So, I went to a thrift shop and bought one for a dollar. Actually, it's a drawer pull, but I thought that it would do the job. However, still in its plastic bag, it fell into two pieces just after I left the shop. I wondered whether I could glue it back together and whether it would hold.

After that, I headed off to help some friends empty out the apartment of an old dearie who has moved into a seniors' home. Some of her belongings we parted out to her friends, but most things went to a Christian thrift shop, and the rest, after some discussion, went to the dumpster. If you've been through the process, you'll understand that we sometimes felt a bit like vultures.

So, partway through the move, the head vulture held out his hand and said to me, "Do you have any use for this?" It was a sturdy, one-piece aluminum drawer pull that will never fall apart, much bigger and better for the task than the one that I'd bought a couple of hours before. In addition, the head vulture works for the same thrift shop chain that I'd bought the other one from. Were these just coincidences?

There had to be a lesson in that.

So much of life seems to happen by chance. The ancient Hebrew philosophers understood that feeling, but they countered it in terms of their theistic faith. They said, "The lot is cast into the lap; but its every decision is from the Lord." (Proverbs 16:33 NKJV) Or as Thomas à Kempis put it, "Man proposes, but God disposes."

But in this scientific (sometimes pseudo-scientific) age, many of us who believe at all, unwittingly become deists rather than theists. That is, although we believe that God somehow invented the universe, nevertheless, we see that universe trucking along under its own steam, with matter behaving "lawfully", according to its properties, leaving little room for God to intervene or "tinker".

Sometimes, life's outcomes seem quite arbitrary. As one ancient Hebrew philosopher wrote, "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all." (Ecclesiastes 9:11 NKJV)

But Jesus assures us that time and chance are not the final determinants. He says, "Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows." (Matthew 10:29-31 NKJV)

This takes us back to that ancient Hebrew wisdom, which says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." (Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV)

This means that, when it seems as if our world is falling to pieces, God still has a handle on it.

Prayer: O God, Your never-failing providence orders all things both in heaven and on earth. We humbly beseech You to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things that are profitable for us, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

In his sermon to the Athenian intellectuals, Paul says that God "has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead" (Acts 17:31 ESV). Where English translations say either "assurance" or "proof", the actual Greek word means "faith". Paul is saying that in the resurrection, God has given us a basis for faith: objective, historical evidence for believing the gospel.

Peter and John saw evidence that was truly astonishing when they ran to the tomb to check out Mary Magdalene's discovery that the tomb was empty.

John 20:5-9 – [John] bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. (NRSV)

Jesus' body had been wrapped in strips of linen filled with about 35 kilograms or 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes. What Peter and John saw in the tomb was the burial wrappings still rolled up, but collapsed under the weight of the spices, because there was no body inside, as if the body had evaporated through them.

This "evaporating body" phenomenon is consistent with other resurrection reports. On two occasions, Jesus materialized among the disciples despite locked doors. In Emmaus, while Jesus was blessing the bread, He vanished out of sight, only to reappear later, eating fish and honeycomb, insisting that He was not a ghost, and inviting the disciples to touch Him. They were so convinced that some of them experienced martyrdom, rather than recant their story that Jesus was alive.

The eye-witnesses experienced a visible, audible, touchable Jesus, who appeared and disappeared at will. This is the "heavenly body" or "spiritual body" that Paul writes about in 1 Corinthians 15. Well we may marvel that God has created a universe where matter is capable of such a transformation.

But we must marvel even more at what that means for us, for the event by which God would persuade the sceptic also affords a glimpse of the hope that lies before us. Paul assures us, "Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven." (1 Corinthians 15:49 ESV)

But it gets even better than that, for John assures us that although we don't really understand what the afterlife will be like, "when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2b ESV). Hope can't get any better than that!

Prayer: Assist us in Your mercy, O Lord, God of our salvation, that we may meditate with joy on those mighty acts by which You have given us life and immortality, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Actually, I think I get that — because many of us, sometimes even church folk, go about our lives with only distant thoughts of God or Jesus. And we tend to view a lot of what once passed for sin through the lenses of the social and biological sciences. So preaching about sin — unless it focuses on hot-button justice issues — may strike us as banal.

It's not that we don't still have a sense of right and wrong, but living in an age that has distanced God, we have, correspondingly, "dumbed down" the idea of sin. We tend to see certain actions as unfortunate, regrettable, or inappropriate, but no longer appallingly sinful, because we have separated the offensive action from the party who was offended. It is hardly surprising, then, that our neighbours and even some church folk are not animated by the penitence that we focus on during Lent.

A line famously attributed to Dostoyevsky says, "If there is no God, all things are permissible." As that statement implies, the idea of "sin" depends on the assumption that God exists — that He intended us to live in a particular way, and that we don't.

After the prophet Nathan confronted King David about his affair with Bathsheba, David acknowledged God as the offended party:

Psalm 51:4a – Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. (ESV)

Of course, Bathsheba (I hope), her husband Uriah (if he had known), and their respective families, would have thought themselves to be the offended parties, too. But David intuits Dostoyevsky's meaning: there can be no sin without God, so only He can infallibly hold us to a just account.

David's view, learned through bitter experience, is consistent with that of other Bible characters. Luke tells of a time when Jesus' disciples had spent a fruitless night fishing. The next morning, Jesus told them to try again, and what a huge catch!

Luke 5:7-8 – They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." (ESV)

Now, even the most avid fisherman wouldn't react that way, even if it had been the Real Fishing Show host, Bob Izumi, telling him to try again. So how do we account for Peter's reaction? Peter became aware, in a way that perhaps he had not been before, that being in the presence of Jesus, he was in the presence of the holy.

