DECEMBER 14, 2022, MIDWEEK LUM DEVOTIONAL
A VERY SPECIAL MORNING
MARTIN LUTHER’S MORNING BLESSING
In the morning…make the sign of the holy cross and say: “God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit watch over me. Amen.”
I give thanks to you, heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ your dear Son, that you have protected me through the night from all harm and danger. I ask that you would also protect me today from sin and all evil, so that my life and actions may please you. Into your hands I commend myself: my body, my soul, and all that is mine. Let your holy angel be with me, so that the wicked foe may have no power over me. Amen.
–From Luther’s Small Catechism
SCRIPTURE FOCUS: MORNING BLESSINGS
• Psalm 143:8
8 Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.
• Lamentations 3:22-23
22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
• Psalm 5:3
3 In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.
• Psalm 30:5
5 For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.
• Psalm 130:6
6 I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.
• Job 38:12
[God says to Job] 12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place?
• Psalm 90:14
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
• Psalm 59:16
16 But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.
• Isaiah 50:4-5
4 The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed. 5 The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears; I have not been rebellious, I have not turned away.
• Luke 24
24 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men[ANGELS] said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to the hands of sinners and be crucified and on the third day rise again.” 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.
BLESSED THOUGHTS: “MORNING HAS BROKEN”
When my sister and I were just kids, there was no morning quite like Christmas morning! Modest as our family income was, my Mother always seemed to find a-w-e-s-o-m-e Christmas presents which awaited us early–very early–on December 25th. I wanted to give my own children that same early morning rush to the tree, but gradually the Norwegian tradition of handing out presents on Christmas Eve took over as they grew older. Any way you look at it, there is a lot of God in the blessing of every brand-new day!
My favorite morning blessings came at summer camp. At Boy Scout camp my best friend and I often snuck off after dark to camp out by a stream, all by ourselves! Imagine waking up by a little stream in the middle of a deep forest! Later on, as a camp counselor, I would take boys for a week-long camp in the wilds of Pennsylvania. One morning I woke up at 4:00 A.M. to find a whole herd of deer drinking water out of the mountain stream we had slept next to, under the stars. Life doesn’t get any better than that.
Fast forward to my fifties. I’m camp pastor at Luther Village in Northwestern Ontario. I would get up around six A.M. and walk down to Dogtooth Lake. The water was as smooth as a pane of glass. I would carefully walk into the lake and then dive underwater and swim maybe twenty-five yards or so to the raft. The 23rd Psalm mentions that you find God’s Leadership in such still water, and my solo plunge to the raft and back not only woke me up, but I felt the Peace of God as never before.
My Dad always believed that the pre-dawn hours and sunrise were the best parts of the day. In my “Golden Years” I’m usually on the road long before sunrise, and one of my jobs is to wake up my Grandson so he can get ready for a new school day. Like all the youngsters, he, too, sleeps the untroubled sleep of the innocent! What I wouldn’t give to have eight hours of such slumber myself!
The other Sunday in church, our Pastor picked out Eleanor Farjeon’s beautiful hymn, “Morning Has Broken.” Her song, first published in 1931, in effect, says that every new morning connects us with the First Morning of Creation, when Adam and Eve woke up in the Garden of Eden. Luke’s account of Jesus’ Resurrection also is filled with God’s Morning Glory, for not only is the sun about to rise, but God’s Son has already risen, and that perpetual night we call death is no longer to be feared! For after our last breath here, the incredible peace of Eternity will dawn! This “Great Getting Up Morning” is what the Season of Advent is promising all of us! Alleluia for that great day!
MUSICAL BLESSING: “MORNING HAS BROKEN” SUNG BY CAT STEVENS. As I’ve said before, if this music doesn’t light your fire, then your wood is wet!
–written by Pastor Barry Bence
