What love does

 What love does

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. (Matthew 27:57-58)

There are always those you do not see. They labor behind the scenes or in the shadows doing what needs to be done long after others have returned to the warmth of home or the embrace of friends to release the burdens of the day.

Joseph is there, doing what love does, unnoticed, except for Pilate’s minions shuffling about the foot of the cross, impatient to be released that they might drink away the grisly duties of the day.

When Joseph appears they depart, and he does what must be done.

Pulling at Roman nails, ragged and thick, he pries them from Jesus feet, having been nailed atop each other to the splintered wood. Finished there, he works on the hands, wresting the nails from between major bones in Jesus’ wrists, blood staining his cloths, if there was any left to flow from the wounds that drained Jesus dry.

How did Joseph do it, his heart wrenched by the disfigured form of his friend? Surely, tenderness marked his movements as he removed the tortured body of his teacher mutilated beyond recognition

And he must have had help. A different telling of this story mentions Nicodemus who lent a hand, gently bearing the body to earth, as if any further hurt were possible.

They work silently in the darkness after everyone else had gone home. Their stomachs in knots, unable to speak, nodding back and forth to guide their actions, doing what love required them to do.

Like millions before and after him, Jesus was deemed expendable by the heartless and powerful who ate their dinner that night and retired into the evening, ignoring what Joseph was doing out there in the darkness.

Bu isn’t that the way it is? The truly important things, the gestures that make life graced and beautiful so often happen in the shadows where no one sees or is watching ... what love does.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world

 

It is finished

 A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:29-30)

Twelfth station of the cross: Jesus dies on the cross

Few moments are more holy than when a human soul breathes a final breath and passes from the labor of this life into the silent mystery of the Love who bears us home.

More than once or twice, I have known the privilege of bearing witness to a final word, a final breath, holding a hand that could no longer hold mine.

Each time, grace and grief entwined as one, awakening gratitude and prayer. “Thank you for this life now lived. Thank you for the grace of this moment. Thank you for the love unimaginable into which you bear us.”

Gratitude and grief entwine here, too, as Jesus hands himself over to the Loving Mystery he so often called Father. “It is finished,” he whispers, and hangs limp, done.

But his words are not the dying gasp of an exhausted soul, drained and defeated by the incessant cycle of human cynicism and brutality.

No, he loved his own and loved them to the end. It was the one labor of his life, carried out in the face of scorn and perplexity, and here, in this moment, it comes to completion.

Every ounce of love that he is ... has been poured out. The vessel is now empty, and in that emptiness we see the face of the Loving Mystery who invites us to entrust everything we are, have been and ever will be to this Love who is our true and final home.

Trusting this, we live the love that is in us so that, when we are through, our hearts may whisper, “It is finished,” handing ourselves over to the Love who is never finished.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Breathless knowing

 Ninth station of the cross: Jesus falls for the third time

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death (Psalm 22:14-15)

Jagged peaks and deep silence surrounds the sanctuary of Arantzazu in the Basque country of northern Spain. A Franciscan monastery clings to the mountainside, a place of pilgrimage and refuge for 600 years. From there, a narrow trail climbs ever higher into the mountain range.

Walking, I bent low, leaning into the steep incline, pressing my pilgrimage to unseen heights. Aching lungs pleaded for air until I stopped to drink in the rugged beauty. Bent and panting, I sat on a rock and studied tiny blue flowers spouting along the stony path, then looked up hoping the summit was in sight.

But no, there was further to climb, and sitting there I began to think of Jesus carrying his cross.

I thought of him every time I had to stop, breathless, feeling sympathy, and talked to him about how he felt, wondering how he pressed on when he could barely breathe, thinking maybe he just wanted it all over with.

But even as he fell one more time, there was further to go. The summit still lay ahead of him where we will see just how far love will go.

When I reached the summit, I looked back, surveying the mountain range behind me and the high meadow ahead. My lungs finally filling with air, I spoke everything that was in my heart.

“Thank you, my Lord,” I said into the waiting silence. “Thank you for what I know here, now.”

