Nothing will ever be the same again

Reading for Thursday April 13
Maundy Thursday for Christians, First Day of Passover for Jews.
Scripture reading Gospel of Mark chapter 14:12-25

The last day has ended. Tomorrow began, like all Jewish tomorrows do, at sundown. Jesus has eaten the Pass-over meal with his disciples. He had demonstrated the up-side down nature of the Kingdom of God by washing the soiled feet of the disciples, even while he reminded them that he is their leader and Lord. I think of him with sorrow tonight, no one ever loved like Jesus, he had been patient with these 11 people who even now did not understand the spiritual nature of religious events. He knows what terror and bewilderment will seize them when he is arrested and crucified. He washes their feet full of compassion for the many pains they are to suffer, he thinks of the chains that will one day bind their feet in prison cells, and all his love is tender toward them. He has poured out his heart in prayer to his father, asking for their preservation in the face of all the persecution that will befall them. He has beseeched his Father that all his believers will be one even as He and the Father are one. Now at almost the end of the meal he re-names the bread (baked without yeast) and calls it his body, he takes the wine and calls it his blood, telling them that it is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Still they do not understand. They sing one of the 6 Hallel psalms that are still sung this night throughout the world. Then they go out,and Jesus prays some more. It has been a long and emotional ceremonial meal, they long to sleep and although Jesus keeps rousing them they fall back into sleep. Until suddenly Roman soldiers stand around them and Peter makes a somewhat confused and bungled attempt to defend Jesus.

So the friends are parted. Life will never be the same again. They will never be the same again. A newness has come over the ceremonial meal, uniting people world-wide in the same meal with the second meaning. The bread and wine have been renamed so that all who bring faith to the commemorative meal will enter into a spiritual union with Jesus Christ and each other. The great covenant of the law will become the covenant of grace. Sacrifices will not be offered anymore for the ultimate sacrifice has been made for all time. As for the world – light has shone into the darkness. The words and Word of God have gone forth from God and travel swiftly through all of creation, creating a harvest of goodness that only God can measure.

Lent has ended, and this blog is complete.
May the Lord bless and keep you,
May he lift up his countenance upon you and be gracious unto you.
May he make his face to shine upon you and give you peace. Amen

Unheeded warning

Reading for Wednesday April 12
Scripture portion: Book of Mark chapter 12: 1-11

A very simple story, but too pointed for the liking of the hearers. About the owner of a vineyard who rented his vineyard out to farmers and went away on a journey. At harvest time he sent to collect some of the fruit (Tenant farmers pay a portion of the harvest to the owner of the land) The man he sent was beaten and sent away empty handed, continually the owner sent servant after servant, asking for fruit from the vineyard; some were beaten, some were killed. The owner had only one person left to send, his own son, he loved his son, he was the last one to be sent and the owner said, “Surely they will respect my son.”
The tenants took the son, killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. The owner will come and kill the tenants and give the vineyard to others. The meaning of the story was too clear to the religious leaders who were trying to discredit Jesus and had not succeeded. It became clear to them that Jesus must be stopped; the best way to stop him was to arrest him. But Jesus was popular with the regular people, so they could not arrest him in day light. He must be arrested at night, when the people were asleep.

Jesus had finished his story with a quotation from the Psalms. The stone the builders rejected has become the key stone, this is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous to us. That quotation ends with the words, 'This is the day the Lord has made, we will be glad and rejoice in it.' Jesus did not quote the end, because the words refer to the day of salvation, and the day of salvation would start when he was resurrected from death.

