleans or Haiti.  Blustery windstorms, flooding, the occasional drifting blizzard, spouting volcanoes, the rare minor earthquake.

Awaking to a glowing sunrise is encouragement after such an event. Clouds become a canvas backdrop on which a vivid palette is able to be painted–the same clouds that had created havoc, floods, power outages.

Then this.

Startling, wondrous magnificence beyond imagination. Grace that brings us to our knees, especially when we are mired in trouble.

Drink deeply of this.

Hold it, savor it and know that to witness any sunrise is to see the face of God.

Lenten Meditation: Refined and Scrubbed

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But who can endure the day of his coming?
Who can stand when he appears?
For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap.
Malachi 3:2

While looking at pictures of burning buildings in Japan after the earthquake,  it is wholly evident that much of the infrastructure in the effected areas is being completely consumed by fire, if it wasn’t swept away in the waves.  It is being quickly destroyed,  to eventually be rebuilt from the ground up.  There is nothing but debris, nothing left to salvage.

Yet we are told that God does not destroy his people like these buildings are destroyed.  Instead our debris and impurities are wiped away, as if painfully scrubbed by soap or refined by fire.  We are left whole, intact and unsullied.

Only then can we be ready for what is to come.

Lenten Meditation: Once More in a Little While

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Oarai City, Ibaraki Prefecture, northeastern Japan, March 11, 2011. (REUTERS/Kyodo)

For thus says the LORD of hosts,
Once more in a little while,
I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea also and the dry land.
I will shake all the nations; and they will come with the wealth of all nations,
and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the LORD of hosts.
Haggai 2:6-7

This could have been anywhere on the earth–and it has been at one time or another over many millennia.  We happen to live on uneasy soil.  Most recently the devastation has been in Chile, Haiti, Sumatra, Philippines.   It could have been right here in the earthquake prone and long overdue Pacific Northwest. I tread carefully across the yard, wondering if with the next step, the earth will rise to meet my foot, alive and seething.

This time it happened near one of the largest cities on earth, right where people most precious to me in all the world live and work.  It just happened, whisking away thousands of people in a matter of minutes.

There are many interpretations about what this might mean.  Some imply it is judgment.  Some dismiss it as simple relief of seismic pressure, building since the last major earthquake in the area in 869 A.D.

I believe it happens “once more, in a little while.”  It is a reminder we are only along for the ride;  we don’t do the steering, and we’re not in control of the itinerary or the timing of the destination.  We are shaken awake, not out of judgment (which has already convicted us all), but with the shattering realization that our rescue is at hand.

We must reach out and hang on tight, once more, in a little while.

Lenten Meditation: Rough Places

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Mt. Baker--photo by Josh Scholten at http://www.cascadecompass.com

Every valley shall be exalted,
every mountain and hill made low;
the crooked straight,
and the rough places plain.  Isaiah 40:4

Gazing out our kitchen window, we see the strong silhouette of Mt. Baker every morning, unchanging and unblinking as the clouds swirl past, the snow falls, or the sun shines.   The peaks are just as impressive as they must have been for the coastal native populations centuries ago, with the river valleys at its feet just as green and lush.

As permanent as it seems, it is an active volcano, still steaming from its vent on the coldest of mornings, a plume visible from our farmhouse dozens of miles away.  The lesson of Mount St. Helen taught us that the constancy of rocky peaks is illusory.  In an instant it can be laid low, the valleys obliterated in a sea of lava, the rivers gorged and gushing with mud, the ragged geography covered and soon forgotten.

There is nothing permanent under the firmament. Every earthquake and tsunami, as happened in Japan only an hour ago just a couple hundred miles from where our son lives and teaches, proves that again and again.

All that is lasting is the kingdom of our God incarnate, who walked in living flesh on this impermanent earth,  in order to bring His people to home everlasting.

Knowing this, we can be rough no more.

Lenten Meditation–Make Straight

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The voice of him that cries in the wilderness,
prepare ye the way of the Lord.
Make straight in the desert
a highway
for our God.

Isaiah 40:3

This is the time of year when I get off track.   Lost and wandering in a wilderness of winter doldrums,  I have too much to do at work, too little time at home and farm cherishing the precious relationships in my life.

Winter still clings like a cement suit having become a desert of deprivation gone on too long.   I yearn for respite.

And so today, a voice cries out to prepare.

It is time to look where I’m going, to walk a path with a goal in mind, and stop meandering meaninglessly.   My path, if straight and true,  will join thousands of others harkening to the call.

I am not alone on this road.  Nor are you.