It was enough.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

 

Love and sorrow

Ninth station of the cross: Jesus falls for the third time

 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me ... . For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my courage; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed (Lamentations 1:12,16)

I watched my father fall more times than I can remember. Each time, he would drag himself to where he could grab something stable with his left arm because the right one had no strength. Twisting, he leveraged what still worked in his broken body until his leg brace snapped back into place, and he could slowly pull himself up again.

As a little boy I watched, silent, frozen in place, not knowing what to do. Older, I learned to reach out to help, but most often Dad refused my arm. It was a matter of dignity, pride and perhaps proving he could still do it despite all polio had done to him.

And each time I loved him more for what he was doing, for who he was, an average man living a life he would have never chosen, choosing to live, to do what he could while it was day knowing, as did I, that night would come all too soon.

Just so, in later years when he would let me help, I circled him with my arms and pulled him up, turning my head to hide secret tears lest I reveal the sweet union of love and sorrow for which I still have no words.

I don’t know when it first happened, but I began to think it was Jesus I lifted—beaten, drained, played out, having given all he could to live and love the life our good and gracious God appointed for him.

Maybe having lifted my dad, I feel the sorrow of Jesus and understand both the love that is in him and the love he awakens in this heart and always will.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only hope

The days are surely coming when they will say, “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.” Then they will begin to say to the mountains, “Fall on us”; and to the hills, “Cover us.” For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?’ (Luke 23:29-31)

Eighth station of the cross: Jesus and the women of Jerusalem

These are strange and bitter words. Jesus looks ahead, seeing a time when blood will run deep in the streets he now walks to his death. 

And so it was. Several decades after his crucifixion Roman forces surrounded Jerusalem permitting no one to enter or leave, starving the population. Breaching the walls, they unleashed merciless rage on everyone in sight, young and old, until the streets were obstructed with the bodies of more than 100,000 killed, carrying away as many others as slaves.

Jesus had brought the promise of spring to those streets. His words and mercy awakened hope and peace in open hearts. The clay of their souls sprang to life like willow branches greening in an April sun as they listened to him.

But the time of his presence on Jerusalem streets passed. Soon, the bitterness of life beneath the heel of Roman boots ignited the tinderbox of smoldering animosity, and it exploded in rebellion and an orgy of bloodlust.

It begs the question of whether there is any hope for the human race because this pattern of oppression, resistance and retribution keeps repeating itself throughout history.

The only way to break the cycle, it seems, is to follow the one carrying the cross, the one who refuses to hate even those who hate him.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

 

 

Eighth station of the cross: Jesus and the women of Jerusalem

A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children’ (Luke 23:27-28)

Love beyond naming

Of course, the women are there. They are always there.

They bear life in their bodies. They nurture it with the substance of their own flesh. They are the first to help and refuse to flee when danger threatens their little ones.

For 20 years, I saw this again and again in hellish places where the specter of disease, hunger and war hovered over battered lands, killing hundreds of thousands. More than anyone else, it was women who denied themselves, hoping to save their children and often the children of those whose mothers had long since perished.

Blessed are they, these saints. The Spirit of the Great Giver breathed through their hope and became flesh in their sacrifice. I kneel at their feet and give thanks, for they reveal the truest beauty of the human heart and the indestructible love of the Love who loves us.

It is women like these who surround Jesus as he carries his cross. Some had likely been with him all along. Now, they must mourn with a sorrow he is powerless to prevent. Such is the cost of loving.

Jesus turns and looks with compassion at them as he stumbles along, knowing bitter days are coming when the violence that destroys him will scar their lives.

He looks at them and they at him, mirrors reflecting a love beyond naming.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By you holy cross you have redeemed the world

 

 

Stations of the cross: Jesus falls a second time

Just then there came a man named Jairus, a leader of the synagogue. He fell at Jesus’ feet and begged him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter, about twelve years old, who was dying (Luke 8:41-42)

This time it is you who fall Jesus. The days are gone when others fell at your feet, bereft, desperate, collapsing beneath the weight of their need, hoping their pleas would move you to care.

It is easy to imagine the mercy in your eyes as you saw the crumpled mass of broken humanity at your feet. I wonder how many times you gently drew them up that they might look into the window of your soul ... and know.