Do people kill the doctor who tells them that they have cancer? Do nations kill the weather forecaster who tells them that a tornado is headed their way? Yet these leaders, wanted to kill Jesus because he pointed out that God was angry with them. Even to day when a person feels guilty before God most people will become angry, defensive and destructive. There are other people who when they hear that God is angry about their sins are able to turn to Jesus and ask him to be their peace-maker with God. That, says Jesus, is why he came. He is the beloved Son with whom the Father is well-pleased. He will die, willingly, in order to take upon himself the consequence of our sins and carry them away forever.
Jesus Christ, our sin offering, has died. He has been raised from the dead and lives forever. Just as our sins were transferred to him and he bore the consequence of sin which is death, in the same way, his rightness with God is transferred to us and we receive as a free gift the consequence of his rightness which is life, now and forever. Jesus remained in Jerusalem, the hostility of the religious increased towards him. The possibility of his arrest became more and more certain, and yet Jesus stayed in the city and remained visible.

Which is worse, divine anger or divine silence?

Reading for Tuesday April 10, 2006
Bible Section: Gospel of Mark 11:27-33

“I won’t tell you.” These words from the man whose mission was to tell us about our Father in heaven. Not because he can’t tell but because he chooses not to.

Why? Because the priests, the teachers of the law, and the leaders didn’t really want to know. What they desperately wanted was to stop Jesus interfering in their idea of what religion should be. They challenged him; asking by what authority he did things like this. By ‘this’ they meant what Jesus had done on his second day in the city. He had gone to the temple, the great centre of religious worship in his country and time, and had not liked what he found there. Because the people were still offering animal sacrifice, the temple was like a market, full of people selling cattle and sheep; payment could only be made in temple coin which had to be changed from Roman currency at exchange tables. The rate of exchange meant an unfair profit for the exchange makers. Jesus called the temple a 'den of thieves', drove out all the animals and turned over some of the loaded currency tables. The interesting thing is that not one person stopped him. After all with all that money changing hands, and the buying and selling of oxen, lambs and birds there must have been a lot of people. And now, the priests and religious leaders are trying to discredit him. They ask him a question to which he responds with another question.

If the Bible were a fictitious book God and Jesus would not be portrayed as asking questions. They would be portrayed only as delivering pronouncements.

But the Divine asks questions of humans, and when humans answer their own answer may startle them more than the question does.
The priests and lawyers were trapped; they had a choice of two answers and either one would have been wrong. So they refused to continue conversing with God’s messenger, and Jesus refuses to answer them.

There was no safe answer for the priests. And because they would not answer the conversation stopped. It was never resumed! For them, the divine silence had begun; it would probably last until the end of their lives.

At times in our lives as we think about or converse with the Divine we have questions. God accepts honest questions. But the Divine also asks questions of us. For instance, "What do you want me to do for you? What have you done? Why are you afraid? Are you going away from me? Who do you think Jesus is?” These are questions that must be answered in order for the conversation to continue. But the answers are fearful, the questions probe too deep and the answers will reveal too much about ourselves. Since God knows all about us anyway why fear to answer, the only person we will shock will be ourselves. God does not ask because he needs to know but because we need to know. As we answer we learn about our secret selves and voice our desires, confess our crimes, and open ourselves to hear that nothing is too hard for God, he has made sacrifice for our sins, and is willing to be our leader, savior and protector. He invites us to return home to him and live peacefully in his company.

Withering trees and moving mountains

Reading for Monday April 10
Bible section: Mark 11:20-25

This is one event from the last week of Jesus life. He had set his face with determination to face the ordeal he knew would happen, and had entered the city where he knew he would be arrested and executed. He is staying in the city waiting for the celebration of the Passover towards the end of the week.

It was early morning and Jesus was hungry; he saw a fig tree and went to it, it had lots of shiny, beautiful leaves, but no figs. Actually it wasn’t even the season for figs. Jesus said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” The next day when the group passed that way again the companions of Jesus were surprised to find that in a single day the tree had withered away.

