A, The Second Sunday of Advent - Matthew 3:10-12 "Three Fires:Destruction,Spirit,Refinement "

Matthew 3:10–12 (ESV) Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

It looks like a forest full of eucalyptus trees, but on closer inspection the trees are in uniform rows and not scattered like they are in a forest.  No! These eucalyptus trees are a plantation grown for the purpose of harvesting hardwood. Because the trees were all planted at the same time they have competed for sunlight and have grown tall and straight to make good timber for construction. 

One week the plantation stands tall, and then in a relatively short time it’s flattened.  The timber is harvested.  It goes on to serve its purposes for many years to come.  But the dying limbs and leaves are pushed into piles and burnt.

The plantation forest is a dismal sight compared to its former self. The only thing left is stumps.  Over time the seemingly dead stumps show signs of life and green shoots appear.  Within a year or so, these shoots form a mass of leafy bushes growing out of the stumps.  But these eucalyptus bushes that replace the tall trunks from the tree’s former life are stunted and twisted — not good for any use.

In time the owner of the field looks to a new type of harvest, the collection of electricity in a solar farm.  But first, the stumps are laboriously and painstakingly dug up one by one and burnt with the now dying leafy bushes.  Then the land can be cleared and cleaned for a solar farm to be constructed.

Matthew’s Gospel reports John the Baptist accusing the Pharisees and Sadducees of being a “brood of vipers”, to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance”, if they were “to flee from the wrath to come.” (Matthew 3:7-8)  John refers to them as the trees at which an axe is laid at the roots waiting to see what type of fruit is produced.

Last week we heard Jesus speak about signs of his coming. With the picture of the fig sending out shoots as a sign, we hear about bearing fruit in keeping with repentance.   Here we are reminded of the fig again, when Jesus curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit as he walks the way of the cross to bear the bad fruit of humanity.

On the day after Palm Sunday, Jesus, in hunger, seeing a fig tree, “found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, ‘May no fruit ever come from you again!’ And the fig tree withered at once.” (Matthew 21:19 ESV)

These decisive words from Jesus’ mouth destroy the fig tree. Similarly, John the Baptist’s words to the Pharisees and Sadducees are equally significant as he warns of their destruction without the fruit of repentance.

Three times John speaks of fire.  First, trees are cut down and thrown into the fire.  These trees are those that are not repentant.  The Pharisees and the Sadducees have arrived to see what John was doing at the Jordan River.  Perhaps some were intending to be baptised with others who were fruitful in confessing their sins.  Were they coming to flee the coming wrath through repentance, by confessing their sin?  Or were they coming to make a show before others who were confessing sin and being baptised with a baptism of repentance?  Either way John warns that the axe lies in wait!

Second, John compares his baptism of repentance with the coming of Jesus, saying, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11 ESV)

Here John connects Jesus’ baptism in (by, or with) a baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire.  This is John’s second mention of fire.  We know that tongues of fire appeared at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was given.  This was good fire.  When Jesus was baptised by John in the Jordan, he was baptised to fulfil all righteousness.  The fulfilling of all righteousness meant Jesus faced the fires of hell and death at the cross and gained victory over the fires of hell that were meant for us.  This is also good fire, when we allow the judgement to fall on Jesus at the cross through our confession of repentance.  Otherwise, as John rightly mentions these fires of judgement await all those who stand stubbornly unrepentant and will be chopped down and burnt bearing their unrepentant sin.  Then the fire becomes dire and deadly!

John mentions fire a third time to the Pharisees and Sadducees after Jesus winnows the wheat from the chaff that burns with an unquenchable fire. 

Unquenchable fire paints an ugly picture of those whose unquenchable passions resist the refining fires of the Holy Spirit.  Like one in the path of a raging unquenchable bushfire, so too is one who does not allow the Holy Spirit to backburn the human heart and the unquenchable sin that lies within.

Fire may be frightening, but I put it to you, a life “without fire” can also be frightening.  Since the first humans worked out how to make fire, we rely on it for everything.  Without fire, we all bathe in cold water, all food is cold and uncooked, and warmth in winter is just a memory.  Without fire, minerals stay in the ground and never become the metals relied upon in every part of modern life.

One might think fire and peace are mutually exclusive of each other.  The three fires John the Baptist proclaims speak differently. 