But now you are a crumpled mass of broken humanity, and the eyes of compassion into which we long to gaze are hidden, cast down into the ancient cobblestones, no longer able to give what our hungry hearts crave.

Or do they? For even here we see into the window of your soul ... and know.

We see that it is the weight of love you carry, the burden of a love that doesn’t break even as your body fails and falls.

And here, we, who long to look into the eyes of your compassion, are moved to love you, to feel for you what you always have and always will feel for us.

“See,” you say to us on your hands and knees, broken and spent. “Now you know what is in me for you. The love I am ... I give to you, a holy gift.”

Pr. David L. Miler

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By you holy cross you have redeemed the world

 

Hope unending

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come’ (John 2:1-4).

So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull (John 19:17).

The time draws near. And Jesus knows, the hour for which he was born has come.

Long before and many times, he spoke of this hour in John’s gospel, starting with the day he turned water into wine at a wedding, pleasing his mother and the thirsty crowd. But this was not the hour on which hinges all hope and history.

That comes only now, as Jesus carries his cross to the place of execution. The meaning of his entire existence rests on whether he can embrace and endure this hour or whether he will recoil from the bitter brutality and pain to come.

Will he love and love to the end, or will the cruelty that kills him also kill the love that is in him, the Love he is?

All creation holds its breath. For if the hour of bitterness kills his love, then the hope of the ages is gone. If his love does not prevail, then darkness not light, death not life, despair not love is the final word over us and all that is, and all we know, all we are and all we love ends in the dust of the grave.

But, we are not a people without hope. We know … hope is never lost.

For he who turned water into wine transforms bitterness into a radiant beauty beyond any the world shall ever see. He is love and light and life and love, lifting us from every death we shall ever die

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By you holy cross you have redeemed the world

 

For mercy's sake

 A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him (Luke 23:27). When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home (John 19:27).

It is mercy we crave and mercy we find in him who is shown no mercy. And seeing him, hearing his voice, we know the mercy of the One who is Mercy, another name for our God to be sure.

The women of Jerusalem weep for Jesus as he drags himself toward his execution. We are not told that Mary, his mother, witnessed this, only that she was at his cross when they lifted him high to be mocked and bleed out his final hours.

We cannot imagine Mary’s agony as she watched, even if we have been at the side of our beloved as they drew their final breath. There is no pain like the death of one’s child under any circumstances, let alone ... this.

We are left to wonder if Mary spoke to him as he died, offering final words of love that could never be enough to say what was in her heart. Scripture is silent about this, too.

But Jesus spoke to her and to a friend he loved as dearly as any he knew in this life. He gave them to each other that they who loved him might be bound together in the love he awakened in them.

It was a final act of mercy, by one denied mercy, revealing the Mercy who holds us one and all.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By you holy cross you have redeemed the world

 

 

 

 

 

That we may know

 

             Wednesday, February 24, 2021

But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. (Mark 15:20)

Alone you are, Jesus, stumbling, exhausted, played out; your arms tied rough and hard, shoulders scraped raw against the coarse grain of the cross as your skull jars harsh against the cobblestones.

Do you hear their voices as you lie there—taunts and derision, soldiers’ demands to get up and get on with the grisly business of the day so they can go drink away the rancid phlegm stinging their throats before they have to do it all again, maybe tomorrow?

Or maybe you are so beaten down that their voices are a distant echo in the background of your soul, knowing what is to come and wondering if you have grace or strength to be and do what love requires.

And this? To bear it all, refusing to return hatred for hatred that the divine heart may be known—and that we may know it.

This is how the world is saved. This is how sin’s ugly cycle is shattered, not by force of power or victory over enemies, but by hearts who repay bitterness with blessing, taking the worst the world can give and giving back the best.

The way of Jesus.

Pr. David L Miller

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By you holy cross you have redeemed the world

 

He is the one

 After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. (Mark 15:20)

I see her every time I step into my office at church. She walks south, her back toward me, and I wonder if she still lives or if the child on her shoulders survived what I witnessed.

