Post from July 31, 2023

”👟 RSD 1189 ✅ Verse (AMP translation): “comfort and encourage and strengthen your hearts [keeping them steadfast and on course] in every good work and word.” — 2 Thessalonians 2:17 (1+1=2:8+9=17)

The Message Translation (2 Thessalonians 2:15-17): “So, friends, take a firm stand, feet on the ground and head high. Keep a tight grip on what you were taught, whether in personal conversation or by our letter. May Jesus himself and God our Father, who reached out in love and surprised you with gifts of unending help and confidence, put a fresh heart in you, invigorate your work, enliven your speech.”

Did you catch that storm tonight? It was mostly lightning; the sky was just…angry. I was talking to my mom on my way home (over Bluetooth), and I kept remarking how it wasn’t really raining and how we needed it…and how I thought the sky needed it to rain. You know how people get stressed and frustrated and sad, etc, but, instead of taking a minute, they keep going? People get angry like that (not like enraged—just antsy, on edge, less patience, more likely to snap at somebody, you get the idea). Hey, if it doesn’t rain, you only have the lightning. No rain makes everything dry, everything heavy—like the air is just holding onto it. Nothing can grow with no rain, and the air particles just go haywire (I mean—those allergies, am I right?). No rain means everything’s dusty…including my car 😬. Everything just feels cleaner after a good rain. It’s like everything gets a chance to start fresh; the plants aren’t having to work so hard to get what they need, and neither do the animals. Neither do people. Yeah, everything might be humid, muggy afterword, but it still feels like something was accomplished. The sky seems lighter anyway, like it’s not holding anything back. Sky catharsis. Wait, let me borrow some Spanish: cielo catharsis. I said some Spanish: catharsis is Greek. It rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Cielo catharsis. See, even the sky knows when it needs to purge, reset, and begin new. If the sky needs to sit with itself from time to time, maybe we do too. You know, the rain/lightning thing. Even if we feel a little muggy after it rains for us, we feel somehow new. That idea of new comes at us in different ways, but it’s always welcome. No, not the “change” kind of new—just the “new” part. Like, a new (or new/used) book or a new pair of shoes or a new perfume or a new car freshie or new school supplies. The new that got you excited to unwrap a toy as a kid or the new that was that outfit that you put together for some random day at school (and got compliments on it—yeah, it was just a random Tuesday, but you came into class with a new confidence). New. Fresh. Fresh kicks. A fresh look. A fresh perspective. A fresh heart.

Today’s verse is from a letter from St. Paul to the people in Thessalonica (Thessaloniki, Greece). The Christian Church was brand new. Show room new: less than two decades. And, the people of the early Church had a lot to deal with: not only in finding and growing their faith, but also in staying the course amidst the constant threat of persecution. Paul knew this threat well, as he was writing these letters either from prison (for preaching) or in between…stays, and his past involved him on the other side of Christian persecution, being one of the Pharisees who perpetrated of the murder of St. Stephen (the Christian Church’s first martyr). Yeah, murder. Well, technically an execution—people on the wrong side of things like to dress up their deeds to make them sound justified. But, years earlier Jesus Christ himself told a crowd of people ready to stone someone for adultery, “‘Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone’” (John 8:7). Paul wasn’t a believer when he came across Stephen, which enabled Paul to believe he was justified to participate in casting stones upon him. Literally (that’s how Stephen died). People have always found a way to be cruel to each other: I’ve always heard it that Cain killed Abel with a rock (although scholars still debate the details…Cain and Abel are the sons of Adam and Eve, btw). I just thought of that with the rocks: the first Christian martyrdom and the first murder upon the Earth, both with rocks, which are simple and quite in abundance. On a much brighter note, a rock is also what David used to slay Goliath. I suppose the symbolism we can take away from this tangent is that a person really can use whatever’s in front of them to either follow God or to follow…somebody else, some thing else.

