www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
Tuesday, March 31st
John 9:18-41
The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them 'Is this son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?' His parents answered, 'We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.' His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus* to be the Messiah* would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, 'He is of age; ask him.' 2So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, 'Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.' He answered, 'I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.' They said to him, 'What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?' He answered them, 'I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?' Then they reviled him, saying, 'You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.' The man answered, 'Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but God does listen to one who worships God and obeys God's will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.' They answered him, You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?' And they drove him out.
Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, 'Do you believe in the Son of Man?'* He answered, 'And who is he, sir?* Tell me, so that I may believe in him.' Jesus said to him, 'You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.' He said, 'Lord,* I believe.' And he worshipped him. Jesus said, 'I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.' Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, 'Surely we are not blind, are we?' Jesus said to them, 'If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, "We see", your sin remains.
At this point, don't you want to simply say, "Give it a rest!"? Talk about being hard headed! How many times does the blind man have to tell the story of how he was healed? They were not going to believe, and his frustration at the persistent interrogation was evident. We see the pattern continue here of taking things that are difficult to comprehend or understand, and attempting to dismiss them, and even extinguish them. People were afraid, persecution was under way. If they professed belief in Jesus as the Messiah, they were being put out of the synagogue.
The parallel today is so clear. How many stories have we heard of people "put out" of their churches because they've professed who they really are, whether LGBT, divorced, living with a partner unmarried by law, or any number of other things we can think of. How fearful are we, that if we tell the truth of God's love for all, if we minister to those that do not "fit in" or fulfill our expectations of who they should be, that we too will be expelled? May we challenge ourselves today, to consider Roman's 10:13, Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. May we refuse to be like the religious leaders of that day, and even some of this day, and walk boldly, proclaiming God's love for all. kdd
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Lenten Devotional for 3-30-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
Monday, March 30th
John 9:1-17
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Jesus answered, 'Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. We* must work the works of him who sent me* while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.' When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes, saying to him, 'Go, wash in the pool of Siloam' (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, 'Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?' Some were saying, 'It is he.' Others were saying, 'No, but it is someone like him.' He kept saying, 'I am the man.' But they kept asking him, 'Then how were your eyes opened?' He answered, 'The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, "Go to Siloam and wash." Then I went and washed and received my sight.' They said to him, 'Where is he?' He said, 'I do not know.'
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, 'He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.' Some of the Pharisees said, 'This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.' But others said, 'How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?' And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, 'What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.' He said, 'He is a prophet.'
How many times have you heard someone say that AIDS is God's punishment for gays? Given that many non-gays also experience life with AIDS, the logic doesn't make sense, but those in Jesus' day were not much different in trying to "explain" and even place "blame" for the reason bad things happen. Jesus very clearly clarified here that we don't find ourselves in need of healing because we have sinned, or because our parents have sinned. We live in a fallen world where bad things do indeed happen and the goodness or badness within us is not the source; for it rains on the just and unjust alike. But since this situation existed, just as hard places exist for us today, Jesus determined to use it as an opportunity to show compassion and mercy, and to bring glory to God in the process. It didn't matter that it was the Sabbath or that the religious leaders might be offended, because the person was more important than the law. In fact, it was all the more significant that it WAS the Sabbath, because it brings home the message that Jesus came to bring life; healing, fulfilling life to all people in a way that the law could never provide.
When we find ourselves in difficult places today, may we remember that Jesus still ministers healing through his love and tender mercy. May we, like Jesus, determine to use the hard places as an opportunity to bring glory and honor to God by demonstrating that same love and tender mercy toward others. kdd
Monday, March 30th
John 9:1-17
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Jesus answered, 'Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. We* must work the works of him who sent me* while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.' When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes, saying to him, 'Go, wash in the pool of Siloam' (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, 'Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?' Some were saying, 'It is he.' Others were saying, 'No, but it is someone like him.' He kept saying, 'I am the man.' But they kept asking him, 'Then how were your eyes opened?' He answered, 'The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, "Go to Siloam and wash." Then I went and washed and received my sight.' They said to him, 'Where is he?' He said, 'I do not know.'
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, 'He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.' Some of the Pharisees said, 'This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.' But others said, 'How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?' And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, 'What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.' He said, 'He is a prophet.'
How many times have you heard someone say that AIDS is God's punishment for gays? Given that many non-gays also experience life with AIDS, the logic doesn't make sense, but those in Jesus' day were not much different in trying to "explain" and even place "blame" for the reason bad things happen. Jesus very clearly clarified here that we don't find ourselves in need of healing because we have sinned, or because our parents have sinned. We live in a fallen world where bad things do indeed happen and the goodness or badness within us is not the source; for it rains on the just and unjust alike. But since this situation existed, just as hard places exist for us today, Jesus determined to use it as an opportunity to show compassion and mercy, and to bring glory to God in the process. It didn't matter that it was the Sabbath or that the religious leaders might be offended, because the person was more important than the law. In fact, it was all the more significant that it WAS the Sabbath, because it brings home the message that Jesus came to bring life; healing, fulfilling life to all people in a way that the law could never provide.
When we find ourselves in difficult places today, may we remember that Jesus still ministers healing through his love and tender mercy. May we, like Jesus, determine to use the hard places as an opportunity to bring glory and honor to God by demonstrating that same love and tender mercy toward others. kdd
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-28-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
Saturday, March 28th
John 6:60- 7:1
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, 'This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?' But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, 'Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.' For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, 'For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Creator.' Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, 'Do you also wish to go away?' Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.'* Jesus answered them, 'Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.' He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot,* for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him. After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish* to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him.
Just prior to the last few passages we've been studying, Jesus fed the 5000. What a miracle that was. Sensational! We love sensation, excitement and drama. Then Jesus used that miracle of feeding to draw the analogy that he had come to be the bread of life, to do more than feed us physically, but to feed us spiritually. This teaching was difficult for the crowd to grasp. They wanted the excitement to continue. They wanted a physical kingdom to be built in the natural world, not necessarily to think about and understand spiritual truths. How much are we like those followers? We shout with joy over the excitement, the wonders, and beauty when all is going our way and we are having a good time! But when the teaching gets hard...do we struggle through it? Do we sit still, listen to voice of God, and pray for openness to understand the spiritual truth God is trying to reveal to us? These are the times when many of us look for something else to capture our attention; a new sensation to wet our fleshly appetite for drama and excitement. These are the times when I suspect we may miss the most important truth that we desperately need to carry us through the next phase of our journey.
When many had left, Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?" Simon Peter, what a blessing he was! He spoke the simplest and most basic truth of all when he answered, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God". Oh, that we might take this truth and plant it deeply into our hearts. There is no one else to whom we can go! When we are tempted to turn to other things, to people, to obsessions, to the latest craze in hopes of finding the abundant life, may we remember this simple truth. May we stop and reflect on these things, knowing that Jesus is the one to whom we can go to find peace, love, and comfort for our souls, both now and forever. Amen kdd
Saturday, March 28th
John 6:60- 7:1
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, 'This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?' But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, 'Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.' For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, 'For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Creator.' Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, 'Do you also wish to go away?' Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.'* Jesus answered them, 'Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.' He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot,* for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him. After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish* to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him.
Just prior to the last few passages we've been studying, Jesus fed the 5000. What a miracle that was. Sensational! We love sensation, excitement and drama. Then Jesus used that miracle of feeding to draw the analogy that he had come to be the bread of life, to do more than feed us physically, but to feed us spiritually. This teaching was difficult for the crowd to grasp. They wanted the excitement to continue. They wanted a physical kingdom to be built in the natural world, not necessarily to think about and understand spiritual truths. How much are we like those followers? We shout with joy over the excitement, the wonders, and beauty when all is going our way and we are having a good time! But when the teaching gets hard...do we struggle through it? Do we sit still, listen to voice of God, and pray for openness to understand the spiritual truth God is trying to reveal to us? These are the times when many of us look for something else to capture our attention; a new sensation to wet our fleshly appetite for drama and excitement. These are the times when I suspect we may miss the most important truth that we desperately need to carry us through the next phase of our journey.
When many had left, Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?" Simon Peter, what a blessing he was! He spoke the simplest and most basic truth of all when he answered, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God". Oh, that we might take this truth and plant it deeply into our hearts. There is no one else to whom we can go! When we are tempted to turn to other things, to people, to obsessions, to the latest craze in hopes of finding the abundant life, may we remember this simple truth. May we stop and reflect on these things, knowing that Jesus is the one to whom we can go to find peace, love, and comfort for our souls, both now and forever. Amen kdd
Friday, March 27, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-27-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
Friday, March 27th
John 6:52-59
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' So Jesus said to them, 'Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Creator sent me, and I live because of the Creator, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live for ever.' He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
What did Jesus mean when he said unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you? John was a writer whose words literally dripped with imagery, not unlike Jesus himself who often told exaggerated parables to make a strong point. When we think about eating and drinking blood, we imagine taking the very life of something inside of ourselves. We eat and drink to sustain life. The point seems to be that to accept Christ as the Messiah, the Savior of the world, is to believe in him and accept his presence in our lives as the true giver and sustainer of life. When we accept Christ's gift and live in a way that shows others the love of Christ that dwells within us, life is continually sustained within us. We live abundantly now and have the promise of life everlasting.
When we live outwardly as a reflection of the life of Christ that is within us, we literally are transformed into the people God created us to be. Romans 8:29: For those whom God foreknew, God also predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. When we strive to live and love as Jesus did, allowing his life within us to sustain and flow out of us, we are conformed to his image and find ourselves to be a part of his family. God called us and as verse 32 points out, God did not withhold God's own Son, but gave him up for all of us.
As we meditate on accepting the gift of love that Christ gave us, realizing that he laid down his very life so we might live, that we have the privilege to take it in and be sustained by his life within us, let us not forget that the motivation was ultimately love. The next time someone tries to condemn you and accuse that Christ does not live within you, remember God gave him up for ALL of us. Romans 8:35, 37-39: Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. kdd
Friday, March 27th
John 6:52-59
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' So Jesus said to them, 'Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Creator sent me, and I live because of the Creator, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live for ever.' He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
What did Jesus mean when he said unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you? John was a writer whose words literally dripped with imagery, not unlike Jesus himself who often told exaggerated parables to make a strong point. When we think about eating and drinking blood, we imagine taking the very life of something inside of ourselves. We eat and drink to sustain life. The point seems to be that to accept Christ as the Messiah, the Savior of the world, is to believe in him and accept his presence in our lives as the true giver and sustainer of life. When we accept Christ's gift and live in a way that shows others the love of Christ that dwells within us, life is continually sustained within us. We live abundantly now and have the promise of life everlasting.
When we live outwardly as a reflection of the life of Christ that is within us, we literally are transformed into the people God created us to be. Romans 8:29: For those whom God foreknew, God also predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. When we strive to live and love as Jesus did, allowing his life within us to sustain and flow out of us, we are conformed to his image and find ourselves to be a part of his family. God called us and as verse 32 points out, God did not withhold God's own Son, but gave him up for all of us.
As we meditate on accepting the gift of love that Christ gave us, realizing that he laid down his very life so we might live, that we have the privilege to take it in and be sustained by his life within us, let us not forget that the motivation was ultimately love. The next time someone tries to condemn you and accuse that Christ does not live within you, remember God gave him up for ALL of us. Romans 8:35, 37-39: Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. kdd
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Lenten Devotional for March 26th, 2009
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
Dear Friend,
Here is your daily Lenten meditation devotion. If you find it inspirational, we hope you will pass it along to your family and friends.
Thursday, March 26th
John 6:41-51
Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, 'I am the bread that came down from heaven.' They were saying, 'Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, "I have come down from heaven"?' Jesus answered them, 'Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the One who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, "And they shall all be taught by God." Everyone who has heard and learned from the One comes to me. Not that anyone has seen God except the one who is from God; he has seen the One Creator. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.'
