Epiphany: Alpha & Omega

I am the Alpha

    and the Omega. (Revelation 1:8)

Dear Priscilla,

So you joined a sorority, the Chi Omega—as in Ẋ Ὠ. How come sororities always have two Greek letters for their name? What do they stand for?  Christians have two Greek Letters to their name also: Chi Rho as in Ẋ Ρ, the first two letters of the Greek word ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ (Christos). It is word so precious we dare not translated it into English. We keep the Greek title as is and say the Greek word, “Christ,” meaning the Anointed One. It forms one of the first symbols of the church (I think I managed to paste it below). 

Two other Greek letters come to mind: Ẩ Ὠ, as in Alpha and Omega; As in Jesus being our “Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (Rv 21:13). Happy to hear you are excited about Chi Omega; but, trust you will always be even more excited about your Ẩ Ὠ.

 

 

 

Epiphany: Figs?

  Isaiah said,

   “Bring a lump of figs

     so that he may recover.” (Second Kings 20:7)

Why the figs? Why not just say, “You are healed, rise up and walk about!” Funny how we never read scripture exactly the same. When things change in our lives, we notice something in the text we missed; or, in other ways overlooked; or, simply didn’t care to notice. That’s how it was with me when I revisited the twentieth chapter of Second Kings. I thought it was just about how God granted King Hezekiah another fifteen years of life. When I re-read, I noticed it wasn’t as simple as that. All sorts of things are swirling about “in those days when Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death; and, the prophet Isaiah came to visit him” (vs 1).

Isaiah, as prophets often do, came to pronounce bad news: “Set you house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover.” But, “as Isaiah was leaving the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him, ‘Turn back, and say to King Hezekiah, Thus says the Lord, the God of your ancestor David: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; indeed, I will heal you; on the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord. I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David's sake’" (vss5-6).

See what I mean? It has to do with “this city” and its inhabitants who live each day in dread of the Assyrians whose king has their city, Jerusalem, in his grip. It’s not all about Hezekiah. There is a whole lot of other stuff: the Assyrians, the city, their ancestor David, the House of the Lord; and always, God’s own enormous self-regard—“for my own sake.” Somewhere in the midst of this big swirl; there are lumps of figs that Isaiah tells Hezekiah to “apply to his wounds, so that he may recover." Why the figs? Whose idea was that? Did the Lord speak such fig commands; or, as seems more probable, did Isaiah come up with it on his own?

I don’t suppose anything my Lord does is just about me. Nonetheless, in the midst of all the swirl, there are figs applied to the wounds. Isn’t that something? 

Epiphany: Recovery

 Apply lumps of figs to the wound,

    so that he may recover. (2Kings 20:7)

There’s surgery to deal with the disease, and then there’s recovery to mend the surgery that dealt with the disease. Surgery last for a day, recovery drags on. It requires “lumps of figs;” or, lumps of something, to gradually, day by day, recover from the wounds of surgery. 

Linda has been stuck with the lumps—the care giving required for recovery. I’m grateful for it all: for the Kaiser Medical Regional Neurosurgery Hospital and the team of medical professionals that put a probe in my brain and then connected it to a stimulator battery machine implanted in my chest in hopes of alleviating some of my Parkinson’s symptoms like tremors and maybe even my walking gait. But first, before we can program the hardware, the wounds of surgery have to heal. That takes time; and the latest COVID variant requires isolation. If one has to be so isolated, I’m happy it’s with Linda—she is easy to be with. After 57 years of marriage, I’m still blessed by her presence.

All indications are that the surgery went well. In a few weeks we will try out the hardware and put the surgical procedure to the test. If all works well, we will do it all over again on the right side of my brain. Funny what we do for just a few more years on God’s beautiful green earth. For Hezekiah, the figs and the recovery and the Lord; gave him another “fifteen years of life.” I’ll take that.

Epiphany: Healing?

