Readings for: 
Thursday, August 8: Isaiah 49 – 53

Isaiah 53 brings us a rich meaningful text that simply speaks for itself. If you haven’t read it yet, let me share it with you:

Surely he has borne our infirmities
    and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
    struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
    crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
    and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
    and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
    Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
    stricken for the transgression of my people.
They made his grave with the wicked
    and his tomb with the rich,
although he had done no violence,
    and there was no deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.
When you make his life an offering for sin,
    he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;
through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.
Isaiah 53: 4-10

What more is there to say that, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Peace,
Pastor Bailey

Readings for the next few days: 
Friday, August 9: Isaiah 54 – 58
Saturday, August 10: Isaiah 59 – 63
Sunday, August 11: Isaiah 64 – 66
Monday, August 12: Jeremiah 1 – 3

Thursday was a busy day for our Churchwide Assembly. We started the election process for our Churchwide Secretary. We adopted a Declaration of Inter-Religious Commitment. It was empowering to see the stage filled with thirty or more individuals from other denominations and faiths with whom the ELCA is in partnership and conversation with. Together we recognize our common interest in caring for those in need and the world that God made. One of our greatest signs of this commitment came in participating in the World Council of Church’s “Thursdays in Black”. It is a call and challenge to put to an end to violence, rape, and injustice towards women. As many of us personally know someone who has experienced violence and rape, this is a challenge that reaches far and wide, and like would have an impact on someone you know.