Day 292: “Turn! Turn! Turn!” To Everything There is a Season

DAY 292

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Forty-two    Thursday 31 December 2020

“Turn! Turn! Turn!”

To Everything There is a Season

I was leaving a hospital parking lot and turned on the car radio picking up a secular station to hear God’s Words in the words of a very popular ‘secular’ song written by Pete Seeger. “To everything there is a season,” he sang, quoting verbatim from Ecclesiastes chapter 3, “and a time for every purpose under heaven.” I had just left a loved one in a critical health crisis that had rendered me emotionally exhausted. To this day I can still hear the words and The Byrds singing them as though just for me. God was telling me one on one that there is a season for everything and that what we were experiencing was just that, a season, and that like all seasons it would come to an end – turn, turn, turn.   

Today marks the end of a season in my life as interim pastor of Patuxent Presbyterian Church in California, Maryland. It was a surprisingly short season – fifteen months, ten of which were spent in lockdown due to the pandemic. The weekend everything was cancelled in the church I began this devotional which stands as of today at 292 entries. I intend to continue it for the duration of the pandemic and beyond. You can access it at the following sites:

Online at: bayleydailydevotional.blogspot.com  

Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/BayleyDailyDevotional

Reflective questions: And what about you? We are all in the enveloping season of a global pandemic, but within it are individual seasons, chapters. Are there some that you can choose, need to choose, to bring to a close as of this last day of the year so that you can start in a new place in some way in your life? A season by definition not only has a beginning but an ending.

Will you ask the Holy Spirit to show you all seasons within and how you are to relate to them this last day of the season called 2020? Will you be humble and obey what he shows you to do?

Reflective Scripture: Numbers 6:24-26 – (The Aaronic Blessing) - “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

+ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Reflective hymn:

“I Know Who Holds Tomorrow” – Ira Stanphil (1914-1993)

I don’t know about tomorrow, I just live for day to day,

I don’t borrow from the sunshine for its skies may turn to gray;

I don’t worry o’er the future, for I know what Jesus said,

And today I’ll walk beside Him for He knows what lies ahead.

Many things about tomorrow I don’t seem to understand,

But I know who holds tomorrow and I know who holds my hand.

Day 291: Country Focus Zimbabwe

DAY 291

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Forty-two    Wednesday 30 December 2020

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe, the former British colony known as Rhodesia, sits landlocked in the middle of  Africa with a population of 16 million and 22 language groups. There is freedom of religion with Christians constituting 80% of the population, the largest number in Pentecostal and charismatic denominations. “The church has grown in numbers and in passion amidst great trials, even as the country disintegrates all around. The state failed the population, and while many find refuge in spirituality and faith, churches also work hard to meet the many desperate physical and social needs they encounter.” Violence, disease and inflation are rampant.     

Prayer Focus

+ Pray for those suffering from a high rate of AIDS and children orphaned by it.

+ Pray that politicians will repent and turn to God or be replaced by Godly leadership.

+ Pray for strength and wisdom for the churches seeking to address massive social needs.

+ Pray that church leaders will take a firm stand against syncretism in the church, witchcraft

   and sorcery and folk religious superstitions.

+ Pray that God will bring together all Christians divided by splits within their churches and 

   denominations and divisions between denominations – they desperately need each other.

+ Pray for the unemployed, now at 90% of the work force, and the demoralizing effects.

+ Pray for growth in the Foxfire ministry that reaches youth in hundreds of churches.

+ Pray for churches that stand against the corrupt government as they are then persecuted.

+ Pray a country in which life expectancy has dropped from 60 to 40 in a health care crisis.

+ Pray that Zimbabweans will experience the prayer they pray in their national anthem.

Jesus’ Prayer Request each Wednesday:

“’The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

Ask the Lord of the harvest,

therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Jesus – Matthew 9:37-38.

For additional information on praying for Zimbabwe go to: operationworld.org.

Reflective question: What one prayer request stands out for you to pray each day this week?

Reflective Scripture: Psalm 67:2 – ‘…that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.”

Reflective hymn:

“Lift High Our Flag” – verse 3 - Solomon Mutswairo (1924-2005)

Oh God, we beseech Thee to bless our native land;

The land of our fathers bestowed upon us all;

From Zambezi to Limpopo may our leaders be exemplary;

And may the Almighty protect and bless our land.

Day 290: Like in Narnia This Curse Will End

DAY 290

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Forty-two    Tuesday 29 December 2020

Like in Narnia

This Curse Will End

“As COVID-19 cases in my city climb to record levels and county officials warn the vulnerable among us to shelter in place, I feel as if I’m living in the cursed kingdom of Narnia in C.S. Lewis’ Children’s fantasy ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.’ In Narnia, it’s ‘always winter and never Christmas.’…The Narnia allegory sprang from Lewis’ own childhood struggles with loneliness and despair. Lewis credited his faith with restoring his hope. Aslan the lion is the Christ figure in the chronicles. While we’re waiting for vaccine to reach us and end the Covid curse cast in our land, I’ll take shelter from the cold winter by writing daily in the gratitude journal I started in March during the first lockdown. And I’ll hold onto the hope my own faith provides that even though there was no Christmas this year, there will be an end to this long winter.” - From a current newspaper article by the same title

C.S. Lewis, 1898-1963, was particularly adept at presenting truths at times too familiar in an allegorical context stimulating our thinking and refreshing our beliefs. “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe,” the first in a series of seven books making up “The Chronicles of Narnia” remains the most familiar due to its contemporary depiction in a full length movie by the same name.  

