Ember Saturday, Saturday of Advent - Matthew 9:35-10:15

“But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.”

The compassion of Jesus never fails to move me to compassion. I want to see what He and feel what He felt, and what He saw was a multitude of people who were weary and scattered and were like sheep without a shepherd. What He felt was compassion.

My favorite word in the Greek language is splagthnizomai, which comes from the word for inward parts or entrails and so means to be moved with “bowels of mercy” or to have a visceral reaction of compassion. The kind of compassion Jesus had wasn’t the manufactured tears or weepy faces that some people put on, and it wasn’t something He somehow had to work to summon up because He was “supposed to.”

Jesus’ compassion was one He was spontaneously moved to and one for which He had an accompanying visceral reaction. This kind of compassion is not the cool-headed Hollywood millionaire deciding to plunk down a fat check on his favorite charity. It is the kind of compassion that is visceral and bodily and can only come from a heart that has been made a compassionate one.

In His day, the people were weary, and they were scattered, everyone seemingly doing his own thing. They had no shepherd because they had no one to lead them.

And then Jesus came. He came teaching, preaching, and healing, and the amazing thing is that even after “Jesus went about all the cities and villages, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease,” Jesus still sees a multitude of sheep who need a shepherd. Having spent the days of His public ministry on behalf of others, there were still too many who needed to know and follow Him.

What He did in response to His compassion is also amazing. We might have expected Him to double His efforts, to begin teaching and healing in double-time so that twice as many could hear Him and be healed. He could have just commanded that all hear and be healed. But what He actually did in response to a world full of lost sheep was to send out laborers into the harvest.

In response to His great compassion, Jesus calls the twelve disciples to Himself and gives them authority over unclean spirits and to heal all kinds of disease. And then He sends them out into the harvest, to go and redeem lost souls, and to act as shepherds to who go out to gather the lost sheep.

Jesus still has compassion for the lost people of the world. He still has bowels of mercy and desires that something be done to heal the sick and preach the gospel and to have more sheep be brought into His fold. And He still chooses to do this the same way – by sending out His disciples into the world.

“The harvest is still plentiful,” He says to you, “but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”

Jesus Christ has sent you, His disciple, out into the harvest. He has called you to help go and make disciples of the nations.

You can’t fool me: I’m a former schoolteacher. I see some of you slinking down in your chairs and turning around, as if Jesus Christ means these words for the guy who’s sitting behind you. But He means these words for you: you are the one He is sending out to the multitude of lost sheep.

Sometimes I wonder about these words, “The laborers are few.” What does Jesus mean? In the U.S. there are 160 million adults (we’ll let the children off the hook for now) who claim to be Christians, which is about 77% of the adult population. 45% of adults in the U.S. claim to be “born again,” which would give us about 100 million people. Since there are something like 220 million adults in the U.S., I’d say we had plenty of laborers. I mean, after all, since almost half of the adults are born-again Christians, each of us only has to bring the Good News to just one person.

Unless, of course, something is wrong with my numbers. Why is it that we have a country where half the adults can say they’re born again Christians and yet easily more than half of the U.S. is still lost?

I think it comes down to the passion and compassion of Jesus Christ. Do we really have the same passion to serve God as Jesus Christ did? When we say we are really disciples of Jesus Christ, do we back it up with our lives? In the U.S. as a whole (and the world, I suppose), the answer is a clear “No!”

Do we have the compassion of Jesus Christ which looks out at the world and sees lost sheep, that is, lost souls going to Hell? Or do we see people just like us who don’t want to be disturbed, just as we are too busy to disturb others with the Good News of Jesus Christ?

But you can’t manufacture compassion for the lost sheep. It must come from a heart completely devoted to God and to doing His will. This is why Jesus saw lost sheep, when we see only golfing buddies or the office acquaintance or Uncle Harold.

Do you really want to give the perfect Christmas present this year? Give someone Jesus Christ. We love picking out just the right gift – but are we just giving to those who love us? Jesus has commanded us to go those who are not already a part of our circle of love or our earthly family. He has sent you to have compassion on those who are lost and to show your compassion for the lost and your passion for God by teaching them about Jesus Christ.

Without a passion for God, however, you will have no compassion for the lost sheep that propels you into motion. Therefore, this Christmas, come once again to Jesus Christ and adore Him. But don’t just Ooh! and Ahh! at the Christmas pictures or the cute kids at the Christmas pageant. Come and adore the King of kings, and hear His commandment to go out and make disciples of the nations.

For this is the most fitting Christmas present for the God who gave Himself to you and who has called you to give Him to others.

Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, I praise You today for Your passion in perfectly obeying the will of the Father for me. I praise You for Your compassion on the lost sheep of the world, especially myself. I pray that today I may be a true disciple by hearing the voice of my Master and obeying Your commandment to go into the world to give You to others. Amen.

Point for Meditation:
What does Jesus’ commandment to His disciples to go out and find the lost sheep mean to me? Do I believe this is a call He has placed on my life, or is it only for others? What have I done to obey my Master in going out to bring the lost sheep to Him? What do I hear Him calling me to do this new year to be a more faithful disciple in this regard?

Resolution: I resolve to adore and worship Jesus my Master this Christmastide. I resolve to worship Him by obeying His commandment to go and disciple the nations and to ponder my part in God’s plan of redeeming mankind.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Friday of Advent 3 - 2 Corinthians 5:5–21

Christ was born of flesh that we might be born of the Spirit.

This is the message this morning, as the birth pangs of Christmas and miracle of the Incarnation come even closer to us. St. Paul doesn’t deal directly with the Incarnation here in 2 Corinthians 5, but in the context of the last days of Advent before Christmas, his message takes on a new and wonderful meaning.

Christ was born of flesh that we might be born of the Spirit.

We do see the meaning of Christmas in verse 19, where Paul writes that, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.” Remembering that we can’t separate one part of the ministry of Jesus from another, we see the beginning of Christ’s ministry of reconciliation in His Incarnation. God’s first daring move in the work of salvation is to take on human flesh. With all of its finitude and sinfulness, God took on human flesh that He might reconcile the world to Himself.

How much God must have loved His ruined creation to become a part of it! How much more must He have loved those made in His image, even though they were image-destroyers and desecraters of His creation, to become one of us!

But it is not enough that God become one of us: the goal of the Incarnation is Glorification. God came down to earth and became man that man might ascend to heaven and partake of God. In this way, the love and humility of God become the glory of mankind and of all creation.

Even as God became one of us, God makes us a part of Himself, a partaker of His nature. Even as He takes off the Old Man from us, He puts the New Man on. This is why Paul says in verse 2 that we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven. Paul knows that though we have already been clothed with Christ, who is the New Man and our righteousness, we are not yet fully clothed. And so at Christmas we must use both of our eyes: one eye to rejoice in the First Coming of Christ in human flesh, and one eye to seek the Second Coming of Christ in which we fully dwell with God.

Because Jesus Christ was born at Christmas we are all enabled to be born again. Jesus Christ’s becoming one of us is what makes possible us becoming partakers of God. At Christmas we celebrate, therefore, not just the birth of Jesus Christ but also our rebirth in Him. The wonder and awe and praise and joy and thanksgiving we give to God because of the birth of Jesus Christ at Christmas should also be given to Him at Christmas because we have become born again!

While Jesus was clothed in human flesh, we are clothed with the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our new birth, the being clothed from heaven (verse 2.)

In celebrating Christmas, then, we celebrate not only the birth of Jesus Christ but also our own birth. Because Jesus Christ was made flesh and God chose to dwell with man, we are enabled by the Spirit to dwell with God.

At Christmas, we are witnesses of and participants in the greatest exchange of gifts in history. We are partakers of the eternal, divine Christmas.

But the gifts are not equal. When we as humans exchange gifts at Christmas, we usually try to “even things” out. If someone’s custom is to give me a $10 gift, then the odds are I’ll probably give them a $10 gift, and if he gives me a $100 gift, I’ll probably give him a $100 gift.

But in the original Christmas, the exchange of gifts was not “fair” or “evened out.” God gave Himself to mankind, a gift for which there can be no equal. He gave us His righteousness and eternal life. And in return we gave Him our sin and death. Some deal for God, huh? He must have really loved us to make it!

I like chemistry, and for those chemists who are reading, this is the greatest double replacement reaction ever known. Jesus Christ who was perfect and without sin becomes sin (verse 21), and we who were sinful become righteous.

It is something like this simple reaction:

NaOH + HCl => NaCl + HOH (or H20)
Sodium hydroxide + hydrochloric acid produces sodium chloride (table salt) + water

Theologically, the “replacement reaction” is like this:

Jesus Christ-righteous + man-sinful => Jesus Christ-sin + man-righteous

But praise God that though the second product of this reaction (the righteous man) continues forever, the first product (Jesus Christ becoming sin) no longer exists! In God’s exotic chemistry, what really is created is something beyond the understanding of the scientist. What is created is the following product of the divine chemistry of reconciliation: God-man. First: Jesus Christ made man; and second: us united with God forever in Christ. It is the reconciliation of God and man that is the product of the divine reaction that began at Christmas.

