“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”
– Isaiah 61:10

I may be an old crotchety dude, but I still remember the births of my children. I still remember the absolute delight of holding each of those bundles of joy for the first time. They may have cried immediately upon delivery as they saw bright lights for the first time and felt the shock of a room that was well under the 98.6° they had experienced consistently for nine months. But once they were scrubbed down, weighed, and evaluated (a.k.a. fingers and toes counted), they were wrapped in warm soft blankets and handed over to Mom or Dad to be embraced for the first time ex-utero, and they relaxed and rested comfortably in arms that enveloped them in love and care.

One of the most amazing and amusing things I noted about my children when they were young, is when they were delighted (or not) by something, they showed their delight with their whole bodies. They didn’t just smile or scowl with their lips. Their whole bodies got involved in manifesting their ‘tude.

“My whole being shall exult in my God …” says Isaiah. As a Scandinavian, I tend to be pretty stoic about most things. As I’ve gotten older, my Viking blood has dripped away, and I’ve begun to feel those weird things … I think they’re called “emotions.” Blech! Nonetheless, Isaiah reminds me I need to learn to let go and allow my whole body to embrace God every bit as unabashedly as a child embraces life – indeed, allows life to embrace them. I might give it a shot this year.

I was taken out of a warm, damp, and dark space in which I had every comfort. You brought me out into the light; you washed me clean; you gave me to others to love and from whom to be loved. I doubt I’ll ever understand completely, but I hope you’ll help me revel in your love and learn to play with your beads. Amen.
-The Rev. Keith Axberg

“They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.”
-Isaiah 61:4

I wish you could have seen Beirut and Aleppo when we did. Carol and I were in our early twenties when work and wanderlust took us to the Middle East. We lived in Iran for several years, and our travels throughout the Islamic world between Turkey and Afghanistan took us as well to Lebanon and Syria.

Our time in Beirut, back when it was still referred to as “the Paris of the Middle East,” was memorable. We had hardly been there a few weeks, visiting friends who lived just south of Lebanon’s capital, when the sectarian tensions we had sensed almost on first arriving spilled over into violence. I doubt we’ll ever forget the anxious taxi ride that took us safely out of Beirut as the fighting raged. Beirut had rebuilt to a point perhaps rivaling its more carefree days before the plight of Palestinian refugees brought the Arab/Israeli war to its palm-lined streets and Mediterranean shore, only to be devastated by a pandemic and a chemical fertilizer explosion with the power of a small nuclear device.

Our favorite city in the Middle East (next to our hometown of Isfahan, Iran) was Aleppo. Its architecture spanned a millennium, from Alexander the Great to the Ottoman Empire. Its souk (or, as we would say in Farsi, “bazaar”) was a feast for the senses, including taste — thanks to a profusion of bakeries, kebab and falafel vendors, and coffee houses. But what we remember above all else was the friendliness and urbanity of a society that prided itself on hospitality and friendship. Pictures of Aleppo today do more than break my heart — they make me fearful of what our underlying prejudices can do when distorted, amplified, and bent to the will of an authoritarian ruler.

While I despair that I will ever see Beirut and Aleppo restored, if not to their former glory, then at least to places of safety and civility where hospitality once again reigns, I do believe it will happen…because it has happened before. This is ultimately something I leave in God’s hands, but with the awareness that if we are going to be recipients of and participants in the healing and restoration of the world, then we need to give God some help.

Lord, remind us of our gospel obligation to shelter the refugee, and our country’s obligation to be an advocate of peace, justice, and mercy throughout the world. Guide us toward opportunities to live into the gospel through our generosity and shared humanity. Amen.
-Michael Boss

“…to provide for those who mourn in Zion – to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.”
-Isaiah 61.3

When I was a kid, when you saw a woman wearing all black or a man with a black armband, you knew: these people mourn a terrible loss in their lives. A former foster son of ours, Native American, once appeared with his luxurious black hair trimmed way back. He explained that he had lost a close relative, and this was a traditional sign of grieving. We know that our Mexican friends celebrate reunions with the departed on the Day of the Dead. Sometimes our culture helps us through that most difficult time of grief.