It is at its core the ancient classic depiction of the struggle between good and evil with, as the writer of our article above reminds us, Christ portrayed as the lion Aslan. Lewis did not have to reach far for this image: “Then one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.” Revelation 5:5. The reference here is of course to Jesus Christ.

Living in Alaska twice over the years I know what long seemingly interminable winters can be like. No matter how long and how dark, we knew they would end. So will this one. Why not watch “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” and do so through the eyes of this COVID winter.

Reflective question: Will you reach out today to someone for whom this ‘COVID winter’ is particularly difficult?

Reflective Scripture: Song of Songs 2:11 – “The winter is past…flowers appear on the earth;…”

Reflective hymn:

“’Tis Winter Now” – Samuel Longfellow (1819-1902) brother of the poet.

‘Tis winter now; the fallen snow has left the heavens all coldly clear;

Through leafless boughs the sharp winds blow, and all the earth lies dead and drear.

O God, you give the winter’s cold, as well as summer’s joyous rays,

You warmly in your love enfold, and keep us through life’s wintry days.

Day 289: Slaughter of the Innocents

DAY 289

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Forty-two    Monday 28 December 2020

Slaughter of the Innocents

We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your great mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. - The Book of Common Prayer: Collect for Holy Innocents Day

Fresh on the heels of the Christmas events in the Gospels and our celebrating of them comes ‘the rest of the story’ three days later in the church calendar, completing the Christmas narrative.

Matthew 2:13-18

        “When the Magi had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’                                                      

        When Herod realized he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

From the very beginning of the Gospel story, the power of darkness, Satan himself, was trying to destroy this God Incarnate even as he tries to destroy all lives: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they might have life and have it to the full.” John 10:10. And so we pray the prayer above for all innocent victims and against all evil powers.

Reflective question: Who weeps today in the midst of the ‘slaughter of the innocents’ through our societal tolerance of ‘convenience abortion,’ human beings who, like those slaughtered by Herod, will never live to enjoy the life God had planned for them? 

Reflective Scripture: Jeremiah 1:5 – “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,…”

Reflective hymn:

“In Bethlehem a Newborn Boy” – Rosamund Herklots (1905-1987)

In Bethlehem a newborn boy was hailed with songs of praise and joy.

Then warning came of danger near: King Herod’s troops would soon appear.

The soldiers sought the child in vain; not yet was he to share our pain;

But down the ages rings the cry of those who saw their children die.

Day 288: Light Enkindled in Our Hearts

DAY 288

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Forty-two    Sunday 27 December 2020

Christmas Sunday

Light Enkindled in Our Hearts

Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word: Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. - The Book of Common Prayer: First Sunday After Christmas

In the prologue to his Gospel John gives a distinctly alternate variant to the Christmas narratives given us by Matthew and Luke. His focus is on the light referenced in the Collect for today.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made

that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of

all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe.

He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

John 1:1-9 NIV

The second article of the Nicene Creed from 325 AD begins this way:

And we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, begotten from the Father before all ages,

God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,…

The illuminating of everyone who comes into the world is that general God-given ‘light’ or awareness that God exists. It becomes personal and specific when we accept God’s Christmas gift into our lives, Jesus Christ, “the light of all mankind.”   

Reflective question: In what ways is Jesus ‘illuminating’ your life as you seek to follow Him?

Reflective Scripture:  John 8:12 – “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Reflective hymn: “Christ is the World’s Light” – Fred Green (1903-2000)

Christ is the world’s light, he and none other:

Born in our darkness, he became our brother;

If we have seen him, we have seen the Father:

Glory to God on high.

Day 287: Boxing Day St. Stephen's Day

 

DAY 287

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Forty-one    Saturday 26 December 2020

Boxing Day

St. Stephen’s Day

Boxing Day, marked by our neighbors in Canada as well as throughout the English-speaking world with variations in other European countries, has its origin in a shrouded history going back centuries, first mentioned in the diary of one Samuel Pepys in 1660. The Victorians who elevated Christmas into a major celebration in England set this day in 1871 as a legal holiday. The two most probable origins of its name are that the ‘poor boxes’ in churches were emptied and distributed to the poor the day after Christmas, and those who could do so would take gifts and food from their Christmas feast the day before in a box to the home of a poor family. Boxing Day. 

