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In 1637, Eilenburg, Saxony, was surrounded by the dark night of the soul. Europe was at war. Eilenburg was tossed back and forth by the armies. Three times during that year it was attacked and severely damaged. When the armies left, refugees poured in by the thousands. Diseases ran rampant. Food was scarce.

There was only one pastor in the city, a fellow named Martin Rinkart. His journal for 1637 indicates that he conducted over 4,500 funerals that year, sometimes as many as forty or fifty a day. Life was a constant death, and each morning stank of disaster.

Contents
“Band of Brothers” by Frank Ramirez
“Yet, Some Are Healed” by John Sumwalt


Band of Brothers
by Frank Ramirez
Luke 17:11-19

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. (v. 11)

Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) I have another story for you today. Are you ready? (Let them respond.) Great!

Praxis the pixie was in trouble again. In fact, Praxis was rarely out of trouble. It had all started when he'd begun to be himself. You see, Praxis changed colour when he felt strongly about anything, and so for quite a while he'd tried very hard to be good. But it hadn't worked, for instead of being just one colour, blue or yellow or green or pink or purple or red, he'd become a rainbow of blotches and spots, stripes and circles, all different colours. It had been very embarrassing. So now Praxis was just himself, and that meant he wasn't always good.

Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds among mortals.
-- Psalm 66:5

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (v. 10). "Perfect love casts out fear" (1 John 4:18). These two powerful statements reveal for us the inadequacies of the translation process of the English language. These two juxtaposing passages reveal only a tiny fraction of the contradictions and conflicts found within our holy Word. No wonder people have trouble reading and understanding.

I went to the store to buy a new pair of blue jeans. The clerk asked if I wanted slim fit, easy fit, or relaxed fit, regular or faded, stone washed or acid washed, button fly or regular fly ... and that's when I started to sputter. Can't I just have a pair of blue jeans, size fourteen? Then I went to the grocery store and found 85 varieties of crackers, 285 kinds of cookies, and thirteen different kinds of raspberry jelly. Can't I just get a cookie and a cracker and a bottle of jelly any more?

In a scene from the romantic comedy, While You Were Sleeping, "Ox" Callaghan is waxing eloquent at the breakfast table one morning about those rare moments in life when everything seems to be going just right and falling into place. "In that one minute," he says, "you have peace." But his son, Jack, who is Ox's partner in the family business, has finally decided it is time to break the news to his dad that he wants out to start his own business, and so he bursts his father's bubble, saying, "Pop, this isn't that minute."1