She ... is a Sudanese mother carrying her child. A dirty brown sack drapes across her back containing everything she owns.

I took the photo in the middle of a war as people fled along rutted dirt roads, running from certain death, carrying what they could, often falling exhausted along the way. The fortunate found succor from scattered relief workers or stronger refugees who gave what food and water they could. But tens of thousands were not so fortunate.

I see all of them in this one woman, who carries the most precious cargo of life on her shoulders, and seeing her ... I see Jesus and love him with tears that flow from my heart’s deepest room.

For Jesus, cloaked in the purple robes of royalty, walks with the poor, the beaten and forgotten, the oppressed and those denied all justice and mercy. He shares their struggle, carrying the weight of love even when it crushes him.

Here, here is our God, walking a Sudanese road, bearing the weight of love for all the burdened who stumble and fall along the way.

If there is one worth worshiping in this world, surely he is that one.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By you holy cross you have redeemed the world

The weight

 So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. (John 19:17)

The weight

It is as it should be. Jesus carries the cross, bowed beneath the weight of human misunderstanding and cussedness. Nothing new here.

He has carried the weight of disciples who didn’t and couldn’t understand him. He bore the condemnation of those who thought him a libertine for welcoming tarnished and ruined souls into God’s embrace.

He shouldered the constant hectoring of those trying to trap him in his own words and endured the cynicism of a religious establishment that sought only to protect its position and privileges, truth and decency be damned.

And now he carries the instrument of his destruction, a Roman cross, the ultimate expression of oppression and brutality reserved for the poor and most despised.

His death will be like his life, a demonstration in the face of hardened hearts of just how far divine love will go to change our minds about God, about ourselves and about the only thing that really matters in this life.

He carries the weight of the world, bearing it all in love, a love that doesn’t break. Ever.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore you, O Christ and we bless you.

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world

To be given

 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’  (Mark 1:12-15)

The kingdom appears to make right all that is not right with the world. It is the ultimate good, God battling the enemy of all that is true and decent, kind and caring, a battle of life with death.

But I wonder if post-modern ears are capable of hearing let alone grasping the notion of ‘ultimate good.’ Can we believe anything is ‘ultimate’ or fully give ourselves to anything beyond us?

It’s impossible to surrender yourself to anything that transcends you if you do not really believe there is something transcendent—something more important, more valuable, more critical and central to existence than your comfort and personal outcomes.

Yet even in our self-referential times, there remains something in us that recognizes the magnificence of people who shine like the sun because they refuse to count the cost or cut their conscience, people who give themselves away for a great love for something or someone they deem more important that themselves.

Seeing such souls, hearing their stories we might feel pangs of shame, unless our consciences have completely calcified. For we recognize that to be given away for the sake of love is our natural destiny, written so deeply in our hearts we cannot remove it, a destiny we know we have not fulfilled or only in the rarest of moments that make us smile in memory of their sweetness.

And this is what Jesus is saying, deep within, telling us the ultimate good, the kingdom of God making things right, is appearing. It’s in him, in you, in the world around you, in people you meet every day.

See it. Feel it. Let it move you until you say ‘yes’ to whatever desire arises to surrender yourself in love to some need you notice in your corner of God’s vineyard.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, I heard long ago. At 68, I’ve lived long enough to remember too many good intentions, too many moments when a word or act of love stuck in my throat or wasn’t followed up upon. These moments haunt, and I pray for those who were deprived whatever small kindness or grace I failed to share, even as I hear the call to be given, totally, to the Love who gives himself totally for me.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

In the wilderness

 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. [Jesus] was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. (Mark 1:12-13)

It’s been nearly year now that we have wandered in this COVID wilderness, little knowing when or how this will all end. I am not going to suggest that the Spirit of God has led us into this place, but the Spirit has a purpose for us in every wilderness whether we heed it or not.

Biblically, the wilderness was the desert, a barren, waterless waste beyond human control where God shaped the souls of those intended for great and holy purpose. They were driven out there—Moses, Elijah, Jesus—as if they had no real choice in the matter, to be stripped bare and learn the meaning of faith.

