Category: UNCATEGORIZED

Suggested Scripture: Luke 5: 1- 11

Scripture Emphasis: Luke 5:11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

It has long been said, “that the darkest hour is the hour before the dawn.”The darkest hour” has been used figuratively to describe ‘ the lowest ebb in human affairs.’ There are many conditions present in Simon Peter’s life that might well place him, according to this scripture account, at his lowest ebb. Peter is not devoid of religious consciousness at the time he has his first physical encounter with Jesus here.
One’s encounter with things eternal is never dependent upon any physical vessel. It is God who chooses when to make His Presence known within a human being. No person is ever a purely physical entity, ” And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”( Genesis 2:7)
” Religion goes back to the beginning of culture itself, and the spiritual is that which makes us human.”

Simon Peter is of the Jewish faith. He would have been conversant, in at least some of the topics of the Old Testament, as Jesus was. Granted, not to the same intensity as Jesus was, yet in the way most Jewish people were. In truth, there was too much of a consciousness of God for Simon Peter to dismiss God from his thoughts completely.” What does God want with me? Is the fact that I toiled all night with my partners, and got nothing to show for it, a possible sign of something more, encroaching upon decisions already made? Have I set my horizon to end on the fishing ground, when there is something beyond that horizon that God is waiting for me to undertake?” A million such questions battered at the door of his soul. As it often is still, it is a deep-rooted fear that keeps him from answering that door. Fear is darkness! And inner darkness breeds graver fears! The darkness creeps at snail-pace towards the dawn!
Happily, for Simon Peter, the fishing nets demand his immediate attention. Paying close attention to the washing of his fish-nets provide a distraction from what was happening on the beach in front of him. Peter could see on the faces of many of his fellow townspeople, that the young Prophet’s teaching was enlightening them. In truth there it was, the very thing he longed for; Someone to bring light to the darkness of his inner self! ” But, I am not that kind of man,” he quickly interjects, as he seeks to defend his inner darkness from a straying sun-beam. And the darkness grows darker.” Who knows what will happen to you, Peter, if you join in with that beach crowd?” a sinister voice from within insists.” Would you substitute your fishing partners whom you have known for years, for any of those, you see there; and Peter, for WHAT? A career change; Peter, what will become of your family?” And ‘the dark night of the soul’ grows darker still! Then, while the doors and windows into Peter’s inner sanctum are strongly fortified, Jesus comes and speaks to him! From among all that company present at the sea-shore, Jesus picks the one who deliberately tries to avoid his attention. Jesus climbs on board of Peter’s boat with him.

The crowds on the shore grow yet larger in number, but Peter knows, it was just the two of them now: Peter and Jesus, Jesus and Peter. However, the keeper of the darkness is not yet prepared to relinquish his prize. The darkness intensified with every passing second. ” Peter, are you not being forced to play the part of a fool? Everybody knows that you must depend upon only what is given to you by this world. All of this talk of Jesus, about the Father supplying our needs, is just that, “talk.” What you see is what you get, man! Open your eyes and see!” “Peter, let’s go fishing! Let’s go out into the deeper water, and put down the nets, and catch fish! ,” said Jesus, piercing Peter’s reverie. There is a moment of intense silence! Never in his entire life does Peter struggle more intensely with the self-evident, undeniable fact. ” There is nothing out there! What You see is what we caught this whole night!” comes Peter’s muffled response. And the keeper of the darkness smiles his insidious smile. “But since You asked me,” says Peter,” I will go!”
Now I believe that it is Jesus’  deliberate intention to demonstrate, first to the tempter, and secondly to Peter, that God has more treasures hidden beneath the surface of what is visible than one can ever know until he surrenders to Him. The catch, resulting from what seemed to be the lifeless sea, sends fingers of the dawn into the eastern sky!
But the ruler of the darkness makes one more brutal assault to immortalize the indecisive darkness that envelopes Peter. From deep inside himself, words, as heavy as lead slowly escape Peter’s lips: ” Jesus, I am not worthy of all of this! I am a sinful man. Depart from me.”

But Peter meets the thrust of the demonic with the drive of the divine!
The darkest hour is shot through by a shaft of golden sunlight. Peter never witnessed a more beautiful sunrise on the Sea of Galilee in all his life than this morning’s; and he heard Jesus say: ” Neither do I condemn you, rise and let us go and we will catch people together.”

