Arrows of Light: Devotions for Worldwide Christians

By David Schneider

As a youth, author David Schneider had little interest in seeing the Christian Gospel at work in other countries of the world. Then the Lord took him by the scruff of the neck and moved him and his wife, Darlene, into the Philippines, Mexico, South Africa and, after retirement, into Kazakhstan and Kenya. David didnt jump; he was pushed.

In Arrows of Light, Schneider offers a collection of devotions designed to help Christians see vividly how Christ refreshes frazzled people in many cultures. His judicious use of true stories may help readers grow in relating to themselves, God, and their neighbors near and far.

Clustered loosely around the Christian yearAdvent-Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecostdevotions are designed to be read with coordinating Bible sections. Schneiders transparency about his own temptations and weaknesses will both startle and refresh youand, perhaps, nudge you into conversation and discussion.

Arrows of Light is a celebration of our gracious God, as he forgives sin and restores joy for missionaries and all kinds of people everywhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inspiring Voices
• Release date: Apr 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781462405725

David Schneider

David Schneider is the author of Street Zen: The Life and Work of Issan Dorsey. He was ordained as a Zen priest in 1977 and was made an acharya of the Shambhala lineage in 1995.

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Copyright © 2013 David Schneider.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4624-0573-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4624-0572-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013906166

Inspiring Voices rev. date: 4/23/2013

The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright, 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The prayer thoughts for many devotions are hymn stanzas from The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH), from Lutheran Worship (LW), or from Lutheran Service Book (LSB). Hymn numbers will be noted.

Table of Contents

Advent-Christmas: Come, Lord Jesus.

Epiphany: The Revelation of Our Lord

Lent: Christ’s Suffering and Death

Easter: The Lord Is Risen! He Is Risen Indeed!

Pentecost: the Holy Spirit and the Church

Preface

As a young man, I had little interest in seeing the Christian Gospel at work in other countries. But the Lord took me gently by the scruff of the neck to work in the Philippines, Mexico, South Africa, Kazakhstan, and Kenya. What a remarkable thirty-five year journey!

And what joy came out of it all—seeing Christ give hope to grieving Filipinos, new energy to cross-cultural marriages in Mexico, and courage to South Africans fearing a horrendous civil war. God heals the world! I had to write about it, and Arrows of Light is the result.

In contrast to writings in which missionaries are glorified as almost perfect, some of my Arrows are painfully pointed about my faults. I want you to see them so that you can get the point of this book: forgiveness of sins, which leads into joy and new growth.

Are the Arrows aimed at you, friend? Might God expand your horizons, as he did mine? First he brightened my life, and then he widened my vision, to see more and more of the international Jesus at work in the customs and cultures of other lands.

There is some order in the quiver. The devotions cluster, loosely, into the Christian year: Advent-Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost.

Some people read Arrows like a book of short stories. Fine! But here is a tip: be sure to read the Bible section with each devotion. They are woven together.

Arrows is designed to stimulate discussion. The written questions can nudge us to help each other grow. What does the Gospel mean for you? For me?

Many of the prayers in Arrows are unfinished, awaiting your additions and your Amen.

I want to say thank you: to my friend Ken Ballas, who tirelessly helps to improve and promote Arrows; to Daniel Kaluza, who is developing an Arrows website; and to Roy Graves, who keeps my computer behaving properly.

For more information about Arrows, including some videos, visit the website: arrows-of-light.com.

Feedback is good! I would like to hear from you.

David Schneider - 2013

[e-mail]

Advent-Christmas: Come, Lord Jesus.

•   Jesus came as a baby in Bethlehem. On December 25 we celebrate his birthday and call it Christmas.

•   Christ comes now in Word and Sacrament.

•   Christ will come at the end of time as Judge of all and Savior of his people.

I was on the roof of our tool shed, fixing something, when a boyhood friend stopped his car on the street below and stepped out. I didn’t go down, but we chatted, reliving baseball and football games in the old neighborhood. After awhile, he got back into his car, and I went back to my repairs. He drove to his parents’ house down the street, went up to his old room, put a gun into his mouth, and shot off the back of his head.

You know my anguish: Did I miss hidden calls for help in the conversation? Was there something I could have said? Why hadn’t I at least gone down to shake his hand? I failed to save him.