When God finally confronts Job, He spends four chapters recounting the marvels of His creation, and Job is ashamed and repents "in dust and ashes" (Job 42:6 ESV). When Isaiah has a vision of God in the temple, he exclaims, "I am doomed, for I am a sinful man." (Isaiah 6:5 NLT)

A psalm attributed to Moses says, "Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance" (Psalm 90:8 KJV). Lent is a time to enter into the light of His countenance, to catch a glimpse (for that's all we can bear) of God in His holiness, and to see ourselves revealed in that awesome light.

But like those Bible characters, there's something else that we're also likely to see in that light:

Psalm 16:11 – Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. (KJV)

What could be more uplifting than that!

Prayer: Grant us, O Lord, to know the light of Thy countenance, that seeing Thee, we may see ourselves, and know ourselves in Jesus to be the undeserving children of Thy grace. Through Christ our Lord, we pray. Amen.

Matthew 4:1-11 describes Jesus contending with the three temptations of privation, publicity, and power — six weeks in a mere eleven verses — doubtless Jesus' summary of the key lessons from that ordeal. But what was He doing out there that occasioned such an ordeal? And why are we remembering an event from the beginning of Jesus' ministry as our lead-up to the crucifixion and resurrection, which actually happened three years later?

As Peter later noted in reference to Jesus at Acts 3:22, Moses had predicted that "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers — it is to him you shall listen." (Deuteronomy 18:15 ESV) So, we conclude that Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness recall both Moses' 40 days on Mount Sinai and Israel's 40 years in the desert.

From the fact that Jesus rejected those temptations by quoting Bible verses, it appears that He spent those days wrestling with the Scriptures, which, of course, He knew by heart. But why? Because He undoubtedly recognized passages in the Bible that seemed to point to Himself. Perhaps, He struggled with whether He was destined to be that "prophet like me". He knew that His family tree led back to King David, but was He to be David's unique Son? He knew Daniel's vision where a "Son of Man" is presented before the Ancient of Days to receive an everlasting kingdom (Daniel 7), but during that 40-day fast, His body certainly didn't feel everlasting. He also knew Isaiah's prophecy about the Suffering Servant, who would pour out his soul unto death and be numbered with the transgressors. He surely understood that following these prophecies would prove fatal. Could He go through that ordeal for an ungrateful, skeptical humanity? And could He be confident that "when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days"? (Isaiah 53:10b ESV) His answer was "Yes!"

So we commemorate those 40 days immediately before Good Friday and Easter, because what happened on that weekend outside Jerusalem had already been decided three years earlier in the wilderness. In that decision, Jesus ratified what He understood from Scripture to be God's plan for Him — and for us. When Jesus emerged from the wilderness, He was already halfway to Calvary.

The 40 days of Lent also remind us that, like Moses' people, we, too, are pilgrims in a barren land, and our kingdom still lies ahead. But we celebrate with this glorious advantage: we have met the King, and He has gone before us and secured the way.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, Who for our sakes fasted 40 days and 40 nights, give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to Your Spirit, we may ever obey Your godly motions in righteousness and true holiness, to Your honour and glory, Who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfills himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

In the present Canadian election, where the three major parties left the gate neck and neck, the ensuing majority government was a vote not just for change but for stability — or so the voters hoped. But change is inevitable, and stability is an illusion. You can't have both, no matter whom you elect — not forever.

The apostle Paul said as much to the philosophers in Athens in about 50 A.D. when he asserted:

Acts 17:26-27 – And [God] made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us. (RSV)

What's particularly intriguing here is Paul's understanding of that political flux. The ebb and flow of empires and cultures, he says, is a function of God's providence.

Those of us who are a bit long in the tooth remember when there was such a thing as the British Empire. It served its purpose and is now a vestige of its former self. Mercifully, its decline was marked more by gentle transition than by violence. But rise and decline must one day inevitably come, to America, to Russia, to China, and, regrettably, to Canada. As with Christian societies, so with Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim societies, because the seeds of decline are within us, within the very processes that contribute to our success.

Paul says that this is providential. It's part of the divine scheme of things. But why? The morning after the election, a CBC announcer remarked, "There isn't much to learn from winning; the act of losing, however, can bring great wisdom." Paul is specific about the kind of wisdom that he thinks that the flux of populations and cultures can bring. It happens, he says, "that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him."

That, I think, was Paul's theology of history. You see its chief instance in his letter to the church in Galatia, where Paul says that "when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son" (Galatians 4:4 ESV). Paul knew enough history to recognize that the Roman Empire was "the great bottleneck of history" — building roads, enforcing a peace, facilitating commerce, establishing uniformity of law — and enabling, albeit unwittingly, the spread of Christianity across most of the known world. Paul intended to preach even as far afield as Spain.

Certainly, stable government is better than unstable government, especially if it's also wise and righteous government. But the test of any government — the final judgment on any society or culture — will be how it responds to the message that Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords.

The Anglican prayer for the Queen is, by definition, also a prayer for all the same things for the new Government of Canada, and for all Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

Prayer: Almighty God, whose kingdom is everlasting, and power infinite: Have mercy upon the whole Church; and so rule the heart of thy chosen servant Elizabeth, our Queen and Governor, and all who are put in authority under her, that she, knowing whose minister she is, may above all things seek thy honour and glory: and that we and all her subjects, duly considering whose authority she hath, may faithfully serve, honour, and humbly obey her, in thee, and for thee, according to thy blessed Word and ordinance; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, ever one God, world without end. Amen.