Reeking of Holiness

...Holiness is not something hazy and elusive that we know apart from the earth but something we can know only as it wells up out of the earth, out of people even as clay-footed as Jacob, the trickster crook, out of places as elemental as the river Jabbok, where he wrestled in darkness with a Stranger who was no stranger, out of events as seamy as the time he gulled his half-blind father out of Esau's blessing. "See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed," old Isaac says as he lays his hands upon Jacob, and there it is all in a moment: Jacob betrays his brother, dupes his father, all but chokes on his own mendacity, yet the smell of him is the smell of blessing because God, no less than Isaac, has chosen to bless him in spite of everything. Jacob reeks of holiness. His life is as dark, fertile, and holy as the earth itself. He is himself a bush that burns with everything, both fair and foul, that a man burns with. yet he is not consumed because God out of his grace will not consume him.

-Frederick Buechner, Now and Then, 19-20.

Living or Dying

For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.

-Romans 14:7-8

Evergreen

The righteous flourish like a palm tree
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They are planted in the house of the LORD;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
They still bear fruit in old age;
they are ever full of sap and green,
to declare that the LORD is upright;
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

Psalm 93:12-15

So Then

If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.

-Romans 14:8

Thou Hast Enlarged Me...

Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.

-Psalm 4:1, KJV

Psalm 119

I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.

-Psalm 119:32 (NIV)

My Portion

I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.”

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

-Psalm 16: 2, 5-6

I hear echos of these verses (and also below) in Augustine’s oft-quoted Confessions.

King Lear and the Apostle Paul

It is in First Corinthians that Paul also writes “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,” and the echoes of those words in King Lear are so striking that it is hard to believe that they were not consciously in Shakespeare’s mind as he wrote it. Not only are the foolish wise in his play and the wise foolish, just as the weak are strong in it and the strong weak, but what seems to be nothing—a word that Lear and Cordelia, Edmund and Gloucester, and the Fool all play upon at some length—turns out to be something of surpassing importance, as it does when in answer to Lear’s “What can you say to draw a third more opulent than your sisters?” Cordelia’s “nothing” contains the whole richness and truth of her love contrasted with her sisters’ deceit. It is almost possible to think of Shakespeare as having written the entire play as a gloss on St. Paul, adding to it such other paradoxes of his own, as that it is the sane who are mad and the mad sane, just as it also the blind who see and the seeing who are blind.

-Frederick Buechner, Speak What We Feel, 137-138.

1 John 2:1

Behold, of what country is the love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

-literal translation by James Boice, The Epistles of John, 79.

Nevertheless

When my soul was embittered
When I was pricked in heart
I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.

Nevertheless I am continually with you;
You hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire beside you.
My flesh and my heart may fail
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.

-Psalm 73

Grieving

But we do not want you to uniformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope...

-1 Thessalonians 4:13

Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters

Cast your bread upon the waters,
for you will find it after many days.
Give a portion to seven, or even to eight,
for you know not what disaster may happen on earth.
If the clouds are full of rain,
they empty themselves on the earth,
and if a tree falls to the south or to the north,
in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.
He who observes the wind will not sow,
and he who regards the clouds will not reap.

As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.

-Ecclesiastes 11:1-6 (ESV)

John 1:14

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.

-Trans. Eugene H. Peterson, The Message

Lux Venit

Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will be seen upon you.
And nations shall come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your rising.

Isaiah 60:1-3

The Days of Noah

"This is like the days of Noah to me:
as I swore that the waters of Noah
should no more go over the earth,
so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you,
and will not rebuke you.
For the mountains may depart
and the hills be removed,
but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,
and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,"
says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

-Isaiah 54:9-10

In the Wilderness Prepare

In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

-Isaiah 40:3-5

The Heavens Declare the the Glory of God

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their measuring line goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

-Psalm 19:1-6

Hebrews 11:13-14

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

Sheep Without a Shepherd

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Matt 9:36 (ESV)

Praise the Lord, Hallelu!

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

Habbakuk 3:17-18 (ESV)