This event came at a very bad time for me. I was already battling the deepest darkness of my young life. Would I continue in the seminary and become a pastor, as my parents and home church expected? Or would I break off my studies in response to heavy doubts now darkening my soul? Was I just riding on the faith of my family and church and feeding on their admiration? Was I even a believer? Is there really a God? How should life be spent? In living a lie? In the military instead?

My friend’s suicide helped to shape my life. I was forced to look into myself and into the Bible, to see what was truly there. I found myself to be a young man who had hungrily fed on the praises of God’s Church—praises that belong to God. I despised myself for that. But someone turned on the lights. I discovered that God forgives self-centered, glory-grabbing people and brings confident joy instead of guilt. What a relief! No more pretending. Christ’s light heals. The light shines, and the purpose of life becomes clear: help people see his energizing light and live in his hope.

Today’s reading has become a map for my life. Isaiah prophesies the coming of Christ, God’s servant, his arrow of light who pierces the darkness of human misery. By the light of Jesus’ dying and rising, God rolls back the darkness for Hebrew people (Jacob) and for all nations (v. 6).

Let there be light, God spoke over my life. I wasn’t strong enough to save my boyhood friend, but I hope to live out my days reflecting Jesus, God’s arrow of light, who indeed can rescue people. I need Christ’s light every day, and it can brighten your life too. That’s what this book is about: light for the world and for you and for me.

Discussion Starters

What words from God strengthen you when a loved one dies or commits suicide?

Do you see Christ as God’s arrow of light for the people around you?

Savior, shine your light on those facing death—especially the suicidal. I keep praying:

Lord, who once came to bring, on your redeeming wing, healing and sight,

Health to the sick in mind, sight to the inly blind: Oh now to humankind

Let there be light!

(LW 317:2)

Why should Thanksgiving Day be just a family gathering where we focus on a big meal and a football game? We Christians can do better than that! But how?

A great idea came from our adult children. In our foreign absence, they gathered in the home country to celebrate Thanksgiving Day together. They set sheets of newsprint and magic markers on a table. Each listed the things for which he or she wanted to give special thanks to God, and then they taped the papers to the wall. As they prepared the meal and ate it together, the walls spoke out their blessings.

Some years ago, a Christian group in Mississippi explored a way to express ongoing, year-round thanksgiving. In the weeks before Thanksgiving Day, their pastor urged them to think about their daily lives. He encouraged them to:

•   recall that God gives the physical and mental powers needed for every activity;

•   ponder how often Christ’s forgiveness lightens life and work;

•   imagine doing daily tasks in the spirit of caring for people; and

•   consider doing them daily as a conscious thanksgiving offering to God.

The pastor asked each person to bring to the Thanksgiving Day worship service an article symbolizing the normal, everyday activity that he or she wanted to perform as a regular thank-offering to God.

All the symbolic objects were placed in front of the altar. A secretary brought a sample letter: her office work for God. A young man rolled a basketball into place. A homemaker brought a broom. A baker put down pans. A manager laid down a budget. A teacher placed a list of students. A student brought a book.

Is it childish nonsense to write on the walls and bring basketballs to church? Not according to Psalm 103 or Colossians 3:17, which urges us Christians to do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Adopting the apostle’s line of thought, one might even say that until we see our daily activities as tools to praise God, we don’t understand thanksgiving at all. And why not write on the walls of our lives the great and mighty workings of our God, for all the world to read?

Discussion Starters

Try to make a list of God’s outstanding blessings to you.

Could you sing a song of praise as you sit down at your Thanksgiving table?

If you were to select a regular daily activity and do it as an ongoing offering of praise to God, what would you choose?

Heavenly Father, you have blessed us mightily through Jesus Christ. Specifically, we thank you for …

And Lord, we pledge to give thanks to you daily through Jesus, especially by …

Should we stay? Darlene and I had just walked into the church fellowship hall and seen the entire room set up for lunch for the whole congregation—even for those who didn’t bring any food (including guess who). We had forgotten it was the first Sunday in Advent. The custom at our German-English church in Glencoe, South Africa, was that everyone brought some food to share and we would sing together. We stood there with nothing. What would you have done next?

We stayed. And we joined heartily in the carols and advent songs, some in English, some in German. And we attacked the sandwiches and cookies as if we had brought baskets of them. I was even asked to speak the closing prayer.

