Remember the Big Moments (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

The entire 18 winters I lived in the Boston area, I complained. There were: the bone-chilling cold, the icy roadways, the clothes-destroying oily slush, unplowed streets and driveways, “Popsicle Toes.” But, when I voiced my very legitimate woes, some local would, without fail, say: "This?! This is nothing. You should have been here for the Blizzard of '78."

And they probably had a point. To say the Blizzard of '78 was memorable is to seriously undersell it.

It hit New England with little warning, dumping two to four feet of snow on everything in a matter of hours. Hurricane-force winds drove snowdrifts to unimaginable heights, completely covering automobiles. There are photos of people walking along the snow-packed streets with car roofs peeking through at their ankles. Many went more than a week without power. Snow plows could not clear the roads until abandoned cars were towed. Communities ran out of places to put the snow. Coastal flooding was particularly destructive. Damages, in today's dollars, passed $2 billion and kept going.

This was no mere inconvenience. It was devastating, cataclysmic. People died. Is it any wonder New Englanders recall it so vividly, even more than four decades later?

We remember the really big moments in our lives. That's how you would think it would be with the Israelites based on this week's Exodus passages. An enormous blazing pillar of fire at night and a massive darkness-enshrouding cloud by day that confounded their enemies. Walking across a dry seabed while writhing walls of water towered on either side. The stunning destruction of their enemies when those watery walls crashed down on them. 

All by the hand of God.

You would think something like that would stick in a person's mind. No one had ever seen the kind of power God showed in rescuing the Israelites from their Egyptian oppressors. They even wrote a song about it. 

And yet...

Time after time, when facing some subsequent dilemma, the children of Israel just...drew a blank. Instead of recalling the amazing events of that long night and morning, they dissolved into complaints and rebellion whenever they felt their needs were not being met.

This week’s scriptures are about forgiveness, remembrance, compassion, and faith. Read them. Meditate on them. Then the next time you're facing a challenge, even a really tough one, do what the Israelites often failed to do. Reflect for a moment and recall that there is nothing you cannot go through as long as God is with you.  

Even a little faith goes a long way in the big moments of life.

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IMAGE: https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/beautiful-vertical-shot-large-burning-fire-night_13361818.htm#query=firey%20pillar&position=37&from_view=search&track=ais

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DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast gathers Friday mornings on Zoom** and in person at Our Breakfast Place. Join us at 8:00 for food, fellowship, scripture, and laughter.

Blessings,

Steve

 

 **Contact me for the Zoom link

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

 

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=159

Print them from here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Ax_Proper19.pdf

Exodus 14:19-31

Psalm 114 or Exodus 15:1b-11, 20-21

Genesis 50:15-21

Psalm 103:(1-7), 8-13

Romans 14:1-12

Matthew 18:21-35

Proper 19 (24) (September 17, 2023)