And St. Stephen? He remains the first Christian martyr, his special day in the Christian calendar placed the day after Christmas. Stephen was a ‘first deacon,’ committed to taking care of the poor and widowed in the early church, a fitting early church servant to look to as an example on this the day set aside to serve, as did he, the poor.

And ‘Good King Wenceslas’? Ruler of Bohemia in the 10th century, legends that grew up around him after his death had him known for his regular service to the poor and needy, hence his association with this day. The familiar carol below blends these two stories into one.

Reflective question: Do you have something you can put in a box and take to someone who needs it today?

Reflective Scripture: Acts 6:5 – “They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit;…”

Reflective hymn:

“Good King Wenceslas Looked Out” – John Mason Neale (1818-1886)

1. Good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen,

When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.

Brightly shone the moon that night, though the frost was cruel,

When a poor man came in sight, gathering winter fuel.

1. “Hither, page, and stand by me, if thou know’st it, telling,

Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?”

“Sire, he lives a good league hence, underneath the mountain,

Right against the forest fence, by St. Agnes’ fountain.“

2. “Bring me flesh and bring me wine, bring me pine logs hither.

Thou and I will see him dine, when we bear them thither.”

Page and monarch, forth they went, forth they went together,

Through the rude wind’s wild lament and the bitter weather.

Day 286: CHRISTMAS DAY A Fourth Century Christmas Prayer

 

DAY 286

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Forty-one    Friday 25 December 2020

CHRISTMAS DAY

A Fourth Century Christmas Prayer

The radiance of the Father’s splendor, the Father’s visible image,

Jesus Christ our God, peerless among counselors, Prince of Peace,

Father of the world to come, the model after which Adam was formed,

for our sakes became like a slave: in the womb of Mary the virgin,

without assistance from any man, he took flesh.

Enable us, Lord, to reach the end of this luminous feast in peace,

forsaking all idle words, acting virtuously, shunning our passions,

and raising ourselves above the things of this world.

Bless your church, which you brought into being long ago

and attached to yourself through your life-giving blood.

Help all pastors, heads of churches, and theologians.

Bless your servants, whose trust is all in you;

bless all Christian souls,

the sick, those tormented by evil spirits,

and those who have asked us to pray for them.

Show yourself as merciful as you are rich in grace; save and preserve us;

enable us to obtain those good things to come which will never know an end.

May we celebrate your glorious birth, and the Father who sent you to redeem us,

 and your Holy Spirit, the Giver of life, now and for ever, age after age. Amen.

From the late third or early fourth century Syriac Christmas liturgy.

Reflective question: Which petition in this ancient Christmas prayer speaks most to you? Why?

Reflective Scripture: Isaiah 7:14 – “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son and shall call him Immanuel.”

Reflective hymn:

“Savior of the Nations, Come” – Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Savior of the nations, come;

Virgin’s son, here make thy home!

marvel now, O heaven and earth,

that the Lord chose such a birth.

Day 285: Christmas Eve This Holy Night

 

DAY 285

                              Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic                     

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Forty-one   Thursday 24 December 2020

Christmas Eve

This Holy Night

O God, you have caused this holy night to shine with the brightness of the true Light: Grant that we, who have known the mystery of that Light on earth, may also enjoy him perfectly in heaven: where with you and the Holy Spirit he lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.  - The Book of Common Prayer: Christmas Eve

It was midnight Christmas Eve in the church in which we had grown up when my younger sister and I, both teenagers, emerged from the sanctuary following a traditional service that concluded with a darkened sanctuary, people holding lit candles aloft, and the congregation singing “Silent night, holy night” a cappella. “Oh Robert,” she said, “Don’t you just feel so holy?”   

An honest response to a moving service held long after we were normally allowed to stay up, to this day I reflect on that experience and believe my sister was on to something, not the ‘feeling’ holy thing, but rather the reality that we can, because of Christmas, actually be holy in God’s sight, His possessions through belonging to Jesus Christ confessed as Lord and Savior, for whom all His property is holy by virtue of His possession of it, that which is set apart as His.

In the midst of all the commercialism of the season, all the elevator music in the stores proclaiming, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come,” “Hark! The herald angels sing, glory to the new born King,” and “Silent night, holy night … Christ the Savior is born,” there is, I believe, another ‘silent’ pulsing through it all, another ‘holy’ hovering over everyone, God the silent Holy Spirit using it all to open hearts to the Content behind the commercialism, the Reality behind the rituals, the Truth behind the tinsel and the trees.   

May ‘this holy night,’ however you mark it, impress you with a sense of the holy that you are, through your faith and trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior whose birth it celebrates.  

Reflective question: In what part of the Christmas season do you most sense the presence of the Holy One and in the sensing feel holy, belonging, in His sight?

Reflective Scripture: Leviticus 20:26 – “You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy…” 

Reflective hymn:

“Silent Night” – Franz Gruber

Silent night, holy night, Son of God, love’s pure light;

Radiant beams from Thy holy face with the dawn of redeeming grace,

Jesus, Lord at Thy birth, Jesus, Lord at Thy birth.