The wilderness was a place where faith and despair, service and selfishness battled for their souls. And it’s still true. Our souls, the tenor of our hearts is in play, every day and perhaps especially so in the age of COVID and political turmoil.

Our wilderness confronts us with our need to live in greater harmony with the wild beast of nature. It strips us of the illusion of independence, revealing that we are dependent on angels of mercy who appear in God’s time to nurture and save life from destruction.

Spiritually, the wildernesses confronts us with the question of whether we have any faith that there is an ultimate goodness and grace at work in our existence or whether we all must go it alone.

In the wilderness, we learn to live with patience and trust or we go mad with worry and greed trying to secure our lives against a world deemed dangerous and uncaring. We learn to love and embrace life in all its inscrutable unpredictability, or we become prisoners to fears of whatever is hidden in the shadows we cannot see.

Even without COVID, life can seem a wilderness where the sheer uncertainties of existence test our hearts, tempting us to anger or despair or greed or cynicism or futile attempts to secure ourselves at others expense.

But if the wilderness threatens, it is also the best place, the very best place one can learn to love and to trust there is a Love who inhabits every wilderness.

That’s what Jesus and all those others discovered out there, and it’s still true.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are his home

 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:14-15).

Your dearest desire has come true. Look no further; the ultimate need of your heart is standing before you, and his name is Jesus.

The kingdom has come. It is found wherever you find him, wherever human souls gather around him, pray to him, love him, hope to know him and feel his presence in the mystery of their souls. The kingdom comes every time you turn to him in pray and hold his image in your heart.

For he is the kingdom, and his every word, act, correction, glance and touch reveals what the long centuries of human suffering and ruination have hoped to see but thought impossible if not also absurd.  

In him, God’s kingdom—the love and mercy God is—appears, and now all that matters is knowing him; being with him so long and so closely that the love you feel within is no longer you but his presence within you.

But this the very thing post-modern attitudes reject and imagine cannot possibly be true. We do not believe fulfillment of our hearts is possible, and beneath this is the lack of faith that God is ... and is looking for a home where the Holy One can abide and speak the Love for which our aching hearts long.

We are his home, but the home within us is crowded with noise and distraction and all we vainly imagine will fill us if only ... we do just a little more, accomplish something further, grab the next great thing or achieve one last goal.

But it’s never enough; emptiness remains for we are made for more. We are made for an infinite love, for the radiance of divine presence aglow within the mystery of our own depths. And this, this great and holy gift is given the moment we simply admit our emptiness and ask Jesus to give us the mystery of whatever is in him.

So repent; believe the good news. You don’t need to work so hard as if the fulfillment and peace of your soul depends on you. It doesn’t. Jesus stands there, his love aching to pour into you. Home.

Pr. David L. Miller  

 

 

The freedom we need

 

Monday, January 25, 2021

Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ (Mark 1:25-27)

It is hard to know what to make of exorcism stories in the Bible. Spirit possession seems to belong to a pre-scientific age when people didn’t have more reasonable explanations for certain strange phenomena. But maybe not.

Perhaps I have watched too many hours of news in recent weeks, but it seems we need an exorcism. A variety of demons grip the hearts and enslave the minds of modern Americans, but anger is the most obvious.

And yes, anger is a demon, not merely a psychological state, when it blinds you to the needs, pains and humanity of other human souls. It is a demon when it builds walls that prevent truths (often obvious) you choose not to acknowledge lest they penetrate your mind and change your heart.

An old saying suggests holding angry grudges is like drinking poison and expecting your opponent to die. Hold onto anger, savor and feed it, and it sours into a bitterness that colors everything you see and feel, killing your soul before ushering you to a grave earlier than otherwise necessary.

Like all demons, anger seeks to enslave us so that it colors our vision, preventing us from feeling, receiving and sharing the Love for which we are created, the Love who completes our souls.

The road to freedom involves introspection, noting when and how anger rises within, seeking its real source in our hearts and histories, realizing that it usually flows from old hurts, unhealed wounds and threatened fearful corners of our hearts. Introspection allows us to understand and begin to resist.  