Jesus assures the surprised companions that if they have faith in God. (Note that; in God, not in themselves) they can even command mountains to move. But with one provision, a person must believe in his heart that this will happen. Why? Because God is reclaiming humanity back to himself. To do this he commissions every returned son or daughter of his to join in his work and work with and for him to call his truant children back home to him. Therefore when something impedes our efforts towards that end, we may speak to it, and bid it to move and it will. Jesus stresses that the person doing this should not doubt in his heart. This means that if someone is commanding mountains to move for trifling reasons or self glorification – they will not have faith because they know that they are doing it for the wrong reason. But when the reason is right; for example, when people are working to save humanity from destruction, or to bring hope and healing to others, or to help those who cannot help themselves, then the reason is right. When the reason is right a person can become confident that God is working with them. As it happens it is rarely a geographical mountain that has to move but a whole nation that has to change. With prayer that happens. Not suddenly, but after dedicated effort, perseverance and undoubting faith in God.

Note that the faith must be in God. The world is full of self-actualizing people convinced of the power of positive thought and action. They do good things too, but there are limits to what the most effective person can do. When a person reaches those limits (or before that) then it is time to decided if what is being attempted is important in God’s redemptive plan for humanity. And if we think it is important, is it so important that we can trust God without doubting. When that happens all sorts of things happen to mountains, some of them are literally moved, others are tunneled through and others are crossed over.

The only one thing that Jesus cursed in his whole life was emptiness. The tree that was empty of fruit when he looked for it. Figs are the expected result from a fig tree. God has made humanity good, and supplied us with all things; he expects that we will produce goodness. The life that does not is already withering away like the tree.

And, says Jesus, when you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive your sins. Unforgiveness is it’s own curse, blighting life and impeding the answer to your prayers. Of course, you think you have nothing to forgive. Isn’t that also the case with the person who sinned against you, didn’t they justify to themselves what they did to you?
Have you ever burst out of a dark tunnel into blinding day light? Have you ever leaped hot and filthy into clean flowing water? That’s what God’s forgiveness does to people. Not forgiving the other guy is something God won’t overlook. Hate motivates a person, anger energizes, and you imagine that if you forgave the person who wronged you, then you would not have strength to recover your life. Confident hope will be what you receive in exchange for your anger, and the miracle working power of love will miraculously replace you virulent hate, you will grow strong and know peace with God and make peace around you. You will live and not be cursed.

Ask and you shall receive

Reading for Saturday April 8
Bible section: Mark chapter 10:46-57

Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. He has already explained to his closest followers that at Jerusalem he will be arrested, flogged, executed and after three days rise from the dead. His followers don’t understand. Peter had previously spoken hastily; saying that such a thing should not happen and been sternly rebuked. The rest were bewildered, but wanting to see what would happen.

They were bewildered because the idea of a spiritual kingdom and a nation of direct descendents of God born by faith rather than biology was entirely incomprehensible to them. They did understand that Jesus would soon be establishing his new government, and they were hopeful, expecting a national throne, with military power and an exalted position for each one of them.
They were also astonished and afraid because Jesus was boldly walking into hostile territory unarmed.

Leaving the town of Jericho they are joined by many pilgrims. At this time of the year people normally made pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover ceremony. Sitting beside the road is a blind beggar. Pilgrims are usually generous and this blind man, called Bartimaeus could have hoped to receive more money than usual, instead of begging he begins to call out to Jesus, loudly and insistently. .

Beggars were despised. There was a mistaken notion that any bad fortune a person had was because he or his parents had sinned, so the crowd thought he deserved to be blind.

The man’s constant calling out irritates the crowd, it conflicts with their mood. Also since he is a despised person with nothing to recommend him the crowd imagines he should be self-effacing and feel degraded. Bartimaeus had heard that Jesus was a descendent of Israel’s greatest king; King David, and therefore entitled to become ruler of the land. He calls loudly, “Jesus, son of David.” Various people in the crowd tell the beggar to shut up. But Jesus stops and stands still; the whole pilgrimage is held up for a single man of no social position or power. ‘Call him’ says Jesus and the crowd, now excited to see why and what, tell Bartimaeus that Jesus wants to speak to him.

