5 January 2012

Psalm 2, 110; Jonah 2:1-10; Eph. 6:10-20; John 11:17-27,38-44

I love this prayer from Jonah.  For some reason the Episcopal lectionary leaves out verses 1, that this prayer was from the belly of the fish (I have my suspicions about why they leave that out but I don’t know for certain) but that is the most incredible thing about the prayer.  He prayed in faith that he would be delivered before he was delivered.  Jonah knew that he would be delivered because he knew that the reason he was there was his own disobedience to the Lord’s command.  He knew that God had given him a job to do and believed that he had already been saved from the storm at sea and now, three days in the belly of the fish.  That he was still alive surely led him to believe that God was going to deliver him and he would have no choice but to complete the mission, even though he didn’t do it with a smile.  The lectionary-makers also left out verse 10, that at the words, salvation belongs to the Lord, the fish vomited Jonah out onto dry land.  Strange that the two verses that refer to unnatural phenomenon are omitted in the season we are looking at the signs Jesus performed that were miraculous.

The sixth sign Jesus performed that John recorded was the raising of Lazarus from the dead.  Here we see the sisters of the dead man, Mary and Martha and they both believe that Jesus could have done something if he had come when they called him, before Lazarus died and certainly before he had been in the tomb four days.  They make extraordinary professions of faith in Jesus and yet when push comes to shove, take away the stone, faith fails.  Martha quickly responds, Lord he’s been dead four days, as the King James Version would say, “He stinketh.”  Jewish belief could allow for a three day resurrection, they believed the spirit of a person hung around three days to see if they revived but then gave up and decomposition set in.  Four days means there is no hope.  Some have speculated that Jesus named Lazarus in this command that the other dead in the tomb and vicinity not emerge as well.  Surely now belief for the disciples and others is complete, there is surely nothing that would cause them to doubt any longer.  Well…

It is important for us to remember Paul’s admonition here, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”  In our walk here we often forget these words and we spend our time fighting and fussing about personalities rather than focusing on the real, spiritual battle.  What we are doing here on earth has eternal significance.  Opposition to Jesus is evil acting through the agency of people, including even, at times, us when we fail to put on the armor and fail to cooperate with God’s plan for our lives.  We can get sidetracked and battle among ourselves over unimportant things rather than keeping the main thing the main thing.  We can become like Jonah, but we can also be delivered like Jonah from our predicament back to service.

Come, Desire of nations, come,
Fix in us Thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring Seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.
Now display Thy saving power,
Ruined nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to Thine.

Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”

Tune

4 January 2012

Psalm 85, 87; Joshua 3:14—4:7; Eph. 5:1-20; John 9:1-12,35-38

As the waters parted at the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to leave Egypt, so now they leave the wilderness behind them and enter the Promised Land through the parting of the waters of the Jordan.  At the Red Sea they waited until the waters were parted then passed through, as they enter the Land, they need to step out in faith and then God will act in accord with their faith.  They have had a failure of faith that kept them from entering the Land for forty years now they need to move out in faith in order to receive the promise.  As they arrive they take a stone for every tribe from the river and build a monument to God on this side of the Jordan.  They have a place to remember all the Lord has done for them in bringing them this far and it is a boundary marker for the Land.

No one can believe that the blind man is healed.  No one actually believes this can happen, it goes against science and experience so they have a debate about whether this is the man or simply someone who looks like the man born blind.  There is high humor in John’s account of this sixth sign, but only because Jesus has done something even more remarkable than anything ever seen.  The disciples first reaction to the man is to believe that sin must have caused his situation.  How common an idea is it that when trouble comes there must be a root cause of sin in someone’s life closely related to the situation?  Sin is the root cause but the world is steeped in sin and all difficulty is a result of sin.  That doesn’t mean we can never find a connection between sin and trouble, just not always.  Finally, Jesus confronts the man and asks if he believes in the Son of Man.  The response is straightforward, “Who is he that I may believe in him?”  What a glorious response he receives to that question, “You have SEEN HIM and it is He who is speaking to you.”  Surely there was a wry smile on Jesus’ face in that first clause about seeing. 

How much talk in our lives and the lives of the world revolves around exactly the things Paul condemns here?  Ouch.  There is a great challenge laid down by Paul here to the Ephesian church and to us, to clean up our minds and language, to have our minds renewed so that this is not our focus.  He says conversation among believers is characterized by “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,”  If we raised the level of discourse among ourselves we might see that the world would take notice.  Are they seeing God in us and in our fellowship?  We are called to step out in faith but also to continue to walk in that faith in order that we might reach the Land of the promise.

Hail the heav’nly Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.

Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”

Tune

3 January 2012

Psalm 68; 1 Kings 19:9-18; Eph. 4:17-32; John 6:15-27

Elijah’s initial reaction to Jezebel, as we saw yesterday was to say, I quit, kill me now, I am no better than my fathers.  Having reached the safety of the cave, he has another thought, "I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away."  His utter humility has been replace with quite a prideful idea about himself.  He has been powerfully used by God and yet this is not accurate.  He feels alone yet the Lord says there are thousands who have not become apostate.  His charge is now to anoint the next prophet in Israel and also to receive the promise that the Lord will recompense those who have forsaken Him.

Jesus again gives a sign, the fifth, to the disciples alone.  He retreated from the people because they wanted to make Him king and that wasn’t the plan.  Did Jesus have to join them in the boat or could He simply have walked around the lake and met them on the other side?  This demonstration of His power and mastery over nature was certainly an extraordinary thing but it is also interesting that they had been struggling to make progress across the lake and then immediately as He joined them they arrived safely.  When Jesus joins with us everything goes smoother.  Prayer for us is the answer to this problem, we need never work alone.  Jesus becomes quite confrontational with the people who follow Him across the lake, but remember He knows what is in our hearts, and they will prove Him right in proposing that His next sign be the same as the last one they saw, feeding them again.  If they didn’t understand that sign the first time, why would He do it again?