Jesus faced two primary challenges, one to convince others who he was in order for them to believe in and embrace the action of his second challenge, to give his body as bread for the life of the world. He had approximately 3 ½ years in ministry before the appointed time of his death to complete challenge one, including facing the toughest crowd in and around his home area. For you see, they knew him as a young child, as the son of Joseph and Mary, not as the Son of God which he now proclaimed. Isn't that just like people, to judge based on past and "human" experience, rather than being open to the possibilities through God completing a work in us. God did complete a "work" in Christ. During those 3 years, Jesus taught as one having authority, healed others both physically and spiritually through the Spirit of God in him. Jesus performed numerous signs and wonders counting on those things to help his sheep to hear and recognize his voice. Some did recognize that he came to bring life through his sacrifice and believed, while others did not. How wonderful it is that God created us with a free will to choose! There is no coercion here, only the loving, persistent pursuit of a God who longs for relationship with the creation, in order that we the created may have life restored as God intended it to be. Christ did what he came to do. He accomplished the objectives set before him and followed the will of God completely to its end; with Jesus now sitting at the right hand of God, ever present to serve as our intercessor.
Today, we have the opportunity for Christ's work of love, compassion and calling to continue in us. For the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8:14-17 that all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God, for we did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but we have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! God is my parent!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. In order for us to fully live and further the message of Christ, we too must choose to be led by the Spirit of God. We must believe that we are God's children and fully embrace our position in the family the God. It is when we begin to do this, the light and message of Christ's love for all will begin to radiate from within us for all to see. kdd
Dear Friend,
Here is your daily Lenten meditation devotion. If you find it inspirational, we hope you will pass it along to your family and friends.
Thursday, March 26th
John 6:41-51
Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, 'I am the bread that came down from heaven.' They were saying, 'Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, "I have come down from heaven"?' Jesus answered them, 'Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the One who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, "And they shall all be taught by God." Everyone who has heard and learned from the One comes to me. Not that anyone has seen God except the one who is from God; he has seen the One Creator. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.'
Jesus faced two primary challenges, one to convince others who he was in order for them to believe in and embrace the action of his second challenge, to give his body as bread for the life of the world. He had approximately 3 ½ years in ministry before the appointed time of his death to complete challenge one, including facing the toughest crowd in and around his home area. For you see, they knew him as a young child, as the son of Joseph and Mary, not as the Son of God which he now proclaimed. Isn't that just like people, to judge based on past and "human" experience, rather than being open to the possibilities through God completing a work in us. God did complete a "work" in Christ. During those 3 years, Jesus taught as one having authority, healed others both physically and spiritually through the Spirit of God in him. Jesus performed numerous signs and wonders counting on those things to help his sheep to hear and recognize his voice. Some did recognize that he came to bring life through his sacrifice and believed, while others did not. How wonderful it is that God created us with a free will to choose! There is no coercion here, only the loving, persistent pursuit of a God who longs for relationship with the creation, in order that we the created may have life restored as God intended it to be. Christ did what he came to do. He accomplished the objectives set before him and followed the will of God completely to its end; with Jesus now sitting at the right hand of God, ever present to serve as our intercessor.
Today, we have the opportunity for Christ's work of love, compassion and calling to continue in us. For the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8:14-17 that all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God, for we did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but we have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! God is my parent!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. In order for us to fully live and further the message of Christ, we too must choose to be led by the Spirit of God. We must believe that we are God's children and fully embrace our position in the family the God. It is when we begin to do this, the light and message of Christ's love for all will begin to radiate from within us for all to see. kdd
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-25-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
Wednesday, March 25th
John 6:27-40
Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Creator has set the seal.' Then they said to him, 'What must we do to perform the works of God?' Jesus answered them, 'This is the work of God, that you believe in the one whom God has sent.' So they said to him, 'What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, "God gave them bread from heaven to eat."' Then Jesus said to them, 'Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Parent who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which* comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.' They said to him, 'Sir, give us this bread always.'
Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Creator gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the One who sent me. And this is the will of God who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that has been given me, but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Parent, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.'
Bread is a symbol of sustenance and nourishment. Jesus describes himself as the "bread of life". This bread is not like the manna which was the only bread from heaven they had experienced before Jesus came. Manna was to be enjoyed for only a season. Manna spoiled after one day.
When we come to Jesus and believe in his words, we will never hunger nor thirst. This true bread from heaven does not spoil and gives life to the whole world. It is the will of our Creator that we all experience the eternal nourishment of Jesus Christ.
Lord, feed me every day. VJ
Wednesday, March 25th
John 6:27-40
Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Creator has set the seal.' Then they said to him, 'What must we do to perform the works of God?' Jesus answered them, 'This is the work of God, that you believe in the one whom God has sent.' So they said to him, 'What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, "God gave them bread from heaven to eat."' Then Jesus said to them, 'Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Parent who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which* comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.' They said to him, 'Sir, give us this bread always.'
Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Creator gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the One who sent me. And this is the will of God who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that has been given me, but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Parent, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.'
Bread is a symbol of sustenance and nourishment. Jesus describes himself as the "bread of life". This bread is not like the manna which was the only bread from heaven they had experienced before Jesus came. Manna was to be enjoyed for only a season. Manna spoiled after one day.
When we come to Jesus and believe in his words, we will never hunger nor thirst. This true bread from heaven does not spoil and gives life to the whole world. It is the will of our Creator that we all experience the eternal nourishment of Jesus Christ.
Lord, feed me every day. VJ
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-24-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
Tuesday, March 24th
John 6:16-27
When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, got into a boat, and started across the lake to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The lake became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles,* they saw Jesus walking on the lake and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, 'It is I;* do not be afraid.' Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land towards which they were going.
The next day the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the lake saw that there had been only one boat there. They also saw that Jesus had not got into the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. Then some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks.* So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, 'Rabbi, when did you come here?' Jesus answered them, 'Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Creator has set the seal.
Few things last forever. Given time, most of that which we work so hard for will rot and decompose. Carol House Furniture recognized human nature when they coined the phrase "Because you like nice things". We want the "good life" for ourselves and our loved ones. It's OK to want a better life and comforting experiences. But we can lose our way when we believe that those "nice things" are what bring love, peace and happiness.
Jesus wants his followers to redirect their focus. He wants us to work for that which brings eternal life, not for that which will perish. Jesus admonishes us to seek, first, the kingdom of heaven.
Lord, help me to keep my heart focused on you and your words which bring eternal life. vj
Tuesday, March 24th
John 6:16-27
When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, got into a boat, and started across the lake to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The lake became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles,* they saw Jesus walking on the lake and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, 'It is I;* do not be afraid.' Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land towards which they were going.
The next day the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the lake saw that there had been only one boat there. They also saw that Jesus had not got into the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. Then some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks.* So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, 'Rabbi, when did you come here?' Jesus answered them, 'Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Creator has set the seal.
Few things last forever. Given time, most of that which we work so hard for will rot and decompose. Carol House Furniture recognized human nature when they coined the phrase "Because you like nice things". We want the "good life" for ourselves and our loved ones. It's OK to want a better life and comforting experiences. But we can lose our way when we believe that those "nice things" are what bring love, peace and happiness.
Jesus wants his followers to redirect their focus. He wants us to work for that which brings eternal life, not for that which will perish. Jesus admonishes us to seek, first, the kingdom of heaven.
Lord, help me to keep my heart focused on you and your words which bring eternal life. vj
Monday, March 23, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-23-09 - Monday
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
Monday, March 23rd
John 6:1-15
After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias.* A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, 'Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?' He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, 'Six months' wages* would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.' One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, 'There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?' Jesus said, 'Make the people sit down.' Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they* sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, 'Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.' So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, 'This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.'
When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
Jesus had their attention! He healed the sick. He fed five thousand people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. He performed wonders unlike any other "prophet" before him. Jesus was a charismatic, crowd pleaser. He was the kind of guy who made headlines. But Jesus knew that that kind of fame is short lived and that people are fickle. He knew his kingdom was not in the miracles, signs and wonders.
The real "Wow" is not in the miraculous healings, but in the simple teachings of Jesus. We receive an eternal treasure when we live the values he taught us. We present an eternal treasure to the world when we give the love of Christ.
Lord, you perform miracles in our lives daily. We thank you, but we desire a relationship with you not rooted in the last miracle or feel-good experience. Please keep us grounded in your love and wisdom. Help us to recognize your abiding love, even during the quiet moments and the darkest trials of our lives. vj
Monday, March 23rd
John 6:1-15
After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias.* A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, 'Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?' He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, 'Six months' wages* would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.' One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, 'There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?' Jesus said, 'Make the people sit down.' Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they* sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, 'Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.' So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, 'This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.'
When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
Jesus had their attention! He healed the sick. He fed five thousand people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. He performed wonders unlike any other "prophet" before him. Jesus was a charismatic, crowd pleaser. He was the kind of guy who made headlines. But Jesus knew that that kind of fame is short lived and that people are fickle. He knew his kingdom was not in the miracles, signs and wonders.
The real "Wow" is not in the miraculous healings, but in the simple teachings of Jesus. We receive an eternal treasure when we live the values he taught us. We present an eternal treasure to the world when we give the love of Christ.
Lord, you perform miracles in our lives daily. We thank you, but we desire a relationship with you not rooted in the last miracle or feel-good experience. Please keep us grounded in your love and wisdom. Help us to recognize your abiding love, even during the quiet moments and the darkest trials of our lives. vj
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-21-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
Saturday, March 21st
John 8:47-59
Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.'
The Jews answered him, 'Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?' Jesus answered, 'I do not have a demon; but I honour God, and you dishonour me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is one who seeks it and that One is the judge. Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.' The Jews said to him, 'Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets; yet you say, "Whoever keeps my word will never taste death." Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets also died. Who do you claim to be?' Jesus answered, 'If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Creator who glorifies me, of whom you say, "The One is our God", though you do not know God. But I know God; if I were to say that I do not know, I would be a liar like you. But I do know keep God's word. Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.' Then the Jews said to him, 'You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?'* Jesus said to them, 'Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.' So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
"Before Abraham was, I am".
Jesus spoke those words to help his contemporaries put things in perspective. As humans, sometimes we are unable to see the "real source". We focus on things and relationships given to us rather than on the giver. If Jesus were speaking to us today, he might say:
"Before your job was, I am";
"Before your life partner was, I am";
"Before your wealth was, I am";
"Before your health was, I am";
"Before your church was, I am".
Lord I thank you for all the people, opportunities and blessings you have placed in my life. You, Oh God, are the source of all I hold dear, the I am. Let me dwell in your house, forever. vj
Saturday, March 21st
John 8:47-59
Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.'
The Jews answered him, 'Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?' Jesus answered, 'I do not have a demon; but I honour God, and you dishonour me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is one who seeks it and that One is the judge. Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.' The Jews said to him, 'Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets; yet you say, "Whoever keeps my word will never taste death." Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets also died. Who do you claim to be?' Jesus answered, 'If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Creator who glorifies me, of whom you say, "The One is our God", though you do not know God. But I know God; if I were to say that I do not know, I would be a liar like you. But I do know keep God's word. Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.' Then the Jews said to him, 'You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?'* Jesus said to them, 'Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.' So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
"Before Abraham was, I am".
Jesus spoke those words to help his contemporaries put things in perspective. As humans, sometimes we are unable to see the "real source". We focus on things and relationships given to us rather than on the giver. If Jesus were speaking to us today, he might say:
"Before your job was, I am";
"Before your life partner was, I am";
"Before your wealth was, I am";
"Before your health was, I am";
"Before your church was, I am".
Lord I thank you for all the people, opportunities and blessings you have placed in my life. You, Oh God, are the source of all I hold dear, the I am. Let me dwell in your house, forever. vj
Friday, March 20, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-20-09 (friday)
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
Friday, March 20th
John 8:33-47
They answered him, 'We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, "You will be made free"?' Jesus answered them, 'Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you look for an opportunity to kill me, because there is no place in you for my word. I declare what I have seen in my Parent's presence; as for you, you should do what you have heard from the Parent.'*
They answered him, 'Abraham is our father.' Jesus said to them, 'If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing* what Abraham did, but now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are indeed doing what your father does.' They said to him, 'We are not illegitimate children; we have one parent, God.' Jesus said to them, 'If God were your Parent, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but God sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept my word. You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.'
Who are you? The most common answer to that question is "My name is _________________".