A PRAYER TO FOLLOW THIS MEDITATION
Father,
Heaven’s dawn announces a new beginning.
Even though the darkness determines to hold on to the hills, and to creep with intensity into the valleys below; You speak emphatically, ” Let there be Light,” and behold the darkest hour is fear-mongering no more.

Your newly commanded sun concentrates its brilliant beams so as to shine directly into my soul, and behold, Your light offers to dance with me, to welcome a day of rich new experience!
Upon the walls of my soul’s ‘inner sanctum,’ I am hanging the picture of my return from my own far country, and thereby will daily remind myself of Your love that makes this miracle mine. (see Luke 15:11 – 32)
Now, Father, may that same love be the driving force to carry me out into the world where there are people still wrestling with the darkest hour. Make me, my Father, a true herald of the coming dawn. For the sake of Your love, I pray. Amen

HYMN: O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go

https://youtu.be/nt69WDtYNLo

EDITORIAL NOTES

1. A careful reading of the suggested Scripture may prove helpful in more fully understanding the meditation.
2. PHOTO: I am deeply indebted to my friend William Tibbo, of Grand Bank, Newfoundland, for this moving image.

To appreciate fully the photo above one must first understand the deep emotions that led to its creation. The photo, ( auspices of my good friend, Bill Tibbo), is a memorial erected in the town of Grand Bank, Newfoundland, to commemorate the many heroic fishermen who lost their lives at sea. There is much more to this memorial than that which is visibly available at first glance. By engaging”The Third Ear” senses. one is transferred into the company of this figure ( mother, wife etc)  who spent hours upon the seashore following a storm at sea, searching for the first sign of a loved one’s return, in the days before communication technology was widely available.

_____________________________

To gain a deeper understanding of the meditation that follows, you are encouraged to begin with a careful reading of the suggested Scripture text. The editorial notes at the end may be helpful also.

Suggested Scripture: John 4: 43 – 54

Scripture Emphasis:
John 4:46-47 46 Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.

Theodore Reik, a psychoanalyst, wrote a book titled, ” Listening With The Third Ear,” in which he describes the extra sense he engages while listening to a client; hearing the hidden meaning in what is said, and then reading between the lines to discover what is not verbalized.
Engaging the sense of ‘The Third Ear”, may well awaken the critical faculty of empathy, and thereby provide an easier avenue for a client’s painful experiences to be explored.

My desire for us now is to experience an imaginary demonstration of this truth, using the incident of ‘the healing of the royal official’s son’ ( John 4). Throughout, we will let the din, which daily insults our hearing, come under the scrutiny of our personal ‘Third Ear Sense,’ so that we might share more fully in what lies behind the cloak of garbled expression.
We begin on the bustling Main Street of the fishing village of Cana, in the province of Galilee. The pungent smell in every town whose men” go down to the sea in ships, to carry on business upon on the deep’, hangs in the air. On this particular day, loud, angry voices echo through the narrow street that leads to the waterfront. Boats, usually on the fishing grounds, today, lie idle on the beaches. Their owners are jostling for a place in the long line-up of those waiting to discharge the responsibility of paying exorbitant taxes to a hated foreign government.  This arouses anger like nothing else. These were hard times for the people of Cana and the surrounding towns. Strenuous labor, scarcity of fish, and high taxes were more than enough to raise the ire of every man, to say nothing of their vocal protestations.

“Just look at Old Ichabod seated behind the desk there!” derided one angry protestor.
” Yeah, some fine, easy job it is, to be The ROYAL OFFICIAL, stealing a poor fellow’s bread, and after he lines his own pockets, and I dare to say his friend’s pockets too, he gives the rest to the ROMANS!” snarled a bystander
” Come on, and serve us, Ichabod, we have work to do. We are not all like you, sitting there licking your chops having feasted on our money!
Ichabod made no response, whatsoever! His face bore the signs of a man nearing the point of exhaustion.
“What’s wrong with you, Ichabod? Didn’t sleep well last night? Traveling from Capernaum to Cana, too much for you? Why not ask your Roman friends for an easier job?”And so throughout the morning, the raving insults continue. Praying silently to God, that nobody saw him, Ichabod quickly, and silently wipes a tear from his eye.

Ichabod remains silent, like one whose conscious self is absent from the present time and place. The pain in his heart grows more and more intense. He longs for nothing more than kindness, and that measure of decency, which one human being owes to another, especially when the vulnerability of being human must certainly be painfully on display. If only there were one human being in the crowd who had the skill of listening with the Third Ear, would he see it!   Then, perhaps there might be a contagion to share the anguish of the inextinguishable flames of love that raged in Ichabod’s heart?
Is there, in truth, no unseen common bond that binds one human being, to all others; a  kind of relationship that transcends the sound and fury of an immediate situation, and, which isolates, and compartmentalizes everyone?