If all of this is mumbo-jumbo to you, then at least know this: Behold! You are a new creation – a human made righteous in Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ became like you and took away your sin and death. Because you are now a partaker of the divine nature and have received the greatest Christmas present ever, and because you have been given the love of God along with God Himself, it is now your turn. Now you, in Christ, are a minister of reconciliation. Now, with Christ, you are to take the greatest Christmas present of all time, and the only one that truly keeps on giving, and share it with those who are poor in spirit.

This Christmas, as God gave Himself to you, give the gift of God to others.

Christ was born of flesh that we might be born of the Spirit.


Prayer: Father, thank You for the gift of Your Son in my life, who gave Himself for the redemption of the world. Thank You, Jesus, for becoming like me that I might live with You. Thank You, Holy Spirit, for making me a fit dwelling place for the Son of God. Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, help me to show my thankfulness to You by giving You as a gift others. Amen.

Point for Meditation:
1. Remember and meditate on your reaction to the greatest Christmas present any human ever gave to you. What did you feel? Apply this reaction to the gifts that God has given to you.
2. Meditate on how you can demonstrate your thankfulness to God by being a more faithful minister of reconciliation, by more faithfully sharing the gifts that God has given to you.

Resolution: I resolve to meditate on God’s incomparable gift of His Son to me.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Thursday of Advent 3 - Mark 6:1-6

As we approach our celebration of God made man in Jesus Christ, I find that this little passage in Mark 6 is a wonderful picture of the mystery of God made man.

Although by the beginning of Mark 6 we have already seen ample evidence that Jesus is God, we see it here again: Jesus lays His hands on a few sick people and heals them. But perhaps the greatest miracle God ever performed, along with the Resurrection and Atonement, is for God to be made man. How God can squeeze His infinite Self into a bodily vessel such as yours or mine defies the human mind and imagination.

But this God who can command the wind and waves actually did become a man. And this is why it is important to know that Jesus was a carpenter. Those in His hometown of Nazareth knew Him not as the Son of God or the Messiah but simply and only as Jesus of Nazareth, Joseph and Mary’s son, the carpenter.

Jesus the carpenter has captivated the imagination of Christians for centuries, and rightly so. Because Jesus is truly a man, He had hands, and with these hands He worked. He Himself, by His divine hands, had fashioned the heavens and the earth and ordained that man should work for six days of the week. He Himself created the physical things of the world and declared them to be good. How fitting, then, that the Creator of the world should become part of it and show us the sanctity of work.

It has not escaped the attention of Christians over the years that the same medium, wood, in which Jesus worked in His life as a carpenter was the medium by which He was put to death. By His working with wood, of the things of the earth, Jesus taught us the value of the world to Him and of man’s labor in it.

There is a wonderful Nativity Hymn by Ephraim the Syrian, a 4th century Church Father, part of which is:

“Blessed by your coming, O master of workers everywhere.
The imprint of your labor is seen in the ark,
And in the fashioning of the tabernacle
Of the congregation that was for a time only!

Our whole craft praises you, who are our eternal glory.
Make for us a yoke that is light, even easy, for us to bear.
Establish that measure in us in which there can be no falseness.”


The next time your work seems boring or meaningless or drudgery or heavy, learn from Him who both created and redeemed human labor. Remember the hands that created not only carts and tables but also healed mankind. Remember the hands that were pierced and bled for you. “And what wisdom is this which is given to Him, that such mighty works are performed by His hands!” (verse 2.)

Jesus as God is a wonder to behold, and so is Jesus the man. But it is God in man, the Incarnation of God Almighty of which we sing and which especially makes Christian hearts everywhere rejoice! Here is the greatest mystery and miracle and the greatest Christmas present of all: Immanuel, God with us, God in us!

I see this mystery at work not only in the life of Jesus of Nazareth but also in the lives of ordinary men. I see it even in the unbelief of the citizenry of Nazareth, in that mysterious verse, Mark 6:5, “Now He could no mighty work there . . . .” He could do no mighty work there because the people of Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown, lacked faith. Now God can and does perform His mighty works without our faith, and yet He has chosen to work through our faith, and not usually apart from it. This is another mysterious implication of the Incarnation.

This is St. Paul’s mystery of “For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:9.) God’s grace is sovereign, and He will give it to whom He will give it. It is all from Him, and we in no way deserve it or can do anything to obtain it. This we know, and this is the divine side of Christ. We also know that God comes to us in our humanity, for He has laid His hands upon us and healed us. But it is in faith that the grace of God and the healing of man meet, faith which, though entirely of grace, is also a truly human response to this grace. God’s grace, received through faith, results in the healing of God’s people.

This is the miracle of Christmas, of God made man that man may be with God.
Let us rejoice because of the holy and loving hands of Jesus the Creator of the world and Jesus the carpenter. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10.)

Prayer: Blessed be the Wise One, who reconciled and joined the Divine with the Human Nature, one from above and one from below. Blessed be the One who blesses us with His nail-torn hands and hallows all human labor. Blessed be the All-Merciful One who by His grace has made us His work and made us in Christ Jesus to do the works of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Points for Meditation:
1. How can I set aside sufficient time to behold Jesus Christ this Christmas? It will be useful to remember that Christmas begins December 25th and lasts through January 5th (you have 12 days to celebrate and 12 days to meditate!)
2. Make specific preparations for how you can honor Christ by keeping a holy Christmas and one that is not polluted by the things of the world.
3. Reconsider your attitude toward the work that God has given you in life, in light of the labor of Jesus the carpenter.

Resolution: I resolve today to begin to ponder the meaning of Jesus Christ, God made man. Since this is such an immense mystery and blessing, I know that a few minutes on Christmas Day is not sufficient to devote to my Lord, and so I will meditate on Him today.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Wednesday of Advent 3 (Ember Wednesday) - Luke 12:35-48

Why the sudden change today from St. Mark to St. Luke in today’s lesson? Because today is marked out in the Church year as an Ember Day, more specifically Ember Wednesday before Christmas. Advent is often seen as a “Little Lent” in which we prepare for the feast of Christmas, and so the Ember Days are to be used as days of fasting and praying, and there is also a tradition of it being a time to give to the poor. In this way, even as the Fall harvest is gathered in, we deny ourselves some of it so that we mortify the flesh as a means of preparation.

The great theme from today’s lesson from Luke 12 is to prepare for the coming of the Master. I’m getting a sense of déjà vu. Haven’t I heard this before somewhere? Performing a quick word search in my Daily Bread files, I remember now that on Monday of the First Sunday in Advent we heard John the Baptist cry: “Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight” and heard him preach a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

Now I remember that Advent is a liturgical alarm clock going off in our heads. Just in case any of you have chosen to fall asleep in the last two weeks, Ember Wednesday is your own personal snooze alarm.

WAKE UP! Be like men who wait for their master (verse 35.)
The truth is that your Master is coming. The admonition to stand at attention and look for the coming of our Master has reference to the Second Coming of Christ. No man knows when that will be, and so we’d better all be ready.

But Jesus has delayed His Second Coming. It’s been 2000 years and counting, and the odds are He won’t come today or tomorrow.

But what if He did?

What if Jesus Christ returned to earth tomorrow at 6:21 p.m.? What would He find? Not just what particular activity would He find you doing (though He cares about that, too), but what would be the sum of your life before Him? I don’t know how He will measure your life, but I do know that He will do it.

We used to sing of Santa Claus:

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town.
He's making a list
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out who's naughty and nice:
Santa Claus is coming to town


At the risk of sounding sacrilegious, what if we substituted “Jesus Christ”
for “Santa Claus”? (What a novel idea – substituting Jesus Christ for Santa Claus at Christmas!) One day, Jesus Christ will come and judge both the living and the dead.

When He does, I think He may take into consideration some of the following things:

Did you come to worship Him in His Church when He called you?

Did you hear His holy Word?

Have you obeyed His commandments?

What have you done that you should not have done - not things in the past and repented of but things still actively doing without repentance?

What have you not done that you should have done?

How often each day and week did you turn to Him in prayer?

Did you in your heart, even if weakly, truly desire Him?

How did you spend the time He gave you?

How did you spend the money He gave you?

How well did you love those He put in your life?

Did you love Him with all your heart?


Considering the seriousness of Christ’s coming and the wanderings of my own heart, I am grateful that God gives me reminder after reminder. In Advent, we have an annual reminder not only that Jesus Christ has come, and therefore we should rejoice with exceedingly great joy, but also that Jesus Christ is coming, and therefore we should prepare our hearts. On this Ember Wednesday, we get an even more particular and pointy reminder (Ouch!) that Jesus Christ is coming.

The truth is that every day is a reminder of the coming of Jesus Christ because every day He is truly with His people. Every day is Christmas, but every day is also Advent. That is the tension of the “now but not yet” with which we live in this world. These days, whose number no man can count, will one day become The Day. But it is not only that God cares about you in eternity. He cares about you now. He comes to you now. Have you been watching?

The only way to prepare for meeting God in eternity is to prepare to meet Him today. The way we receive Him every day is the way we prepare for His Coming. Every day He comes, and every day is the Day in which He may come with great finality.

Blessed is that servant whom his Master will find so doing when He comes.