When pressed to move beyond our name as a descriptor, we search for other ways to define who we are. Some answer the question by describing their ancestors or where they were born. I am Mexican. My parents were immigrants. Some believe that what they do for a living best describes who they are. I'm a minister or I'm an architect or I'm a retiree. While others believe that they are their feelings, experiences or physical characteristics. I am bi-sexual or I'm an introvert or I am physically challenged. The Pharisees in the above scripture answered the 'who you are' question by referring to their proud ancestry. We are the 'Children of Abraham', so we are already free.
Jesus lets us know that those things are just window dressings. They only touch the surface. When describing who we are, Jesus breaks through to the core of the issue.
Do we hear and accept the words of God? Do we hear that truth which will make us free? Do we allow the teachings of Jesus to infiltrate every part of our lives? Do we embrace and embody the love that God has for us?
If God is our parent, then we are the Children of God, open and listening for the word of God. That is who we are and the rest is just details. - Lord, help me to remember who I am. vj
Friday, March 20th
John 8:33-47
They answered him, 'We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, "You will be made free"?' Jesus answered them, 'Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you look for an opportunity to kill me, because there is no place in you for my word. I declare what I have seen in my Parent's presence; as for you, you should do what you have heard from the Parent.'*
They answered him, 'Abraham is our father.' Jesus said to them, 'If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing* what Abraham did, but now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are indeed doing what your father does.' They said to him, 'We are not illegitimate children; we have one parent, God.' Jesus said to them, 'If God were your Parent, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but God sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept my word. You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.'
Who are you? The most common answer to that question is "My name is _________________".
When pressed to move beyond our name as a descriptor, we search for other ways to define who we are. Some answer the question by describing their ancestors or where they were born. I am Mexican. My parents were immigrants. Some believe that what they do for a living best describes who they are. I'm a minister or I'm an architect or I'm a retiree. While others believe that they are their feelings, experiences or physical characteristics. I am bi-sexual or I'm an introvert or I am physically challenged. The Pharisees in the above scripture answered the 'who you are' question by referring to their proud ancestry. We are the 'Children of Abraham', so we are already free.
Jesus lets us know that those things are just window dressings. They only touch the surface. When describing who we are, Jesus breaks through to the core of the issue.
Do we hear and accept the words of God? Do we hear that truth which will make us free? Do we allow the teachings of Jesus to infiltrate every part of our lives? Do we embrace and embody the love that God has for us?
If God is our parent, then we are the Children of God, open and listening for the word of God. That is who we are and the rest is just details. - Lord, help me to remember who I am. vj
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Lenten Devotional for March 19, 2009
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
Thursday, March 19
John 8:21-32
Again he said to them, 'I am going away, and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.' Then the Jews said, 'Is he going to kill himself? Is that what he means by saying, "Where I am going, you cannot come"?' He said to them, 'You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.' They said to him, 'Who are you?' Jesus said to them, 'Why do I speak to you at all? I have much to say about you and much to condemn; but the one who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.' They did not understand that he was speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said, 'When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me. And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.' As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, 'If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.'
Imagine me standing alongside you right now, saying to you 'I am going away, and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.' You might humor me. But, in all likelihood, you would make some dismissive comment intended to put me off without offending me, and walk away. If I continued to talk as you were departing, saying 'You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he,' you would very likely shake your head and make the decision that I need serious help, either counseling or hospitalization. If you are a socially conscious person - and most of us in this fellowship are - you might take the steps necessary to see to it that I get help.
Sometimes when I have read the Lenten stories, my eyes have glazed over and my mind has gone into a funk. It is all just too much too comprehend...that God whom I cannot envision let alone comprehend would send one human being to this earth to embody the story of God's love for all of humanity who ever lived in the past or would live thereafter...and then allow that person to be treacherously and painfully murdered...so I can have a future eternal life...one that my understanding of is at best fuzzy. The story is, after all, just a story...right? I'm supposed to believe this all happened two thousand years before radio and television were around to report it live...before a printing press could generate the story on parchment able to survive those millennia. There is no extant proof from the time when Christ and his disciples walked the earth that they even existed. As those of you Saturday night live fans will remember Church Lady saying, "How convenient!"
What proofs did Christ offer? Certainly nothing tangible. Christ made it a matter of believing, a matter of faith. He said "In your [Hebrew] law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is valid. I testify on my own behalf, and the One who sent me testifies on my behalf." In the millennia that have passed since he died and came again, the witness of the apostles and others who wrote about him have multiplied into the hundreds, then thousands, and now millions upon millions. The axiom is that a person is only as good as their word. It is our choice whether to believe their testimony.
As my faith has grown that these Biblical stories have truth in them, my theological understanding that they are stories, embodiments of the truth rather than literal details, has also deepened. And that leads me into another devotional place entirely: how am I to understand these stories? How then, shall I choose to live? rw
Thursday, March 19
John 8:21-32
Again he said to them, 'I am going away, and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.' Then the Jews said, 'Is he going to kill himself? Is that what he means by saying, "Where I am going, you cannot come"?' He said to them, 'You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.' They said to him, 'Who are you?' Jesus said to them, 'Why do I speak to you at all? I have much to say about you and much to condemn; but the one who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.' They did not understand that he was speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said, 'When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me. And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.' As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, 'If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.'
Imagine me standing alongside you right now, saying to you 'I am going away, and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.' You might humor me. But, in all likelihood, you would make some dismissive comment intended to put me off without offending me, and walk away. If I continued to talk as you were departing, saying 'You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he,' you would very likely shake your head and make the decision that I need serious help, either counseling or hospitalization. If you are a socially conscious person - and most of us in this fellowship are - you might take the steps necessary to see to it that I get help.
Sometimes when I have read the Lenten stories, my eyes have glazed over and my mind has gone into a funk. It is all just too much too comprehend...that God whom I cannot envision let alone comprehend would send one human being to this earth to embody the story of God's love for all of humanity who ever lived in the past or would live thereafter...and then allow that person to be treacherously and painfully murdered...so I can have a future eternal life...one that my understanding of is at best fuzzy. The story is, after all, just a story...right? I'm supposed to believe this all happened two thousand years before radio and television were around to report it live...before a printing press could generate the story on parchment able to survive those millennia. There is no extant proof from the time when Christ and his disciples walked the earth that they even existed. As those of you Saturday night live fans will remember Church Lady saying, "How convenient!"
What proofs did Christ offer? Certainly nothing tangible. Christ made it a matter of believing, a matter of faith. He said "In your [Hebrew] law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is valid. I testify on my own behalf, and the One who sent me testifies on my behalf." In the millennia that have passed since he died and came again, the witness of the apostles and others who wrote about him have multiplied into the hundreds, then thousands, and now millions upon millions. The axiom is that a person is only as good as their word. It is our choice whether to believe their testimony.
As my faith has grown that these Biblical stories have truth in them, my theological understanding that they are stories, embodiments of the truth rather than literal details, has also deepened. And that leads me into another devotional place entirely: how am I to understand these stories? How then, shall I choose to live? rw
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-18-09
Dear Friend,
Here is your daily Lenten meditation devotion. If you find it inspirational, we hope you will pass it along to your family and friends.
Wednesday, March 18
John 8:12-20
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.' Then the Pharisees said to him, 'You are testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid.' Jesus answered, 'Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid because I know where I have come from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is valid; for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. In your law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is valid. I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me testifies on my behalf.' Then they said to him, 'Where is your Father?' Jesus answered, 'You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.' He spoke these words while he was teaching in the treasury of the temple, but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.
Jesus didn't glow. Nor did he have a halo shining over his head. To anyone he encountered, he was an ordinary Jewish kid who had come to the annual Festival of Booths like every other person in Israel. Anyone who met him could see that he wasn't encumbered by a wife and children. For whatever reason, those responsibilities were not something he had chosen for himself, even though the Hebrew scriptures encouraged a man to do so. In the culture of that day, his parents may have been looked upon with some concern because they hadn't found him a suitable wife at his age, his thirties. Perhaps he would remain celibate and serve as a rabbi for the rest of his days; he certainly knew the scriptures inside out and backward. Still, to the average eye, he was little different than any other young man at the Feast, an honorable person, but not extraordinary. Being honorable was, after all, nothing but an indication that one kept the ordinances spelled out by Moses to the people.
And then he opened his mouth and began to teach. As they paused to listen, then passed on by, you can almost hear one of them muttering: "What's that? He sees himself as the 'light of the world?' What's wrong with the young man? Is he daft?" And his friend replies, "Yeah, he knows where he came from all right...and where he's going to. It isn't what he thinks! Thank God he'll be back home soon...none too soon!" We tend to think of the Pharisees as unreasonable men. But the truth is that they were being perfectly reasonable. This young man defended himself by pointing fingers, saying he didn't judge others like they did. Surely you've heard that defense at times? Heck, I've used it myself. I hear echoes of "it takes one to know one." Then the kid pulls the trick of calling them on their own rules...two witnesses, harrumph. How dare he call upon himself and God as his two witnesses? How brash and arrogant! Haven't you done that one yourself, especially when you were a kid, calling your parents to task for not living up to their own rules? I did...and still do at times with my partner or other people. In many of the cultural ways that we understand today, Jesus was acting like a wise guy to the Jews who confronted him. They weren't trying to be difficult, merely obedient servants to the law. When they asked him where his father was, what did he do? He changed the definition of what a father was, suddenly, claiming a heavenly father to avoid telling them the truth about where his birth parent was so that they could have a talk with him about this young upstart.
Yet, Jesus wasn't arrested. My guess is that they still didn't take him all that seriously and hoped that they could talk some sense into him before they had to bring more serious charges. The scripture says that it wasn't yet his time. As much as it means they weren't ready to kill him yet, I believe it also means the people weren't entirely ready to hear what he had to say. No, that time is now. Are we ready to listen? rw
Here is your daily Lenten meditation devotion. If you find it inspirational, we hope you will pass it along to your family and friends.
Wednesday, March 18
John 8:12-20
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.' Then the Pharisees said to him, 'You are testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid.' Jesus answered, 'Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid because I know where I have come from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is valid; for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. In your law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is valid. I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me testifies on my behalf.' Then they said to him, 'Where is your Father?' Jesus answered, 'You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.' He spoke these words while he was teaching in the treasury of the temple, but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.
Jesus didn't glow. Nor did he have a halo shining over his head. To anyone he encountered, he was an ordinary Jewish kid who had come to the annual Festival of Booths like every other person in Israel. Anyone who met him could see that he wasn't encumbered by a wife and children. For whatever reason, those responsibilities were not something he had chosen for himself, even though the Hebrew scriptures encouraged a man to do so. In the culture of that day, his parents may have been looked upon with some concern because they hadn't found him a suitable wife at his age, his thirties. Perhaps he would remain celibate and serve as a rabbi for the rest of his days; he certainly knew the scriptures inside out and backward. Still, to the average eye, he was little different than any other young man at the Feast, an honorable person, but not extraordinary. Being honorable was, after all, nothing but an indication that one kept the ordinances spelled out by Moses to the people.
And then he opened his mouth and began to teach. As they paused to listen, then passed on by, you can almost hear one of them muttering: "What's that? He sees himself as the 'light of the world?' What's wrong with the young man? Is he daft?" And his friend replies, "Yeah, he knows where he came from all right...and where he's going to. It isn't what he thinks! Thank God he'll be back home soon...none too soon!" We tend to think of the Pharisees as unreasonable men. But the truth is that they were being perfectly reasonable. This young man defended himself by pointing fingers, saying he didn't judge others like they did. Surely you've heard that defense at times? Heck, I've used it myself. I hear echoes of "it takes one to know one." Then the kid pulls the trick of calling them on their own rules...two witnesses, harrumph. How dare he call upon himself and God as his two witnesses? How brash and arrogant! Haven't you done that one yourself, especially when you were a kid, calling your parents to task for not living up to their own rules? I did...and still do at times with my partner or other people. In many of the cultural ways that we understand today, Jesus was acting like a wise guy to the Jews who confronted him. They weren't trying to be difficult, merely obedient servants to the law. When they asked him where his father was, what did he do? He changed the definition of what a father was, suddenly, claiming a heavenly father to avoid telling them the truth about where his birth parent was so that they could have a talk with him about this young upstart.