The first fire is the promise of destruction for all those who reject the two fires that follow.  Rightly, this fire fills hearts with fear.  As Luther says of Holy Baptism in his Small Catechism, “our sinful self, with all its evil deeds and desires, should be drowned through daily repentance; and that day after day a new self should arise to live with God in righteousness and purity forever.”  In other words, in the face of this fire, we flee to the cross as knowledge about our sinful selves is daily brought to light.  Like the Prodigal Son in whom the Holy Spirit wins out over the human spirit, you and I are prodigals brought to a right mind and daily returned to the graciousness of God the Father, in his Son Jesus Christ!

We are returned to the second fire which John proclaims!  This is the baptism of Jesus in the Holy Spirit and fire.  In fact, this second fire is essential to overcome the first fire! 

In his baptism Jesus was baptised into the fires of humanity’s sin — your sin!  Having put aside his divinity as the Son of God, as the Son of Man in human flesh in his baptism he received the Holy Spirit on which he relied, to sinlessly be the sacrifice for our sin — your sin! 

Just as under the old covenant God lovingly consumed the sacrifices for the atonement of sin by fire, God joyfully receives the sacrifice of our sinful pride, as we confess our sins in repentance.  Humility is a small price to pay for the reception of Jesus Christ’s sinless death,  for our sin that deserves death and the eternal fires of hell.

In light of Jesus’ sacrifice, the need to make fiery sacrifices under the Law is finished.  All who know their works are not good enough for salvation would agree this fire is very good.  Just like fire is very good for cooking food, washing oneself, and for feeling warm!  The fire of the Holy Spirit that allows us to burn our sins in repentance through Christ is truly very good.  This fire makes us warm when we are cold!  It makes us warm in Christ, as he takes the coldness of death on himself on the cross.

Where the forest, the plantation of Israel was destroyed and thrown into the fire, Jesus has become Israel for the repentant, and we the church are his body of repentant confessing believers.   Jesus is Israel’s shoot from the stump of Jesse, and now stands as the tall, towering trunk into which the church is grafted. 

The Spirit of the Lord that rested upon him, rests upon the repentant church.  This is the Holy Spirit that gives wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of the Lord to the body of Christ – his holy church.  Despite our humanity looking like a fruitless fig tree, Jesus does not judge us by what he sees or hears, but by his righteousness sifting the wheat of Holy Spirit-germinated righteousness from the chaff of our humanity.

This brings us to the third fire after Jesus winnows or sifts us.  As we live in Christ, daily allowing the death of self in our baptism and being raised to life in the resurrection of Jesus, we are refined  by the fires of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ death and resurrection.  The fruit of the Spirit is sifted from the chaff of our humanity.  We are being constantly pruned and used as pieces of Holy Spirit-treated timber for the building of Christ’s church on earth. We are Holy Spirit-refined wheat, cleansed to be germinators of God’s word wherever he’s put each of us in this world.

The Advent candle of peace is lit!  Let the peace of God burn in you as the Holy Spirit leads you in your repentance and confession for the forgiveness of sin.  You have been grafted into Christ to bear the fruit of Christ to others.   In the name of Jesus Christ, you are fruitful — let grace and peace be multiplied in you as the Holy Spirit makes him known to you. 

Let the Holy Spirit make you fruitful and faithful in Christ!  May his fire warm your heart, refine your spirit, and strengthen your witness. And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, now and always. Amen. 

B, Post Pentecost 26 Proper 28 - Mark 13 "Final Day Failure to See Failure"

On January sixteen, two thousand and three, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration in the United States of America, launched space shuttle Columbia into a sixteen-day orbit around the earth for an extensive scientific mission.  It never touched down!  In the sixteenth minute before it was due to land, mission control lost contact with the orbiter as it broke up on re-entry over Texas and Louisiana. 

The greatest fears were confirmed as video from the media was broadcast to the US nation, unbeknown to mission control in Houston, who were still trying to reestablish contact with Columbia.

A chunk of foam, not unlike the expander foam you can buy at a hardware store, just twenty-one to twenty-seven inches long by twelve to eighteen inches wide, that’s about half to three-quarters of a metre by thirty to forty-five centimetres.  It broke off the large propellant tank strapped under the shuttle, just eighty or so seconds after launch, smashing into the reinforced carbon-carbon covering the left wing of the orbiter.

There were concerns over the incident by some at NASA, but it was dismissed because it was unbelievable that foam could damage, let alone, destroy reinforced carbon-carbon on the wing of the Columbia.

