Saturday 19 December 2015

Restored

Ezra 6:19-22
The Passover Celebrated
On the fourteenth day of the first month the returned exiles kept the passover. For both the priests and the Levites had purified themselves; all of them were clean. So they killed the passover lamb for all the returned exiles, for their fellow priests, and for themselves. It was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile, and also by all who had joined them and separated themselves from the pollutions of the nations of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel. With joy they celebrated the festival of unleavened bread seven days; for the Lord had made them joyful, and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel.
Work done
Worship restored
Back to ritual and promise
A return to praise and devotion
With the evidence of their longing
manifest in the completion of the temple,
Gods people fell back on tradition 
Returning to what they knew or had heard about
Worshiping the Lord with joy
With the building as testament to an ancient way of life
they picked up old threads
and began to weave
a new pattern.

Prayer
In every unraveling and in every re-making, God is with us.
In every truth discarded and in every treasure rediscovered, God is with us
Aiding discernment in the myriad options we encounter
Guiding our thoughts and deeds
Directing our choices
Leading us
in the ways that lead
to hope
and peace
and love
and joy

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