Isaiah 33 ~ Your cords hang loose; they cannot hold the mast firm in its place or keep the sail spread out.

1970s Christmas Tree

Everlasting Light, by the Black Keys. They single handedly save the 1970s Rock Genre. And we know our Everlasting Light is Jesus Christ the Lord.

Isaiah 33

Ah, you destroyer,
who yourself have not been destroyed,
you traitor,
whom none has betrayed!
When you have ceased to destroy,
you will be destroyed;
and when you have finished betraying,
they will betray you.

2 O Lord, be gracious to us; we wait for you.
Be our arm every morning,
our salvation in the time of trouble.
3 At the tumultuous noise peoples flee;
when you lift yourself up, nations are scattered,
4 and your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers;
as locusts leap, it is leapt upon.

5 The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high;
he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness,
6 and he will be the stability of your times,
abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge;
the fear of the Lord is Zion's treasure.

7 Behold, their heroes cry in the streets;
the envoys of peace weep bitterly.
8 The highways lie waste;
the traveler ceases.
Covenants are broken;
cities are despised;
there is no regard for man.
9 The land mourns and languishes;
Lebanon is confounded and withers away;
Sharon is like a desert,
and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.

10 “Now I will arise,” says the Lord,
“now I will lift myself up;
now I will be exalted.
11 You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble;
your breath is a fire that will consume you.
12 And the peoples will be as if burned to lime,
like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”

13 Hear, you who are far off, what I have done;
and you who are near, acknowledge my might.
14 The sinners in Zion are afraid;
trembling has seized the godless:
“Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire?
Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”
15 He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly,
who despises the gain of oppressions,
who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe,
who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed
and shuts his eyes from looking on evil,
16 he will dwell on the heights;
his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks;
his bread will be given him; his water will be sure.

17 Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty;
they will see a land that stretches afar.
18 Your heart will muse on the terror:
“Where is he who counted, where is he who weighed the tribute?
Where is he who counted the towers?”
19 You will see no more the insolent people,
the people of an obscure speech that you cannot comprehend,
stammering in a tongue that you cannot understand.
20 Behold Zion, the city of our appointed feasts!
Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
an untroubled habitation, an immovable tent,
whose stakes will never be plucked up,
nor will any of its cords be broken.
21 But there the Lord in majesty will be for us
a place of broad rivers and streams,
where no galley with oars can go,
nor majestic ship can pass.
22 For the Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver;
the Lord is our king; he will save us.

23 Your cords hang loose;
they cannot hold the mast firm in its place
or keep the sail spread out.
Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided;
even the lame will take the prey.
24 And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”;
the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.


Christmas Gift!

Trim your sails.
Trimming the sails on your sailboat allows you to make the most of the prevailing wind. An expedient thing in life. My Uncle Tate used to yell "Tack!" and then ... you duck.

My father, in his shining years, used to quote with a gleam," All you need is a tall ship and a star to sail her by."

Ecclesiastes 11:5
As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.

John 3:8
The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

and this:

Ephesians 4:14
As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming


Your cords hang loose;
they cannot hold the mast firm in its place


Psalm 103
As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.


Tonight at our Daughters of the Holy Cross, our Anglican Church organization of service and praise, we talked about our Christmas Treasures. Memories. Lynn told, with a bit of mist, of being in the kitchen with her mother for Christmas memories being made for a lifetime. Never believing as a child, times would change and her mother would be gone. My mother-in-law told me of years spent with her tiny grandmother, her Uncle Sug and walks at Christmas and summer days, as we drove past her grandmother's house. Judy sighed and said, all gone. We build memories for the next generation to hold on to; many decades to come. Places of refuge. Acts of mercy and justice to hold on to.

I inherited my Grandmother Anita's pink depression glass goblets, about 12. And used them several times with lemonade for the boys and several happy occasions. We lived in a small house at the time and I placed them in tissue paper and newspaper and stored them in a decorative basket in our utility closet. One day soon there was a crash and the glasses had been emptied into the trash, thought to be garbage. Tears arrived. My grandmother was gone and so were her pink glasses of 60 plus years.

That Christmas we went to visit my elderly cousin Maxine. She always had a roaring fire in her living room gathered from wood around her gardens. And I told my mother, my boys and Maxine how the glasses had been lost. Maxine said, "I have a Christmas gift for you, please wait and I will get that, it will take a few minutes, I'm not sure where I put your gift." We waited, Mother and I drank hot tea and the boys bottles of Maxine's Coca Cola she loved. When Maxine returned she brought in a cardboard box and she handed me an exact, identical glass as my Grandmother's pattern. I held the glass in my hand, and looked at Maxine. She said, "Your grandmother bought an extra set that year and gave them to my mother for her Christmas Gift. I am pleased to give you Anita's glasses. A return of a beautiful gift to her granddaughter." Never has a granddaughter, or a cousin, been more touched and pleased. 




1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 

14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 

16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 

17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.


Ephesians 3

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,  from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 1so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

 


<><