Throwing aside his only hindrance, his coat, the man rushes toward the sound of Jesus’ voice. Jesus treats him with cordial respect,
“What do you want me to do for you?” he asks,
“Teacher, I want to see.” he replies.
And without further questioning, Jesus replies; “Go, your faith has healed you.” The man does not rush to explore the sights he has not seen, he does not run to find friends and foes and tell them he can see, he joins the procession and follows Jesus along the road to Jerusalem. Because Mark, the writer, knew his name it would suggest that he became a permanent follower of Jesus and one of the new creation that the Spirit of God was bringing to life.

Present day readers of this account get confused about the next words of Jesus, ‘Your faith has healed you.” It is clear to the reader that Jesus requires faith but they allow these words to hinder them from praying to Jesus. They are not sure if they have faith, they are not sure how much faith is required. Let me give you the answer, based on a life-time of helping people get to know Jesus: If a person is trying to pray to Jesus, seeking to learn about him, hoping that Jesus is the answer to his hopes; then that person has faith. Jesus says the smallest amount of faith is sufficient (It grows as a person gets to know Jesus) so anyone who is wanting to call out to Jesus, like Bartimaeus did, should feel confident. Jesus was not angry at the man’s importunity. He seemed rather to be pleased that Bartimaeus persevered in his request

This story illustrates the upside-down nature of the spiritual kingdom of God. A person of no influence, without any power was so important to Jesus that he stood still and waited for him. We who have believed Jesus have entered into that spiritual kingdom of God, and this is how we should always behave. We do not need to attract people of influence nor please people of power, because their earthly sphere is passing away. Instead we are commanded to love the lame, the unfortunate, to show respect to the despised. This is the unarmed kingdom of God, vulnerable to the hostile powers around but enduring beyond death, to become the kingdom that shall come, and shall forever and forever be.

The way up is down*

Reading for Friday April 7
Bible Section: Mark 10: Lu


James and John still can’t imagine a nation other than a geographical nation in time. Therefore they are still eager for their own advancement. Jesus had disclosed to them that he would be arrested, sentenced, flogged and killed. Unable to understand or pay attention, James and John are planning to sit on either side of Jesus in his glory.

They are quite sure that whatever Jesus is going to experience they can experience it with him. Except that they don’t begin to understand what is going to happen in the next few days.

It probably caused a rift between the 12 disciples. Ten of them were indignant, with two of them. Jesus calls them all together and makes it clear that people who believe him are to be different to the people who don’t. Jesus reminds them about the leaders of the Roman empire who dominate people in the authority of the Caesars. “It is not to be that way with you.” He tells them. Instead the people who want to be great must become servants. James and John must have been very dismayed.

“I am among you as one who serves.” Says Jesus without any loss of dignity. In a few days he was going to demonstrate this dramatically by washing the feet of the men who worked with him.

So this is the nature of the Heavenly Kingdom of God. All God’s people serving all other people in the name of the Lord God. Because God invites, and does not compel, people to become his servants, they enjoy freedom and exercise their intelligence in deciding how best to benefit the people they serve. Serving someone does not make you that person’s servant. You serve because you are God’s servant and he would have you attend to the needs of people. We, the people who have given allegiance to God in the name of Jesus, are the the servants of the Most High God, and in his name we extend to our fellow human beings all the help and encouragement that they will receive.

This is what the kingdom of heaven is. Not a geographic kingdom, nor a place in time and space. The kingdom of heaven is to willingly subscribe to the desires and intentions of our Loving Father in heaven. To make his good will our will and to co-operate with him intelligently and eagerly to bring his blessings to all humanity

Even after his death, Jesus would demonstrate servanthood again, when he met the disciples by the lake after his resurrection. Ours is an up-side down kingdom where the first becomes last, the servant of all becomes the greatest, and the simple trusting approach of a child serves as a model for the all citizens.

*Campbell Morgan

Leaving it all behind

Reading for Thursday April 6
Bible section: Mark 10:13-31

Actually most of us would like to leave it all behind and start over. A new life, with enormous possibilities, a great leader and a company of friendly fellow-travelers; that compares well to present frustrations. Peter, one of the people who accompanied Jesus on his preaching tours, reminds Jesus that he and the other 11 have left everything behind to follow Jesus.