But this is not enough. Only prayer finally frees and heals us: consciously placing ourselves in the presence of the Love God is, opening the heart, becoming vulnerable, speaking our hurts and angry passions.

Prayer, first and foremost, is placing ourselves in the presence of our loving God who is always present. It is opening the heart, becoming accessible to the Love who is always there, eager to release us from the anger that grips the heart. In prayer, the Love God is pours into us, or arises within us by the Spirit, or both. It is hard to describe.

What is certain is that the demon of anger flees in disarray in Love’s presence. Certainly, that anger may return. It didn’t get there in a day and will refuse to die easily. But the Love who frees us is always there to speak the word and free our hearts.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

In the circle

Monday, January 11, 2021

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. (John 14:27)

The contrast could not be sharper. Music filters through the room, gently rising to the ceiling vault, finding the far corners; unseen waves of grace flowing, floating, unhurried, invisible but undeniable as the surrounding air.

A Celtic harp, violin and recorder breathe a haunting Gaelic tune that echoes familiar yet unnamable as the Love that blesses the room, an invocation of grace for the day. It awakens a fountain within that is the Presence of the Love most wanting on the streets that silently rage on the television screen.

A circle of love, of light, surrounds the chair by the window as coffee steams fresh from the cup in my hand, and I sit, here, at the radiant center of the circle, enveloped by this nameless Love whom I have ceased attempting to name. There is no need. This One just is, and is the One I most need.

Nothing seems less relevant to the silent screen on the wall. Perhaps this place of being is just an escape that I should escape and join the fray, weighing in on the rage and insanity that grips the masses, left and right.

This thought pulls at conscience, but long ago I learned, painfully, the anger of human hearts does not work the justice of God. And great anger burns within for those who trade truth for lies and reason for rage.

Worst of all is the blasphemous use of the name, Jesus, to justify the ravages of hate, twisting faces into horrid contortions of lost humanity. There are few things uglier than the face of arrogant, self-righteous rage. Still, I must be careful not to use the name of Love to condemn others as divinely loved as me, however wrong I think them.

But I fear they ... and so many of us ... will become irretrievably lost to rage and fear. Our souls are at stake as well as the lives and hearts of millions and the integrity of a nation. There seems so little any one of us can do. Still, each of us must speak and act, knowing that everything we do and say will fan the fire or quench some small part of it with grace and reason.

Although it seems naïve ... and maybe hopelessly pious ... the only cure I know for these days of rage starts with knowing a Love, a grace, a call that transcends and is greater than self.

So for a few precious minutes, I will sit in this circle, enveloped in this Love who blesses the room and frees the soul.

Pr. David L. Miller   

 

(In)completion

December 30, 2020

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:28-29)

Is there anything you need to do, someone you need to see or hear one more time? I asked the question again recently. The woman seated on the couch across from me was dying. Together, we attended to final things.

Now, the question rebounds to haunt me.

The end of this troubling year and the advent of 2021 awakens pressing questions for which there are no easy answers: What does my heart need to be at peace? What tasks must be done, what loves must be expressed for my heart to feel that elusive sense of completion?

But I know ... nothing is ever enough. The human heart is bottomless. There are no finished symphonies in this life. There is always more love we ache to know and share, always another scene to see, another joy to savor, another hug to hold more tightly than before.

And no matter how much life and love we are graced to know, our hearts still hide volumes that ache to come out and play in the light of day. Completion remains beyond our reach.

Except. There is One ... and one experience that gives rest to the heart. There is One who says, “I complete you. I am the completion you seek in your lonely search in the dark night.”

So I come again to this old chair and ... one more time ... descend into this inscrutable heart that is my own ... and breathe. And there he is, this Mystery, this One, this Love who whispers, "I complete you. Quit trying so hard. Just be here with me and know the Love for which you are made."

And finally, again, I know: Completion is not elusive, but here, now, within, where lives this Love for which the lonely heart longs.

Come to me and rest.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Christmas comes

 

December 25, 2020

The Nativity of our Lord

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome (comprehend) it. (John 1:5)

Wait. Don’t turn away because the opening is dark. This is why Christmas is so bright ... because of the darkness. So linger a moment.

