Day 4
Sunday, September 4, 2022

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Scripture
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. — Isaiah 41:10

Wisdom
Paul Tillich, in one of his sermons, tells the following story: ‘In the Nuremburg war-crime trials a witness appeared who had lived for a time in a grave in a Jewish grave-yard. It was the only place he and many others could live, when in hiding after they had escaped the gas chamber. During this time he wrote poetry, and one of his poems was the description of a birth. In a grave nearby a young woman gave birth to a boy. The eighty-year-old gravedigger, wrapped in a linen shroud, assisted. When the new-born uttered his first cry, the old man prayed: “Great God, has Thou finally sent the Messiah to us? For who else than the Messiah himself can be born in a grave?”‘ Beauty is the name that we give to this mysterious event: when Life, gentle and weak, sweet and with no evil in it, is born out of the grave. —Rubem A. Alves, The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet

Prayer
O Life Born of the Grave, meet us in the mystery of the incarnation; your presence alive even in places where fear and ruin hold sway. Let us receive your beauty, a sweet gentle peace even amid the storm. Amen. —The Reverend Dr. Katie Snipes Lancaster