Yet, Jesus wasn't arrested. My guess is that they still didn't take him all that seriously and hoped that they could talk some sense into him before they had to bring more serious charges. The scripture says that it wasn't yet his time. As much as it means they weren't ready to kill him yet, I believe it also means the people weren't entirely ready to hear what he had to say. No, that time is now. Are we ready to listen? rw
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-17-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
Tuesday, March 17
John 7:37-52
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, 'Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, "Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water." ' Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
When they heard these words, some in the crowd said, 'This is really the prophet.' Others said, 'This is the Messiah.' But some asked, 'Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee, does he? Has not the scripture said that the Messiah is descended from David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?' So there was a division in the crowd because of him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.
Then the temple police went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, 'Why did you not arrest him?' The police answered, 'Never has anyone spoken like this!' Then the Pharisees replied, 'Surely you have not been deceived too, have you? Has any one of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, which does not know the law-they are accursed.' Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before, and who was one of them, asked, 'Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?' They replied, 'Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you? Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.'
The old adage admonishes: "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." Even today, horse traders know that one of the most important indicators of a horse's health is in its mouth. If its teeth and tongue appear healthy, then the trader can look at the rest of the horse. If its hooves aren't split and its back isn't tired and saggy, chances are good that it will be a worthwhile investment. That was as true two millennia ago as it is today. The adage came to be because in days of yore, if someone gave you a horse...if that horse was a gift, you weren't supposed to look in its mouth, especially not in the presence of the one giving you the gift. After all, the horse was free to you, the recipient. This was such common sense that everyone knew it and understood the meaning.
In this scripture, the people of Israel had come to their annual Feast of Booths (Tabernacles) where they gathered for six days of worship and celebration of a promised future kingdom, one that the Hebrew scriptures promised would come to the earth only at the end of days. What a wonderful vision they had been taught since their earliest memories as children! It was to be all that they hoped for. The desert land would become rich, flowing with milk and honey. Peace would enshroud both the land and the people. Not just precious water to drink, but living waters that gave eternal life would flow from even the rocks. What a wondrous vision of an amazing future! Every year, often with great difficulty and at great expense, they crossed the desert to gather in this place for the hope of a better future.
And then, here stood this soft spoken, diminutive figure from Galilee talking like a crazy person. Many people knew exactly who he was and who his parents were. He stood there offering the free advice that the incredible future was at hand...right then and there...through him. "Huh?" Put yourself in their shoes. You and your ancestors had been performing this annual ritual for thousands of years. It was still hot and dusty. The only food available to you was what you brought with you. Who did this guy think he was, anyway? How easily would you be persuaded? Life was difficult and fleeting, after all. Scripture reports in places that some even grumbled about the difficulty of having to obey the imperative to gather at the Feast. And here came this lunatic standing there saying these wonderful things. He needed his head examined - or in the metaphor of the gift horse, someone needed to look closely at the health of his mouth. Don't you have to wonder how could he be saying such incredible things? Oh, and by the way, two thousand years later, in a world filled with plentiful water and all the milk and honey your hard earned cash can pay for, have you stopped looking the gift horse in the mouth? rw
Tuesday, March 17
John 7:37-52
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, 'Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, "Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water." ' Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
When they heard these words, some in the crowd said, 'This is really the prophet.' Others said, 'This is the Messiah.' But some asked, 'Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee, does he? Has not the scripture said that the Messiah is descended from David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?' So there was a division in the crowd because of him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.
Then the temple police went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, 'Why did you not arrest him?' The police answered, 'Never has anyone spoken like this!' Then the Pharisees replied, 'Surely you have not been deceived too, have you? Has any one of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, which does not know the law-they are accursed.' Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before, and who was one of them, asked, 'Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?' They replied, 'Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you? Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.'
The old adage admonishes: "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." Even today, horse traders know that one of the most important indicators of a horse's health is in its mouth. If its teeth and tongue appear healthy, then the trader can look at the rest of the horse. If its hooves aren't split and its back isn't tired and saggy, chances are good that it will be a worthwhile investment. That was as true two millennia ago as it is today. The adage came to be because in days of yore, if someone gave you a horse...if that horse was a gift, you weren't supposed to look in its mouth, especially not in the presence of the one giving you the gift. After all, the horse was free to you, the recipient. This was such common sense that everyone knew it and understood the meaning.
In this scripture, the people of Israel had come to their annual Feast of Booths (Tabernacles) where they gathered for six days of worship and celebration of a promised future kingdom, one that the Hebrew scriptures promised would come to the earth only at the end of days. What a wonderful vision they had been taught since their earliest memories as children! It was to be all that they hoped for. The desert land would become rich, flowing with milk and honey. Peace would enshroud both the land and the people. Not just precious water to drink, but living waters that gave eternal life would flow from even the rocks. What a wondrous vision of an amazing future! Every year, often with great difficulty and at great expense, they crossed the desert to gather in this place for the hope of a better future.
And then, here stood this soft spoken, diminutive figure from Galilee talking like a crazy person. Many people knew exactly who he was and who his parents were. He stood there offering the free advice that the incredible future was at hand...right then and there...through him. "Huh?" Put yourself in their shoes. You and your ancestors had been performing this annual ritual for thousands of years. It was still hot and dusty. The only food available to you was what you brought with you. Who did this guy think he was, anyway? How easily would you be persuaded? Life was difficult and fleeting, after all. Scripture reports in places that some even grumbled about the difficulty of having to obey the imperative to gather at the Feast. And here came this lunatic standing there saying these wonderful things. He needed his head examined - or in the metaphor of the gift horse, someone needed to look closely at the health of his mouth. Don't you have to wonder how could he be saying such incredible things? Oh, and by the way, two thousand years later, in a world filled with plentiful water and all the milk and honey your hard earned cash can pay for, have you stopped looking the gift horse in the mouth? rw
Monday, March 16, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-16-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
Monday, March 16
John 7:14-36
About the middle of the festival Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach. The Jews were astonished at it, saying, 'How does this man have such learning, when he has never been taught?' Then Jesus answered them, 'My teaching is not mine but his who sent me. Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own. Those who speak on their own seek their own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and there is nothing false in him.
'Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why are you looking for an opportunity to kill me?' The crowd answered, 'You have a demon! Who is trying to kill you?' Jesus answered them, 'I performed one work, and all of you are astonished. Moses gave you circumcision (it is, of course, not from Moses, but from the patriarchs), and you circumcise a man on the sabbath. If a man receives circumcision on the sabbath in order that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I healed a man's whole body on the sabbath? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.'
Now some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, 'Is not this the man whom they are trying to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, but they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Messiah? Yet we know where this man is from; but when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.' Then Jesus cried out as he was teaching in the temple, 'You know me, and you know where I am from. I have not come on my own. But the one who sent me is true, and you do not know him. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.' Then they tried to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come. Yet many in the crowd believed in him and were saying, 'When the Messiah comes, will he do more signs than this man has done?'
The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering such things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent temple police to arrest him. Jesus then said, 'I will be with you a little while longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will search for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.' The Jews said to one another, 'Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does he mean by saying, "You will search for me and you will not find me" and, "Where I am, you cannot come"?'
Citations of the Law of Moses by Jesus, the Pharisees and myriad others since those days can be some of the most difficult scriptures for us to comprehend and have led to some of the most conserving interpretations. Well into adulthood, I was taught to be "obedient,." whatever that was supposed to mean. How do I wrestle with the truth or meaning of scripture (or a particular scripture) and how I am therefore supposed to live when I am instructed to be in an attitude of prayer and self-examination to see if I am living "obediently" according to those very scriptures? Isn't the very idea of questioning scriptures contradictory to the whole spirit of the Lenten season, a time when we are prayerfully preparing our minds and hearts to enter into solemn observance of the death of Christ? Doesn't Lent cry out for us to simply capitulate to whichever concept of obedience we understand or, circumventing understanding, to what we were taught? We can always take a closer look at meanings later...when the season has passed (and then procrastinate until next year when we can, once again, put off the task for yet another year)?
But, suppose we do choose to more closely examine how we are living during this sacred season. If two (or more) highly respected and educated theologians are teaching contrary principles about the "Law of God" from the same scriptural passage, how will we know when we have heard the "genuine article?" How can I tell, to borrow the paraphrased words of Jesus, "whether the teaching is from God or whether they are speaking on their own?" That conflict between two theologians is exactly what the attendees at this Festival encountered when they listened to Christ. Whose message were they to believe? The young, upstart theologian? Or the more distinguished, experienced, and respected elders of their congregation? When I put myself in their shoes, the problem suddenly becomes very personal for me. My guess is that one of the reasons you, like me, chose this MCC fellowship is as a result of this very type of conflict. Most of us have confronted the problem of gender in scripture. What if we perceive, as many of us have, that a theologian doesn't know what they are talking about? How do we discern the truth?
What, exactly, is this "law" that Moses received from God and exactly how are we to live in the light of it? The contemporary name for the practice that Jesus accused the Pharisees of is "proof texting," cutting, shaping and pasting the law to serve their own purposes. Proof texting is one of the most common theological practices in our day. If you need contemporary illustrations, simply turn on the Fox television network or Christian radio commentators and watch or listen for thirty minutes. Scripture is constantly cut and pasted and the name of God called upon to support political, moral, ethical, and financial decisions made by those who want your support and obedience. What better way than to lay a guilt trip on everyone than to call upon God's authority? What of humility that might lead to less certainty? That went out the window with the crucifixion of Christ. From that day to this, pride has ruled life for far too many who have power over others. For me, there is no better time to take a closer look at my belief system vis-Ã -vis the scriptures than during the time which God sets aside for that exact purpose. And as I do so, I will try to keep in mind that if after two thousand years the "authorities" are still wrestling with what Christ meant, I don't have to be hard on myself just because there are things I'm still not sure of. Instead, I will choose to celebrate the gift of life and everything in it while still trying to "figure it all out." Remember, Jesus Christ is the one who came to lead us out of darkness and into light. rw
Monday, March 16
John 7:14-36
About the middle of the festival Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach. The Jews were astonished at it, saying, 'How does this man have such learning, when he has never been taught?' Then Jesus answered them, 'My teaching is not mine but his who sent me. Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own. Those who speak on their own seek their own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and there is nothing false in him.
'Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why are you looking for an opportunity to kill me?' The crowd answered, 'You have a demon! Who is trying to kill you?' Jesus answered them, 'I performed one work, and all of you are astonished. Moses gave you circumcision (it is, of course, not from Moses, but from the patriarchs), and you circumcise a man on the sabbath. If a man receives circumcision on the sabbath in order that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I healed a man's whole body on the sabbath? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.'
Now some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, 'Is not this the man whom they are trying to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, but they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Messiah? Yet we know where this man is from; but when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.' Then Jesus cried out as he was teaching in the temple, 'You know me, and you know where I am from. I have not come on my own. But the one who sent me is true, and you do not know him. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.' Then they tried to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come. Yet many in the crowd believed in him and were saying, 'When the Messiah comes, will he do more signs than this man has done?'
The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering such things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent temple police to arrest him. Jesus then said, 'I will be with you a little while longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will search for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.' The Jews said to one another, 'Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does he mean by saying, "You will search for me and you will not find me" and, "Where I am, you cannot come"?'
Citations of the Law of Moses by Jesus, the Pharisees and myriad others since those days can be some of the most difficult scriptures for us to comprehend and have led to some of the most conserving interpretations. Well into adulthood, I was taught to be "obedient,." whatever that was supposed to mean. How do I wrestle with the truth or meaning of scripture (or a particular scripture) and how I am therefore supposed to live when I am instructed to be in an attitude of prayer and self-examination to see if I am living "obediently" according to those very scriptures? Isn't the very idea of questioning scriptures contradictory to the whole spirit of the Lenten season, a time when we are prayerfully preparing our minds and hearts to enter into solemn observance of the death of Christ? Doesn't Lent cry out for us to simply capitulate to whichever concept of obedience we understand or, circumventing understanding, to what we were taught? We can always take a closer look at meanings later...when the season has passed (and then procrastinate until next year when we can, once again, put off the task for yet another year)?
