Advent Three – Monday

Isaiah 8:16-9:1

I’m still processing the events of this past Friday and I imagine several of you are, too.

I know we all are looking for someone or something to blame, but I thought it was particularly insensitive of Mike Huckabee blaming us all for “taking God out of schools” for the senseless killing. Talk about shameless politicization of a tragedy. Anyway, I thought Rachel Held Evans’ comments were particularly helpful and to the point.

I also thought this column from Jen Floyd Engel on Fox Sports.com was helpful in reminding us that life goes on, and we need to do what we can to spread the JOY we feel in our faith.

In the text today, we are promised “…there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish.” That’s the promise of Advent!

Advent One – Wednesday

1 Corinthians 1:3-9.

I have dithered and fussed and wondered and eventually decided to write what is on my heart today. I’ve done my best to stay away from partisan politics on the blog and on Facebook during the election period but the refusal of the Republicans, for no other logical reason than to be obstructionist, to ratify the UN Disability Treaty is simply unconscionable. There can be no excuse for it.

In this season when we are asked to Hope, I find myself verging on despair, as people in government and the media and the conservative Christian church seem to forget Jesus’ instructions to care for the broken and disabled, both mentally and physically, in our society.

Be sure and read this blog from Jan Edmiston, and join me in prayers for our broken, selfish world.

Rachel Maddow did a good segment on it yesterday, but it hasn’t been posted on You Tube yet, so I can’t link to it for you, but be sure to look for it.

How long, Lord?

What If the Resurrection Were a Lie?

The prompt for the Synchroblog this month is “What if the resurrection were a lie?” Cynic that I am, I am forced to look around and say “What if the world – we Christians – REALLY believed the resurrection were the truth?”

It seems to me, if we really believed it, we would be less concerned with money and more concerned with people.

We would realize that we are all broken and in need of love, instead of pretending that WE are perfect, but everybody else needs to have rules and regulations to keep them in line.

We would be more concerned with the state of this wonderful planet, instead of first focusing on the cost to clean it up or keep it clean.

We would drive more “friendly”.

We would happily pay taxes because we would insure the government was run by folks who were more concerned with other people than their own pockets.

We would stop trying to be “one up” on our neighbors.

We would stop needing to prove our worth by showing how much better we were than the next guy.

We would stop being “in control”, and would let God be in control.

We would look at the gay man, the crippled child, the homeless woman and see the Risen Christ.

And when we saw Christ in their faces and in their eyes we would do everything in our power to care for them – wash their feet, invite them to dinner, house them, care for them – LOVE them, without thinking of the cost to ourselves.

But never mind.

The cost is too high.

We might have to leave our comfort zone and then who knows who might take care of us.

But here’s the thing – the world is not a Zero-Sum place. There’s enough love, and food, and air, and water for everyone, as long as no one grabs more than their share.

There’s enough LOVE, because Christ is risen, Christ is risen indeed.

Here’s the list of other Syncrobloggers for this month.