Letters in conversation

Dear Gary,

Thanks for reminding us of “what trust moves us to do.”

Wisdom will indeed be vindicated by her children (Luke 7:35)… and God’s Wisdom trusts the Father and intercedes for us, as the Persistent Widow in the Gospel shows us — if we have eyes and hearts to see (Luke 18:1–8).

As a senior, I often watch METV. One episode I recall illustrates your point and mine.

In an old Wagon Train program, a wife falls and hurts herself badly. The husband, obedient to the Scriptures as he understood them, refuses medical treatment for her. The wife pleads again and again, but he adamantly refuses. Yet with her prayers — and perhaps his as well, along with those of the wagon train crew — the scout rides into town and brings back a doctor. This doctor was not only skilled in healing, but also a man of faith. I can’t recall — he may even have been called Luke.

Luke used the Scriptures to convince the husband that his wife’s life lay in his hands, and as her covenant partner he must lift her up and restore her health. He was called to trust that Luke’s help was an extension of the Father’s hands — a fellow traveler lending strength on the journey to the promised land.

But faith reveals that the Bride and the Bridegroom belong to one another: the Woman on the Cross is Wisdom herself, bound with the Cross, placing her heart and body into the Everlasting Father’s covenanting plan — tied to the people of faith: their children, and the neighbours and friends who walk beside them. This binding is an eternal lifeline of trust, holding the Holy Spirit fast in love — a tie that binds and will not break.

So thank you, Gary Henry, for your ministry and for reminding your readers that trusting the Father’s plan is the very heart of obedience to the Gospel.

Yours in faith,

Linda 

Oh my dear Father Barnabas Powell… 

You must be baiting me. Spelling Nikodemus as you do… I’m thinking you are imitating the Resistance Leader we know as Alexander… aka Annas the high priest, Caiphas and JOHN! Niko Demos is John who appears to Simon and ascends as Jesus the forerunner and High Priest to stand under the DIVINE CANOPY when Christ the Bride belonging to the Bridegroom pledge their troth, thus when that event occurs… John aka Alexander aka Apollos becomes Jesus the forerunner the forever priest!

Nicodemus was aware of what he was doing by meeting with the Woman Jesus identified by the Rabble as the Christ!!! Of course he was/is worried about his reputation and hers! He knows that her teaching will be taken as nonsense … because her teaching is full of wisdom and at the time he met her under the cover of darkness… she was young and had a lot to learn about the harvest!

One needs to lose one’s head and think with one’s heart and soul!!! For like the wind LOVE blows where the heart wills and like the Neck, LOVE moves the head. But it is the Amygdala within the head that remembers and causes emotions such as joys and sorrows.

But even someone with a photographic memory needs to have the written word to pass on what one remembers to others who may or may not remember things said or done in the same way… and or when conflicts arise.

So… it was imperative that the Rabbi called John have his head put on a plate … on a printing plate… so the next generations of people would remember how he came to seek and save the lost… Zachaeus (Hebrew for the clean ie pure one) (Luke 19:1–10) the Roman Advocatus and rich property owner thereby in charge of taxation… and found her going out on a limb to talk with him out on the Jericho Road.

Did he know what he was doing? Of course because he was older than she… and his teaching and his mind were focused on going behind the veil to anchor the soul to the Rock … aka Peter… the hot headed living coal (Isaiah 6:5–11) filled with and on fire with the Holy Spirit … his Holy Bride… the Woman Jesus who met with the TEACHER OF Israel Who brings VICTORY TO THE PEOPLE… the DEMOS and frees them from the tyranny of sin… that cripples people from birth and keeps them from jumping for joy… realizing they have always lived and will live again and again!

But… Peter aka the Madonna’s Don was slow to believe… for he was/is Simon the Man Jesus called Cephas bar Jonah and who later became known as Simon the Pharisee of Luke 7:36–50… and Simon the Magus… and Simon the Cyrene and Joseph of Kyrene and Joseph of Ari Mathea… and it took time for the Truth to Dawn and for him to hear the ROOSTER … the ALEKTÒR and realize that the Rooster was fessing up… and calling the Man Jesus called Simon to confess his love for the Woman Jesus called the Magdalene too. Keeping this Truth locked up with Simon’s silence was/is keeping the tombs full of dead bodies separated from the everburning bush ie the I AM the Light aka the Woman Jesus that Nicodemus did not condemn… but told to go and sin no more.

