Ponder: God speaks specifically only through his messengers

"Certainly, God speaks through everything and to everything, also to me.  Everything that is reveals him; everything that happens is an effect of his guidance and somehow affects the conscience; he is palpable at the core of me.  But all this remains vague.  It is not enough to live by, not to live as I feel I must.  It is ambiguous and needs the ultimate clarification that can come only through the word of God, and this he does not speak to everyone.

Specific revelation of reality and God's will comes to me only through people.  Divine Providence selects an individual with whom he communicates directly...The idea that everyone is strong enough to bear immediate contact with God is false, and conceivable only by an age that has forgotten what it means to stand in the direct ray of divine power, that substitutes sentimental religious 'experience' for the overwhelming reality of God's presence.  To claim that everyone could and should be exposed to that reality is sacrilegious. God is holy and speaks specifically only through his messengers.  He who refuses to accept him through his chosen speaker, who insists on hearing his voice directly, shows that he either does not know or will not admit who God is, and who he is himself.

Romano Guardini, The Lord (1954), 250-251

The Witness of Love

“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."  St. John 13:34-35

It is good to be back with you this morning.  As some of you will know, I have been in central Africa for the last few weeks.  I have spent a little of my time watching magnificent wild animals, and a little of it eating delicious wild animals, and a little of it explaining to bewildered Zambian taxi cab drivers how it can possibly be that Donald Trump is doing so well in the primaries.

But most of my time has been spent attending and writing stories about an important meeting of the worldwide Anglican Communion.  I was sent to Africa as a reporter for The Living Church, a magazine and website that serves the Episcopal Church, to report on the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council that was being held in the Cathedral in Lusaka, Zambia.  If you want to read a few of my articles that summarized what was happening, you find them on The Living Church website. 

I believe in the Apostolic Church

“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” 

II Corinthians 5:18-19

 Brazil has been in the news a great deal the last few weeks, as public health officials struggle to contain the Zika virus.  It is the latest in a series of challenges surrounding the country’s first opportunity to host the Olympic games, which will be held in Rio in July.  There’s still quite a bit of work to be done—mosquitoes to control, bays to clean up, stadiums to be completed.  And time is running short. 

 It was recently announced that the Olympic torch will be lit on the 21^st of April at the ancient city in Greece where the games were first held millennia ago.  And though the games themselves are still very much a work in progress, the plan for moving the torch across the country, the Southern Hemisphere’s largest, are pretty astounding.  The torch will go on a 95 day tour around Brazil, visiting all 26 state capitals, as well as 500 other towns.  12,000 runners will carry it, passing the torch from hand to hand, covering a total distance of 20,000 km by road,[1] until it reaches its final destination and was used to light the great flame in the Olympic Stadium at the opening of the games.

What we call the apostolicity of the Church is that way in which the Church is so much like that torch that will be passed from hand to hand across Brazil. 

For Meditation: If it Weren't True

A friend sent this to me yesterday, a word about lying and truthtelling written by a man who, by his own admission, came to know a great deal about both.

"I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me.  How?  Because 12 men testified that they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, and then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it.  Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned, and put in prison.  They would not have endured that if it wasn't true.  Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world--and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks.  You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years?  Absolutely impossible."  Chuck Colson.

At Christ Church, we have a rose window with twelve petals.  Each petal represents an apostle and depicts the symbol of his martyrdom.  I'd never before recalled that for what it really is, 12 testimonies to the truth of the resurrection.