The scientific mission of Columbia was ended, ironically,  by a scientific impossibility, as some believed.  However, in the aftermath of the disaster, it was shown through experiment that foam could destroy reinforced carbon-carbon, when it’s travelling at high speed.

The fracturing of foam was known to NASA.  Yet people at NASA control still kept sending astronauts into orbit knowing brittle bits of foam were being dislodged.  Some of which earlier had caused damage to one of the Atlantis shuttle’s solid fuel rockets without catastrophe, since these are ejected after launch, not needed for re-entry. 

However, the damage to the Columbia space shuttle orbiter proved fatal on re-entry, due to catastrophic destruction of the left wing’s protection from the foam collision on take-off.  Therefore, without this protection, the super heating that occurs on re-entry, opened the vehicle for destruction, and the crew was lost.

The great pleasure in NASA,  and the accomplishment of a successful mission dissolved into NASA’s and the United States’ realisation of their greatest fears. What they had marvelled over as their greatest achievement brought about their greatest fears, destruction and death!

The disciples marvelled at the stones and the buildings of the Jerusalem temple, to which Jesus replied, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” (Mark 13:2 ESV)

This was not the first temple but the second.  Solomon’s temple had long been sacked, and in its wake, Herod set about to construct the second temple.  Last week we heard in Solomon’s Psalm one hundred and twenty-seven, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil.” (Psalm 127:1–2a ESV)

However, the Jews didn’t take heed of God’s Word, nor the four hundred years of events that led to Jesus’ coming.  Rather, they vainly trusted in themselves and their deeds, forgetting what led to Israel’s and Judah’s destruction and desolation.  Hear the unbelief of the people when God sought to call their vanity to account through Jeremiah…

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.”  (Jeremiah 7:3-4, 8–11 ESV)

From Mark’s Gospel we hear Jesus prophesy the reality of Jerusalem and its temple in the end times.  After the destruction and desolation, that saw their forefathers exiled to Babylon and beyond, having not remained under the warnings from God in his Word, they continued refusing to listen to Jesus, the Son of God, and sought their own desires causing desolation and destruction.  

In these last days, in which we have been since Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the church continues to test God with its opposition to his Word, and fails to heed its warnings, as it seeks to place its trust in culture and the authority of the mob.

Our General Pastors’ Conference and General Convention of Synod, like NASA, like the Jews, has not listened to God and his Word, nor the advice of previous synods, nor two thousand years of Christ sustaining his church from desolation and destruction. 

At best, what is done has occurred through apathy, as a deception of the “abomination of desolation standing where here ought not be” (Mark 13:14)  That is, evil in the place of Christ, masked as an angel of light, working through mischief to lead the apathetic into a unity of ignorance that’s false and leads to destruction.

At worst, like those who lead others into deception, some are acting with deliberate disobedience before God and his Word, by placing themselves over the Word of God in seeking to conform the church to the catastrophic cultural corruption all around us.   

So, like NASA and the pressure upon it to be popular and positive, the church is led into negatives that lead to the worst.  Without addressing the issue that was the worst, the worst occurred at NASA.  Nothing was learnt from the “sins of the past”.  Nothing was done about the foam breakage issues, until it was too late.

The greatest fear in front of us in God’s church, is that we become lost to our baptismal salvation, like the crew and vehicle of Columbia.  In ignorance, we trust in the word of others, rather than God’s Word, and tempt finding ourselves on the wrong side of God’s judgement.  

We can lose control and burn up so close to salvation, through apathy and deception, or active wilful disobedience.

Don’t let what others say, “is a harmless little piece of foam”, when it can destroy your baptismal faith!  Don’t allow your faith to become a piece of foam that destroys you.  Don’t let that which is meant to protect you become dislodged so that it destroys you!  If you think this can’t happen to you, I invite you to open God’s Word and allow the Holy Spirit to show you that it can, and has, to God’s chosen people, who had “the temple of the Lord”, that ultimately, he allowed to be destroyed in 70AD.

