Claimed, gathered and sent

This seems to be quite a busy week for synod assemblies. My home synod, New England, is having theirs in Springfield, MA, where tornadoes ripped through the city. Thankfully, the venues for the assembly were untouched. A number of other seminarians will be participating in the VA, DE-MD, Lower Susquehanna, and other synod assemblies. As for me, I will be at the West Virginia/Western Maryland Synod Assembly, the synod in which I'm doing my internship.  I'm looking forward to gathering with so many for worship, study, prayer, and the business of the church. Many God guide each synod as they gather to do the work of God's church.

Romans 8.26 "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words."  This prayer is along that line. A Place for Prayer: Sunday Prayer: Easter 6, To Love, Be Love, For Love

  This is the message I'm preaching tomorrow at Grace Lutheran Church.  John 14:15-21 is the text. I received the church newsletter this week from my home church in Rochester, NY where I’m still an associate member. In this newsletter I learned of the death of my friend Ellen’s husband Harry. As Ellen and I talked together on the phone, she told me she’d lost her best friend. She feels like there’s a big hole in her heart that will never go away. Ellen thinks she’ll learn to navigate around that hole, that she will rebuild her life and go on, but that the hole will remain. We cried together. Ellen is a woman of faith who loves the Lord Jesus with all her heart. Because Jesus lives, she can continue to get up every morning and try to create a new life for herself without the human love of her life, Harry. Harry left her through death, but Jesus, will never leave her. Because Jesus lives, Ellen can face tomorrow and all its uncertainty. In today’s gospel, as i...

When I hear this, I think of all those who have suffered so much from weather driven disasters, both overseas and in our own country. And then along with that, we have the gospel text for tomorrow: 15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.   16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you anothe r Advocate, to be with you forever.   17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.   18 "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.   19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.   20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.   21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."   (John 14:15...

Thanks to "Living Lutheran" for this video. My heart was moved as I watched it.When I lived in the Holy Land, not far from Rachel's Tomb, there was no separation wall. Life was difficult, filled with oppression for the local people. But now on top of that, there is greater oppression with this ugly wall. Please pray for all God's people in the land.

A Place for Prayer: a prayer for those in devastation and grief and overwhelming loss