Isn’t that just like our God—springing happy surprises on us? We all crawl along, scratching for each day’s rations, trying to get and give a little bit of love along the path of life. And then out pops the Baby—the Son of God himself—here to crawl with us, show us lots of love, die for us, resurrect us, and feed us freely with his own body and blood.

In his Word and Sacrament, God’s table of grace is all set in front of us, and we have brought nothing! Should we stay and enjoy what we didn’t help provide? Shall we eat and drink and sing as if we had a right? What will people think of us? Will we look like shameless beggars? Why not? Let’s go for it; believe and receive and enjoy and sing all the way! After all, we’re invited beggars.

Discussion Starters

In today’s reading, does it look as if St. Paul feels ashamed to receive God’s merciful grace? How does he respond to it?

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt out of place because you couldn’t make a contribution? What did you do about it?

What could you say to a person who feels unable to accept God’s gifts without paying somehow?

Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to Thy cross I cling.

Naked, come to Thee for dress.

Helpless, look to Thee for grace.

Foul, I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die.

(LW 361:3 LSB 761:3)

It had become almost an official part of the Sunday morning worship liturgy. If the pastor forgot, someone reminded him to ask, Is anyone traveling to the United States this week? Could you take along our letters and mail them there?

Many members of that church in Guadalajara, Mexico, were citizens of the United States or had some kind of ties there. Understandably, mail to the United States got delivered faster if it was put directly into a US mailbox, rather than going through the Mexican system first.

Does it sound like a small thing? Well, not really so small. Those who carried the mail and posted it on the other side were helping fellow Christians send Christmas cards, pay bills on time, give instructions about business matters, take care of legal affairs, make bank deposits, renew bonds of love with distant family members, plan future events, order necessary supplies, etc. We did have to draw a line, though. We agreed that it was not permitted to send five hundred copies of your annual Christmas letter via our volunteer couriers, except by special permission.

Did people carry the mail willingly? For the most part, they served with good humor, and even pleasure. And you didn’t have to reveal your trip if you weren’t able to do the job.

There seems to be another, deeper dynamic at work. This action of mail service always took place at the end of a Christian worship service. In that service we had, once again, taken a serious look at ourselves and seen again that we are free only because Christ has liberated us. We could still be chained to all kinds of laws and condemnations and task-masters who demand complete obedience to this or that, or else! We had just celebrated Jesus Christ, who took God’s threatening or else on his shoulders to the cross. Our death was nailed there with his. He had come to us in his body and blood to actualize that liberation for today. Now we are free! We can do everything in the joy of that freedom!

We are free now, as St. Paul reminds us in today’s reading, to serve one another in love, free now to help each other in any way we can—including carrying each other’s letters. With that kind of spirit the mail isn’t heavy at all.

Discussion Starters

As you prepare for Christmas, whom are you serving? Does someone serve you?

If you look at tasks as opportunities to serve one another in love, out of Christian freedom, are there any changes in your attitudes?

Lord God, thank you that, in Jesus your Son, you have freed me from every kind of slavery. Inspire me to be a free and happy slave in Jesus’ name—as one who gladly serves those who need my help …

She wore a festive German dirndel—a little fancy, perhaps, for Saturday work with the church in Guadalajara, Mexico. None of us knew her, but we welcomed Stefanie to help decorate the church building for Advent and Christmas.

Decorating is enjoyable but hard work: climbing ladders, hanging wreaths, placing the figures exactly right in the manger scene, tying ribbons, testing lights, trimming the tree, cleaning, sweeping, fixing lunch. Stefanie was a good worker wherever needed. And she stayed right up to the drying of the last dish.

We were a tired bunch as we bade hearty thanks to our new friend at the end of the day. We encouraged Stefanie to worship with us, to see our Saturday work in action on Sunday … and we never saw her again.

Why? What happened? Did we offend her somehow? We never found out.

How should we treat strangers? Start slow and warm up gradually? Or take them into the action immediately? Today’s reading points to an attitude, rather than a specific action. Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you.

Sometimes the Christian people of a congregation get welcome center fatigue. Guests are labor-intensive; they require a lot of effort. They don’t know where the rest rooms are, or where to hang their coats. Someone has to direct them—or even take them—to the donuts and the Bible study room. Regular members sometimes grumble privately, Must we always be seeing to the needs of visitors? We want some time to chat with our friends.

We Christians need to share joys and tears with our buddies. God has even called us to it. But just as surely, the Christian congregation serves visitors and strangers—open-heartedly brings them in—even for just one day.