 Honor physicians

   for their gift of healing

   comes from the Most High. (Sirach, 38).

Brain surgery awaits me tomorrow. Linda and I spent last Wednesday in pre-op sessions at Kaiser’s Regional Neurosurgery Center across the bay in Redwood City—just up the road from Stanford Hospital. The day started at 9:30am with a 45min MRI session taking extensive pictures of my brain. It was quite a trick keeping my head fixed and calm while my Parkinson legs kept thrashing about.

The rest of the day was spent meeting “the team”: nurses and technicians and PA and the anesthesiologist who will be bringing me in and out of consciousness—have to be awake to help them find the sweet spot when they insert the probe. It was our session with the surgeon that interested me—his tone and his way. A young (early 40s maybe) impressive guy; but not at all pretentious. Linda teared up. There was a simple straightforwardness about him. No big claims: “As you know,” he would say, “Parkinson is a progressive disease. This is not a cure. What Deep Brain Stimulation does, if we get it right, is pick up where your medications are giving out. Our hope is that the operation will alleviate your symptoms—especially tremors.”

Sirach (Apocryphal book of wisdom, also known as Ecclesiasticus, 180BC) has a wonderful ode to physicians (38:1-15): “Honor physicians for the Lord created them; and their gift of healing comes from the Most High.”  Through the day, I thought of that line: “gift of healing.” Neither the surgeon, nor anyone else on “the team” ever spoke of healing. Rather, they simply talked about a probe inserted into my brain and then hooked up to a machine implanted in my chest to help alleviate symptoms of my disease. It caused me to think Sirach over stated things.

During Epiphany we celebrate our Lord’s earthly life among us: “How he went about doing good and healing the oppressed” (Ac 10:38). Yet even then… even at its best, like raising his friend Lazarus from the dead; Lazarus was raised back into this mortal life only to face sickness and death. Yet, Jesus figured this mortal life is worth living. Like that zoom meeting last night with my sister, and our children with their families—our children’s children. They laughed and cried and said kind things and prayed for the surgeon and that all will go well. Jesus is right, this mortal life is worth living.

Big Healing awaits another day. That Day when “the trumpet sounds…. and this mortal body puts on immortality” (1Cor 15:52-53). On that Day, “crying and pain and death will be no more” (Rv 21:4). Between now and then; we do well, as Sirach instructs us, to give thanks for physicians and all those medical care people who attend to our physical well-being. That’s another line from Sirach’s ode: “Pray to the Lord, and give the physician his place.” We will do that.

New Year: Departures

We boarded a ship

    for ports along the coast. (Acts 27:2)

Our daughter Jen and her family, departed on the Ruby Princess from the Embarcadero in San Francisco for a ten day cruise to Cabo San Lucas and “ports along the coast.” The sad part of the story is twofold: 1) We were not able to join them as we had hoped, due to my upcoming Deep Brain Stimulation surgery schedule; and 2) We decided against accompanying them to the ship to see them off. We didn’t want to risk the City—too much trouble. This second sadness stirred memories of such departures.

From time to time, my parents would take us to The City to bid farewell to a missionary family, like Bill and Doris Berg and their about-our-same-age children Mitzi and Billy. They boarded a freighter bound for the Philippians—no cruise ship partings to Cabo. We were free to board the ship with them. For a twelve year old, the whole adventure was filled with wonder. Mitzi and Billy showed us their quarters, and together, watched the ropes and pulleys and burly longshore man load up the ship’s holds. As we left the ship, we were handed streamers from the ship to hold on to from the peer—Billy and Mitzi holding their end from the ship; and, Janlyn and me on the other end holding on from the peer. As the ship pulled out our streamers would stretch taunt. We held on tight until the streamer broke.

It wasn’t over yet. We drove from the peer to the Santa Rosa side of the Golden Gate Bridge where we waved one last good-by as their ship passed under The Bridge towards their four year missionary stint somewhere far away.

