Thursday, March  4^th, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Friends,
 
Here’s the Lenten Devotional from Presbyterian Outlook. May it be a blessing to/for you and those you love. 
 
Thursday, MARCH 4, 2021
JOHN 1:1-14
John’s prologue corresponds to Genesis 1: both transport us to the beginning of creation. The Word (or Logos) in John 1 evokes the cosmic reason giving order and structure to the universe in Greek thought It also evokes the “Word of God” that came to Israel’s prophets as well as the concept of Wisdom, the female personification of God in later Jewish thought (see Proverbs 8-9). All of these rich and varied associations together convey the light that came into the world that darkness cannot
overcome. The climax to the prologue in 1:14 affirms that “the Word became flesh” — not just human, but “flesh” (sarx in Greek), signifying God’s solidarity with all living flesh and the biological life of all creation.
Practice: Read John’s prologue slowing and prayerfully, pondering the
utterly profound imagery in this ancient hymnic text.
Journal: Note in your journal any movement toward God or away from
God that surfaced during your prayerful reflection.
 
* * *

Contact the church office (217.356.7238) to register for in-person worship each week for the following Sunday.  In-person worship is at 10:15 am each Sunday. Please wear a mask.

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CYF will be hosting a Spirituality Center in the church chapel for the season of Lent beginning this Sunday. Open House hours will be Sundays 11am-2:30pm. Come for some quiet reflection time by walking the labyrinth, contemplating scripture, and creating at your own pace. One household will be admitted at a time. Check in and temperature recordings will be necessary as well as face masks while in the building and chapel. Sanitizing wipes will be at each station for further protection between visitors. We hope you will find it a blessing for this season of inward contemplation and examination.
Sunday School continues. Follow this link for a virtual version of the Lenten Spirituality Center Lenten Spirituality Center

 * * *
 
Humor (Hard times really need godly laughter): 
 
A funny/sweet poem with a short follow-up commentary from our very own Tim Young.
  
“Bats” by Randall Jarrell
(published 1964)
  
A bat is born
Naked and blind and pale.
His mother makes a pocket of her tail
and catches him. He clings to her long fur
By his thumbs and toes and teeth.
And then the mother dances through the night
Doubling and looping, soaring, somersaulting–
Her baby hangs on underneath.
All night, in happiness, she hunts and flies.
Her high sharp cries
Like shining needlepoints of sound
Go out into the night, and echoing back,
Tell her what they have touched.
She hears how far it is, how big it is,
Which way it’s going:
She lives by hearing.
The mother eats the moths and gnats she catches
In full flight; in full flight
The mother drinks the water of the pond
She skims across. Her baby hangs on tight.
Her baby drinks the milk she makes him
In moonlight or starlight, in mid-air.
Their single shadow, printed on the moon
Or fluttering across the stars,
Whirls on all night; at daybreak
The tired mother flaps home to her rafter.
The others all are there.
They hang themselves up by their toes,
They wrap themselves in their brown wings.
Bunched upside-down, they sleep in air.
Their sharp ears, their sharp teeth, their quick sharp faces
Are dull and slow and mild.
All the bright day, as the mother sleeps,
She folds her wings about her sleeping child.
 
* * *
 
(From Tim Young:) Great poem by someone who appreciated bats back at a time when bats weren’t much appreciated. 
 
I remember summers growing up on a heavily tree-lined street and watching bats come out at dusk. I recall friends and I throwing baseballs high up in the air between the trees and watching bats fly within inches of those balls. Not sure why they would go after those balls but their acrobatics (pardon the pun) amazed us. 
 
They seemed very numerous then and we didn’t understand how beneficial they really were. we believed they were a source of rabies, and if you had long or curly hair, they could easily get caught in it. Maybe a ploy by our dads to give us crew cuts back then. 
 
* * *
 
Good Word 
 
Mark 1:21-28 (NRSV)           
21 They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. 22 They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 
 
23 Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24 and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” 
 
25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 
 
27 They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” 28 At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
 
LET US PRAY
 
Like a good, good father, 
Your love is from everlasting to everlasting.
 
Like a good, good mother, 
Your love for us never fades.
 
You redeem us because 
You made us to be free
from 
 
s
i
n
. 
 
You love us because 
we 
are 
Yours.
 
(How cool is that?!)
 
Thank you, God. 
Help us to live as people 
set free 
to love others 
like You love us.
 
AMEN
 
* * *
 
Much, much love to you all.
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church