My prayer for you all, though I do not know some of you personally, is that you will be a wise and faithful steward who will be blessed when his Master comes – blessed this very day. For Jesus Christ is coming, and He is already with us.

Prayer: Awake me today, Lord, from my spiritual slumber. Rouse me by Your Holy Spirit that I may be made alive to You again. Give me Your grace that I may remember and seek You today and every day of my life until that Day when You shall come in judgment. Amen.

Resolution and Point for Meditation: I resolve to find one way to help me remember the Coming of my Master. Choosing to fast, pray, or give alms (three things Jesus expected on the Sermon on the Mount that He would find His disciples doing) would be especially appropriate. Fasting and almsgiving should be accompanied by praying, and prayer should be accompanied by some practical action.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Tuesday Advent 3 - Mark 5:21-43

This morning I’m a woman with a flow of blood. I’ve suffered with this terrible problem for 12 years.

It’s funny the stages we go through whenever we have a big problem. First, there is the developing recognition of the problem, and then the hope that it is really nothing. Then comes the growing acknowledgement that this might be a bigger problem than we realize, and then the hope that it will go away by itself.

As things progress and get worse, you realize that maybe you won’t be able to solve the problem all by yourself, and you begin to seek help. You ask around, discreetly asking if anyone has had a similar problem and if so how have they gotten relief. You get lots and lots of advice, and as the pain gets worse you become more and more willing to try different things.

I went with a lot of faith that the first physician I went to would heal me. He came highly recommended, and he assured me he knew just what to do. I stayed with him for a year because there was always “one more thing” he could try. More time and, of course, more money were always needed. One of my friends persuaded me to try another doctor. This got to be a regular habit, but already by the third doctor my faith in physicians was not well.

I started to get worse, which meant I went to more doctors. Each one had something new to offer that turned out to be the same quackery. At some point, it simply became a part of my life, and I secretly believed that this was to be my lot in life. Even as my physical discomfort grew worse, I became weary of always being unclean and having to remove myself from social situations. I felt more and more like a leper, and even most of my sisters in faith began to quietly walk away from me. I guess I just wasn’t much fun to be around anymore.

Being separated from the people of God, I grew apart from my Lord as well. You can imagine how earnestly I prayed in the beginning, after I’d accepted that I had a problem. I have to say that I was pretty strong for the first year or so. But as the blood continued to flow, I felt my life oozing away from me. I reasoned, in a fog of feebleness, that if God was going to give me this sickness without my asking for it then He could also take it away without my asking for it. At some point, I reached a spiritual equilibrium in which I wasn’t exactly dead but I wasn’t exactly alive either.

After 12 years of this, I felt like a ghost, doomed to wander the earth. By now I had spent all my money on doctors. I was weaker than ever, and my life was spiraling downward. I had nothing left other than my weaknesses and a small ember of faith in God.

And then I heard that Jesus was coming. I almost turned back twice, partly out of doubt, partly out of discouragement and despair. Besides, there was no way someone like me could get close to the great Master, even if I wanted to. I was ritually unclean, and this man was clearly a man of God. How could He possibly find me acceptable in His sight? And yet if He is from God, He’ll understand. He might even have mercy on me. Even if . . . even if . . . . But there are too many people. I’d have to part the Red Sea even to be able to get near Him. And yet . . . .

As I got closer, I knew that He could heal me. I couldn’t believe that no one else had thought of my idea. I couldn’t believe that the whole crowd wasn’t fencing Him in and taking turns touching Him so they could be healed. Why were they here, unless to hear Him and touch Him? Maybe my faith wasn’t quite as small as I’d believed it was. I think I’d just forgotten what it felt like and how to use it.

Well, you know the story. I used the crowd to hide me. I snuck up behind Him, scarcely able to keep up, in spite of the way the throng slowed Him down. I found that my faith was not as weak as I’d thought and found the grace from God to think remarkable thoughts: “This man is so holy, so truly from God, that if only I touch His clothes, I shall be made well. How funny this would be, if true. After I’d spent my life’s savings on quacks, after giving myself up for dead, how funny if this Man asked for nothing and all I had to do was to touch Him!”

So that’s exactly what I did. I touched a part of His garment that was billowing out toward me. I didn’t think anyone would notice or care.

And then things went crazy! I felt immediately within me that I was healed. I’m not sure how I knew, but I knew! By this time, I had stopped walking, and so Jesus was now ahead of me. He stopped and asked the crowd, “Who touched my clothes?”

What kind of a Man is this who not only healed me but also could tell that someone had barely touched his clothes?

He looked around and talked to His disciples, but He kept looking around. And then He found me. I became weak again, but this was a very different kind of weakness. I was weak before One who I suddenly knew was divine. Only now could I see who He really was, only after I had made that first weak move, enabled by His presence and grace. Only now could I see how blind I’d been to try and rely on myself. What a fool to trust in myself or in other humans with a problem that only God could solve!

How strange, that when I had plenty I didn’t feel as much like I needed God, but now that I’d lost all – my health, my wealth, and my friends – suddenly the God who gave me all these things was more real. What a strange way to go about healing people, but that is what the Great Physician did for me, in my poverty and weakness.

I came before Him with weakness, because I was a miserable sinner whom He had healed. I had no strength to say anything but only to fall down before Him. I knew then that this was my Master and my Lord. He was the one who had healed me, when all the earth’s doctors and I myself could not. I wanted nothing other than to be with the One who had healed my body and who I knew could also heal my broken, sinful spirit. I wanted to wrap my arms around Him, but did not dare. But I remained at His feet, for it was all I could do.

Only then was I able to open mouth, and I told Him the truth. I told Him everything. It all spilled out at once. I told Him why I was so desperate and how long I’d suffered. I told Him I was sorry for trusting in myself and doctors and for not being as faithful as I should have been. I told Him I was sorry for having made Him unclean by touching Him. And then I began crying from years of stored up pain, and from thankfulness, and from wonder. He patiently listened to it all.

And do you know what He said? “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.”

Can you imagine the peace and joy and thanksgiving that filled my heart? There is no way I could possibly describe it to you. But maybe some of you have been healed like I was and know what I’m talking about.

Prayer: Glory be to you, Son of God, because your healing power was revealed and proclaimed to the crowd through the hidden suffering of this afflicted woman. Through my life and your healing in it, which others are able to see, may the people around me see You. See my hidden faith today, Lord, and gave me a visible healing. Especially give me the gift of faith and a willingness to proclaim You to others. Amen.

Points for Meditation:
1. Have you forgotten the healing God has done in your life? Find a way to remember God’s salvation and healing in your life, and find an appropriate way to give Him praise and thanksgiving.
2. Do you have a “flow of blood” in your life today? What is keeping you from turning more completely to the Lord in faith? No matter how small your faith, turn to Him today and ask for His healing.

Resolution: I resolve to meditate today on how this woman’s faith can instruct me in my faith.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Monday Advent 3 - Mark 5:1-20

Good morning, my name was Legion. So far in Mark I’ve been a fisherman and tax collector, a brother of Jesus Christ, a leper, and a paralytic. Today I am a demon-possessed man.

Without Christ, we are like a demon-possessed man, even though very few are actually ever possessed. We lead shattered lives that cause us to torment ourselves and others. We are unable to be controlled by anyone but our own desires. We dwell among the tombs, even when we don’t know it.
And then Jesus comes to us and commands the evil spirits of self-possession to come out of us. We have many selfish spirits from which Jesus delivers us: they are known as the fruits of darkness and are listed in many places in the New Testament. You know them by name. They include the 7 Deadly Sins (which I remember by an acronym I made up: PIGLEGS – Pride, Ire, Gluttony, Lust, Envy, Greed, and Sloth), as well as many others.

What are the consequences of having our “demons” exorcised by Jesus? There are three important ones in this lesson. First, after Jesus cleanses us, we are “clothed and in our right minds.” Before our deliverance, we were naked before God and in our wildness and barbarism. But Jesus clothes us with Himself, who is the armor of light and the New Man. Before, our minds were darkened and futile, we were ignorant and blind in our hearts, and we had been given over the works of uncleanness (Ephesians 4:17-29.) But then Jesus puts us in our right mind and gives us His own mind that we might think thoughts of God and His Kingdom.

The Christian life is a human exorcism in slow motion. Most of us have no experience with demons, but we do know what it is like to be under the influence of ungodly forces within us. It is primarily the fallen human nature which Jesus casts out of us, as He gives us more and more of Himself. In exorcism we see a picture of mortification and sanctification. It is probably for this reason that in the early church the baptismal service included an exorcism, and even today in the Prayer Book baptismal service the Christian vows to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil. The exorcism we have witnessed today is a picture of the work Jesus does in our life of cleansing us, first by mortification or the casting out of the Old Man and his works, and second by sanctification or the putting on of the New Man and His works.

The second consequence we see in this passage man being delivered from his demons is that we are to follow Jesus. In verse 19, the formerly demon-possessed man begs that he might be with Jesus. Here is one crucial difference between the demon-possessed man and us. Unlike the demon-possessed man, Jesus doesn’t discourage us from begging to be with Him: He desires this as much as we do.