But, suppose we do choose to more closely examine how we are living during this sacred season. If two (or more) highly respected and educated theologians are teaching contrary principles about the "Law of God" from the same scriptural passage, how will we know when we have heard the "genuine article?" How can I tell, to borrow the paraphrased words of Jesus, "whether the teaching is from God or whether they are speaking on their own?" That conflict between two theologians is exactly what the attendees at this Festival encountered when they listened to Christ. Whose message were they to believe? The young, upstart theologian? Or the more distinguished, experienced, and respected elders of their congregation? When I put myself in their shoes, the problem suddenly becomes very personal for me. My guess is that one of the reasons you, like me, chose this MCC fellowship is as a result of this very type of conflict. Most of us have confronted the problem of gender in scripture. What if we perceive, as many of us have, that a theologian doesn't know what they are talking about? How do we discern the truth?
What, exactly, is this "law" that Moses received from God and exactly how are we to live in the light of it? The contemporary name for the practice that Jesus accused the Pharisees of is "proof texting," cutting, shaping and pasting the law to serve their own purposes. Proof texting is one of the most common theological practices in our day. If you need contemporary illustrations, simply turn on the Fox television network or Christian radio commentators and watch or listen for thirty minutes. Scripture is constantly cut and pasted and the name of God called upon to support political, moral, ethical, and financial decisions made by those who want your support and obedience. What better way than to lay a guilt trip on everyone than to call upon God's authority? What of humility that might lead to less certainty? That went out the window with the crucifixion of Christ. From that day to this, pride has ruled life for far too many who have power over others. For me, there is no better time to take a closer look at my belief system vis-Ã -vis the scriptures than during the time which God sets aside for that exact purpose. And as I do so, I will try to keep in mind that if after two thousand years the "authorities" are still wrestling with what Christ meant, I don't have to be hard on myself just because there are things I'm still not sure of. Instead, I will choose to celebrate the gift of life and everything in it while still trying to "figure it all out." Remember, Jesus Christ is the one who came to lead us out of darkness and into light. rw
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Lenten devotional 3-14-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
Saturday, March 14
John 7:1-13
After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him. Now the Jewish festival of Booths was near. So his brothers said to him, 'Leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples also may see the works you are doing; for no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.' (For not even his brothers believed in him.) Jesus said to them, 'My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify against it that its works are evil. Go to the festival yourselves. I am not going to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come.' After saying this, he remained in Galilee.
But after his brothers had gone to the festival, then he also went, not publicly but as it were in secret. The Jews were looking for him at the festival and saying, 'Where is he?' And there was considerable complaining about him among the crowds. While some were saying, 'He is a good man', others were saying, 'No, he is deceiving the crowd.' Yet no one would speak openly about him for fear of the Jews.
How comfortable are you worshipping God? Celebrating Christ? If those seem like silly questions, consider how uncomfortable you may have been when your worship and celebration required you to step outside your comfort zone and do things that you may not have come to peace with yet? In my earliest life, my discomfort began with lack of faith. How could I comfortably celebrate something I didn't really understand or believe? I remember the feeling of doubt. Later as I moved into a faith relationship with God, an orientation more liberal than most, I remember many years when I either didn't participate in collective worship or I worshipped with people who were little like me in life orientation or theological philosophy. Perhaps you can relate? If you were blessed to always know exactly where you were in your faith journey, blessed to have complete faith in God, you might not understand how someone's worship life could be a journey through various stages of comfort and discomfort. As I reflect on Jesus struggling to stay alive until his work in Jerusalem was completed, I can easily imagine that he experienced considerable discomfort. He was, after all, human to his core. I have no doubt that he felt every human feeling to the utmost degree. He only had a much shorter period of life to perfect his faith, and a far more threatening set of challenges than I have ever faced. For me, the strongest faith challenges came during my younger years. Jesus died at age thirty-three. Consider now that most if not all of the same challenges that we face in our lives confronted Jesus in his spiritual journey. While the Bible doesn't spell them out, Jesus lived as a young child and then as an adolescent. We all know about the challenges of finding your identity, wrestling with self-doubt, struggling to understand puberty, looking for human love and acceptance - to name just four. Remember that, as a human being, Jesus faced these challenges just as we have. For Jesus, though, the most serious challenges came just as he was blossoming in the most productive years of adulthood - his thirties. And his challenges at that still youthful age were literally about the precarious balancing of life and death.
In the light of that increased understanding of Jesus, when we read the story of Jesus' seeking to attend the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles), we discover that the Lenten season is full of irony. Jesus was at once seeking to attend the joyous Festival celebration that was the highlight of God's annual worship calendar for Israel, and he understood that for him it would lead to his death during the very peak period of celebration by Israel. For us, the irony is replayed every year. Lent is a time of both solemn observance of the impending death of Jesus Christ, and it is a joyous celebration of the meaning of Christ's sacrifice as we understand it through the lens of our own unique religious traditions. We vicariously relive, through our collective worship, Christ's last steps on earth and the challenges which he confronted leading to his death.
Many levels of understanding of the Lenten season can be reached. The irony in Christ's life two millennia ago and the irony which we relive today are only two. Another level involves our deeper reflection on our own spiritual journey. How does that work? God gives us this time every year so that, over the passage of years, we can reflect upon our level of commitment, compare it to Christ's, and make the decision to increase it. I attribute to God the wisdom to know that even though I was definitely a Christian, my faith would increase incrementally year upon year, not all at once.
Last, consider what I believe is the most intimate level of understanding. Suppose that, just as Christ was, I am confronted in my lifetime with the choice between living my faith and dying, and hiding my faith and living. Myriad stories exist of other humans - Joan of Arc to name just one - who have come face to face with that choice. What will I choose? Jesus was forced to hide himself to stay alive; that part comes easy for me. But then...every year...I have to consider why Jesus was hiding. Was it because he, like me, feared death? Certainly sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane speaks to the possibility. Were those drops only because of the intensity of his prayer for others? It is too easy for me to consider that Jesus was, after all, divine...special, not experiencing human feelings like me...possessing gifts that allowed him the courage to do what I probably would not. That is an all too easy position to adopt. What we do know for certain is that he willingly chose to die the most painful death that could be conceived of in his day, and that he hid himself only because if he was killed before his task was complete, God's eternal plan would have been interrupted. Every single year when I revisit these verses, I have to reconsider how, then, shall I live? My prayer is that God will increase in us the light of love and the wisdom that is derived from the words in these eternal verses. rw
Saturday, March 14
John 7:1-13
After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him. Now the Jewish festival of Booths was near. So his brothers said to him, 'Leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples also may see the works you are doing; for no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.' (For not even his brothers believed in him.) Jesus said to them, 'My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify against it that its works are evil. Go to the festival yourselves. I am not going to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come.' After saying this, he remained in Galilee.
But after his brothers had gone to the festival, then he also went, not publicly but as it were in secret. The Jews were looking for him at the festival and saying, 'Where is he?' And there was considerable complaining about him among the crowds. While some were saying, 'He is a good man', others were saying, 'No, he is deceiving the crowd.' Yet no one would speak openly about him for fear of the Jews.
How comfortable are you worshipping God? Celebrating Christ? If those seem like silly questions, consider how uncomfortable you may have been when your worship and celebration required you to step outside your comfort zone and do things that you may not have come to peace with yet? In my earliest life, my discomfort began with lack of faith. How could I comfortably celebrate something I didn't really understand or believe? I remember the feeling of doubt. Later as I moved into a faith relationship with God, an orientation more liberal than most, I remember many years when I either didn't participate in collective worship or I worshipped with people who were little like me in life orientation or theological philosophy. Perhaps you can relate? If you were blessed to always know exactly where you were in your faith journey, blessed to have complete faith in God, you might not understand how someone's worship life could be a journey through various stages of comfort and discomfort. As I reflect on Jesus struggling to stay alive until his work in Jerusalem was completed, I can easily imagine that he experienced considerable discomfort. He was, after all, human to his core. I have no doubt that he felt every human feeling to the utmost degree. He only had a much shorter period of life to perfect his faith, and a far more threatening set of challenges than I have ever faced. For me, the strongest faith challenges came during my younger years. Jesus died at age thirty-three. Consider now that most if not all of the same challenges that we face in our lives confronted Jesus in his spiritual journey. While the Bible doesn't spell them out, Jesus lived as a young child and then as an adolescent. We all know about the challenges of finding your identity, wrestling with self-doubt, struggling to understand puberty, looking for human love and acceptance - to name just four. Remember that, as a human being, Jesus faced these challenges just as we have. For Jesus, though, the most serious challenges came just as he was blossoming in the most productive years of adulthood - his thirties. And his challenges at that still youthful age were literally about the precarious balancing of life and death.
In the light of that increased understanding of Jesus, when we read the story of Jesus' seeking to attend the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles), we discover that the Lenten season is full of irony. Jesus was at once seeking to attend the joyous Festival celebration that was the highlight of God's annual worship calendar for Israel, and he understood that for him it would lead to his death during the very peak period of celebration by Israel. For us, the irony is replayed every year. Lent is a time of both solemn observance of the impending death of Jesus Christ, and it is a joyous celebration of the meaning of Christ's sacrifice as we understand it through the lens of our own unique religious traditions. We vicariously relive, through our collective worship, Christ's last steps on earth and the challenges which he confronted leading to his death.
Many levels of understanding of the Lenten season can be reached. The irony in Christ's life two millennia ago and the irony which we relive today are only two. Another level involves our deeper reflection on our own spiritual journey. How does that work? God gives us this time every year so that, over the passage of years, we can reflect upon our level of commitment, compare it to Christ's, and make the decision to increase it. I attribute to God the wisdom to know that even though I was definitely a Christian, my faith would increase incrementally year upon year, not all at once.
Last, consider what I believe is the most intimate level of understanding. Suppose that, just as Christ was, I am confronted in my lifetime with the choice between living my faith and dying, and hiding my faith and living. Myriad stories exist of other humans - Joan of Arc to name just one - who have come face to face with that choice. What will I choose? Jesus was forced to hide himself to stay alive; that part comes easy for me. But then...every year...I have to consider why Jesus was hiding. Was it because he, like me, feared death? Certainly sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane speaks to the possibility. Were those drops only because of the intensity of his prayer for others? It is too easy for me to consider that Jesus was, after all, divine...special, not experiencing human feelings like me...possessing gifts that allowed him the courage to do what I probably would not. That is an all too easy position to adopt. What we do know for certain is that he willingly chose to die the most painful death that could be conceived of in his day, and that he hid himself only because if he was killed before his task was complete, God's eternal plan would have been interrupted. Every single year when I revisit these verses, I have to reconsider how, then, shall I live? My prayer is that God will increase in us the light of love and the wisdom that is derived from the words in these eternal verses. rw
Friday, March 13, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-13-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
Friday, March 13
John 5:30-47
'I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
'If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that his testimony to me is true. You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth. Not that I accept such human testimony, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. But I have a testimony greater than John's. The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his form, and you do not have his word abiding in you, because you do not believe him whom he has sent.
'You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. I do not accept glory from human beings. But I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?'
This passage immediately follows verses effectively placing Jesus on trial in which the charges of the Jews and their resolve to kill Jesus are expressed. In today's reading, Jesus turns the tables on the Pharisees. In yesterday's reading, Jesus spoke on his own behalf; but Jewish law does not allow a person to be his own witness at his own trial. Therefore, Jesus acts as his own defense attorney presenting other witnesses who speak on his behalf. Jesus calls on the witness of John the Baptist, the witness of his own ministry, the witness of God and the witness of the Scriptures in his defense. In making his defense, Jesus becomes the prosecutor and reverses the charges, placing upon the Jewish leaders the responsibility for refusing to see and hear the truth. Jesus describes his interrelationship with and dependence upon God for his own work, his virtual inseparability from his parent because his own will is identical with God's. How can Jesus hope that they will believe anything he has to say? The condemnation of his righteous judgment of them strongly implies that he knows they not only do not but will not see. In spite of having witnesses that his accusers claim to honor, they still do not believe him.