For darkness attends, even on Christmas morning: a bomb in a Nashville street, a woman and child run down by a driver too fast and too afraid to stop, the shrieks of those who love them rising from my morning paper; closer still, the sadness of joys denied and heartaches unhealed.

Darkness attends, but wait ... and watch.

Watch the dark places. Refuse to turn away, for light appears. It always does ... and will, including within you. That’s the way Light is, this One who raptures our hearts this day.

In these older years, I have come to prefer a translation of an ambiguous word that suggests the Light has always been shining, always, through creation and all history, but for the most part we fail to see and comprehend it.

The Light he is, the Light that is never overcome, always there, which means always here. And looking now into the face of the child who comes and loves beyond all human expectation ... now, perhaps, we might see a bit more clearly what always has been and always will be.

So we wait ... and look ... into the brightness  and the dark corners of life, knowing, always knowing Light will come to the cold, dark places in our hearts, so tempted to imagine sadness is the end of things, darkness the victor.

For light appears, and when it does savor it in your heart. Hold it in an open hand like a butterfly that has chosen to perch on your palm for a precious moment ... for reasons you will never understand. (For who can understand this Love?)

Just, do not grasp the moment. Don’t try to hold it fast. You need to keep your hand open, your heart quiet, ready to receive the next moment ... and the next ... and the next ... when light appears.

For Christmas comes ... the Light within all that is light ... to you.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

 

 

 

 

 

O is for oh

 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down. (Isaiah 64:1)

At the back of most Christian hymnals, you can find an index that alphabetically lists the first lines of every song in the book. Find the letter “O,” and you will discover a long list of hymns for which ‘Oh,’ or more simply ‘O,’ is the first word.

I counted 64 songs in our primary Lutheran hymnal that start with ‘oh,’ the most common first word among all the hymns in the book.

But ‘oh’ is barely a word at all. It’s what comes out our mouths when we don’t know what to say, when the emotion of the moment simply forces its way from our throat.

Those 64 hymns, for example, are awash in a boat load of irrepressible emotions: ‘Oh’ is a sigh of longing and a cry for help. It expresses awe and wonder for which no words are possible. It proclaims joy and praise at the utter goodness of being alive and knowing love. It is thanks to the Great Heart who makes it all possible.

Oh is a plea for mercy and the joy of relief. It is startled disbelief at finally finding and knowing the truth your heart most needs. And it is the soul’s highest praise upon feeling the Spirit of that Great Heart within your own.

Oh says very little while saying all that is possible to say. And maybe it is our best prayer right now.

O come, o come Emmanuel. We long for moments when only one word will do.

Pr. David L. Miller

N is for name

Thursday, December 17

They shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.’ (Matthew 1:23)

Names matter as any taunted fourth grader call tell you. Having your name mispronounced or twisted into a demeaning insult stings, sometimes even decades later.

But hearing your name used with care and respect, even love, can lift your heart into the heavens or at least above the grayness of a December day.

Ancient people had much more respect for names than we do. Names weren’t just a label or a way to get someone’s attention but an expression of the essence of the one named. So they chose carefully, refusing to settle on the moniker of a favorite uncle just to be nice.

A chosen name had to be exactly right, capturing their nature, establishing their destiny.

Little wonder, then, that biblical writers tripped over themselves trying to find the right name for the child at whose manger we bow each Christmas. No name says half enough, and everything they suggested leaves you wanting something more to express but a fraction of who Jesus is to millions of souls through the centuries.

In Matthew’s story of the holy birth, an angel comes to his father, Joseph, and declares the boy’s name will be Jesus, which roughly translated is God helps or God saves. That’s good news because we know there are vast parts of us badly in need of saving.

But I like the name given a couple of verses later where Matthew quotes a prophecy, “They shall name him Emmanuel, which means, ‘God is with us.’”

Jesus must have liked this idea, too, because it echoes through his words from time to time. “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst,” he once said.

Then, there are his final words, as Matthew tells it: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Somehow he knew; more than anything else, we need to feel him near.

All in all, Emmanuel is as good a name as we’ve got.