If you recognized the work that Jesus has done in your life, as this demon-possessed man did, you too would beg Jesus to stay with Him. If you truly understood that you were delivered from a life and destination just as chilling and tormented as this man’s, then you would beg Jesus to stay with Him.

But because our exorcism is a human one in slow motion (most of the time), we often don’t recognize the glory of our deliverance. It’s very easy to take our life in Christ for granted and to think that it is somehow “ordinary.”

It is anything but ordinary!

And our response should be to wrap our arms around Jesus’ feet and beg permission to be with Him wherever He goes. We should be on our knees every day, throughout the day, begging Him for the privilege of being His disciple, His follower. Instead, we spend too much of our lives trying to hide from Him, lest He do some more exorcising and we have to give up more of ourselves to Him. We are like a student in class, slinking down in his chair and hoping the Teacher won’t ask Him to participate.

The whole point of Daily Bread is to help you and me to be able to beg Jesus to be with Him and to learn how to be with Him every day, throughout the day. If I don’t want to spend much time in Jesus’ presence through prayer and His Word while here on earth, I’m not sure what makes me think I’d actually enjoy His presence in greater concentration and power in heaven!

Finally, the third consequence of Jesus delivering us is that, being cleansed by Him and filled with His presence, by clinging to Him, we are to go and proclaim to the whole world what He has done for us. What is always the faithful response of those who have been delivered and healed in Scripture? They go and tell other people what Jesus has done for them and is continuing to do for them.

And what is our response to an even greater miracle – not the healing of the body or deliverance from demons but the salvation of our souls? It is often that of the 9 lepers who go on their merry way, without gratitude. It is often to be lulled to sleep and to think that God’s salvation in our lives is an ordinary thing. Therefore, we’re not terribly excited about it, and we don’t believe that anyone else would really want to hear about what Jesus has done in our lives.

But what does Jesus command us, as He commanded this man? “Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had compassion on you.”

That is the story of the man possessed by Legion, and it is your story and mine. Because Jesus has delivered and is delivering you from yourself (and from Satan), your desire should be to beg to be with Him. And your overwhelming, bursting-at-the-seems-can’t-believe-what-He’s-done-for-me desire should be to go and tell your friends and neighbors and relatives about the compassion He’s had on you. And, yes, those of us who are already Christians want to hear too!

Prayer: Father, I thank You for delivering me out of the hands of my enemies, through Jesus Christ Your Son. Thank You for delivering me out of the kingdom of darkness and adopting me into Your holy family. Through the work of Your Spirit, give me a desire to be with You every day and the courage and passion to tell others what You have done and are doing for me. Amen.

Points for Meditation:
1. Reflect on what God has delivered you from. You may need to work to recognize the magnitude of what God has delivered you from. Respond to this compassion of Christ in your life appropriately.
2. How much have you desired to be with Jesus? Beg Jesus not only to be with Him today and all the days of your life but also to give you a greater desire to be with Him as His disciple. What obstacles stand in the way of your desiring this more?
3. How eager and willing have you been to share what God has done for you with others? As you reflect on this, remember that this has always been the primary way that new disciples are made and an important way in which older ones are encouraged.

Resolution: I resolve today to contemplate the compassion of Jesus in delivering me from sin and self. I resolve today to meditate on how I might faithfully respond to this great salvation.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Saturday Advent 2 - Mark 4:30-41

After several parables about how the Kingdom of God grows, Jesus returns to doing miracles. This time He demonstrates that He is God by rebuking the wind and commanding the sea to be still.

And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!”

The only possible answer is God Almighty. While there have been known cases of false healers throughout history (perhaps with the aid of demons), only God is known to be able to cause the wind and the sea to obey Him.

And Jesus, causing the wind and sea to obey Him, is God Almighty.

Faithful Christians have no problem accepting that once upon a time Jesus Christ really did perform the miracle of calming the wind and waves. But, as I’m sure we all understand, God is not ever required to do miracles. Just because He is capable of them and performed many as recorded in the Gospels doesn’t mean He is required to routinely perform them in our lives. Acknowledging this much also doesn’t mean that somehow we lack faith by not believing in miracles enough.

But our problem is with the smaller and less life-threatening storms we all experience, for which no miracle is forthcoming. How do we respond to these?

The same way the disciples responded to a much graver danger. We might forget that the storms that arose, for example, on the Sea of Galilee could arise suddenly and were capable of capsizing a boat the size the disciples were in. These were no mere landlubbers but included several lifelong fisherman. And they were afraid. The boat was already being swamped with water, and there was real danger and threat to life.

But Jesus seemed to be asleep at the wheel, so to speak. The disciples woke Jesus questioned whether or not He really cared for them. And He responded by rebuking the winds and the sea.

But immediately after He had rebuked the wind and waves, He rebukes the disciples. “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” Their response is an interesting one. If I were one of them, I’d probably have felt tremendously sheepish about my lack of faith. Except that I’d be too afraid of the man who was God and could calm the wind and waves.

Though our emergencies and crises are rarely as serious as what the disciples felt, we often respond in the same way. We temporarily doubt that God will come to our aid. When He does not fully rescue us from our difficulties the way He did the disciples in Mark 4, then we wonder if He really cares as much as we thought He did. We throw little temper tantrums because we did not get our way and because life’s difficulties have not been completely removed. Or we become discouraged and less motivated to turn towards God.

I am tremendously sheepish about own lack of faith sometimes. In the Greek in Matthew’s version, it’s possible to think of Jesus as calling the disciples “little-faiths.” Not just that they have little faith but that they are Little Faiths. I know I am sometimes. A few years ago, as I was racing to try and put up my church's long overdue website, I began testing what I had worked on for two months, learning how to do it all from scratch. The time came for me to test the site I had put together and which looked fine on my own computer. But when I tested it on my wife’s older computer, my little-faith world crumbled for the rest of the evening. I couldn’t understand how something I had worked so hard and long on, for a good cause, could be taken away from me.

What a pitiful thing to lose heart over, compared to what the disciples faced. I find many such times when my faith falters. Some are larger, and some are smaller, but there are storms just about every day of our lives.
How do you respond to them? Do you become discouraged? Do you wonder where God is, even when you haven’t bothered to ask Him for help? Do you cry out to Him and because He doesn’t appear to be answering you lose your patience with Him? We have almost as many ways of being faithless as there are human personalities.

But remember, in all of the storms that arise in life that the same Lord who calmed the wind and waves is capable of calming yours. He may not choose to do so immediately, and He may not even choose to take the difficulty away. But He has promised to draw near to you if you draw near to Him. Whether your storm is related to a job, finances, children, relationships, loved ones who are self-destructing, physical pain or sickness, heartbreak, loss, disappointments, broken dreams, apparently wasted labor, lack of progress, or any other source, remember: the Lord of the wind and the waves is your Lord.

He hasn’t promised you a miracle today, and He hasn’t even promised to take away every source of pain (even He didn’t receive that promise from the Father, did He?) But He has promised to be with His people whenever they cry out to Him with faith.

And that’s enough for me. Having that promise, I’ll trust in the One who not only has the power to command the wind and waves but also the knowledge and love to have created them and me in the first place.

Prayer: Lord, I cry out to You in faith because I feel as if I am perishing today. You know the difficulties I have in my life and how they threaten to make me sink. I cry out to You this moment in faith, trusting that You will be with me today in all Your love and providence. O, Lord, I want to believe and have faith: help me in my unbelief. Amen.

Point for Meditation:
1. What storms have you been experiencing lately? Meditate on some of these, making sure not to leave the presence of the Lord until you have entrusted these storms to His loving care.
2. Practice remembering times in the past when the Lord delivered you out of difficulty when you cried out to Him. It would be useful to write these down and maybe even begin to keep a list of such deliverances.

Resolution: I resolve to turn to God in faith today in the middle of whatever storms I am facing today.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Friday Advent 2 - Mark 4:21-29

Today, Jesus continues His teaching on how the Kingdom grows, which is to say the process of discipleship. The secret to the Kingdom of God and its mysterious and wonderful growth is the growth of the Church, which is to say the growth of Christians, which is to say discipleship:

“The Kingdom of Heaven = the Church = the people of God = disciples of Jesus Christ”

I think that sometimes we misunderstand Jesus’ words: “With the same measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Often we take this to mean that if you judge other people, you will be judged by God. But in this passage the meaning is related to the parable of the sower and the seed and Jesus’ teaching on our response to God’s Word and the fruits of how well we do this. He prefaces this teaching with “Take heed what you hear.”

Spiritually speaking, in the Kingdom of Heaven, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This is why Jesus says, “For whoever has, to him more will be given; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.” Jesus is teaching us a spiritual truth about how well we receive Him and His Word. Those who respond in faith when they hear the Word of God – those who believe and obey – will be rewarded with greater grace and faith in their lives. Those who have heard the Word of God and either do not believe or do not obey will begin to grow farther away from God.

Jesus teaches this in many different forms. “Draw near to me, and I will draw near to me.” The corollary, of course, is “Run far away from me, and I will be far away from you.” If you have proven faithful with a few small things you will be entrusted with more (this is also the meaning of the parable of the talents.