Jesus' message for his accusers is a difficult one. He is asking them to change their lives. In her book, The Change Cycle, the Reverend Elder Lillie Brock explains the stages that people go through when confronted with change. This helps us understand the Pharisees reaction. Stage One in the Change Cycle - what these men were confronted with when Jesus appeared in their world, asking them to change - is loss. What is the first feeling a person experiences when they are confronted with either the possibility of or the reality of loss? Fear. The primary feeling encountered during change is fear of loss. This was as true for the Pharisees two thousand years ago as it is for us today.
The difficulty in Jesus' message for his accusers is that if they choose to accept it, their lives will immediately turn upside down, from perceived social power to perceived powerlessness, Not only would they lose the authority to make decisions for the collective well being of their subjects, they would then have to trust others to make good decisions on their own. One can almost see and hear them looking at each other and saying, "Oh No! We can't live with that!" They cannot get beyond their fear of what this change will mean to their lives.
The good news for us, the same good news which Jesus tried to tell the Pharisees, is that we do not have to face change - or our fear of it - alone. The Reverend Elder Lillie Brock says that in the face of change we will nearly always experience fear. But, in spite of that fear, we have a hope in something far bigger than any change that might come our way, a hope so big that it will always conquer our fear - if we will allow that. The Apostle Paul tells us that in our relationship with God, in our acceptance of the parent-child relationship which God offers us, we like Paul, can know the secret of being content in all circumstances. That is: that we can do everything through Jesus who gives us strength. cw
For all Lent Devotionals visit us online at: http://hopeandhelpcenter.org/spirithelp.aspx
Friday, March 13
John 5:30-47
'I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
'If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that his testimony to me is true. You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth. Not that I accept such human testimony, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. But I have a testimony greater than John's. The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his form, and you do not have his word abiding in you, because you do not believe him whom he has sent.
'You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. I do not accept glory from human beings. But I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?'
This passage immediately follows verses effectively placing Jesus on trial in which the charges of the Jews and their resolve to kill Jesus are expressed. In today's reading, Jesus turns the tables on the Pharisees. In yesterday's reading, Jesus spoke on his own behalf; but Jewish law does not allow a person to be his own witness at his own trial. Therefore, Jesus acts as his own defense attorney presenting other witnesses who speak on his behalf. Jesus calls on the witness of John the Baptist, the witness of his own ministry, the witness of God and the witness of the Scriptures in his defense. In making his defense, Jesus becomes the prosecutor and reverses the charges, placing upon the Jewish leaders the responsibility for refusing to see and hear the truth. Jesus describes his interrelationship with and dependence upon God for his own work, his virtual inseparability from his parent because his own will is identical with God's. How can Jesus hope that they will believe anything he has to say? The condemnation of his righteous judgment of them strongly implies that he knows they not only do not but will not see. In spite of having witnesses that his accusers claim to honor, they still do not believe him.
Jesus' message for his accusers is a difficult one. He is asking them to change their lives. In her book, The Change Cycle, the Reverend Elder Lillie Brock explains the stages that people go through when confronted with change. This helps us understand the Pharisees reaction. Stage One in the Change Cycle - what these men were confronted with when Jesus appeared in their world, asking them to change - is loss. What is the first feeling a person experiences when they are confronted with either the possibility of or the reality of loss? Fear. The primary feeling encountered during change is fear of loss. This was as true for the Pharisees two thousand years ago as it is for us today.
The difficulty in Jesus' message for his accusers is that if they choose to accept it, their lives will immediately turn upside down, from perceived social power to perceived powerlessness, Not only would they lose the authority to make decisions for the collective well being of their subjects, they would then have to trust others to make good decisions on their own. One can almost see and hear them looking at each other and saying, "Oh No! We can't live with that!" They cannot get beyond their fear of what this change will mean to their lives.
The good news for us, the same good news which Jesus tried to tell the Pharisees, is that we do not have to face change - or our fear of it - alone. The Reverend Elder Lillie Brock says that in the face of change we will nearly always experience fear. But, in spite of that fear, we have a hope in something far bigger than any change that might come our way, a hope so big that it will always conquer our fear - if we will allow that. The Apostle Paul tells us that in our relationship with God, in our acceptance of the parent-child relationship which God offers us, we like Paul, can know the secret of being content in all circumstances. That is: that we can do everything through Jesus who gives us strength. cw
For all Lent Devotionals visit us online at: http://hopeandhelpcenter.org/spirithelp.aspx
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-12-09
http://www.hopeandhelpcenter.org/
Here is your daily Lenten meditation devotion. If you find it inspirational, we hope you will pass it along to your family and friends.
Thursday, March 12
John 5:19-29
Jesus said to them, 'Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomsoever he wishes. The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.
'Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out-those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.
The Jews are outraged because Jesus is breaking Sabbath rules and is, in their perception, making himself equal to God. The readings for today and tomorrow are an answer to that outrage. In them, Jesus is addressing the following questions: Who am I? And Who are you (human beings) in light of me?
Who Jesus is can be answered by better understanding Jesus' relationship to God. Jesus is the child. God is his parent (Father for the point of this story). As the Son, Jesus is incapable of doing anything apart from the model of the Father's own work. This apprentice relationship of father and son are common in the Near Eastern culture of Jesus' time. Jesus makes it clear that he now shares in the life giving work of the parent and has complete freedom in the enactment of that work. The truth of this is seen in yesterday's story when Jesus healed the paralyzed man because he chose to, not because the man requested it.
Jesus is in the family business of giving life, whether that life is physical or spiritual. Who then are we in the light of who Jesus is? We are the apprentices to Jesus' own life. We are being "called" (or "asked") to join Jesus in making all of the small choices to love people unconditionally.
You and I are physical beings with a physical life that we can easily see is limited and often difficult. But Jesus is very clear that you and I are also spiritual beings with both limitless potential and eternal life. You and I are invited to live our lives by figuratively sitting at the feet of Jesus, learning the same lessons that his heavenly parent taught him. We are asked to choose to identify with our heavenly, eternal parent just as Jesus did, so that our relationship with our eternal parent can grow. We are called to both spiritual and physical action so that we, too, can apprentice others who will, by following our example, choose to do as we did, and strive to do as only Christ could do perfectly, bringing justice, love and peace to a world that sorely needs it.
Here is your daily Lenten meditation devotion. If you find it inspirational, we hope you will pass it along to your family and friends.
Thursday, March 12
John 5:19-29
Jesus said to them, 'Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomsoever he wishes. The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.
'Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out-those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.
The Jews are outraged because Jesus is breaking Sabbath rules and is, in their perception, making himself equal to God. The readings for today and tomorrow are an answer to that outrage. In them, Jesus is addressing the following questions: Who am I? And Who are you (human beings) in light of me?
Who Jesus is can be answered by better understanding Jesus' relationship to God. Jesus is the child. God is his parent (Father for the point of this story). As the Son, Jesus is incapable of doing anything apart from the model of the Father's own work. This apprentice relationship of father and son are common in the Near Eastern culture of Jesus' time. Jesus makes it clear that he now shares in the life giving work of the parent and has complete freedom in the enactment of that work. The truth of this is seen in yesterday's story when Jesus healed the paralyzed man because he chose to, not because the man requested it.
Jesus is in the family business of giving life, whether that life is physical or spiritual. Who then are we in the light of who Jesus is? We are the apprentices to Jesus' own life. We are being "called" (or "asked") to join Jesus in making all of the small choices to love people unconditionally.
You and I are physical beings with a physical life that we can easily see is limited and often difficult. But Jesus is very clear that you and I are also spiritual beings with both limitless potential and eternal life. You and I are invited to live our lives by figuratively sitting at the feet of Jesus, learning the same lessons that his heavenly parent taught him. We are asked to choose to identify with our heavenly, eternal parent just as Jesus did, so that our relationship with our eternal parent can grow. We are called to both spiritual and physical action so that we, too, can apprentice others who will, by following our example, choose to do as we did, and strive to do as only Christ could do perfectly, bringing justice, love and peace to a world that sorely needs it.
cw
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-11-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
March 11John 5:1-18
After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids-blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, 'Do you want to be made well?' The sick man answered him, 'Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.' Jesus said to him, 'Stand up, take your mat and walk.' At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, 'It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.' But he answered them, 'The man who made me well said to me, "Take up your mat and walk." ' They asked him, 'Who is the man who said to you, "Take it up and walk"?' Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, 'See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.' The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them, 'My Father is still working, and I also am working.' For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.
Judaism during the time of Jesus was a system of ordering life and religious practice with laws, either written or unwritten. So when Jesus broke Jewish law by doing things like healing a paralyzed man on the Sabbath, he threatened the power of those who possessed the authority to enforce the Jewish way of life as they perceived it. Jesus was a Jew, too, but he taught a new way of redefining God's presence in the world. The Jews in this story felt like they had too much to lose from this new way and, therefore, felt the need to defend their way of life, even if that meant that Jesus had to die.
The rejection of Jesus in this story is a rejection of both the possibility of new ways of knowing God and ordering a life of faith within a religious community. A fundamental difference existed between Jesus views and those of the Jewish leaders with respect to the purpose of a religious community. The Jewish leaders believed that their interpretation of Torah lead them to the task of segregating their religious community from the world, using the laws it proscribed for Israel as a means of social control. They used their sacred texts to that end. Whereas the Jews believed the Torah should be administered externally upon people's lives, Jesus believed that each person should examine their life in the light of Torah...that being faithful should be a matter of the heart, not something externally imposed...that the purpose of a religious community was to facilitate a new birth for its people based on experience of God's unconditional love
How then shall we live in the light of this new perception that Jesus brought to the world? The modern church - and you and me in it - also struggle with a wide range of hot issues. A whole host of self-appointed authorities would gladly interpret these issues on our behalf...if we will only let them. Which is easier for you: to let them or to take that large responsibility yourself? Some of these divisive issues are: who can or can't be ordained? Should a church be governed from the bottom up or the top down? What is the meaning of baptism and the Eucharist and how should they be practiced? Is it acceptable for a church (or the Christians in it) to use the Bible to reject someone on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation?
In my own life, I have chosen to wrestle with these issues for myself, to seek to hear God's voice in answer to my prayers or in the scriptures as I search them or in the voices of people like you and the clergy in the church, both ancient and modern. In some cases where I don't feel qualified to make a decision at this time, I choose not to decide. To answer the question about how we should live now, Jesus is telling us that it is God's availability and presence in Jesus that is the defining mark of a believing community, not the defense of any particular practice. So as not to make the mistake of the Pharisees, I must guard against the tendency to rigidly press my system of beliefs upon others, judging them according to the standards that I create. If I do that, I am rejecting the underlying principle which the words of Jesus continue to teach me after two millennia. The only valid question is: do I love Jesus, God and each person unconditionally? Nothing less will do. cw
March 11John 5:1-18
After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids-blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, 'Do you want to be made well?' The sick man answered him, 'Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.' Jesus said to him, 'Stand up, take your mat and walk.' At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, 'It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.' But he answered them, 'The man who made me well said to me, "Take up your mat and walk." ' They asked him, 'Who is the man who said to you, "Take it up and walk"?' Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, 'See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.' The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them, 'My Father is still working, and I also am working.' For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.
Judaism during the time of Jesus was a system of ordering life and religious practice with laws, either written or unwritten. So when Jesus broke Jewish law by doing things like healing a paralyzed man on the Sabbath, he threatened the power of those who possessed the authority to enforce the Jewish way of life as they perceived it. Jesus was a Jew, too, but he taught a new way of redefining God's presence in the world. The Jews in this story felt like they had too much to lose from this new way and, therefore, felt the need to defend their way of life, even if that meant that Jesus had to die.
