When heaven seems silent

We're heading into Holy Week - an annual remembrance of Jesus' darkest hours.  At week's beginning, he was hailed with cheers and acclaim by the people of Jerusalem.  By week's end they looked upon him with revulsion and demanded his death.  During his unthinkable suffering, his thoughts were on us, the people for whom he was living his life, for whom he was dying in ignominy at our hands.  In any suffering we face now, we look to our Lord as the one who has suffered for us, who has redeemed us, who gives us hope.  

Writing to someone she knows is suffering, Jenni Mickelson points to Jesus and the hope we have in him -- even when circumstances seem hopeless.  We know that not only did he suffer for us; he reclaimed his life in victory and assures us of victory.

A letter to someone who is suffering

by Jenni Mickelson

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For the one who wants to let go…but must hold on: “We walk by faith, not by sight.” 

(2 Corinthians 5:7)

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“I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.
I believe in love even when I do not feel it.
I believe in God even when he is silent.”

-          Etched on cellar wall during the Holocaust
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Dear one, I feel your pain behind the smile, the hopeful words and “musts” and “dos.” You are longing for a present much better than the one you are in. It’s as if you are in a thick mud at the side of a road, struggling in panic like an injured deer, back legs broken, to flee her fear and her pain. You speak of a new day, a new heaven and a new earth, and you pray and you read and you thank. But in the next breath you are crying for another time, another place, another life.

Let me tell you this: Your life has been a prelude to this moment. This moment, when the cross feels too unbearable to carry, the strain too great for your feeble arms, the fear and the agony too overwhelming to endure one more step on the narrow road. God has led you here, to this moment, to follow the blood-stained footsteps of Jesus.

Rejection, torture, anguish – these defined the hours, the days, the years of our Lord here on earth. True God and true Man – and this was his destiny: to be forsaken by his children, to be gruesomely flogged and crucified like a criminal, to hang in the sight of unbelieving onlookers and a Father who put his only Son through the pain of hell – for us.

“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?...
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)

Sin did not waste its time in tormenting our Savior. But sin was not greater. Sin’s wrath did not define our dear Jesus. For, on that early Sunday morning, in the pale of a new dawn, he rose above the grave and received the glory of life. And it is this that he gives us, too, willingly.

When you fall under your cross, let the blood of our God renew you and give you strength. As you collapse under the load, let the power of Jesus’ love and mercy pick your feeble body back up. And when sin finally threatens to impale you with the nails of hell forever, point to the hill at the end of the road – the hill of victory, the hill of God’s Passion. You will live another day. This moment is God’s love letter to you: “Live. Do you see the light of my Son in you? ‘Your faith has made you well’” (Luke 17:19).

“I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord”  (Psalm 27:13-14).

Springtime thoughts

March 20th was the first day of spring ... inspiring some springtime thoughts for this blog.

Nurturing Growth

Spring has sprung … and I’m reminded of all that’s amiss in my yard.  The boulevard is more dirt than grass.  There are bare spots and weeds throughout the main lawn.  The bushes in back and hedges out front are part dead, part unruly and overgrown.  The flowerbeds never got raked out properly before winter came; they are mucky mess.   Much must be done to get things growing and going in the right direction.

When our yards need tending, we tend to labor with springlike eagerness.  Do we work at relationships with human beings with as much energy?

Maybe a connection with a coworker is gnarled and thorny.   Rather than avoiding contact, might you pay more attention to each other and prune away places where you get twisted around each other?

Maybe roots with family have gone dormant and your love has browned.  What watering can you do to rejuvenate family ties and green things up?

Maybe a student’s performance has been poor – not much is budding or blooming.  Will you let that student wither away or do all you can to prod him, cultivate his interest, nurture learning and understanding?

Jesus once told this parable (Luke 13:6-9): 

“A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any.  So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ 

 “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it.  If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

Jesus’ words point specifically to our spiritual condition and the Lord’s patience in dealing with us.  God grant us the patience to be nurturing and supportive with our fellow human beings – first and foremost in regard to spiritual growth, but also in the day-to-day aspects of our relationships as the Spirit strives to awaken new life in all that we do.

-          David Sellnow

A year's worth of posts

Today marks the one-year anniversary of this blog.  A year ago in March, The Electric Gospel in this format began with articles by Mariah Wild (who since has married, so now Mariah Kneser) and Kaylee Messman.  Since then, a few dozen posts have been made over the course of the year, featuring devotional writing from students of my classes.  The range of material has included poetry and song lyrics, a personal creed, deeply personal confession, and more.

If you've only begun following this blog recently, you might look in the right column of the main blog page for the "Blog Archive."  You can click month by month to view the past year of postings.

Summer course offerings

Last summer this blog featured the work of participants in a Devotional Writing online course that I teach - for example, an article on "Body Building" by Tracy Siegler.   (By the way, you might look for another item from Tracy, "My Refuge," dealing with the subject of depression, as published in January 2015 issue of Forward in Christ magazine.)

I will be offering the Devotional Writing workshop again in summer 2015, as well as a companion online course on Constructing and Conducting Bible Studies.  And I'll have a summer webinar on Teaching the Faith too.

If you're interested in online summer offerings from Martin Luther College, you can find information at the MLC Continuing Education page for summer 2015.

- David Sellnow