I phoned Janlyn just to make sure this wasn’t some sort of dream. She adjudicated it all and added some, like when we meet Mitzi and Billy four years later at the Home Peace in Oakland— a place provided for missionaries coming and going. “Yes, I do remember that,” I told her. And how we had changed. When they departed, we were children; and, when they returned, we were teenagers. I couldn’t help but notice.

The next time the Bergs departed it would be from SFO—not the same. Older missionaries would tell how they missed the voyage—it gave them time to prepare for their arrival in another land; and, coming home, it gave them time to decompress and think about their days on the field and how they would share it all with us. MKs and PKs—Missionary Kids and Preacher Kids; we were an odd bunch. They, the adventuresome ones; we, the home bodies. Today, I think of that oddness as blessing—who else participated in such departures and homecomings?

Maybe we can think of departing the old year and sailing into a new year as something of voyage to ports unknown. As the Bible likes to say, “Who knows?”

 

Christmas Day: For Us.

 For unto us a child is born…

   The Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

The baby we celebrate on Christmas day, is like every child, but different. This is the One “conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary” (Apostles’ Creed). It’s all God’s doing. Man in his usual roll must step aside and the woman alone comes forward saying, “Let it be with me according to your word" (Lk 1:38). This is the Child “born for us and for our salvation” (Chalcedonian Creed). As the Apostle puts it: “If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for us” (Ro 8:31-32). On Christmas Day we celebrate the humble arrival of our “for us” Savior.

This Christmas, like most, takes place in the midst of our contentious world—lots of political, social, and religious fussing. The Baby was born to set us free for something different: “Peace on earth and goodwill towards all” (Lk 2:14). That’s why the prophet prophecies that the child would become the Prince of Peace. As Jesus would teach us from the mountain; “Blessed are those who make peace!”

When Jesus departs this troubled world he leaves behind his peace: “My peace I give, not like the world. Do not let your hearts be troubled …so that you may have my peace” (Jn 14:27 & 16:33).

That’s how the Apostles’ begin their letters to us: “Grace and Peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.” We can’t get to peace without grace. So, today especially, let us be gracious towards one another and towards all people. Remember, our Savior, is the Prince of Peace.

 

 

First Week of Advent: Critical Studies

 Luke is with me.

   Get Mark and bring him with you…

   also, bring my books. (2 Timothy 4:11-13)

 

Dear Priscilla,

So you learned all about “Q”—something you never learned in Sunday school. It was a delight to discuss it face-to-face with you during our family beach house Thanksgiving Week. You return from your first stint at college discussing the “Synoptic Problem.”

That’s what happens when you study the Bible critically. Critical studies are good. It’s to the church’s credit that it has raised more critical questions concerning its sacred text than the world has ever raised concerning its claims. Why do Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell a similar story (synoptic)? Yet, not altogether similar? Matthew and Luke follow Mark, but then go their own way as in their genealogies of Jesus, for example. Or, sometimes Matthew and Luke stick together but leave Mark behind as in the story about the foxes; or, Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem (word for word, Mt 23:3-39 & Lk 13:34-35). How come? Could it be Matthew and Luke made use of a common source—something like “Q” perhaps? It is hypothetical, but a Computer Science major like yourself would find such musing interesting—like piecing together a program that works.

The Apostle Paul’s last recorded words concern a literary project that required his books along with the presence of Mark and Luke—a collaboration. Luke lets us know from the beginning that he makes use of such sources:

Since many have undertaken to

            -write down an orderly account

of the events that have been fulfilled among us,

just as they were

            -handed on to us by those who from the beginning

were eyewitnesses

and servants of the word, 

I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed (Lk 1:1-4).

 His sources are both written like Mark and maybe “Q”; as well as eyewitness accounts like Mary, Peter, James and John. All that work just for Theophilus? Maybe Luke “investigated everything carefully,” for all of us who, like Theophilus, can’t help but wonder, “Can it really be true?”

Love Papa