The rejection of Jesus in this story is a rejection of both the possibility of new ways of knowing God and ordering a life of faith within a religious community. A fundamental difference existed between Jesus views and those of the Jewish leaders with respect to the purpose of a religious community. The Jewish leaders believed that their interpretation of Torah lead them to the task of segregating their religious community from the world, using the laws it proscribed for Israel as a means of social control. They used their sacred texts to that end. Whereas the Jews believed the Torah should be administered externally upon people's lives, Jesus believed that each person should examine their life in the light of Torah...that being faithful should be a matter of the heart, not something externally imposed...that the purpose of a religious community was to facilitate a new birth for its people based on experience of God's unconditional love
How then shall we live in the light of this new perception that Jesus brought to the world? The modern church - and you and me in it - also struggle with a wide range of hot issues. A whole host of self-appointed authorities would gladly interpret these issues on our behalf...if we will only let them. Which is easier for you: to let them or to take that large responsibility yourself? Some of these divisive issues are: who can or can't be ordained? Should a church be governed from the bottom up or the top down? What is the meaning of baptism and the Eucharist and how should they be practiced? Is it acceptable for a church (or the Christians in it) to use the Bible to reject someone on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation?
In my own life, I have chosen to wrestle with these issues for myself, to seek to hear God's voice in answer to my prayers or in the scriptures as I search them or in the voices of people like you and the clergy in the church, both ancient and modern. In some cases where I don't feel qualified to make a decision at this time, I choose not to decide. To answer the question about how we should live now, Jesus is telling us that it is God's availability and presence in Jesus that is the defining mark of a believing community, not the defense of any particular practice. So as not to make the mistake of the Pharisees, I must guard against the tendency to rigidly press my system of beliefs upon others, judging them according to the standards that I create. If I do that, I am rejecting the underlying principle which the words of Jesus continue to teach me after two millennia. The only valid question is: do I love Jesus, God and each person unconditionally? Nothing less will do. cw
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-10-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
March 10
John 4:43-54
When the two days were over, he went from that place to Galilee (for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in the prophet's own country). When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival; for they too had gone to the festival.
Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, 'Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.' The official said to him, 'Sir, come down before my little boy dies.' Jesus said to him, 'Go; your son will live.' The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, 'Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.' The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, 'Your son will live.' So he himself believed, along with his whole household. Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.
When Jesus returns to Cana, he returns to the place of his first miracle, turning water into wine at the wedding feast. A royal official, moved by desperation and need because his son was close to death, approached Jesus to ask for the miracle of healing. The father not only received the miracle he asked for, he also received the gift of faith. If the father had seen the healing of his son only as a miraculous act, complete in itself, his appreciation would have been limited to the act by itself. However, the father understood the miraculous act as a sign about who Jesus is: the giver of abundant gifts and the giver of faith. As the giver of abundance gifts and faith, Jesus points to who God is.
I can easily read this story of a miracle which happened two thousand years ago and take it at face value. This is a miracle story which led to faith in the father and probably in the son as well. Jesus was there, alive, performing signs and wonders. Transposing the story into my own life, into the present day, can be a daunting task. How am I to understand the occurrence of miracles in my own life? Do I even recognize, let alone believe, that miracles occur in my life? What makes something a miracle? Is it the event itself? Is it the physical presence of Jesus performing a miracle? Or is it the way I perceive it? Jesus is not, after all, walking around performing these miracles today, is he?
Even in the presence of Jesus, most people didn't believe who Jesus said he was, let alone believe he could perform miracles. The man in this story did not have to attribute his son's healing to Jesus performing a miracle. Rather, he chose to see it as a miracle. He chose to build his faith on what he believed happened.
In my life experience, nothing would have ever led me to believe a church like MCC even existed, let alone that Ron and I would discover the most loving church family that either of us could ever imagine. This for us is a miracle. How do I understand the gift of more than $1,400,000 which all of us have combined to pledge during the worst economic times in our collective history? By any reasonable estimation, this was impossible. Yet, it happened! I see that as a miracle of no small proportion. Do you? I must testify that I cannot understand this without believing that God's Holy Spirit has infused you and me with the faith necessary to make those gifts. That, to me, is a miracle. How do I see the answers to prayers that are submitted to our prayer ministry or to prayer chains outside our church? For me, all of the answers are miracles, whether that was a healing or comfort or peace or something else.
When these miracles are compared to the healing of that one boy two millennia ago, they are equally powerful witnesses in terms of their ministry to the people both inside our church and in the community around us. If I see these miracles as complete in themselves, then I am missing the more important blessing. The even larger picture painted by the story of that little boy and his father is that miracles are a sign of the faithful character of God. My faith, God's faith given to me as a gift, grows to a firm belief that the next miracle is just around the corner, that life is full of the miracles of God for me and for you every day of our lives. cw
March 10
John 4:43-54
When the two days were over, he went from that place to Galilee (for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in the prophet's own country). When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival; for they too had gone to the festival.
Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, 'Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.' The official said to him, 'Sir, come down before my little boy dies.' Jesus said to him, 'Go; your son will live.' The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, 'Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.' The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, 'Your son will live.' So he himself believed, along with his whole household. Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.
When Jesus returns to Cana, he returns to the place of his first miracle, turning water into wine at the wedding feast. A royal official, moved by desperation and need because his son was close to death, approached Jesus to ask for the miracle of healing. The father not only received the miracle he asked for, he also received the gift of faith. If the father had seen the healing of his son only as a miraculous act, complete in itself, his appreciation would have been limited to the act by itself. However, the father understood the miraculous act as a sign about who Jesus is: the giver of abundant gifts and the giver of faith. As the giver of abundance gifts and faith, Jesus points to who God is.
I can easily read this story of a miracle which happened two thousand years ago and take it at face value. This is a miracle story which led to faith in the father and probably in the son as well. Jesus was there, alive, performing signs and wonders. Transposing the story into my own life, into the present day, can be a daunting task. How am I to understand the occurrence of miracles in my own life? Do I even recognize, let alone believe, that miracles occur in my life? What makes something a miracle? Is it the event itself? Is it the physical presence of Jesus performing a miracle? Or is it the way I perceive it? Jesus is not, after all, walking around performing these miracles today, is he?
Even in the presence of Jesus, most people didn't believe who Jesus said he was, let alone believe he could perform miracles. The man in this story did not have to attribute his son's healing to Jesus performing a miracle. Rather, he chose to see it as a miracle. He chose to build his faith on what he believed happened.
In my life experience, nothing would have ever led me to believe a church like MCC even existed, let alone that Ron and I would discover the most loving church family that either of us could ever imagine. This for us is a miracle. How do I understand the gift of more than $1,400,000 which all of us have combined to pledge during the worst economic times in our collective history? By any reasonable estimation, this was impossible. Yet, it happened! I see that as a miracle of no small proportion. Do you? I must testify that I cannot understand this without believing that God's Holy Spirit has infused you and me with the faith necessary to make those gifts. That, to me, is a miracle. How do I see the answers to prayers that are submitted to our prayer ministry or to prayer chains outside our church? For me, all of the answers are miracles, whether that was a healing or comfort or peace or something else.
When these miracles are compared to the healing of that one boy two millennia ago, they are equally powerful witnesses in terms of their ministry to the people both inside our church and in the community around us. If I see these miracles as complete in themselves, then I am missing the more important blessing. The even larger picture painted by the story of that little boy and his father is that miracles are a sign of the faithful character of God. My faith, God's faith given to me as a gift, grows to a firm belief that the next miracle is just around the corner, that life is full of the miracles of God for me and for you every day of our lives. cw
Monday, March 9, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-9-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
March 9
John 4:27-42
Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, 'What do you want?' or, 'Why are you speaking with her?' Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 'Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?' They left the city and were on their way to him.
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, 'Rabbi, eat something.' But he said to them, 'I have food to eat that you do not know about.' So the disciples said to one another, 'Surely no one has brought him something to eat?' Jesus said to them, 'My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, "Four months more, then comes the harvest"? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, "One sows and another reaps." I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.'
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, 'He told me everything I have ever done.' So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, 'It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.'
In Jesus' ministry, he often challenges the boundaries of who is acceptable and who is not. In this story, he not only challenges the boundary of a chosen people (the Jews) and a rejected people (the Samaritans), but also the boundary constructed on the basis of gender. Jesus engages in several scandalous behaviors: he talks to a woman in public, not just any woman but a Samaritan woman (the Samaritans were despised by the Jews); he reveals intimate details of who he is to this Samaritan woman and uses her as a witness to the townspeople; he treats the Samaritan woman and later the entire village as worthy recipients of God's grace.
The Samaritan woman's successful evangelization of her town makes it clear that Jesus did not see any of the following as qualifications for being a witness or disciple: being male; believing in a "right" interpretation of Scripture; belonging to an exclusive chosen group. The Samaritan woman failed all of the above tests, yet, because of her witness, the number of people who believed in Jesus grew. Moreover, once the town people heard the message of Jesus themselves, they no long needed the secondary witness of the woman, because they heard the message for themselves. Effective witness does not replace someone else's personal experience with God. Rather, effective witness leads the person receiving the witness to that experience.
What about the Samaritan woman qualified her to be a witness? First of all, she had a personal experience with Jesus. Secondly, she was willing to share that experience with her friends and neighbors. Once the friends and neighbors heard her story, they became responsible for going and hearing Jesus for themselves. The Samaritan woman was not responsible for the final result of whether her shared experience led to belief. She was only responsible for sharing her own experience so that others might want to have an experience of their own. It does not take a seminary education or a perfect life or being accepted by the church establishment to be an effective witness. It only takes a personal experience and the willingness to share that experience. Each of us has a story. We just need to tell it! cw
March 9
John 4:27-42
Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, 'What do you want?' or, 'Why are you speaking with her?' Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 'Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?' They left the city and were on their way to him.
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, 'Rabbi, eat something.' But he said to them, 'I have food to eat that you do not know about.' So the disciples said to one another, 'Surely no one has brought him something to eat?' Jesus said to them, 'My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, "Four months more, then comes the harvest"? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, "One sows and another reaps." I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.'
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, 'He told me everything I have ever done.' So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, 'It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.'
In Jesus' ministry, he often challenges the boundaries of who is acceptable and who is not. In this story, he not only challenges the boundary of a chosen people (the Jews) and a rejected people (the Samaritans), but also the boundary constructed on the basis of gender. Jesus engages in several scandalous behaviors: he talks to a woman in public, not just any woman but a Samaritan woman (the Samaritans were despised by the Jews); he reveals intimate details of who he is to this Samaritan woman and uses her as a witness to the townspeople; he treats the Samaritan woman and later the entire village as worthy recipients of God's grace.
The Samaritan woman's successful evangelization of her town makes it clear that Jesus did not see any of the following as qualifications for being a witness or disciple: being male; believing in a "right" interpretation of Scripture; belonging to an exclusive chosen group. The Samaritan woman failed all of the above tests, yet, because of her witness, the number of people who believed in Jesus grew. Moreover, once the town people heard the message of Jesus themselves, they no long needed the secondary witness of the woman, because they heard the message for themselves. Effective witness does not replace someone else's personal experience with God. Rather, effective witness leads the person receiving the witness to that experience.
What about the Samaritan woman qualified her to be a witness? First of all, she had a personal experience with Jesus. Secondly, she was willing to share that experience with her friends and neighbors. Once the friends and neighbors heard her story, they became responsible for going and hearing Jesus for themselves. The Samaritan woman was not responsible for the final result of whether her shared experience led to belief. She was only responsible for sharing her own experience so that others might want to have an experience of their own. It does not take a seminary education or a perfect life or being accepted by the church establishment to be an effective witness. It only takes a personal experience and the willingness to share that experience. Each of us has a story. We just need to tell it! cw
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Lenten devotional 3-7-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
March 7
John 4:1-26
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, 'Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John'- although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized- he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink'. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, 'How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?' (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink", you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.' The woman said to him, 'Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?' Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.' The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.'
Jesus said to her, 'Go, call your husband, and come back.' The woman answered him, 'I have no husband.' Jesus said to her, 'You are right in saying, "I have no husband"; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!' The woman said to him, 'Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.' Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.' The woman said to him, 'I know that Messiah is coming' (who is called Christ). 'When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.' Jesus said to her, 'I am he, the one who is speaking to you.'
Jesus loves us in ways that can be surprising. Jesus' love for us can be persistent, creative, groundbreaking, culture shattering, aggressive, packaged in a human body and is often in cahoots with the Holy Spirit.