He is reassured. Everyone who has left house or relatives or possessions to follow Jesus and to tell the good news will receive a hundred times more, both in this life (with persecutions) and in the age to come eternal life.

There is another person written about in today’s section; he could not leave it all behind. He was rich, young, and powerful. He wanted to know how to get eternal life. When Jesus invited him to sell all that he owned, give it all to the poor and become a companion of Jesus, he could not. It was too much to ask.

Today is only a preparatory stage for eternal life. What Jesus asked was a bit like asking a pre-school child to give away his bike to someone who needs it, with the promise that if he does, he can go to the best university when he finishes school. The child knows how much he likes his bike; he doesn’t know anything about university so he holds on to his bike.

As everyone, even the not yet religious, knows eternal life cannot be bought by giving away possessions. Jesus hastens to reassure his disciples that entering the kingdom of heaven is actually a human impossibility – no matter how much you give away. The rich young man would have been acceptable to God because God made it possible, not because of his benevolence.

And we are all sorry for him. We can imagine him growing old; wearied with the responsibilities of his power and possessions. By contrast we envy Peter his sense of fulfillment traveling through Judea, accompanied by his wife, visiting with thousands of new believers, teaching them what Jesus had taught him. Participating in the change that spread over the world.

The rich person hoped to add eternal life to all his possessions. He went after it as if eternal life were a commodity on the market. Peter and the rest of the disciples were attracted to Jesus, they went after Jesus. They went with him for the pleasure of being with him, doing as he taught them, and listening to him teach. At first all they hoped for was a better life on earth. God’s plans were greater than their hopes. Before he brought humans into being he had purposed that his creation should be reclaimed from self-destruction and be with him eternally. He made possible what was impossible for people. Jesus said to the disciples, “I am going away, to get ready a place where you can be with me.’ They didn’t understand where they were to go or how to get there until Jesus said to them, “I am the way” God had made a way where no way was.

Matthew 19:16, Luke 18:15-17
To see the excavation of Peter’s house click on http://www.bibleplaces.com/capernaum.htm and scroll down.

Courageous Love

Reading for Wednesday April 5th
Bible Section: Gospel of Mark chapter 10: 1-10

Don’t divorce your spouse. Hard talk from Jesus. He was a single man after all, what did he know about the difficulties of love. What did he know about living with a contentious wife?

After All Moses had allowed husbands to divorce their wives. Who was Jesus to say anything different to the great Jewish leader of the past? But Moses had allowed divorce because people had hard hearts. In the life shared with Jesus hard hearts become gentle hearts. What about the commandments of Moses? Hadn’t Jesus given a new set of commandments? Yes, not one of them contravened the commandments given through Moses, rather they expanded them.

When we first started to love our spouse the emotion came so effortlessly that we imagined it would always be that way. Under various types of neglect and stress love does not come effortlessly. Anger, injustices, bewilderment kills the emotion.
But of course emotion is only a bi-product of love. Love is first of all an intelligent recognition of the worth of ‘the other’. Love is also a choice we make daily. .

God’s work is redemptive. He reclaims what has been lost. He loves us and suffers when humanity does not reciprocate his love. It is from him that we learn how to not divorce when things get difficult. We learn far more than that, but loving a spouse is the easy way to copy God.

God continues to love those who don’t return his love and he seeks to win them to him by: making his love evident, being faithful, and communicating his love, and patiently offering his love. This is our model for loving our spouses.

This type of love is vulnerable; it can be disregarded, even abused. Knowing that our love can be abused faces us with a decision. Shall we discard the one who does not love us? Shall we force them to suffer in order to relieve our own pain? Love which is not vulnerable is not really love of ‘the other’ just love of self.
Self- love tries to control the object of love. When love is not returned self-love turns punitive. True love grants freedom of choice to the other and waits patiently for love to become reciprocal.

This is the way God loves humanity. Because all who give allegiance to God seek to imitate him, it is also a model for both of the God-respecting partners in a marriage.