Back to our friend, St. Paul. Yes, our friend, a Saint, a murderer. Ever heard that saying “Every Saint has a past, and every sinner has a future?” It would have this guy’s picture next to it. Paul shows us that who and what we follow really does make all the difference. Paul had the potential for both building and destruction, and he takes care in his writing to make it clear that we have those choices too. Paul was a complicated figure in that, by allowing himself to lose perspective on God by clouding it with concerns over power and tradition, he really convinced himself that he was justified in his persecution of Christians. “For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers” — Galatians 1:13-14. Those are Paul’s own words, btw. Here’s how Paul got on the right side of things. Jesus knew that Paul got on the wrong bus (metaphorically), so, when Paul was on his way to a city called Damascus, a light from Heaven blinded him, and Jesus himself told Paul what was what. Jesus had sent help for him too, so the blindness was temporary (3 days), and when he could see again, Paul saw everything (both literally and metaphorically) with fresh eyes. He was baptized in the Christian faith, and went to town on his ministry. Over the rest of his life, Paul wrote a chunk of the New Testament, affording the readers of his letters (both in time and almost two millennia later) helpful doses of humility, honesty, hope, wisdom, and encouragement. In his first letter to Timothy, Paul notes, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst” — 1 Timothy 1:15. Paul had realized he was backing the wrong horse when he was on his anti-Christian mission, and instead of hiding in shame or making excuses that he thought he was doing right, Paul takes responsibility and uses his story to encourage others to repent from their sinful ways as well. Any one of us could read that verse from 1 Timothy in first person because we all sin, and Jesus died for all of us. Paul didn’t dwell on his mistakes, though, he dwelled in the present and in the future. Paul began new, even changing his name during his ministry to the Latin/Greek friendly “Paul” over his given name “Saul” (he did a lot of preaching in Roman/Grecian areas). New name. Fresh eyes. Fresh heart.

So, given this guy’s backstory, we know that Paul knows the lowest of lows that one might encounter on their journey of faith; Paul is also an inspiration for us that he finds the highest of highs in the promise of salvation through Jesus Christ. Today’s verse is one of the many Paul uses to wish God’s blessings upon his fellow brethren and encouragement for them to keep going: “take a firm stand, feet on the ground and head high. Keep a tight grip on what [they] were taught.” Paul knew all too well how hard it could be to follow the path God wants for us when the world is doing something way different. Paul knew that life could be a lot. So, in this sweet, simple benediction, Paul wishes to his fellow brethren for God to ”put a fresh heart in [them], invigorate [their] work, enliven [their] speech.” Invigorating (“giving strength and energy to”(Google/Oxford)) their work—making them strong in the way that they spread the hope found in Jesus Christ, strong in the way they grow their faith, strong in the way they forgive, strong in the way they show mercy, strong in the way they serve, strong in the way they love. Bringing life to their words of encouragement, of faith, of gratitude, of repentance, of truth, of love, of hope. A fresh heart, because sometimes we get frustrated, we get beaten down, we get heavy. No “they” this time, because Paul’s letters are for all of us. God “reache[s] out in love and surprise[s us] with gifts of unending help and confidence,” the confidence that maybe we can figure out how to be strong, be gentle, be kind, be gracious, be humble, be peace, be loving, be who God would have us become, if only we are willing to start afresh when things don’t go well the first time, when we try and try and seem to get nowhere.

Maybe we’re all on our own road to Damascus, and we only think we’re getting nowhere because we’re blind to what God is working on for us, through us, with us, in us. But, God’s encouragement through His words, through Jesus, through Paul’s words, the words of many others, tells us that when the light begins to illuminate through the darkness we experience, we’ll find that all of our efforts to do our best to do good were working together for something wonderful. We don’t have to hold the rain back in our clouds because we can’t see the road and think we’re getting nowhere—then we’re just stuck in an electrical storm, and that’s just neither pleasant nor productive. Like Paul, all we have to do is “the next right thing” that the Lord leads us to. It’s ok if it rains along the way—we’ll just dry off and continue on, just a little lighter, a little newer, and far less thirsty. A fresh heart. Purge, reset, begin anew. Catharsis.”