Pr. David L. Miller

M is for music

Wednesday, December 16

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!’ (Luke 2:13-14)

One again, we confront a letter with too many Advent possibilities. ‘M’ should be for Mary, the mother of our Lord, who gave Jesus birth and wrapped him in loving care. Can there be any more important ‘M’ as we approach Christmas than Mary? She held the light of the world in her arms and felt his beating heart.  

But there is another Advent ‘M,’ mystery. The divine wonder, the Loving Mystery who is the Source of all life becomes flesh, wears a human face, an infant face, that we might know the Unknowable Love ... God is. The eternal God in mortal flesh, is there a bigger mystery?

But still I must choose a different ‘M,’ music, and here’s why.

The mystery that Immortal Love appears in mortal flesh, born of Mary, cannot be conveyed in preachers’ words or even the most sophisticated intellectual construct. Only music can do this. Words cannot bear the weight of wonder.

But music, say ... a hushed strain of Silent Night, transports the heart into the heart of love God is, rendering words a meaningless distraction.

Early today, Franz Biebel’s Ave Maria whispered through the stereo as the wan, violet light of a winter morning shadowed the living room. Blessed are you if you know the piece. Listening, rapt in its exquisite beauty, refusing to wipe away the tears, my heart knew, beyond any and every word ever spoken, the mystery of this Love who is beyond all knowing.

It’s no wonder the angels sang on that Christmas hillside long ago. Words just wouldn’t do.

Pr. David L. Miller

L is for light

Tuesday, December 15

Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them (Luke 2:9)

The Bible’s stories of Christmas are resplendent in light.

Angels appear flooding the night sky with light, the glory of the Lord startles shepherds on a hillside, a star in the heavens guides wise men to the place where lies a child who is the “light of the world.”

Just so, in the middle of the night on the winter solstice, the “dawn from on high breaks upon us to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.”

Our music savors this contrast of light and darkness: In the dark streets shineth the everlasting light. Or this, Silent night, Holy night, all is calm, all is bright.

Darkness is a symbol for everything that is wrong with the world and us—sin and selfishness, greed and apathy, hunger and injustice, misery of all types amid a world so at odds with itself peace seems impractical and impossible.

But light is the active presence and power of God, the shining forth of God ... everywhere. It is everything that enlightens our pathway to God.

We experience the light of the world in lots of places—in justice and mercy, grace and beauty, every act of care and compassion, in all that is good, right, virtuous and life-giving. Trouble is, most often we don’t know what, make that who, we are seeing.

Which is why the Loving Mystery, who created light before creating anything else, put a human face on the light of the world.

This child in the manger, this Jesus, is the face of the Eternal Light, the heart of the Immeasurable Love, shining forth to light and warm your heart in the bleak midwinter of living.

Pr. David L. Miller

K is for kenosis

Monday, December 14, 2020

Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. (Philippians 2:6-7)

You have likely never heard this world before, but it is written on your soul. It’s pronounced key-no-sis (sis as in sister). It means to empty yourself, to give yourself away for something or someone else, which whether you know it or not is your heart’s desire.

Consider an anecdote told me by a father remembering the day, years ago, he gave an important gift to his daughter. For two weeks afterward, he walked around two feet off the ground, aglow with joy.

What he gave, of course, was himself, a piece of his heart, at personal sacrifice.

Sacrificing out of love, out of the heart’s desire to give itself away, is what kenosis looks like in real life, and it most often results in profound joy for the giver. Such kenotic acts of self-giving are also the kind of thing we most cherish and admire in other human beings.

All this opens a window into the heart of Christ, revealing that we are cherished for more than we imagine.

For Christ emptied himself (kenosis) of divine privilege, stepping out of the heavenly places to be born into a life of poverty in an obscure place and time. His kenosis doesn’t stop there. He gave himself over to rejection and the ugliest death the ancient world had devised.

All this, he does, out of his heart’s desire to show the love he has for you, a love that transcends anything else we shall ever know.

But know this: When you feel that desire to give a piece of yourself away to someone ... that is exactly when you and the baby in the manger are most alike.

Pr. David L. Miller