As God-respecting persons world wide practice this model of love the question arises about abuse. Bad people can hurt the redemptive lover. That is what happened to God when he sent his Son to bring the message that he loves us. People destroyed the messenger. After he died God brought him to life again and seated him at God’s right hand.

If nations were courageous enough to love other nations like God loves they would become vulnerable. The question nations struggle with is that an individual can choose to be vulnerable. But a community has responsibilities to the whole; would it be right to expose a whole nation to abuse in an attempt to copy God’s style of love? No nation has been strong enough to put this question to the test.
The individual with an unloving spouse is able to make a choice for him/herself. Will they love the way God loves and take the risk? Hundreds of thousands do and are forever thankful that they did. There is of course the fact that God is always watchful and active on behalf of those who trust and obey Him. God helps us love like he does – if we let him. Often with God’s blessing this style of love is reciprocated. Then the wonderful thing is that both spouses have learnt how to truly love each other, and are able to demonstrate the same love to the rest of their families. This kind of love will spread. It is true that it will be opposed by the power of evil but the Bible teaches that by God’s power true love can overcome even the opposition of the devil. Now that is power – the power of the love of God poured into human h
[1] Proverbs 21:9 [2] Romans 5.5

Where the fire never goes out

Reading for Tuesday April 4th.
Bible section: Gospel of Mark 9:42-48

Avoid temptation. Even if avoiding it means you have to give up something that is valuable. Avoid temptation, even if avoiding it means giving up something essential. Avoid temptation even if avoiding it means a loss that will handicap you for life. Any kind of loss is preferable to sin.

Because going through life at a disadvantage is nothing compared to going to hell fully functional. Hell has no end. Life is a brief few seconds compared to the unending time of hell.

At first a person expends a lot of energy excusing his or her sins. He or she must make an effort to despise God and disregard hell. Eventually the person disbelieving God begins to flatter himself so much that he is unable to detect or hate his sin.* This is called hardening your heart and God will not stop you doing it. Before it gets that bad, put away whatever is causing you to sin, if it’s your job, your friend, your riches, put them away rather than be tempted by them.

Be afraid, let the awesome justice of God alarm you. Union with God is union with the Giver Of Life. Union with God is union with Being Itself. Not to be united with God is to be already disintegrating and dying. But part of that disintegration means the person can not recognize what is happening to him/her.

Will God endure scorn forever? When he puts all wickedness away forever, who will be amongst the wicked? Will God have fierce anger towards the person who has disregarded him? Eternity is a long time to suffer remorse.

*Psalm 35.2

The Upside-down nature of the Kingdom of God

Reading for Monday April 3
Selected passage: Mark 9:30-41

What were you arguing about? That was Jesus’ question to his companions as he traveled towards Jerusalem, on his last journey before crucifixion. They were too embarrassed to tell him that they had been arguing about who was the greatest.

The greatest, by earthly standards, gets the power. Power to do things our way, or to gather still more power. The greatest, by earthly standards, doesn’t need to suffer from feelings of inferiority, he’s proved his superiority. The greatest is at the top of the ladder; other people envy him and try to emulate him.

The kingdom of God is upside down. Humility and service are the measuring rods of heavenly greatness. God is the rewarder; he sees the unseen acts of kindness and counts the cups of water given in his name.

God is a condescending God. He waits for people rather than demanding that they come now. He is patient rather than sweeping us away because we are not following his instructions. He first comes to us and then we come before him. This example of God sets the pattern for the way we are to interact with all the other citizens and potential citizens of the kingdom. Stress free, just humility. Since our maker is humble we can be, but of course it needs our human nature to be changed.

Who was the solitary worker who was casting out demons in the name of Jesus? We don’t know a thing about him, except that he was neither monitored nor regulated by human agency. Some of us couldn’t be true without our accountability groups. What happened to the solitary worker? Did God lead him to some friends he could influence and be influenced by? The disciples, who at that time, were seeking earthly greatness probably longed to enlist him in their service and control him, Jesus didn’t encourage that.