Yet… Nicodemus had also wrapped the Woman Jesus trapped in Adultery… in clean sheets and then buried, secreted… waiting for the earth to shake and the Light to rise with the ROOSTER’s CROW and the Stone to get rocking and a rolling.

How can the Woman Jesus called the Amygdala ie the Magdalene… be outside the tomb where her powerless body is wrapped in linen sheets by both Joseph and Nicodemus? Could this tomb… be the Bridegroom’s heart? or could this tomb be the tome people call the Bible?

This does sound nonsensical? Thus little children and many slow to learn that follow your blog need to pay attention to Peter and John and take note of where they are standing when they speak to the man (the community of faith) crippled from birth… who hasn’t been taught to walk the talk… and learn how to listen to those who do.

Thank you for encouraging me with your Faith… and for being faithful to the Word and bringing key scripture passages to my mind for my heart and soul to reflect and comment upon. It was you… who pointed out Hebrew 6:19–20 some time ago… and for that dear Father Barnabas Powell I am so very grateful!

sincerely yours in the Lord Jesus Christ…

Linda

In response to the catechism question: “What is your only comfort in life and in death?”

As always, Father Lawrence, you write with wisdom and clarity.

What I gleaned from this blog, I would like to comment upon:

• The Heidelberg Catechism, for example, begins by asking, “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” and answers, “That I am not my own but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.”

At first blush, this can sound like the Christian is a slave. Yet, if one truly understands the Church as the

Bride belonging to the Bridegroom — as witnessed by the Teacher of John, the Forerunner whom the

author of Hebrews reveals as Jesus — then the statement makes theological sense.

Our comfort rests in knowing that John 3:28–29 brought the Promised One into the first century as the

story of how God, our Father and Mother, incarnated and dwelt among the Johannine community. This

love was in the beginning — witnessed by the Teacher of Israel, known to the Hebrews as Moses. The

same Teacher of Israel appeared to the Woman Jesus under the cover of darkness in the Gospel

attributed to John.

And the Spirit too was there, hovering over the deep dark watery abyss… until the abyss itself sounded.

When the sound thundered, light came forth — as if to say: “Let there be light.” And there was. Any child

will tell you lightning comes first, for thunder is slower to travel. Thunder and lightning are a pair.

Yet worldly thinking keeps clergy and laity alike in the dark, if they cannot see the woman trapped in

adultery — told to go and sin no more — as the Light of the World, the very Bride of Christ crucified with

Christ the Bridegroom.

Worldly thought has drawn a sharp divide: Christ the Bridegroom as the divine, the Bride as merely

human. Few imagine that the Spirit and the Black Water, or the Black Rock that takes form, are also

Christ — witnessed by Moses. Few dare to see that Moses himself was Adam reborn.

So many today, priests and lay alike, see no comfort in the primordial story. They ask, “How does this

affect me? What’s it all about, Alphy?”

The answer is that our faithful Savior Jesus Christ is eternal. This eternal threesome and its House of

Anna — the House of Grace — proves that LOVE gives eternal life. For the dead do rise. And because

the Bride belongs to the Bridegroom, so too the New Adam and all who believe belong. Those who

honour both Bride and Bridegroom as witnessed by the “Orthodox” Teacher of the Johannine community

will see that the New Adam and New Eve — Moses and Zipporah — were born again after centuries as

John, also called Nicodemus, and Martha, the Lady of the House of Anna, calling all to repentance.

The knowledge of good and evil blinds us, but the amygdala — regulating both memory and emotion, the

very heart of the human brain — awakens us. One can rightly say the Amygdala is the heart. And so it is

no mere metaphor to say Mary is the Heartbeat of the Gospel.

See my latest blog series for more on this unfolding mystery.

And I close with this:

Father Lawrence, as you have lifted your hands in blessing over so many, I now lift up your hand in

prayer and bless you. May the God who has planted you as a faithful witness bring increase through your

words, your prayers, and your love. And may you go on — even in retirement — to bless others and

make disciples, as you have always done.