There is a higher reality to which the “third ear sense “ belongs. It is that unique wisdom that feels another’s broken heart without a word being exchanged. It is to claim the identity of another human who is wrestling with the evidence, that all of his tested cisterns, in search of ‘Life-Giving Water, have failed. It is to hear the silent request, screaming in a deafening voice, begging to be loved.

Any attempt to gauge the degree of difference in the atmosphere that prevailed for Ichabod, as the tax-collector, and as Ichabod, the heartbroken suppliant is impossible. Not until SPIRITUAL existence claims preeminence over the natural reality, will we succeed in fully engaging in that which enables us to rise above the natural and animal sphere.

Ichabod encounters God in human flesh that day.Jesus is the absolute epitome of empathy. Jesus’ humanity reaches out to embrace the humanity of Ichabod. Before any verbal exchange even begins, Jesus feels the pain of a father watching the laboring breath of one dearly loved, and who fears that it may be his last breath! Jesus knew already, Ichabod’s anguish as he left home that morning, turning every second to look again at the house, where his dying son lay, fading into the distance! Love dictated that he stay, but duty demanded that he go!

Jesus was well aware of the heartlessness of the “me first” ideology, with its promotion of separation and blame, that ripped into Ichabod’s heart at the waterfront earlier.

It is an awakened “Spirituality” born of this encounter with the empathetic Jesus, that rescues Ichabod from the lasting effects of the heartlessness of his earlier experience; it is Ichabod’s awakened Spirit which results in the blessing of Salvation for his entire family, and the healing of his beloved son.

PRAYER TO FOLLOW THIS MEDITATION

O Pitying Christ, Listen to Your people crying.                                                                         Lord, send Your Spirit to this place.
Lord, listen to Your people crying.
Give us mercy, give us power, give us grace.

Jesus, the way that You dealt with that poor royal official is so awe-inspiring, that we desire to spend the day with You, so that the contagion of Your mercy, and compassion, and love might infect us.

There seems to be no end to the din of complaining about our ‘little systems’ that are fading away. Help us to  understand that all man-made systems eventually will “fade away, “having “had their day, they will cease to be.” Give to Your people, renewed faith in the miracle of our creation. The commonality that binds us all together is the dwelling of God’s Spirit within each person. It is His plan and His all-conquering Love that will result in the world’s Salvation!

Lord, Listen to Your people, Praying!  Lord, send Your Spirit to this place.
Lord, Listen to Your people Praying.
Send us Love, send us Faith, send us Grace. Amen

HYMN: What A Friend We Have In Jesus

https://youtu.be/4XRmGEbH0qs

EDITORIAL NOTES

1. The reference in the PRAYER to ” Little Systems, Having their day….” is from the poem “ In Memoriam,” by Alfred Tennyson.
2. Sincere appreciation is expressed to my good friend, Bill Tibbo, of Grand Bank, Newfoundland, for permitting me to draw upon his photographic skills for this and others of his great work.

Suggested Scripture Readings:

Psalm 46; John 14

One of the most pleasant and beautiful corners of ‘ God’s Eden’ called Fredericton, bears a stain now, the result of a senseless deed of violence this morning. But we will never let that stain come near to defining the image of what Fredericton is.
The Biblical image of Eden stands to remind us that Eden is that place where God walked with His People. And people of faith walking with God is the long-standing secret of Fredericton’s appeal and unshakable beauty.
In the days ahead let us continue to emulate those virtues of walking with God; offering most sincere condolences and empathy to families most affected by this tragedy; And remembering before God with thanksgiving .the courage of those who respond to that which would threaten and destroy. May God bless and strengthen us all.

Prayer
O, Jesus, our dream fulfilled of how humans are to be kind, compassionate, caring and determined, Please show us one thing more: how to remain faithful to You still when we are shocked beyond words.
Give to those who are heart-broken such thoughts as will dry their tears. In Your Way teach them what is meant by Your words. ” Tears may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”
It’s perhaps little use for us to ask You WHY this tragedy has befallen us, with the present capacity of our limited human condition we would not be able to understand anyway. But please, by Your Calendar, and through Your miracle-working Grace, may we see more clearly that which for now must be recognized and understood in part and through a glass darkly. Into Your hands do we commit our spirits. Amen

https://youtu.be/rR1okKsu5HM