Like me, do you need encouragement about this? In the reading for today, we see Jesus welcoming us—Jesus, the strong man, willingly bearing with the failings of us weaklings. His aim was not to please himself but to work for his neighbors—for our good, to build us up. He went as far as to carry on his own thorn-crowned head the abuse and insults and shame that have been aimed at us. He did this because he saw that we need hope. And how his gift of hope energizes our lives in this worrisome world! He went out of his way to meet our needs.

Come to think of it, even when we visit with our friends we don’t do it just for our own enjoyment, do we? In the Spirit of our Lord we seek to serve them for their good, even as we share a snack and a chuckle. That’s not a burden. It’s fun.

What a joy—to work with our Lord in serving both strangers and friends today! And, as the case of Stefanie reminds us, sometimes there is no tomorrow.

Discussion Starters

Recall a time when Christians warmly welcomed you, a stranger.

In what ways does your Christian group welcome visitors? Is there still time to visit with friends?

Lord, open our eyes to see who needs help—and our hearts and hands to give it—today. Enliven our time together, sending your Spirit to work among us, especially…

So, how do you celebrate Christmas in a Zulu or Tswana community? I’m asking the question in a classroom of the Enhlanhleni Seminary in South Africa. The students and I have just translated John 8:31-36 from biblical Greek. Now we are thinking about how to preach it at Christmas time.

The students talk about eating Christmas, rather than celebrating it. They don’t have Christmas trees or Santa Claus or manger scenes—not even gifts for family members and friends. The all-important feature of Zulu or Tswana family Christmas is the FEAST. The main requirement is that there be sufficient food and drink to satisfy all guests who will come into the house.

The drinking is at least as important as the eating, and a cruel twist is added. Some mischievous people in every community have the goal of getting everyone drunk. They devise special strategies to get alcohol into non-drinkers and to trick moderate drinkers into intoxication. And, sadly, some find special joy in getting Christian people drunk on Christmas Day.

So how can we preach this text for that situation? Quickly the group catches Jesus’ judgment that those who sin are slaves to sin (v. 34). Those hard words need to be preached to those who deliberately get drunk and work to drag others with them. Such people are not free but slaves, despite their probable protests. What are the other things that show their slavery to evil and should be mentioned?

Continuing in Jesus’ Word eventually leads us to his cross and resurrection. There a person can find forgiveness and freedom, even if he or she has been a slave (v. 31).

How can we get this Christmas message a good hearing in the Zulu/Tswana community? I ask. Our hypothetical plans for a pre-Christmas, Advent, season begin to take shape. Together, we start to devise a Christian congregation’s strategy to help people become free indeed in celebrating the Savior’s birth. Stay tuned to see how these special ideas work out in actual practice.

It’s fun to work the Word together with young Christians. We’re having a good time—and wishing you freedom in Christ this Christmas!

Discussion Starters

Do any kinds of slavery appear in your community’s Christmas celebration?

What might Christians do to help slaves find freedom during this Advent and Christmas season?

Can it really be Christmas without Santa Claus, and gift-giving, and Christmas trees, and manger scenes, and snow?

Come, O long-expected Jesus, born to set your people free.

From our fears and sins release us by your death on Calvary.

Israel’s strength and consolation, hope to all the earth impart,

Dear desire of ev’ry nation, joy of ev’ry longing heart.

(LW 22:1 LSB 338:1)

Exams! Agh! We’re going to fail! wail the students at the Lutheran Seminary Enhlanhleni, in South Africa.

I try to redirect their thinking. Men, you are not saved by God because of good exam writing. When Christ returns, you will not go to hell if you make some, even many, mistakes on an exam—not even if you fail it. Why not let exams be a measure of how far you have come—and how far I as your teacher have succeeded? Use exam preparation to summarize for yourselves what you have learned and how you can use it in your ministry now and later. Relax! God loves you. And they don’t seem to hear a word of it.

Imagine my joy when one of our senior students, in a morning devotion on an exam day, spoke the following prayer:

Dear Lord, the time of the exams has arrived, in which we students despair. We think that by failing in the exams it is the end of life for us. Lord, inspire our hearts with your Holy Spirit to know that, even if we fail the exams, we are still forgiven in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—that we are still your dear children. Give us hope and courage to know that you are always with us in our difficult and trying times. Wipe out the weakness from our eyes. Inspire our hearts