Speaking of NASA and the disaster, a shuttle chief engineer said, “I feel ashamed!  So, who’s guilty? I’m not just going to say the program managers are. We’re all guilty. If you don’t speak up for your own system and you’re victims of this environment, we’re guilty too!” (Rodney Rocha – NASA Shuttle Chief Engineer, Series 1 Episode 3, The Space Shuttle That Fell To Earth, ABC Television)

How do we galvanise ourselves against our greatest fear, eternal death and destruction?  On judgement day it’s no good saying to God, “I believed in Pastor Heath!  I believed in the bishops!  I believed in the LCANZ!  I believed in what I felt, in what “I” thought about God.  We have to believe “the Word of God”!  To open it!  Read it!  Pray for understanding, worked in you by the Holy Spirit, so you stand in submission under Jesus Christ and his Word!  God calls you to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12–13 ESV)

Jesus says to you who desire to fear and love God, who fear eternal death over earthly death, “See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray.” (Mark 13:5–6 ESV)

The seemingly harmless pleasures, “the pieces of foam”, within each of us, within our congregation, parish, district, and synod, can destroy us and bring eternal desolation.  Therefore, be strengthened in the Word of God to be on guard against your sinful self; the evil within.  Be strengthened against the cultures of chaos working through others; the evil from without!   Be strengthened against the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not be; that is, the devil, the evil one, inside and outside the church!

Since Christ ascended into heaven, the commonwealth of God’s holy church has always been tempted into becoming common by losing the holiness of its wealth.  Two thousand years into the end times, some have lost sight of what makes us holy, that sets us apart from the world, as God’s children, as his commonwealth. 

This commonwealth community of God is a republic of repentance.  Our eternal wealth is built on the knowledge of our failures having been forgiven.  The Holy Spirit leads us as a republic of repentant sinners constantly being forgiven in Jesus Christ.  The fragility that fractures this faith, is your human spirited apathy or wilful disobedience to participate in the Holy Spirit’s republic of repentance. We’re being made one as the Holy Spirit works common repentance, reviving us as God’s renewed public property, a holy commonwealth in Christ.

Your fear of failure needs you to understand your weakness and ability to fail!  If you don’t, you will place your faith in yourself; the very thing that causes your failure.  Failure to repent, to know you need to repent, is catastrophic!  

An accident investigator of the Columbia tragedy said, “This was a known failure. But I think failure to imagine being wrong, the failure to imagine the consequences of failure, are catastrophic.  And I think it’s this whole notion of the failure, to imagine failure.” (Patrick Goodman – Accident Investigator, Series 1 Episode 3, The Space Shuttle That Fell To Earth, ABC Television)

Like NASA, the Jews failed to recognise their failure to follow God’s Law and their failure by trusting in the temple the Lord gave them, rather than his Word.  When we fail to recognise our failure and the forgiveness offered because of our failure, and place faith in what fails us, we become like those who believe in the temple, rather than God who gave the temple.  And like those who believed a cheap piece of foam couldn’t harm reinforced carbon-carbon.

The only safe ship that will deliver you through the atmosphere of failure and death into eternity, is the eternally enduring coverings of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh!  Amen.

B, 2nd Last Sunday of Church Year, Proper 28 - Mark 13:1-2, Hebrews 10:11-28 "The Temple Body"

Mark 13:1-2 (ESV) And as Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!”  And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. 

The temple in Jerusalem no longer exists.  In 70 AD the Romans levelled the place, due to a revolt by the Jews that began in 66 AD.

When Jesus was crucified, the curtain in the temple separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies was torn in two (Mark 15:38).  Christians recognise this as the time when the Old Covenant ceased to function along with the sacrificial requirements of the Law.  And along with the end of the sacrificial requirements was Jesus Christ’s one time victory over death and the devil; sin and Satan.

As we are told in the book of Hebrews, “‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’  Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.” (Hebrews 10:17-18 ESV)

What the disciples didn’t know, Jesus was the new temple, replacing the temple at which they marvelled.  These mega stones and structures would be wrecked and razed in a mega-destruction.

So, here we have a picture of Jesus turning the attention of the disciples, from the temple, to him and his word of promise.

But it is interesting that this happens, since Jesus had overturned tables of trade in the temple (Mark 11:15-19). Through the parable of the Tenants, he revealed he was the stone the builders rejected (Mark 12:1-12)

He told the Pharisees and Herodians to render to Caesar what bears the image of Caesar and to God what bears the image of God (Mark 12:13-17). 

He told one of the Scribes, “love the Lord your God with all your soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:28-34).  

He taught in the temple, that the Christ was the Lord of David, even though he was the son of David (Mark 12:35-37). 

And just prior to the disciples being impressed by the size of the temple, Jesus highlights the wealth of the poverty struck widow, who put all she owned into the temple treasury, against the perception of the scribes’ greatness and the greater condemnation they would receive (Mark 12:38-44).  

