God’s Truth Abides Still
This year is the 500thanniversary of the Protestant Reformation, spearheaded partially by German theologian, Martin Luther. We have sang A Mighty Fortress is Our God (a hymn credited to Luther), but I am keenly aware that we face competing forces against this radical message on a daily basis. Is God still “a Bulwark never failing” as this hymn so confidently declares?
Today, while appearances display a typical fall day, myself and perhaps many of you still contemplate the excruciating losses of the past several weeks (here at home, in our nation, and abroad).
I keep wondering about hope as a resource that seems scarce in times like this. For those who are most personally affected by tragic loss, God can seem altogether absent; it’s an incredibly lonely feeling – desolate even. And yet, as author Brennan Manning once said, “…suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God.”
Let’s think about what he may mean for a moment:
It’s interesting to consider, God felt the absence of God on at least one occasion. To be clearer, Jesus felt the absence of the Father who accomplished the most profound act of ‘going off the grid’ on record. This is about as human an experience one can have. There is intimacy in suffering because the ultimate act of suffering was perhaps the most profound expression of the union of humanity and divinity. You cannot get any more intimate than God experiencing a very human death.
As a further illustration, in Philippians, the Apostle Paul expresses a longing to deeply know Christ: “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” It seems that knowing God, as in the Hebrew word yada (intimate knowing), comes in part through suffering. While this strange approach does not, nor should it, remove the pain, it does provide hope where the world and the evil one would declare there is none. It is like worshipping at a loved one’s funeral with arms stretched high and tears pouring down your face – simultaneously expressing pain in death and hope for the resurrection. We express hope in a story that hasn’t ended. Or as Luther says, “God’s truth abideth still…”

“And though this world with devils filledshould threaten to undo us, We will not fear, for God has willed his truth to triumph through us.”

May you all discover and abundant supply of God’s hope while we live in the midst of a suffering world.
Peace be with you all,
Pastor Dan

Pastor Dan