for the morning

Early for more reasons than Sunday School preparation, but no matter, awake is awake, the hour notwithstanding. What I have here is all blessing: this soft blue lift chair that oozes me into any position, mug of Kona, square of dark chocolate with mint, just out the sliding glass door a flashing red channel marker light close at hand and another flashing red across the Bay near the Pass in company with a beckoning green, and that uncovenanted surplus I call +Time as the second hand sweeps defiantly by. 

Oh, and my Navy cap with scrambled eggs that I started earning nearly sixty years ago. Who would have thought.

What do we have for Scripture this morning? David’s desolating loss of Absalom and as our response Psalm 130.  
130    De profundis


1
Out of the depths have I called to you, O LORD;
LORD, hear my voice; *
    let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.


2
If you, LORD, were to note what is done amiss, *
    O LORD, who could stand?


3
For there is forgiveness with you; *
    therefore you shall be feared.

4
I wait for the LORD; my soul waits for him; *
    in his word is my hope.


5
My soul waits for the LORD,
more than watchmen for the morning, *
    more than watchmen for the morning.


6
O Israel, wait for the LORD, *
    for with the LORD there is mercy;


7
With him there is plenteous redemption, *
    and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.

We are still into the Gospel according to John with his Bread of Life Discourse, Jesus defiantly in the face of his Judean detractors, “I AM the bread, I AM the bread, I AM that bread, I AM the living bread.” In the space of one short paragraph this son of Joseph whose father and mother they know has, in their eyes, uttered sufficient robe-tearing blasphemy to warrant death.

And we have wise guidance from Ephesians 4 —

25 So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. 26 Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not make room for the devil. 28 Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. 29 Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. 31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, 32 and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. 5 1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2 and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

— guidance that old Uncle PlusTime here needs urgently to attend.


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