Paul says there are two important things in the life of a Christian, “to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”  We are called to live by the Spirit of God, not grieving Him by living according to the flesh, walking worthy by cooperating actively with the Spirit within us.  If we remember that He is always with us and willing to guide us we would do well in this regard.  In addition to putting away sinful desires and habits, we are called also to love one another and Paul knows that will always include putting away bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander and malice.  Those things characterize those who live by the flesh, we are to be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.  Setting the grace we have received, are receiving and will receive before us, knowing our great need of mercy and forgiveness we are to bear with others who sin against us and to forgive them as well.

Christ, by highest Heav’n adored;
Christ the everlasting Lord;
Late in time, behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail th’incarnate Deity,
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.

Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”

Tune

2 January 2012

Psalm 34; 1 Kings 19:1-8; Eph. 4:1-16; John 6:1-14

Elijah has just been powerfully used by God, has seen Him do a mighty thing at Mt Carmel in exposing the futility of worshipping Baal, and has proven Himself to the people there.  Amazingly, Jezebel invokes the “gods” against Elijah, she has not seen what the Lord has done on the mountain, and Elijah decides he’s done.  It makes no sense, Elijah has seen the power of the Lord in answer to many prayers and now he is running from Jezebel.  It is weariness and the belief that surely the opposition will now end and instead he is under attack once more.  Satan never stops, never leaves us alone and we are vulnerable when the Lord has done mighty things for us and through us.  Elijah leaves Jezebel’s realm in going out into the wilderness a day’s journey, beyond her grasp.  There he can rest and his rest is deep, twice the Lord wakes Him to eat to gain strength for the journey ahead, forty days into the wilderness.  He can’t get far enough away to truly rest.  Sometimes God’s servants simply need rest and restoration of their souls for the next leg of the journey.

The fourth sign John gives us is the feeding of the multitudes.  Jesus turns to Philip and asks where they will buy bread for all these people.  Philip sees that this isn’t the only problem, where would the money come from to feed 5000 people is at least as big an issue.  Why does Peter mention the boy with a few barley loaves and fish?  Finally, on the mountain in a grassy place Jesus feeds the sheep and is environmentally conscious not to waste anything so has them collect the leftovers.  At the end of the scene they conclude that Jesus is the Prophet, the one like Moses promised in Deuteronomy 18.15.  He has miraculously provided, just as Moses had done.  The Samaritans were looking for this same one, not simply a Prophet but the Prophet and Jesus offered the woman water welling up to eternal life as Moses had been the conduit as it were for providing water in the wilderness.  They are coming along in belief but they aren’t there yet.

The church is the vessel God has chosen to continue the mission of Jesus into the world and proclaim the kingdom is among us and it is also coming.  In choosing and sending the church He has also chosen the church to equip the saints for the work of ministry and mission.  All who receive Him are given gifts and talents to use for the work of the kingdom of God.  The church exists at least partially to equip the saints for the work of ministry.  To do the work of the church God has given gifts of offices to the church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.  If we take the time to identify those among us who are those people and then allow them to use those gifts we will find the purposes of the church being fulfilled.  If we did, we might find our way as the church out of the wilderness and into the mission field that is white for harvest.  We would see the body working as it was designed to work.

Christ, by highest Heav’n adored;
Christ the everlasting Lord;
Late in time, behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail th’incarnate Deity,
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.

Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”

Tune

1 January 2012 – Holy Name

Psalm 103; Isa. 62:1-5,10-12; Rev. 19:11-16; Matt. 1:18-25

The Lord announces that Israel’s salvation is near and with a change in status will come a change in names.  Do we see in this that we, the redeemed, those who have received His salvation, share in this state?  You are a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of God.  We are no longer forsaken or desolate, we are His treasured possession, He delights in us, rejoices over us.  We are Holy People, the Redeemed of the Lord, the ones Sought Out, not Forsaken.  Today is a day to rejoice that He knows us and loves us!

Matthew’s version of the conception and birth of Jesus is incredibly simple, just the facts. Mary conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, Joseph apparently didn’t believe her, an angel convinced him her story was true, he married her, didn’t have relations with her and then she had the baby and they named Him Jesus.  Even the detail of the name was not Joseph’s prerogative, she will call His Name Jesus.  The Name means something, God saves or Jehovah is salvation.  The announcement made by Isaiah comes to fruition several hundred years later in the form of a child.  That would have been their expectation, that a child would be born who would grow to be a man and he would be king and restore the glory of Israel.  No one seemed to care though when Jesus was born except the family, the shepherds who were told of the birth and the Magi.

Jesus will return and not as a child, but as a mighty warrior.  He will stand out in the army because the others are wearing pure white robes and His is dipped in blood.  His coming again in power and glory will be a time of rejoicing for some but for many it will be final judgment, the fulfillment of the curse of Genesis will be complete and the work of restoration can begin.  We who have received this great salvation are to go back to the Isaiah passage, “Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a signal over the peoples.”  That is a mission passage, they are to go through the gates out of the city and prepare the way for the peoples to come to the Lord’s city, clearing away any obstacles, smoothing the grade of the highway so that the climb is not too steep as to discourage anyone undertaking the journey.  The church is sent into the world for mission and gathered for worship and rejoicing.

Hark! The herald angels sing,

“Glory to the newborn King;

Peace on earth, and mercy mild,

God and sinners reconciled!”

Joyful, all ye nations rise,

Join the triumph of the skies;

With th’angelic host proclaim,

“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

Hark! the herald angels sing,

“Glory to the newborn King!”

Tune