In the Noontime of Life

~~~ Isaiah 38:1-6, 21-22, 7-8 ~~~ Psalm 38 ~~~ Matthew 12:1-8 ~~~

In the noontime of life I must depart!

For most of us noontime is the middle of the day...
Oftentimes it is the warmest part of the day...the brightest part of the day.
Would you want to know when you had reached
 the noontime of your life?
My answer is 'no', because it would be
such huge a distraction to living in the present.
What would I tempted or inspired to do differently?
Would I spend too much time lamenting my last days?

Those live whom the LORD protects;

yours is the life of my spirit.

You have given me health and life.

God wants us to live each of our days to the fullest, to the best of our ability.
He has given us life in his spirit...this was intentional.
We have life because God has granted it to us.
What God has given to us can be withdrawn from us.
We live and move and have our being in the Lord.

Today we are learning more about the terrible
 downing of a passenger airliner.
One story to surface is about a woman who missed her flight.
Had she been on time she would have perished
along with everyone else on the plane.
Her life will now be forever changed.
She has evidence of God's saving power.

You saved my life, O Lord; I shall not die.

If she believes in God's promise of salvation and eternal life,
she now has proof that he saves lives in the present.
Mostly likely yesterday she was upset at missing her flight;
today she is giving thanks for missing her flight.

Living is unique and personal.
This woman has been given more life.
What will she do with her extra time here on Earth?

The beautiful fact is that she does realize she was spared from death.
So many times when disaster strikes people survive or escape eminent death.

How can you go back to life
 as usual after something like this happens to you?

God granted Hezekiah fifteen more years.
He apparently had passed the noontime of his life.
His health was failing; as he prayed he was overwhelmed with tears.

I invite you to consider how you are responding
or how you will respond to the noontime of your life.

We will all reach that point sometime in our life.
There is no prescribed age.
One may not even recognize this noontime until it has already passed by.

Perhaps it is true that we should live each day as if it were our last day.
Is that depressing? Is it challenging? Is it scary? Is it peaceful?

We are Blessed with a God who saves...
~~~Peace~~~

Something Greater...

~~~ Isaiah 38: 1-6, 21-22, 7-8 ~~~ Psalm (Is.38) ~~~ Matthew 12: 1-8 ~~~

"...Hezekiah turned his face to the wall...And wept bitterly..."

Hezekiah is overwhelmed with grief at the revelation of his immanent death.

Would we not plead with God faced with our own death?

Would we not want God to recall and value all that we had done for him.

Would we not want God to appreciate how we had served his people?

Would we not also turn to the wall and weep?

Turning to the wall, symbolically withdrawing from what can be seen; over there.

When you are faced with death there are times when you can see nothing but a blank wall. A wall...empty, impersonal, cold which is further blurred by your own tears.

Turning to the wall; turning away from living.

God does hear the cries of Hezekiah and grants a fifteen year

extension on his life.

Hezekiah got the extended warranty for his faithfulness to God.

God listened and responded. Hezekiah was blessed.

We do not always get a similar response to our prayers,

which is frustrating.

As we go through life we encounter things that are not as we had expected.

We face disappointments and failures. Sometimes it is necessary to sever the last thread in order to move forward.

"...You have folded up my life, like a weaver
who severs the last thread."

When we feel alone and find it difficult to pray we act as if we 

God has severed his relationship with us. Even when we cannot find

God in our life we are still connected to the tapestry.

And even if we willfully sever our relationship through sin;

God will seemlessly splice us back into the tapestry.

He is that kind of merciful God.

Perhaps in death the final thread connecting us physically to our bodies

is severed by God. For we can only enter into our eternal life if we

have been folded and severed from this world.

Today's readings provide such a wealth of reflection opportunities.

The gospel reading gives us a beautiful visual of Jesus and his disciples

 making their way through a field of grain.

How picture perfect is that...sun shining, tall slender stalks of ripe grain

gently swaying in the breeze. As Jesus walks through the field

these stalks of grain envelope his body.

With each step he takes the delicate fronds brush against

his skin from all sides.

It is the Sabbath with all of its strict rules, but they are hungry.

They do what comes natural...pick off the heads of the grain

and consume it as convenient fast food.

"Jesus was going through a field of grain on the sabbath.
His disciples were hungry
and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them."

Jesus came to fulfill the laws in a new way.

He is the Bread of Life.

He picks the grains from the field in violation of the law.

He is more than their laws...he is more than the baked bread.

Jesus is the very essence...the tiny grains that will be ground into the flour.

Without Jesus we cannot have the Bread of Life.

His words at the consecration...this is my body...give us life.

Jesus was crushed and condemned by the words of the laws.

"...something greater than the temple is here..."

How frustrated Jesus must have been trying to get his disciples

to see the greater picture much less the Jewish officials.

These synagogue officials only knew what they had always

been taught about keeping the Sabbath holy.

How many times does God look at us and say,

"There is something greater going on here. Why don't you get it?"

Is God trying to tell you something?

If you look closely or enlarge the kaleidoscope above you may see

the Easter Lilies and the  Resurrection Crucifix draped in white fabric.