But sometimes it does not. It’s a common problem: what do we say to a friend in grief? Well, we are told often these days what not to say: “Here’s what you ought to do…” Oh, please no! Everyone grieves in their own way. Be a listener, affirm as valid the person’s real needs, be ready in your heart to pray.

As Christians, we trust passages like Isaiah’s as best as we can. We know we are called to expect healing, the oil of gladness instead of mourning. We may doubt that we will ever be whole again. But God wants to restore us, and God is patient. We need to be patient as well. It might be a longer walk than I am capable of now to get to be among the “oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.” But God walks with me: it’s God’s road.

Almighty God, look with pity upon the sorrows of your servants. Remember them, Lord, in mercy, nourish them with patience, comfort them with a sense of your goodness, lift up your countenance upon them, and give them peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP p.467)
-Tom Worrell

“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; He has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners…”
-Isaiah 61:1

According to Matthew Henry’s commentary, Jesus was “appointed and ordained … to be a preacher, a healer, a deliverer, a comforter, and a planter.” Talk about having the weight of the world on your shoulders. Often, we feel undereducated, underprepared, or under-equipped to measure up to Christ. “Why bother?” we might say. “We can’t effect change.”

At my college graduation, a well-known female national news broadcaster offered these words of advice: Crawl before you walk. At 22, I was incensed by her words. I was ready to take on the world! But her words are the bedrock toward effecting change. A cup of water here. A dollar there. A comment to a friend at just the right time. All the little ways we imitate Christ.

Through Christ, we can claim our power and mirror His calling by using our God-given talents to bring good news to the burdened or heal up the brokenhearted or help those captive to addiction or adultery or abuse or any other adversity.

The spirit of the Lord is indeed upon us, too.

Dear Lord: Help us to spread the good news, in small ways as well as large ways. With your help, we can do more than we imagine. Amen.

“He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.”-Isaiah 40:11

When I was a little girl, I stayed with my grandma Mary and my grandpa Daddy Chuck in their third-floor walk-up apartment in Chicago for two weeks every summer. Across the alley was a huge Baptist Church where I attended Vacation Bible School for a week. Do you remember the floppy felt biblical figures that were stuck to a felt scenery storyboard? Well, one of the stories was Jesus surrounded by a flock of sheep. I believed that picture and story literally well into my adulthood, no metaphor, just a guy in a long white gown, curly long brown hair holding a stick with sheep all around him, my mind at seven. Although I knew zip about sheep, I could see that Jesus was tender and loving to the animals and even carried a lamb gently in his arms and gazed lovingly into its eyes.

As I was reading numerous commentaries online to prepare and write this devotional, I discovered that there were other shepherds in the bible that I had forgotten or didn’t realize that they were shepherds.

Quoting C.H. Spurgeon, “Let us hear the shepherd’s voice. If you be the lambs, hear the shepherd’s voice which says, “Follow me”, you that are not lambs, Hear his voice”. Those of us who are His sheep, let us hear the shepherds.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word and the truth it contains. May we read, mark, learn and inwardly digest all that You would teach us and that we grow in grace and knowledge of You so that we may not be ashamed when we stand before Your Throne, in Jesus name, we pray. Amen.
-Mary Ann Taylor

“Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!'”
-Isaiah 40:9

I believe that one of the metrics of a life well-lived is the number of “Zion” moments you experience. They can come anytime, and they most always (in my experience, anyway) come as a surprise — “surprised by joy” if you will.

For me, the hallmark of a Zion moment is when I experience something so profound that I want to stop the world just long enough to look at it from as many angles as possible and determine its placement in the scrapbook of my life — the one I plan to thumb through before I move on past mortality. The title of my scrapbook, in big gold letters, is “Glimpses of God.”

Lord, thank you for leading me up the mountain whenever I’m covered in dust. The world you show me is proof of your majesty, and of the mystery that awaits us all beyond it. Amen.
-Michael Boss