As a preacher, I have seen this spiritual truth in action many times. After I have preached a strong sermon on the cost of discipleship and what God is really calling us to, the responses of people afterwards are very revealing. Many times, those who I know have already put the words I preached into effect and are truly saints before God and men come up to me after the service. They come with a look of great intensity, as if they have just met with God and are trembling before His holy presence. And they tell me, “That sermon really convicted me. God really spoke to my heart. It’s just what I needed to hear.” After the same sermon, as some pass by who I know really needed to hear the sermon, they pass by with a casual greeting or perhaps exit the other way. There is no recognition that God has just spoken to them.

It was the same sermon, the same Word of God, and yet people responded very differently.

What if this same pattern were repeated Sunday after Sunday, day after day, and year after year? You would find that at the end of life those who were rich in faith became fabulously rich by the end of their lives. But those who were poor in faith died paupers in the faith.

“If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Jesus repeats this again from verse 9 because the Word of God is worth listening to – because God is worth listening to.

Remember: how you treat the Word of God is how you are treating God Himself.
For this reason, those who worship God in Spirit and in Truth by hearing and obeying His Word will be blessed by Him. In other words, those who seek God Himself will be blessed by receiving more of God.

But those who do not hear and do not obey God will not receive the blessing of God. That is, those who do not seek God will not find Him and will not receive more of Him.

“Take heed what you hear.” When the Word of God comes to you, do you hear it as the Word of God, or do you hear “Blah, blah, blah . . .”? “For whoever has, to him more will be given, but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.”

I am always amazed at what young people are capable of doing when they pursue one thing for many years with great passion and perseverance. It is embarrassing to try to sit down and play computer games with most young people. Through hours and hours of practice, and year after year of pursuing the goal of excellence at playing computer games, some young people are so adept that they seem like wizards. They are so fast and intuitive that they seem like a stealth fighter in combat with a Sopwith Camel.

When the same young people pursue knowledge, the results are even more spectacular. My son Calvin’s fascination at age 2 with tying together anything within reach with strings or laces or rubber bands became in time a curiosity about cause and effect and tying together the most unusual things in this universe. Given time, such a mind may grow and be transformed into a love of science that results in an advanced degree and discoveries that astound us all and make the world a more glorious place. In others, such a passionate and persistent curiosity has led to Ph.Ds and Nobel Prizes and cures for diseases and technologies that turn Star Trek into reality.

But what if a man, woman, or child pursued God relentlessly? What if every day of his life, Calvin learned to love God and His Word and devoted Himself to following God, forsaking everything else, and obeying all that the Lord commanded? I can’t predict the exact outcome, but I do know that in God’s Kingdom, he would be incredibly rich because God’s blessing would rest upon him.

Einstein reputedly said that the most powerful force in the universe was compound interest. This is especially true in the Kingdom of God, which is like a seed that the sower planted and grows and grows until it produces 100-fold, if the soil is good.

Take heed what you hear: for how well you hear is a measure of how faithful you are and how much God will bless you and the people around you.

Prayer: Father, I ask that today You would give me the grace to seek after You with all my heart. Help me to take heed to what I hear, and bless me with Your presence. Give me such a hunger for You that, being filled by You, I would desire You more each day. Amen.

Points for Meditation:
1. Compared to other pursuits in your life, how passionately and persistently have you pursued God?
2. Meditate on the growth of God’s grace in the life of someone you know, who through passion and persistence pursued God all the days of his or her life.

Resolution: I resolve today to more passionately and persistently devote myself to hearing and obeying the Lord.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Thursday Advent 2 - Mark 4:1-20

How appropriate that the parable of the sower and the seed occurs in the week of the Second Sunday of Advent. The Book of Common Prayer collect (prayer for the week) is: “Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.”

This is a parable about the Word of God in our lives, and the Second Sunday in Advent is a week in which we prepare for the coming of the Lord in Christmas by opening our ears to His Word again. It is plain enough in the parable (especially because Jesus gives us a cheat sheet!) that the seed is the Word of God and that we are the soil. The focus of the parable, then, is on our reception of the Word of God.

This is a parable that has a general meaning for humans, both those who ultimately accept the Word in some manner and those who do not. But it also has a more specific meaning for those of us who already claim to be Christians. The point is still the same: how have you been treating the Word of God?

Let’s get one thing straight: how you treat the Bible is how you are treating God. The Bible is not just any book that is made of paper and ink: it is the Word of God, a living and active thing in which the ink is its blood and the paper its flesh. It is animated by the new wine of the Holy Spirit being poured into the new wineskin of God’s people. If you sever the Word of God from God and from His people, then you really are left with just another book, and one of which there are plenty.

Do you believe that the Bible is the Word of God? Do I really believe that? If I do, then it will have radical implications for how I treat it. If I believe that God has chosen to speak to me through this book called The Book and which is found in every nook and cranny of my house, then I should treat it as such.

If God were to make it clear to me (perhaps through the voice of Charlton Heston or something like that) that I was supposed to show up at a particular time and place where He would speak to me, you can bet I’d be sure to be there. I’d come with my laptop to write it all down (actually, I’d have to go out and buy one – but I’d do it); I’d bring a tape recorder – no, actually I’d bring several of them, taking no chances. I would get plenty of sleep the day before, have a double dose of coffee (grandes), and get there an hour early just in case He was on daylight savings time.

Yet God’s Word pervades the universe so that it is always present. By coming to me in His Word (as in prayer), God is always accessible to me. I think God’s Word is part of a spiritual electromagnetic spectrum that composes the spiritual cosmos. Do you know that there are TV and radio waves bouncing around your walls and beaming into your car or office all the time? Duck - here comes one now! Though it’s possible to be out of range sometimes, in most places you can turn on the radio or TV and receive these waves any time you want. In fact, we choose to access these waves all the time.

But what of God’s spiritual electromagnetic waves? He calls to you throughout the day, only we don’t have our spiritual radio on – or it’s tuned to another station. It electrifies me to think that I could open any portion of the Word of God, and the voice of God comes streaming out of this book I hold in my hands. This morning I turned to Mark 4, but what if I turned to Genesis 1 and heard God tell me about Himself as creator, or to any other passage of the Scriptures?

So God is always speaking to us, and the Word of God is how He does it. Therefore, I say that how we are treating the Word of God is how we are treating Him.

What kind of soil are you? How well have you been hearing and listening, which I believe are like faith in that they require obeying?

This is football season. Have you ever had the experience, when talking to someone watching football, in which you were saying something important but the other person only pretended to hear? This is how we listen to God. It’s not just about football but also about any TV show or movie or any thing of this world that so enraptures us that we can’t hear God and His Word in our lives.

It reminds me of two Far Side comic strips. One is titled “What Dogs Hear.” The owner is speaking earnestly to the dog, and all the dog hears is “Blah, blah, blah, Ginger, blah, blah, blah, Ginger. . . .” It could be worse: you could be a cat. What cats hear: “Blah, blah, blah, blah; blah, blah, blah, blah . . . .”

Are you a dog, a cat, or a man or woman of God?

You have many opportunities every day and week to hear the Word of God and to respond with faith. How many of these are you accessing? You should be reading the Word of God daily, meditating over it, and praying over it. You should at times study it and learn it. Your church probably has an adult Sunday school class, and you should probably go. Where did we ever get the idea that Sunday school and the Bible was good for children on Sunday mornings, but not for adults?

How well do you listen to your pastor’s preaching? Assuming He is a godly man who loves and preaches the Word of God, his words are as the Word of God to you. This being Thursday, do you even remember what God said to you last Sunday? If not, then you may need to examine what kind of soil you are. It amazes me how much time and effort pastors put into sermons that are treated as completely disposable. I think the average half-life of a sermon is the time from which the sermon ends to the time the service ends.

Instead, we should be discussing the sermon at the fellowship hour, if you have one. We should be trading insights and the convictions of the Holy Spirit on our way home from church. We should be seeking to apply what we have heard for the next 7 days.

The fact is that the Church of God is built on the Word of God. A man, a family, and a church are only as strong spiritually as is the relationship they have to God through His Word. We are supposed to be so fed by the daily bread of God’s Word that in time we produce fruit 30, 60, or 100 times as great as ourselves. This is another way of saying that disciples are to make disciples. It is by the faithful hearing and doing of God’s Word that God’s Kingdom grows and spreads.

“He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Prayer: “Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Resolution and Point for Meditation:
I resolve to find one practical way in which I can be better soil for the Word of God. It may be in my daily Bible meditations, in the way I hear the sermon, in the way I teach my children, or any means by which I can hear and obey God’s Word more faithfully.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Wednesday Advent 2 - Mark 3:20-34

Today’s lesson is a lesson about family.

What is a family? We all know the answer to this question, but at its heart a family is a group of people who are related to one another. The most immediate kind of family is, of course, the biological families we live in. But the notion of family is larger than what we often think it is. For example, my brother and his wife have adopted two bi-racial children. Are these precious children part of their family – and mine? Of course! In ancient times, family was more than just the nuclear family but included a complex extended family of grandparents, aunts and uncles, servants, and others.