What brought the Samaritan woman to the well at a time when other women would not be there? To avoid their scorn or possible attack on her for living with a series of men to whom she was not married? Instinct? Thirst? The urging of the Holy Spirit? All of the above?
Consider what Jesus did just to reach one person. As a 1st century Jewish man, Jesus broke the (two) rules and spoke to a Samaritan woman. He took the initiative and started a line of conversation. Did Jesus reveal his knowledge of her many "husbands" to let her see a (truly) God-like ability? To trigger the "Are you the Messiah" question?
Why did Jesus choose this person, at this time, in this way to reveal himself as the Messiah? A huge message to give to one messenger, and an unlikely messenger at that.
What message has Jesus asked you to share with the rest of us? md
March 7
John 4:1-26
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, 'Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John'- although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized- he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink'. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, 'How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?' (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink", you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.' The woman said to him, 'Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?' Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.' The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.'
Jesus said to her, 'Go, call your husband, and come back.' The woman answered him, 'I have no husband.' Jesus said to her, 'You are right in saying, "I have no husband"; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!' The woman said to him, 'Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.' Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.' The woman said to him, 'I know that Messiah is coming' (who is called Christ). 'When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.' Jesus said to her, 'I am he, the one who is speaking to you.'
Jesus loves us in ways that can be surprising. Jesus' love for us can be persistent, creative, groundbreaking, culture shattering, aggressive, packaged in a human body and is often in cahoots with the Holy Spirit.
What brought the Samaritan woman to the well at a time when other women would not be there? To avoid their scorn or possible attack on her for living with a series of men to whom she was not married? Instinct? Thirst? The urging of the Holy Spirit? All of the above?
Consider what Jesus did just to reach one person. As a 1st century Jewish man, Jesus broke the (two) rules and spoke to a Samaritan woman. He took the initiative and started a line of conversation. Did Jesus reveal his knowledge of her many "husbands" to let her see a (truly) God-like ability? To trigger the "Are you the Messiah" question?
Why did Jesus choose this person, at this time, in this way to reveal himself as the Messiah? A huge message to give to one messenger, and an unlikely messenger at that.
What message has Jesus asked you to share with the rest of us? md
Friday, March 6, 2009
Lenten Devotional for March 6, 2009
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
March 6th
John 3:22-36
After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he spent some time there with them and baptized. John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim because water was abundant there; and people kept coming and were being baptized- John, of course, had not yet been thrown into prison.
Now a discussion about purification arose between John's disciples and a Jew. They came to John and said to him, 'Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him.' John answered, 'No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, "I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him." He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.'
The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God's wrath.
Perhaps all who volunteer in ministry at MCCGSL have been touched by the Baptist! Maybe they are part of his legacy. They "speak the word of God, for God" as God's messengers.
Some open the door and welcome us in from a cold morning so that we may meet God in worship. Some lift our hearts high as they sing so that we may more readily and joyfully join them in praise. Some welcome us as "special guests" to God's house the first time we venture in. Some offer our minds and hearts sustenance in their preaching or testifying. Some offer our bellies warm coffee and ease us into conversation and fellowship.
And then their role ends and they merge back into the congregation. It is not about them, just as it was not about John the Baptist. md
March 6th
John 3:22-36
After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he spent some time there with them and baptized. John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim because water was abundant there; and people kept coming and were being baptized- John, of course, had not yet been thrown into prison.
Now a discussion about purification arose between John's disciples and a Jew. They came to John and said to him, 'Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him.' John answered, 'No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, "I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him." He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.'
The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God's wrath.
Perhaps all who volunteer in ministry at MCCGSL have been touched by the Baptist! Maybe they are part of his legacy. They "speak the word of God, for God" as God's messengers.
Some open the door and welcome us in from a cold morning so that we may meet God in worship. Some lift our hearts high as they sing so that we may more readily and joyfully join them in praise. Some welcome us as "special guests" to God's house the first time we venture in. Some offer our minds and hearts sustenance in their preaching or testifying. Some offer our bellies warm coffee and ease us into conversation and fellowship.
And then their role ends and they merge back into the congregation. It is not about them, just as it was not about John the Baptist. md
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Daily Lenten Devotional 3-5-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
March 5th
John 3:16-21
'For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
'Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.'
Martin Luther called verse 16 "the gospel in miniature." How though are the rest of us to understand the gospel in one sentence?
I don't know whether belief comes to us attached to a great event in our lives or if it is offered in small chunks. If it comes in a big package might we not duck to avoid being hit by it and thus miss it all together? If it comes in small pieces, can we successfully swallow its food and grow strong in it?
I believe we must just be open to receiving it. Beyond that, I like to nestle in the immense mystery of God's love for us and just accept life as God's child. As Robert Rainy said, children "take a great deal for granted, that it will be looked after, without their looking after it-that is a child's wisdom." Sojourning with God (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1902) p.157. md
March 5th
John 3:16-21
'For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
'Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.'
Martin Luther called verse 16 "the gospel in miniature." How though are the rest of us to understand the gospel in one sentence?
I don't know whether belief comes to us attached to a great event in our lives or if it is offered in small chunks. If it comes in a big package might we not duck to avoid being hit by it and thus miss it all together? If it comes in small pieces, can we successfully swallow its food and grow strong in it?
I believe we must just be open to receiving it. Beyond that, I like to nestle in the immense mystery of God's love for us and just accept life as God's child. As Robert Rainy said, children "take a great deal for granted, that it will be looked after, without their looking after it-that is a child's wisdom." Sojourning with God (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1902) p.157. md
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-4-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
March 4th
John 2:23 - 3:15
When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, 'Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.' Jesus answered him, 'Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.' Nicodemus said to him, 'How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?' Jesus answered, 'Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, "You must be born from above." The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.' Nicodemus said to him, 'How can these things be?' Jesus answered him, 'Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
'Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
The wild bird flies toward the tree and lands on the branch of its choosing.
We are like trees. Many branches; each full of yearnings, of groanings held deep within the bark, not visible.
We yearn to believe. "You can heal me Lord." "You can change my life." We groan for union with God. "May your Spirit come to me and abide in me." md
March 4th
John 2:23 - 3:15
When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, 'Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.' Jesus answered him, 'Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.' Nicodemus said to him, 'How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?' Jesus answered, 'Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, "You must be born from above." The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.' Nicodemus said to him, 'How can these things be?' Jesus answered him, 'Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
'Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
The wild bird flies toward the tree and lands on the branch of its choosing.
We are like trees. Many branches; each full of yearnings, of groanings held deep within the bark, not visible.
We yearn to believe. "You can heal me Lord." "You can change my life." We groan for union with God. "May your Spirit come to me and abide in me." md
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-3-2009
Tuesday, March 3
John 2:13-22
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, 'Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a market-place!' His disciples remembered that it was written, 'Zeal for your house will consume me.' The Jews then said to him, 'What sign can you show us for doing this?' Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' The Jews then said, 'This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?' But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
Imagine if we, as 21st century persons, could somehow have witnessed this 1st century scene. There we are standing, comfortable with our modern day temple package of beliefs of how we are supposed to understand and worship God.
Suddenly Jesus enters the temple and shatters its familiar and accepted routines. With great energy and force, he upends the tables of those making change, doves are suddenly lifting into the air in a great rush to escape. Cattle and sheep are running into each other trying to find their way. People are startled, confused and even angry as Jesus herds them out of the temple court amidst a deafening roar...
For the Jews, the temple was the place of God's presence on earth. Jesus is saying he, not the building, not the rules, not their familiar practices, is the presence of God on earth. Emmanuel, God with us.
May Jesus crash through the centuries into our individual lives today. md
John 2:13-22
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, 'Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a market-place!' His disciples remembered that it was written, 'Zeal for your house will consume me.' The Jews then said to him, 'What sign can you show us for doing this?' Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' The Jews then said, 'This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?' But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
Imagine if we, as 21st century persons, could somehow have witnessed this 1st century scene. There we are standing, comfortable with our modern day temple package of beliefs of how we are supposed to understand and worship God.
Suddenly Jesus enters the temple and shatters its familiar and accepted routines. With great energy and force, he upends the tables of those making change, doves are suddenly lifting into the air in a great rush to escape. Cattle and sheep are running into each other trying to find their way. People are startled, confused and even angry as Jesus herds them out of the temple court amidst a deafening roar...
For the Jews, the temple was the place of God's presence on earth. Jesus is saying he, not the building, not the rules, not their familiar practices, is the presence of God on earth. Emmanuel, God with us.
May Jesus crash through the centuries into our individual lives today. md
Monday, March 2, 2009
Lenten Devotional 3-2-09
www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
March 2nd
John 2: 1-12
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, 'They have no wine.' And Jesus said to her, 'Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.' His mother said to the servants, 'Do whatever he tells you.' Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, 'Fill the jars with water.' And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, 'Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.' So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, 'Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.' Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there for a few days.
The subject of today's devotional is "Temperance" -- and it will have nothing to do with whether you can drink wine or not.
Today's reading is about wine and recounts the story of Jesus' being able to bring out wine from stone jars filled only with water.
So what's the connection?
It seems safe to say that the Master did not come to Cana to wow the crowd with his spiritual talents. In fact, Jesus seems to have been a lesser guest after his mother, and it was not until Mary prompted him with the party being about to run dry that he took on any significant role at the wedding. Perhaps from our rather limited viewpoint we may place too much focus on this event as being a miracle, rather than upon what was really significant.
Probably in Jesus' eyes it was not so much a miracle at all as it was the result of his intense spiritual bond with his Creator whom he saw as his ever-present life. This conscious link with the divine was his spiritual altitude. Yet, he was ever so moderate, or temperate, in bringing this living grace to those around him. He was willing to fill their specific and rather humble needs at that very moment.
Are we ourselves temperate -- moderate -- with our spiritual gifts so that these talents can bless the simple needs of friends, family, neighbors right where they are? Or do we look for more significant ways to demonstrate our talents? Do we overcome inner reticence, hesitation, indifference, or shyness so that each of us really goes forward to practice our stated ideals when needed? Jesus himself seemed hesitant at first, but he surmounted that.
These first five readings in Lent have brought an important message to us by showing how to steadily raise our own level of spirituality for these forty days and then beyond, how to live the very qualities of the Creator, namely, humility, honesty, affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness and finally temperance. What a wonderful path can lie ahead for us as we approach the Day of Resurrection. tr
March 2nd
John 2: 1-12
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, 'They have no wine.' And Jesus said to her, 'Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.' His mother said to the servants, 'Do whatever he tells you.' Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, 'Fill the jars with water.' And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, 'Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.' So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, 'Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.' Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there for a few days.
The subject of today's devotional is "Temperance" -- and it will have nothing to do with whether you can drink wine or not.
Today's reading is about wine and recounts the story of Jesus' being able to bring out wine from stone jars filled only with water.
So what's the connection?
It seems safe to say that the Master did not come to Cana to wow the crowd with his spiritual talents. In fact, Jesus seems to have been a lesser guest after his mother, and it was not until Mary prompted him with the party being about to run dry that he took on any significant role at the wedding. Perhaps from our rather limited viewpoint we may place too much focus on this event as being a miracle, rather than upon what was really significant.
Probably in Jesus' eyes it was not so much a miracle at all as it was the result of his intense spiritual bond with his Creator whom he saw as his ever-present life. This conscious link with the divine was his spiritual altitude. Yet, he was ever so moderate, or temperate, in bringing this living grace to those around him. He was willing to fill their specific and rather humble needs at that very moment.
Are we ourselves temperate -- moderate -- with our spiritual gifts so that these talents can bless the simple needs of friends, family, neighbors right where they are? Or do we look for more significant ways to demonstrate our talents? Do we overcome inner reticence, hesitation, indifference, or shyness so that each of us really goes forward to practice our stated ideals when needed? Jesus himself seemed hesitant at first, but he surmounted that.
These first five readings in Lent have brought an important message to us by showing how to steadily raise our own level of spirituality for these forty days and then beyond, how to live the very qualities of the Creator, namely, humility, honesty, affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness and finally temperance. What a wonderful path can lie ahead for us as we approach the Day of Resurrection. tr
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