Yale University
Signs surround us—whether it’s emojis in digital communication, traffic signs that help us navigate the roads, or business logos that mark brand identity. A sign is a visible representation of an idea, something standing for something other than itself. Anything can be a sign as long as someone interprets it as signifying something. In John’s gospel, Jesus performs seven signs as visible symbols of God’s presence on earth. Each of the seven solicits a response: Do you believe that Jesus is the embodiment of God’s presence?
A student asked me two weeks ago, “How should I read the Bible?” “Read it as a story,” I said, “read it as the story of God becoming the story of God’s people.”
As Christians, the story of God changes everything. Jesus has a way of shifting our life-script and changing the way our story reads. Joy, hope, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and love act as subjects of newly formed sentences. Page after page, we find ourselves in paragraphs of new life. It is Jesus, the Author of Life, rewriting our story and empowering us to deal with the other subjects– sadness, anxiety, distress, and evil– that seek to override our script.
Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up (Galatians 6:9). Life during COVID-19 becomes much easier, more meaningful, and beautiful when we bring the goodness of God to others. For this esteemed reason, our students at CU Lux selected Galatians 6:9 to guide all our endeavors this semester.
God has already told us what is good: to pursue justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8). Doing good, of course, is the work of God in us and through us. We not only hold fast to what is good (Romans 12:9), we are also called to embody every perfect gift that comes from above in word and deed (James 1:17).
Our Biblical faith is the affirmation that God’s presence changes our lives in transformative ways. Once we were no people, but now we are God’s people; once we had not received mercy, but we have now received mercy. Once we were nothing, now we are something (1 Peter 2:10).
With Yale University students back on campus for the spring semester, CU Lux organized a retreat that invited students to unite for conversations about God’s transformative power and presence in their lives. The virtual retreat began with icebreakers that warmed up the conversation and continued with a heart-opening time of worship. Students experienced the liveliness of God’s presence in small group Bible study, silent moments of reflection, one-on-one prayer, and large group testimony sharing.
All of us are prone to forget the things God has done for us. We need reminders. When Joshua led God’s people towards their new home, they had to cross the Jordan River ( Joshua 3:15-16). God parted the waters, and His people walked through on dry land (v. 17). To create a memorial of this miracle, they took twelve stones from the middle of the riverbed and stacked them on the other side (4:3, 6–7). When others asked what the stones meant, God’s people would tell the story of what God had done that day.
As we stand at the close of 2020, we at CU Lux are continuing to reflect on how we’ve needed to cope, adapt, and endure as many familiar landmarks of doing ministry have been drastically shifted during this time. We’ve been learning to grow in our faith in the Lord, but are amazed to experience the goodness of the Lord as we’ve tried to lean on Him.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances;
for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you… Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it…. pray for us.
Dear CU Lux Cornerstone Partners and other friends of the ministry,
CU Lux deeply values your love, prayers, and support through the many changing seasons this year has brought. One thing we do know is that God who calls us is faithful through it all!
In these challenging times, I hope that you have been able to guard and keep your joy in the Lord. The joy of the Lord is a wonderful source of strength, and I have been noticing recently how easy it can be for a past problem or future uncertainty to steal the fullness of joy that God has for us in the present moment. Remember Jesus’s desire that His joy may be in us and our joy may be full (John 15:11)!
It is with a heavy heart that I write to you this afternoon.
Facing difficult COVID-related financial shortfalls from donors unable to sustain their normal giving this upcoming year, CU made the difficult decision to lay off over 30 people across our organization last month. This has affected every campus where CU ministers, including Yale. Therefore, we are saying goodbye to Jane Hendrickson and Michael Racine right on the cusp of what was already shaping up to be a challenging semester for ministry. As I have expressed to our CU Lux community, these 2 servant-leaders have glorified God so well in their work. Jane, a 6-year veteran has been a highly-competent, faithful, loving, servant-hearted leader helping this ministry continue on true to its mission over many, many seasons. She has gone above and beyond to serve each of our individual students, the ministry at Yale, and the broader CU organization. Michael, with 3 years on our team, has brought academic excellence, theological depth, and a compassionate heart to our campus and organization. He as inculcated in others a real heart for seeking God with his well-measured and God-centered words in teaching and everyday conversation. Blessings to you, Michael, as you transition to another role in Christian Union.
The One Who Is, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loyalty and faithfulness, maintaining loyalty for a thousand generations, bearing iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will not leave them unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on their children and children’s children, to the third and fourth generation. —Exodus 34:6–7
This spring and summer, many Americans have been made increasingly aware of the reality that, whether we like it or not, the iniquity of past generations does weigh on us. To be sure, there's much more we have yet to attend to—both in terms of disarming the spiritual and cultural forces that militate against true racial reconciliation, and in terms of the many other sins that have been allowed to fester for too long. And yet, we thank our God, who is, and was, and is to come, for His unfailing covenant loyalty and faithfulness.
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