Since the idea of family is all about people who are related, we should all be keenly interested in learning about the family of Jesus. We learn a few things about Joseph, Mary, and Jesus’ brothers throughout the Gospels (and some things about James in Acts and James), and each fact we have about them is to be treasured.

But as important as Joseph and Mary are in the Nativity narratives of Matthew and Luke, Mark doesn’t tell us about this. The first thing we hear about Jesus’ family in Mark’s Gospel is that “His own people” (verse 21) think He’s out of His mind. We’re not sure exactly who “His own people” were, but it’s likely to have included his unbelieving brothers (at that time) and possibly people from the region around Nazareth. We know from verse 31 that his mother and brothers came and sent to Jesus, calling for Him.

And then something surprising happens. When Jesus is told that his mother and brothers are waiting outside for Him, He doesn’t run to greet them or immediately and enthusiastically send for them, and He doesn’t say, “Behold the Queen of Heaven!” Instead, He amazes us (as He always does) by asking, “Who is My mother, or My brother?” Looking around in a circle at those who sat about Him, He said, “Here are My mother and My brother! For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother.”

This is the meaning of family, in the divine sense. Regardless of how many human families, clans, tribes, or nations we may count, there are really only two human families. There are only two basic relationships to God: disciples who believe and obey, and those who reject God and disobey.

Jesus’ teaching about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit makes more sense when placed next to His teaching about His family. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the one unforgivable sin because it is a willful rejection of the ministry of the Holy Spirit who testifies about the Son and the Father.

While Satan’s kingdom may indeed be divided, the Kingdom of Heaven, the family of God which is the Church, is united. In spite of our family differences and separations, we are one, holy family, united in Jesus Christ. The reason Jesus can look around at His disciples and say that they are His brothers and sisters and mother is because He is saying that they are now His family. At this point, Jesus had more in common with some of these anonymous disciples than He did with James, Joses, Simon, and Judas (see Matthew 13:55), who apparently did not yet believe (John 7:5.)

Just as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit leaves one outside of God’s family, a faithful response to the Holy Spirit makes one a member of God’s family. Through the Holy Spirit, all who are true disciples are of the Body and Blood of Christ. Genetically, my flesh and blood is related to Jesus only in that we both proceeded from Noah. But spiritually, I am His kinsman, and I partake of His Body and Blood. He dwells in me, and I in Him (there’s that perichoresis again!)

How blessed to be put in the same category as Mary herself, who first received Jesus into her heart and then was made a member of His family. She was called “highly favored one” and “blessed,” and now so are all who have faith in Him, for we are part of His family, partakers of His Body and Blood.

I am thrice blessed: my family growing up was a loving one and one who were disciples of Jesus Christ; my own family now are disciples of Jesus Christ and are learning to live in love; and I am also part of God’s own family. How blessed someone like me is when my biological family is also my theological family – to have parents, siblings, a spouse, and children who all share the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ!

How blessed as well to think that all of you who are reading this are my brothers and sisters because through Jesus Christ God is the Father of us all and we have been adopted into His heavenly family!

Christ in us, the fact that we are the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, is an inexhaustible mystery. As His disciples, keep gathering around in a circle around Him to listen as He speaks. Like Mary, treasure these things up in your heart and receive them with wonder, awe, and everlasting thanksgiving.

Prayer: My soul magnifies You, Lord, and my spirit rejoices in You as my Savior. For you have regarded my low estate and have called me blessed through my relationship with Your Son. Holy is Your name. Praise be to You forever and ever. Amen.

Resolution and Point for Meditation:
I resolve to take some time today to ponder the mystery of Christ in me and of my being a member of the family of God through Christ.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Tuesday Advent 2 - Mark 3:7-19

“And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him. Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons.”

In verses 14-16 of Mark 3, we have a picture of God’s work in our lives. Never forget that it is the work of the Lord. It begins with Him; it ends with Him; and is by and for Him. In the beginning, the Kingdom was limited to the person of Jesus Himself. This means that the manifestation of the Kingdom was also limited, since Jesus, in His divine humanity, could only be in one place at a time, dealing with a limited number of people.

But now God’s firstborn produces fruit that produces seeds that are scattered and propagate the Kingdom. Here (and in 1:16-20 and 2:13-17), Jesus miraculously multiplies the heavenly bread with which He has come to feed the world by raising up disciples who will, as in the feeding of the 5000, feed the world with the Bread of Heaven.

We find Jesus calling “to Him those He Himself wanted.” The call of God is at His pleasure, and it is His holy will that initiates the work in His Kingdom. He calls whom He will, for that is the divine prerogative. But we know that the call of God is mysterious – not only that it comes to us in a variety of ways and at times when we least expect it – but also because the whole means by which we hear it and receive it is beyond the reach of telescope or microscope.

In this case, Jesus calls, and they came to Him. Mark doesn’t specify how many come and how many didn’t. But the essential truth of God’s work in the world is this: God calls, and man responds. This is the divine antiphony, the true celestial music of the spheres, and it is proclaimed throughout all of God’s creation.

The sun calls with his glorious, life-giving rays, and the moon responds by mirroring that glory, and the earth responds by joyfully receiving that energy and transforming it into life. One bird sings, and another one answers. Day turns into night, and night returns the favor by turning into day. A lover looks at the beloved, and the beloved looks back. We inhale the grace of God, and we are to breathe it back out again into the world as a blessing. We eat the kindly fruits of the earth, transforming the earth into our bodies, and are to return that life and energy back into the care of the earth and its inhabitants.

Jesus calls to Him those He Himself wants, and some of us come to Him in response.

Jesus calls many, and some come. Out of those who come, He appoints 12 in particular to be with Him day by day and to receive special authority to do the things He began to do: to teach, preach, heal sicknesses, and cast out demons. This, too, is part of the pattern of the ministry of the Lord: that according to His pleasure He appoints some to special offices and special ministries.

This is entirely by the grace and will of God Himself. But the twelve likely became The Twelve because of how they responded to God’s call in their lives. In Mark 1:18, Simon and Andrew immediately left their fishing nets and followed Jesus. In 1:20, James and John left their father and their nets and followed Jesus. In 2:14, Jesus said simply to Matthew, “Follow me,” and Matthew arose, left his lucrative tax booth, and followed Jesus. Does anybody else notice a pattern here?

Those who respond to God’s call will hear a further call, and those who have proven faithful with small things will be entrusted with more. It never ceases to amaze me how in God’s Kingdom the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The way we approach God in His Word is a perfect example. Those who crave God’s Word will get more of it, and those who ignore God’s Word will get less of it. I have seen so many times that those who have faithfully sought God in His Word, day by day, year by year, continue to grow in grace and wisdom. But some who have equal access to the Word of God and the grace of God ignore or spurn it, and they yield little if any fruit.

There are their Bibles sitting on their shelves, unread. Meanwhile, the most
meaningless e-mail forwards get devoured religiously, almost as if they were the Word of God. No e-mail goes unread, for fear that something wonderful will be missed. Yet there lie the Old and New Testament lessons for the day, with untold treasures and infallible nutrition, unread and unconsumed. In the Kingdom of Heaven, the hungry are fed and satisfied, but the sated slowly starve to death.

The difference between those who are blessed by God and those who are not is in their response, for these are the terms of His holy covenant. When God calls, some respond, and some don’t. Some hear His call from the mountain of God and come closer, some are so faithful that they are raised up as mighty leaders, and some walk away, thinking to themselves, like some spiritual traffic cop, “Move along, now, there’s nothing here to see.”

Every day, all throughout the day, God stands on His holy mountain, calling men to Himself, calling you.

Today, you are Philip and Andrew with their nets and Matthew at his tax booth. Today, God is calling you.

How will you respond?

Prayer: Almighty God, whose heavens declare Your glory and whose firmament shows Your handiwork, and whose voice has gone out through all the heavens and earth, open my ears today that I might hear Your voice again. Open my heart that I may receive You again. Give strength to my body and mind that I might respond with joyful immediacy to Your call on my life, and give me a voracious appetite for Your presence in my life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Points for Meditation:
1. Imagine yourself in the situation of the disciples Jesus called: one of the fishermen or Matthew. Imagine the call of Jesus on your life and how you responded, including what you gave up to follow the Lord.
2. Find a quiet place and time, and listen to what the Lord has been telling you. To what has He been calling you? How well have you been listening and obeying?
3. Spend some extra time asking God to fill you with a hunger for Him.
4. Consider the ways in which you experience call and response in nature. Imagine that each of these is a picture of God calling to you and waiting for you to respond.



Resolution: I resolve today to listen for, hear, and respond to the call of God in my life. I further resolve to respond in one practical way today.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Monday of Advent 2 - Mark 2:23-3:6

Jesus Christ is the Wisdom of God incarnated. Though we already know this, it’s good to have an illustration of it from the life and words of Jesus Himself. And that is exactly what Jesus gives us today – a teaching on the meaning of wisdom.

Biblically speaking, wisdom is knowing God and doing His will. But there is a secondary kind of wisdom that Jesus deals with here (the two are related) – the human wisdom (though made possible by the grace of God) that knows how to apply God’s Word in a given situation.

