3rd April 2020.Daily Devotion.

Dear friends,

We are moving daily closer to Holy Week, the week of the trial and the triumph in Jesus ministry of redemption. He rode into Jerusalem as the Eternal Son of God in human form, he rose and he ascended from Jerusalem the eternal Son of God in a new and glorified humanity.

Here is an adapted version of a reading from Streams in the Desert which I hope you may find helpful:

Isaiah 24 is a very powerful description of a time of upheaval in the world that feels very like our experience today. It is a passage we tend to overlook. Read it now as you have time, and in the middle of it notice in verses 14-16 the call to glorify God. We are to honour the Lord in the trial—in the very thing that afflicts us. And although there are examples where God did not allow His saints to even feel the fire, usually the fire causes pain.

It is precisely there, in the heat of the fire, we are to glorify Him. We do this by exercising perfect faith in His goodness and love that has permitted this trial to come upon us. Even more, we are to believe that out of the fire will arise something more worthy of praise to Him than had we never experienced it.

To go through some fires will take great faith, for little faith will fail. We must win the victory in the furnace. Margaret Bottome.

A person has only as much faith as he shows in times of trouble. The three men who were thrown into the fiery furnace came out just as they went in—except for the ropes that had bound them. How often God removes our shackles in the furnace of affliction!

This is the way Christians should come out of the furnace of fiery trials—liberated from their shackles but untouched by the flames.

This is the real triumph—triumphing over sickness in it, triumphing over death in dying, and triumphing over other adverse circumstances in them. There are heights we can reach where we can look back over the path we have come and sing our song of triumph on this side of heaven. We can cause others to regard us as rich, while we are poor, and make many rich in our poverty. We are to triumph in it.
Christ’s triumph was in His humiliation. And perhaps our triumph will also be revealed through what others see as humiliation. Margaret Bottome

Isn’t there something captivating about the sight of a person burdened with many trials, yet who is as light-hearted as the sound of a bell? Isn’t there something contagious and valiant in seeing others who are greatly tempted but are “more than conquerors” (Rom. 8:37)? Isn’t it heartening to see a fellow traveller whose body is broken, yet who retains the splendour of unbroken patience?
What a witness these give to the power of God’s gift of grace! John Henry Jowett

When each earthly brace falls under,
And life seems a restless sea,
Are you then a God-held wonder,
Satisfied and calm and free?

Here is a prayer from the Archdiocese of Canada in the Orthodox Church in America. Its language is old-fashioned, but its content is very appropriate:

O God Almighty, Lord of heaven and earth, and of all creation visible and invisible, in thine ineffable goodness, look down upon thy people gathered in thy name. Be our helper and defender in this day of affliction. Thou knowest our weakness. Thou hearest our cry in repentance and contrition of heart. O Lord who lovest mankind deliver us from the impending threat of the corona virus. Send thine angel to watch over us and protect us. Grant health and recovery to those suffering from this virus. Guide the hands of physicians, and preserve those who are healthy that we may continue to serve thee in peace and glorify thy most honourable and majestic name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.