All along Jesus was painting a picture of himself as the temple but despite this, they didn’t get it.  When Jesus told the Scribe in the temple, “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34), no one realised he was speaking about himself. He was not talking about the temple, nor an abstract understanding of the kingdom of God.

Jesus is the temple of God.  He is the Curtain of Creation through which we enter the presence of God, encouraged by the Holy Spirit to receive his blessing. 

“We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,  by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,  and since we have a great priest over the house of God,  let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:19-23) 

Jesus paints this picture.  The disciples don’t get it. It is interesting but we shouldn’t be surprised!  Why?  Because we too struggle to see Jesus as the singular curtain through which we are led into eternal life!  And we have a much better understanding of this picture because Jesus has completed the picture. Jesus waits for our response, now that he has been raised and ascended into heaven; the Holy Spirit has been sent; and the temple now no longer stands in Jerusalem.

Yet we find the confession of our hope in the church is being sorely tested at the moment.  As a community of faith and as individuals, hope appears to be suffering. Because our hope suffers, confession of our hope is next to non-existent.  But where a confession of hope does exist, it’s a wavering hope, darkened with deadly doubt and blended beliefs.

Rather than a confidence in Jesus’ return and restoration, one hopelessly doubts saying, “I hope Jesus returns!” 

What is going on in the core of our being when this happens?

Like the disciples invested interest in the wonderful temple, we too have invested in many other temples.  Like the temple in Jerusalem all these other temples will end in decay and be devoted to destruction.  Although our temples of worship, unlike the temple in Jerusalem, have never served any function in the salvation of humanity.  Rather, they do quite the opposite, and erode faith, hope, and love, breeding self-righteousness and arrogance, hopelessness and despair, looseness and unappeasable desires.

Social media, advertising, individualism and the pursuit of pleasure have had a subtle effect on us all.  But there is nothing subtle about what our indoctrination in these things is doing to us as a society.  The temples are taking our time and they are taking our souls.  Such are the temple towns in which our hearts are deceptively drawn to in wonder, but end in disappointment, dissolution and destruction.

Unlike the temples that licence us for licentiousness, misery, and deathly desire, Jesus is the temple of truth, and he is faithful in his deliverance from death.

Unlike the temple in Jerusalem and the temples of our heart that end in death, he is the temple that begins in death and ends in life.  Where disfunction caused the death of the temple in Jerusalem and where the decay of our bodies will end in death, Jesus is the temple that begins in death that restores faith to live, hope to die, and love to forgive. 

One might ask why God would have Moses receive and institute the Law, with the temple  requirements, that would become dysfunctional?  All the Law seemed to do was breed works righteousness rather than love and faith in God who made the temple his footstool on earth!

And despite Jesus being the new temple that was destroyed and raised in three days (John 2:19), we still struggle with unbelief, despair, and our desires to be divine in our temples of goodness. And so one might also ask, “Has Christianity become just as dysfunctional as the temple at Jerusalem?”

What is God doing?

He is waiting!

When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,  waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.  For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. (Hebrews 10:12-14 ESV)

Jesus is waiting for that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet!  In other words, he is teaching us and testing us.  Our Heavenly Father is teaching us, Jesus is the only Curtain through which we have access to him, and through testing us, his desire is that we learn from our weakness and failures and seek him, rather than rejecting his help and becoming his enemies.

Saint Paul puts it best, “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.  For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling,  if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked.  For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.  He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.” (2 Corinthians 5:1–5 ESV)

It is God’s will that the temple of our body will be swallowed up by life, the temple of Jesus, where faith, hope and love dwell.

In addition to this we can marvel at the wonderful work of the Holy Spirit who comes to us in baptism and brings us into Jesus as a community, by planting Jesus in each of us individually at baptism. This is God’s guarantee!

John realised the greatness of this guarantee and records it in his Gospel, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14 ESV)

His dwelling among us, is Jesus making us his temple community in which he tents or tabernacles. This is where our Immanuel indwells. Doesn’t Jesus say, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matthew 18:20 ESV)

So, since we have God’s promise, his faithfulness, the certainty of hope of life through death, and Jesus’ love from the cross through our baptism.  “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love (to forgive) and good works (confessing God’s good works of forgiveness and our good confession of sins),  not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, by confessing your sins to one another, and praying for one another, that all of you may be healed, and all the more as all of you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:24–25, James 5:16)

Amen.