What should we do when it appears that two of God’s commandments are in conflict and we can’t obey them both? We could try to reconcile them, and sometimes this is possible. We could try to compromise, but then we might not be faithful to either. We could choose one over the other and feel guilty about not obeying the other one.

I believe that God never puts us in a situation where it becomes necessary to sin. If the reality is that we truly can’t obey two conflicting commandments, then I think one of them is becomes subordinated to the other. In choosing the greater and subordinating the lesser, there can be no sin.

The famous example of this is the importance of Christians speaking the truth and the commandment to protect life. What if Pharaoh tyrannically commands you to kill the Israelite boys? What if the Canaanites ask you if you’ve seen two Israelite spies and you know that if you tell them the Israelites will be killed? And what if the Nazis come to your door and ask if you’re hiding any Jews? In all of these cases, godly women lied and did not tell the truth. But they did so to protect the image of God in man. We have no obligation to tell the truth to those who seek to murder God’s children, at the time they seek to murder.

This requires a kind of wisdom, the kind of wisdom that Jesus always manifested.

God clearly said that in the Sabbath God’s people were not to work. But He also said that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. What if these two commandments are in conflict? Jesus’ answer is that it is always lawful to do good. (Of course, healing on the Sabbath had never been formally defined as work and it’s likely that the Pharisees were upholding only their own law and not God’s – but the point still stands.)

At stake is not only the wisdom we are required to have but also our view of God and His commandments. Sometimes we fall into the trap of believing that God’s commandments are arbitrary, that is, that they are right simply because God has declared them to be so, regardless of any intrinsic goodness to them. But God’s goodness and His power are more holistically related than this. God’s commandments are right, good, and good for us. How can they be anything else, since they are reflections of His loving, good, and holy character?

The point is that the Sabbath principle was not commanded by God just to create one more hurdle for His children to jump over but because it is a reflection of God and His goodness. The Sabbath is good for us, and even God took a Sabbath rest. The point of the Sabbath is to trust in God. For this reason, no manna fell on the Sabbath, and the people were required to trust in God without the manna and by preparing the previous day, remembering both His commandment to not gather on the Sabbath and His promise to give His daily bread to His people.

The point of the Sabbath is to trust in God and to learn to do His will and not ours. The Sabbath was made for man, that He might learn to trust in God, worship Him, and find his rest in Him. Man was not made for the Sabbath. It’s not as if there is a missing verse from Genesis 1 (it’s Genesis 1:23 ½ , if you want to look it up) which reads, “And on the fifth and a half day, God created a set of abstract principles by which He would make man live. And He established a logical system of commandments so that man might unthinkingly follow them. And He saw that they were good, though inscrutable.”

God made man in His image, not His commandments. It’s for us, and not for abstract principles, that He sent His only Son to die for the sins of the world. For this reason, we are to obey God’s commandments, not with a slavish unthinking attitude but with a heart of love. Every single commandment has love as its purpose and fulfillment. When we consider God’s commandments, always think of them in terms of how they help you love God and neighbor.

It is a living, loving God that you serve by obeying His commandments, and it is those made in the image of God that you also serve by keeping His commandments.

Obeying God, then, is a very personal decision for each of us, and we must engage God’s commandments with our whole being, including our minds. And this requires wisdom, for which we must always remember to ask God.

Prayer: Father, thank You for sending Your Wisdom down from heaven in the person of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Enlighten my heart and mind today that I may know Your good and loving will and have Your grace to obey. Amen.



Resolution and Point for Meditation: I resolve to consider my attitude towards God’s commandments. Have I been trying to obey them out of mere duty, or have I been seeking God and His love through them?

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Saturday of 1st Sunday in Advent - Mark 2:13-22

Saturday of First Sunday in Advent
Mark 2:13-22

Most who have read and studied the Bible at all know that the parable of the new wine into old wineskins is Jesus’ teaching on the coming of the New Covenant and the necessity of the Old Covenant being abolished. Because of the radically new nature of the New Covenant (even though there is remarkable continuity as well), the New Covenant manifests itself in new ways that the Old Covenant was not capable of containing. Most importantly, the coming of God in the flesh and all of the cosmic implications of the ministry of Christ meant that the fulfillment of the Old Covenant had come.

This much we know. But if you’re like me, sometimes when reading a portion of the Scripture that has a particular historical fulfillment, I feel as if the passage seems somewhat remote from me. It would be possible and appropriate to meditate on this passage in light of the surpassing excellence of the New Covenant. We could, for example, go down a list of reasons to rejoice because the true High Priest, Temple, Sacrifice, etc. are here. And such a meditation would be fruitful for the soul.

But I want to meditate today on the new wine in the old wineskins in my life and yours. Of course such an application would not be possible without first understanding the coming of the New Covenant, but often I find that I need a more immediate application of God’s grace. After all, the Kingdom of God is at hand in my life, as I sit here writing this in December of 2006.

The sad fact is that I often feel like (and actually am) an old wineskin. I don’t just mean that the body is losing its war of attrition against time: I mean that many days I wake up and I am the same old person. With the new day I seem to clothe myself in heaviness and to pick up the heavy load I left by the side of my bed the night before. I dutifully saddle my back with it and go out into the world, and another day passes much as the days before.

It’s a comfortable arrangement, this old wine in old wineskins. I’ve hardly even noticed that the wine is kind of sour and gritty. I drink it to drink it, because it’s there, and because I’m supposed to. It’s really become a part of me, and at least with the old wine in old wineskins I know what I’m getting today.

But praise God that He offers me a source of new wine! I do get tired of the old wine, now that I think about it and see an alternative. By comparison with this explosive new wine, the old is flat and vinegary and dirty. When I seek God again, He pours for me His new wine. Maybe it’s that I’m stirred by reading His Word or hearing it in a sermon. Maybe it’s the wise counsel of a brother or sister in Christ, or the brightness of the sun on a winter day, or the child resting in my arms, or the whispering of the Holy Spirit through my conscience. There are many ways God offers His new wine, though all come through Christ.

We’ve all experienced the bite of the first taste of the new wine coming. But too often, we are in a hurry to get on with our “lives,” and all we do is sip the new wine. We leave, satisfied for an exciting new experience that cheers up our day temporarily and adjusts our attitude so we can continue in our old ways again for the rest of the day.

But what God really wants and what we really need is not to sip and run but to sit down and eat and drink with the Lord. We need to relish His good gifts to us and savor them and to linger in His company, intoxicated again with His glory and power and love.

What I want is for the new wine to flow freely and not to have a sip once a month or so. Therefore, what I need to do is to sit down and spend some time with God, finishing the first cup He gives me and asking for more, if He so pleases.

But I do not desire this new wine the way I should. Somehow I’m “too busy” or have “more important” things to do. And I wonder why my old life is still full of vinegar and sets my teeth on edge! The problem is that I am trying to put God’s new wine into my old wineskin. I’m trying, in the flesh, to continue in the flesh while enacting a “drive-by-sipping” of God’s new wine.

What I need is for God to make a new skin for me, as He did with Adam and Eve in the Garden. I need Him to cover me with the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ that the new wine of the Holy Spirit may fill me again. To do this, I must be willing to trade in my old wineskin, that is, the flesh and its ways. To put on the new wineskin that is Jesus Christ and sanctification, I must also take off the old man through the process of mortification.

I need to fervently ask Him to give me this new wine and to make me willing to get rid of my old wineskins. I’d better be ready, because for God to transform me and clothe me with the new wineskin of His Son means that I will have to change. I will have to give up my old ways, my old skin that cannot contain the Holy Spirit. I will need to ask God to make me a fit vessel for His grace and then to freely partake of this grace when it’s offered to me.

If I attempt to accept God’s new wine of the Holy Spirit in me, I’d better accept the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ first. Otherwise, what will happen is that the grace that God so freely pours into my life will expand and split my old wineskin, and the new wine will be wasted.

The new wine of the Holy Spirit has come to fill the new wineskin of the Body of Christ, the Church. And we are called to be made new.

Now that I think about it, I am kind of tired of this old wineskin, and the wine has been upsetting my stomach and making me pout a lot. I think I’ll go immediately and seek the new wine and the new wineskin.

Resolution: I resolve today to set aside some time to seek God with a renewed spirit.

Prayer: Father, thank You for sending us the new wine of Your Holy Spirit and for making us Your new wineskin through our Lord Jesus Christ. Fill me with Your Spirit today, and help me to take off the Old Man that the New Man Jesus Christ may live in me. I know that You have been offering Your grace to me many times each day and I have ignored or refused it. Please help me to see You and accept You however You choose to come to me today. Amen.



Points for Resolution:
1. Meditate on a time in your life when God’s new wine in your life was sweet – and give thanks.
2. If you are still storing old wine in old wineskins, consider one way in which God has brought You His new wine in the past. Then seek Him in that way today.
3. Make a petition for God’s new wine in your life part of your daily prayer life.


© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Friday of First Sunday in Advent - Mark 2:1-12

It’s easy to think of the miracles of Jesus as being ordinary occurrences. After all, we’re only halfway through Mark 2, and already we’ve heard about 4 specific miracles, as well as references to multiple miracles. The New Testament is so saturated with miracles, especially the Gospels where Jesus lives, that at times I wonder if I live in the same world where Jesus lived.

I wonder, “Where are all the miracles in my life?” But such an attitude produces a kind of envy in me, and envy drives out contentment and thanksgiving. What I forget is that most people in Jesus’ day, even with Him seemingly performing miracles in every nook and cranny of Israel, never saw one of his miracles and if they did, they probably only saw one.

What I also conveniently forget is the quiet miracle of Christ in me that I wake to every morning. Jesus doesn’t need to perform an additional miracle for me because He’s already doing one, by the mere fact of His presence in me through the gift of His Holy Spirit.

The truth is that when I gaze more intently at this miracle of Jesus healing the paralytic, I am right there, smack dab in the middle of God’s wondrous work. I like to think of myself as one of the guys who carried the paralytic to Jesus. As a father and pastor, this is in fact exactly what I do. But it is also true for me simply as a Christian.

Maybe it’s less that I see myself in this miracle than that I see this miracle in me, for like the miracle of the leper, this is the story of my life and the story of your life. As in verse two, Jesus preaches the Word to us, and, as in this miracle, there is often an obstruction to my hearing His Word the way I should. In this case, there were so many people around Jesus that the friends of the paralytic couldn’t bring him close enough to Jesus to be healed.

In our cases, our chief obstacles are the busy-ness of our schedules and the demands we place on our lives that crowd out Jesus and His miracle in our lives. We populate our lives with a day crowded by Things I Must Do Today. The funny thing is that “Going to Experience the Miracle of God’s Presence” doesn’t ever seem to get scheduled in.

Jesus is present in the lives of the paralytic and his friends, as He is in ours, but there is an obstacle. He is ready to breathe out on us His life-giving Word and to touch us with His grace. But something or some things are in our way. What are we to do?

We’re supposed to do what the friends of the paralytic did, and that is to determine what the obstacle is and find a way around it. The grace of Jesus is near us, through His Word and His presence, but often we are supposed to go and find Jesus and to so order our lives that we overcome whatever it is that is in our way.

In this case, the friends of the paralytic uncovered the roof so that the paralytic could go through it. I think of this as like prayer. Sometimes the heavens seem shut up before us so that God is hidden and we can’t seem to get any closer. But in prayer, we uncover the wall of partition that separates us from God, and once again we are able to see God. Like the friends of the paralytic, when we pray, we often “break through” and find God on the other side. The good news is that even a paralytic like me is able to pray.

At what point in the story of the paralytic and his friends does Jesus heal the paralytic? It’s after they had acted to remove the obstacle that stood in the way of their coming to Jesus. At this point, Jesus says to them, when He saw their faith, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”

Jesus could obviously see the need of the paralytic, but what He waited for was to see the faith of those who brought him to Jesus. Notice how Jesus saw their faith. Their faith was not some invisible force that only the X-ray vision of Jesus could see. Instead, their faith was their faithfulness in taking the necessary action to place themselves before Jesus and His power and grace.

How often do we lament the lack of miracles in our lives and the seeming remoteness of Jesus? As often as we refuse to pray and act faithfully to draw near to Him. By the grace of God, sometimes He mercifully descends to us, even when we are not trying very hard to see Him.

But I find that more often He waits to see the faith of His children, a faith that His grace has already made possible but that we often refuse to put to use. Instead of lamenting the absence of God and His miracles in your life, why not seek Him today? Why not investigate the obstacles in your life that keep you from Him and determine to remove them? Uncover the roofs in your life that put a limit on the grace of God, and break through to the presence of God that is the daily miracle in your life.

Resolution and Point for Meditation: I resolve today to investigate the obstacles in my life that keep me from seeing Jesus. Some possibilities are: an attachment to the things of this world; poor choices in my use of time; valuing leisure time pursuits over time with God; discouragement from the apparent remoteness of God; a feeling of weakness or lack of faith; an unwillingness to come before God because He will probably convict you of your sins; and many others.
Whatever the obstacle, prayerfully consider what action you are supposed to take so that seeing Jesus becomes a daily pursuit of yours.

Prayer: Praise be to You, Father, that You have uncovered the roof that separated the earth from Your heaven and that You have torn down the dividing wall between God and man. Praise be to You, Jesus, because You stand ready to forgive those who come to you freely confessing their sins and seeking forgiveness. Praise be to You, Holy Spirit, for the continuing miracle of Pentecost in our lives. Amen.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Thursday of First Sunday in Advent - Mark 1:40-45

Imagine that you are a leper. Imagine that you have a disease which began several years ago with a chronic fatigue and pains in the joints. This part of the disease was something like fibromyalgia - but it gets worse. Parts of your skin become discolored, and little nodules form on this discolored skin. First they are pink and then brown, and they begin to populate especially your cheeks, your nose, your lips, and your forehead – essentially your face. These nodules grow larger over time, and they develop into sores from which comes a stinking discharge. Others tell you that your eyebrows have begun to fall out, and your face takes on the look of a lion or satyr. The sores begin to spread, your breath begins to wheeze, and your mind begins to decay. You may have been lucky enough to escape some of these symptoms but only at the expense of gradually losing sensation in the nerves of your limbs and having your hands and feet covered with sores and lose all feeling. In this case you survive 20-30 years instead of only 9.

Along with your biological suffering comes your social suffering. You have become an outcast, an untouchable, and live in a segregated world in which there are separate facilities. You live outside the city, and your only peers are others as sick or sicker than you are. People look at you as if you are demon-possessed, and you are required to cry out, not for mercy, but that you are “Unclean! Unclean!”

But one day you hear that a man named Jesus is coming near. You’ve heard that he has healed many others – even those worse off than you and who are possessed by a demon. At this point, you have nothing to lose. It seems so unlikely. It’s not supposed to be done.

But you approach this Jesus, wondering if He, like so many others, will simply redirect his steps and eyes to avoid you. You are not sure of yourself, you have some doubts, and yet you really believe this man may be more than a man.

You approach him and cry out, with a voice you had intended to be heroic and yet pitiful, but it comes out something more like laryngitis. He may not have heard you, and so you come closer to kneel and repeat: “If you are willing – you can make me clean.”

Jesus stops. This is a good sign, and yet you wonder why. His face changes. It is a face you have not seen in a long time – a face of compassion, of one whose body has been moved by your condition.

And then he does the unthinkable, even to you: he reaches out to touch your hand, knowing that he will now become like you, unclean. This great man, who a small crowd has been following, actually touches you. It feels like the hand of God, for only God or a madman would dare to touch someone like you.

For the first time in so long you can’t remember someone who is not a leper speaks kindly to you. But it’s not the pitying kind of kindness – it’s a powerful kindness that is both love and authority.

He says, simply, “I am willing. Be cleansed!”

You have the strangest feeling of synesthesia: you experience so many things simultaneously that you think you must have died and gone to heaven. At the same time that you hear the voice, the fog is lifted from your mind and your eyes become clear again. Colors and shapes suddenly have a new meaning. Your body has stopped aching, and you stand up straight. And most of all, you rediscover your soul.

“Clean! I’m clean!” you say.

Jesus strictly warns you not to tell anyone but to go immediately to see the priest and offer the sacrifice for being cleansed.

You obey immediately, whispering with a newfound strength, “Clean! I’m clean!”

Though there’s some debate about which disease this is in the New Testament, it may well have been Hanson’s disease, which we usually associate with leprosy. Regardless, the drama of this terrible disease is the drama of your life, and what Jesus did for this leper in Mark 1 He has also done for you.

It intrigues me that the same Greek word means both to save and to heal, and the miraculous healings in the Bible are actually the miraculous salvation of God in our lives.

You are that leper. You are the one who is afflicted with a terrible and progressive disease. You are the one who will one day die and who, because of your sin, will be progressively separated not only from human contact but also from the grace of God. Lepers were commonly known as “the living dead,” and that is what we all once were. We walk around with the sentence of death upon us, awaiting an even worse fate.

And then one day, we fall on our knees before Him, saying, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” And Jesus, moved with compassion, stretches out His hand to you, touches you, and says, “I AM willing. Be clean!”

And you are made clean.

You were made clean because the King of kings whose kingdom is now here because He chose to become a leper like you. He risked touching you and took upon Himself your disease of sin and death.

The story of this leper is your story. We can all imagine with what joy, praise, and thanksgiving this leper went to make his sacrifice. But I’m amazed at how many Christians walk through life as if they are still the living dead – spiritual zombies. If only we knew, if only we remembered what Jesus, out of compassion, has done for us, we would remember the uncleanness of sin that was once ours. We would remember the complete separation from the society of God that was our birthright.

And we would remember to make our lives a joyful whole burnt offering of praise and thanksgiving.

Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, thank You for coming to me, a leper, in Your compassion. Thank You for touching one so unclean and for making me clean through Your blood which washes away my sins. All praise be to You Father, through Your Son who has come once again to save His people. Amen.


Resolution and Point for Meditation: I resolve today to meditate on how Jesus has healed me from my sins and made me clean and fit to live in His presence again. I resolve today to remember this throughout the day and to offer up the appropriate sacrifice of a life of praise and thanksgiving.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson