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Imagine that there’s a Kingdom of the heart—a Kingdom of Heaven, in fact—and that its King is an everlasting King. Meaning, this King existed before existence and time and history; this King will endure far beyond the point of history, time and (what we think of as) existence. The Voice of this King is powerful to the degree that what He thinks of—and speaks—takes on the exact form of the idea He envisions. His power is so completely all-encompassing that it reaches not just to the lives of His subjects, but directly into the heart, the soul, the spirit of each.
And this King is good—wonderfully so. So wonderfully good that He invaded our human reality. Not, as many a mighty conqueror would, with intrigues, violence, siege works, advancing armies; no! He invaded, silently, as Himself—and on His own. He grew up within the class we might call “peasant,” and learned the ups and downs of His citizens—from right within their midst. His love for His people only grew and grew, thus. He literally fell in love with the subjects-to-be of His Heavenly Kingdom. For He had made Himself one with them. Then, at a certain age, He began to reveal Himself: to let a few know that He, the King, had actually been here all along. He began, as it were, to show His hand. In this way, more and more were gathered to Him. The crowds began to arrive from all over the earthly kingdoms surrounding His place of ministry: He greeted them all with love; with His attention. They followed Him up and down the coastline of an inland sea—waiting upon His next word, His next healing, His next miracle, His next look. One day, He turned to the west and began ascending a trail, away from the sea, up into the foothills, winding His way through a grassy, wildflowery meadow. Toward the top, He sat down upon a large rock. The crowds pressed ever nearer—and then they sat down to listen. He Himself was now looking out over their numbers, down toward the sea—waters which sparkled in the midday sunlight. A faint breeze was blowing through the meadowgrass. And then, without any warning at all, He began to speak: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
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Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, sends this letter to those who have been given a faith as valuable as yours in the righteousness of our God, and Saviour Jesus Christ. May you know more and more of grace and peace as your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord grows deeper…
…you must do your utmost from your side, and see that your faith carries with it real goodness of life. Your goodness must be accompanied by knowledge, your knowledge by self-control, your self-control by the ability to endure. Your endurance too must always be accompanied by devotion to God; that in turn must have in it the quality of brotherliness, and your brotherliness must lead on to Christian love. If you have these qualities existing and growing in you then it means that knowing our Lord Jesus Christ has not made your lives either complacent or unproductive. The man whose life fails to exhibit these qualities is short-sighted—he can no longer see the reason why he was cleansed from his former sins. Set your minds, then, on endorsing by your conduct the fact that God has called and chosen you. If you go along the lines I have indicated above, there is no reason why you should stumble, and if you have lived the sort of life I have recommended God will open wide to you the gates of the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:1,2, 5-11) For me, this past week, what has felt important about this text—at the beginning of verse 1 and the end of verse 11—is its point of departure and point of arrival: “Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ” and “the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Identity and citizenship. How Peter interpreted his existence, and the destination of his everyday actions. And, to that point, I want to “pull the thread through” on the meaningfulness, for all of us, of intimacy-with-Jesus being our everything. As Peter is spurring on his first-century brothers and sisters unto Jesus, what is he also saying to us?
IT WAS SOMETHING LIKE two minutes before the arrival of the Holy Ghost. Inside, the friends of Jesus were huddled within the upper room. Outside, the Pentecost crowds were going about their morning’s busyness.
These two groups of people weren’t yet aware of each other. At each corner of the room, rudimentary sconces held flickering oil lanterns: the dancing yellow light illumined the faces and bowed heads of the circle. The smell of the room was thick with unwashed clothing and stagnant breath. This was where they’d been, and all they’d been doing, for the last ten days since he went. One of the women was praying aloud: “…and did you not tell us the story of the judge and the widow, Lord? Well, here I am, a widow like she, and I beseech you. I beseech you, Lord, that, being as we are so small, so insignificant, so terribly outnumbered by the powers and people who would stand against us, Lord, that you yourself would stand within our midst—O, be our strength! be our might!—so that we might hold our heads high…in you. You have given us an impossibly difficult task to do, Lord. You have left the whole world in the keeping of only us… “And I recall you asking, when you stood before the crowd that day, if you, on your returning, would be able to find faithful ones who had maintained their faith…” She lifted her head and the lantern-light caught the edges of her features. “Well, Lord, we believe—and we are ready to receive…” A wind starts to blow within the room… Jesus takes His time to arrive where He's going.
He searches your eyes to see what you think; what you believe. People believe and then become who they are in the Kingdom of Heaven. People believe and then become who they are in the Kingdom of Heaven. People believe and then become who they are in the Kingdom of Heaven. Embracing death, Jesus was endeavoring to embrace us. How freeing to know that only Jesus can handle everything. Perfect adherence to the Law will not save you: the Old tried that and failed.
Every single person is as big of a sinner as any other: the Old and New agree on that fact. Trying to make your adherence to the New Covenant about you is returning to the terms of the Old Covenant. Instead, when Jesus died, your old nature died with Him, and you are invited now to RISE WITH HIM and BE NEW. You will be as new as the degree to which you allow Jesus Himself to live His resurrected life within you. You allow Him to do this by believing in Him, by abiding in Him, and by staying connected to Him at every moment: all the time. Understand: Jesus, in love, has already done it. Therefore, honoring His life and death and resurrection, we refuse ANYTHING with even a hint of the Old Law of self-perfection. And, with that, we refuse shame, every form of trying to hide, going-it-alone, discord with the people around ourselves, and, most importantly, any sense of any sort of disconnection with God. Under the New Covenant—which was sealed forever by the blood of Jesus Himself—we receive joyous mercy, being known, never being alone, new relationships, and our place at the Family Table of God. That is who we are now—and who we'll be. For this is what Jesus lived and died and lived again for. With the New Covenant, our righteousness is belief in the righteousness of Jesus; our obediences are an active act of walking alongside Him.
His proximity to us is not fearful; it is freedom. He is as near to us as our breath, as our heart—and as our ongoing faithful declarations of His glorious Lordship. We are, in seeking Him, already saved; already His. Belief is our once-and-then-forevermore, daily, ongoing act of obedience—and, from here, all other obediences follow. And, all of this—all the promises, all the offerings, all the inheritances, all the spiritual adventures—are found in the One who will never let us be put to shame. Thank you, Jesus! The New Covenant is entirely built upon the person, personality, and finished work of Jesus of Nazareth—that’s first.
Its ministry is His ministry—which is HIGHER—all of it mediated personally by Him—who is ABOVE--and is directly guaranteed by His personal promises—which are UTTERLY UNBREAKABLE. The New Covenant satisfies the every desire of the Father. The New Covenant came when Jesus came—the two are inseparable. The New Covenant dispenses with the Old. And, friends, it is IMPERATIVE that you internalize what I'm about to write: The New Covenant depends not on us. The New Covenant is the Way and Word of JESUS, WRITTEN on our hearts by His Spirit, and it MAKES us sons and daughters of God—ALREADY. The New Covenant is NOT instituted by our carefully being instructed in it, and internalizing its laws: it is built upon our Abiding in its basis… Jesus Himself. The New Covenant does not require hierarchies, accreditations, professional practitioners like the Old did. It requires our personally accepting the mercy He offers and the complete forgiveness of God—directly. The New Covenant asks of us our forgetfulness of who we used to be, our receiving of who He’s making us, and the joyous walking with Him as He does all the work of His Kingdom-heart. Friends, that’s the New. That’s the description of the lifestyle we’re meant to be living, daily. Anything less is, simply, not it. (And is in danger of trying, quite foolishly, to retreat to the Old.) "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy... [Yes,] you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full." (John 16:20, 22-24) * * * "At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get in. . . . When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive. Nature is only the image, the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture invites me to use. We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendour which she fitfully reflects. And in there, in beyond Nature, we shall eat of the tree of life." C.S. Lewis
The Weight of Glory “If any of you has a friend, and goes to him in the middle of the night and says, ‘Lend me three loaves, my dear fellow, for a friend of mine has just arrived after a journey and I have no food to put in front of him’; and then he answers from inside the house, ‘Don’t bother me with your troubles. The front door is locked and my children and I have gone to bed. I simply cannot get up now and give you anything!’ Yet, I tell you, that even if he won’t get up and give him what he wants simply because he is his friend, yet if he persists, he will rouse himself and give him everything he needs.”
"And so I tell you, ask and it will be given you, search and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you. The one who asks will always receive; the one who is searching will always find, and the door is opened to the man who knocks.” “Some of you are fathers, and if your son asks you for some fish, would you give him a snake instead, or if he asks you for an egg, would you make him a present of a scorpion? So, if you, for all your evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more likely is it that your Heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:5-13, Phillips) What's interesting about this passage is that, front to back, it only makes sense when read according to the logic of its back-to-front. Without the excited promise of the Father's delight in offering His Holy Spirit, the first part makes Him sound like a grudging neighbor you'd have to bother in order to move. But no! Consider--considering the ending--what His invitation is: "And so I tell you, ask and the Holy Spirit will be given you, search and you will find the Holy Spirit, knock and the Holy Spirit's door will be opened to you. The one who asks will always receive the Holy Spirit; the one who is searching will always find the Holy Spirit, and the door of the Holy Spirit is opened to the man who knocks. "...your Heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" Friends, at the start of a work-week, and already knowing what we know of the joy of experiencing the Spirit, let's ask for more of Him! The Early Church enjoyed fresh refillings throughout the actions of the Book of Acts; let's be about more of the same! When I was a child, God loved me.
When He called me His child, He loved me. When I wandered, He loved me. In all my mistakes, He loved me. In all His forgivenesses, He loved me. In binding me to Him, He loved me. By showing me His face, He loved me. By extending infinite compassion, He loved me. By withholding what was due me, He loved me. God loves me. “The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach suffering men. For one who wanted to make a display the thing would have been just to appear and dazzle the beholders. But for Him Who came to heal and to teach the way was not merely to dwell here, but to put Himself at the disposal of those who needed Him, and to be manifested according as they could bear it, not vitiating the value of the Divine appearing by exceeding their capacity to receive it.” Athanasius On the Incarnation 4th C. * * * "Since, then, 'the children' have a common physical nature as human beings, he also became a human being, so that by going through death as a man he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might also set free those who lived their whole lives a prey to the fear of death. It is plain that for this purpose he did not become an angel; he became a man, in actual fact a descendant of Abraham. It was imperative that he should be made like his brothers in nature, if he were to become a High Priest both compassionate and faithful in the things of God, and at the same time able to make atonement for the sins of the people. For by virtue of his own suffering under temptation he is able to help those who are exposed to temptation." (Hebrews 2:14-18, Phillips)
Let’s say you, as one of the original, early-called disciples, are sitting with Jesus, on a terrace, overlooking the town of Capernaum, the water, the whole of the Galilee. It is evening: the dusklight colors everything orange and purple; the smell of the breeze is strong with the freshness of the sea, below. Those sunset colors are reflecting, rippling, beautifully on those waters. You are sitting at a long outdoor table, finishing your dinner. The town below this terrace is also finishing its dinner: all is quiet. The darkness, subtly, starts to descend.
The mother-in-law of one of your fellow disciples, Simon called Peter, rises from the table; she goes inside and then returns with something sweet to finish out the meal. You watch her as she moves around the table, doling it out. She is a picture of vitality, hospitality, the joy of simply being alive—at noontime, today, she’d been thought to be nearing her death on her deathbed. Then Jesus—now sitting at the head of the table, laughing as, yes, He’ll take another cup of wine—walked into her home and, with a touch and a word, healed her. Right then; right there. Next to Him—in fact, the very one who’d just caused Jesus to laugh at his well-timed joke—sits a man who, even now, you haven’t actually caught the name of. He is dressed in a tunic absolutely filthy, filled with holes; he looks like a streetcorner beggar who can’t get his act together… Earlier today,—just before the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law—this man had entered the synagogue, out of his mind with the evils of an inward demon. Jesus, with a look, with a word, then healed him just as completely as the woman now setting dessert on the plate in front of you. After dessert—darkness. Just the sounds of the gusts and the distant splash of the water onshore. Everyone has that feeling of satisfaction: of a good meal and decent wine: they are quiet, enjoying the feel of the evening… Until, first, one; then another; then two more; then, suddenly, tens, dozens, multiple-multiples of lamplights are visible down below at the edge of town. They look almost like fireflies at this distance. They are appearing, one by one, from within the houses along the sea’s edge; they then are gathering together at the western edge of the village. You and the other disciples, the man from the synagogue, Simon’s mother-in-law—and Jesus—all watch them start ascending this way. Their numbers narrow into a long, glowing, snaking line of lights as they start climbing the footpath that finds its destination upon this terrace… Hours later—having struggled to stay awake—utterly tired out with the day and the food and the wine—you are on your way into the house to find a corner for sleeping. Crossing the threshold, you look over your shoulder. Jesus—surrounded by the golden, glowing light of a hundred lamps all around the table—is still in the process of healing every single ailment of the town of Capernaum. He is listening to their requests; hearing their stories; rising and standing, kneeling and considering—He will not sleep until they all are free. And you are on your way to bed… “Dialogue is a token of genuine Christian love, because it indicates our steadfast resolve to rid our minds of the prejudices and caricatures that we may entertain about other people, to struggle to listen through their ears and look through their eyes so as to grasp what prevents them from hearing the gospel and seeing Christ, to sympathize with them in all their doubts, fears and 'hang-ups.' For such sympathy will involve listening, and listening means dialogue. It is once more the challenge of the incarnation, to renounce evangelism by inflexible slogans, and instead to involve ourselves sensitively in the real dilemmas that people face.” John R.W. Stott
Christian Mission in the Modern World “Jesus has come to take up his abode in my heart. It is not so much a habitation, an association, as a sort of fusion. Oh, new and blessed life! life which becomes each day more luminous.... The wall before me, dark a few moments since, is splendid at this hour because the sun shines on it. Wherever its rays fall they light up a conflagration of glory; the smallest speck of glass sparkles, each grain of sand emits fire; even so there is a royal song of triumph in my heart because the Lord is there. My days succeed each other; yesterday a blue sky; to-day a clouded sun; a night filled with strange dreams; but as soon as the eyes open, and I regain consciousness and seem to begin life again, it is always the same figure before me, always the same presence filling my heart.... Formerly the day was dulled by the absence of the Lord. I used to wake invaded by all sorts of sad impressions, and I did not find him on my path. To-day he is with me; and the light cloudiness which covers things is not an obstacle to my communion with him. I feel the pressure of his hand, I feel something else which fills me with a serene joy; shall I dare to speak it out? Yes, for it is the true expression of what I experience. The Holy Spirit is not merely making me a visit; it is no mere dazzling apparition which may from one moment to another spread its wings and leave me in my night, it is a permanent habitation. He can depart only if he takes me with him... It is not a juxtaposition, it is a penetration, a profound modification of my nature, a new manner of my being.” "An Old Man"
from Wilfred Monod's He Lives: Six Meditations on the Christian Mystery As, therefore, God’s picked representatives of the new humanity, purified and beloved of God himself, be merciful in action, kindly in heart, humble in mind. Accept life, and be most patient and tolerant with one another, always ready to forgive if you have a difference with anyone. Forgive as freely as the Lord has forgiven you. And, above everything else, be truly loving, for love is the golden chain of all the virtues.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, remembering that as members of the same body you are called to live in harmony, and never forget to be thankful for what God has done for you. Let Christ’s teaching live in your hearts, making you rich in the true wisdom. Teach and help one another along the right road with your psalms and hymns and Christian songs, singing God’s praises with joyful hearts. And whatever you may have to do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, thanking God the Father through him. (Col. 3:12-17) Let me point out to you what this doesn’t say: that it is up to us to remake ourselves, to be pure, to earn our way into the love of God. No, in fact, the mercy, kindness, humility, patience, tolerance, forgiveness we’re called to are meant to come from where? By receiving them directly from the Lord. By loving out of the love we ourselves are experiencing. You see, it is out of our direct abiding connection with Jesus that peace, harmony, and thankfulness in the Body are meant to be derived. And, too, the teaching of Jesus, the wisdom of Jesus, the helping of our brothers and sisters can only flow from Him. In truth, “whatever we have to do,” we can only do our “everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” by actually, actively living our whole lives with Him, and “through him.” I think we think there’s a great gaping spiritual and even logistical distance between our spiritual dabblings and actual discipleship to the living Jesus. And I think we think the same thing about bearing fruit for Him; and about living our lives like this Colossians 3 passage. I think we think there’s a long spiritual continuum between “where we are” and where we’d like our spiritual lives to be. There is not. The distance is always, simply, today. Knowing what you already know of Him—and confident that He will ongoingly reveal Himself more and more—it is to follow His Way, accompanied by Him, and to do the actual actions of His heart. It is to be carried away by His love of people. It is to be useful to Him in the funny little contexts of our funny little lives. Shall we give it a shot. . . today? “Jesus promised his disciples three things—that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble... The challenge of the Beatitudes is 'Will you be happy in the world's way, or in Christ's way?'” William Barclay
The Gospel of Luke 61 He heals a woman with a blood condition Mark 5:24b-34 AMONG [THE CROWDS] was a woman who had a haemorrhage for twelve years and who had gone through a great deal at the hands of many doctors (or physicians), spending all her money in the process. She had derived no benefit from them but, on the contrary, was getting worse. This woman had heard about Jesus and came up behind him under cover of the crowd, and touched his cloak, “For if I can only touch his clothes,” she said, “I shall be all right.” The haemorrhage stopped immediately, and she knew in herself that she was cured of her trouble. At once Jesus knew intuitively that power had gone out of him, and he turned round in the middle of the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” His disciples replied, “You can see this crowd jostling you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’” But he looked all round at their faces to see who had done so. Then the woman, scared and shaking all over because she knew that she was the one to whom this thing had happened, came and flung herself before him and told him the whole story. But he said to her, “Daughter, it is your faith that has healed you. Go home in peace, and be free from your trouble.” Soon after… A YOUNG GIRL, TWELVE YEARS OLD, is walking down a narrow trail. The trail descends away from her home—high on the hilltop—and follows a ridge, switchbacking back and forth in its descent. To her left, the panorama of the sea is sparkling. The sky overhead is a pale, calming blue. There are only a very few clouds today. She is off the regular path (this trail is the multiyear creation of her own little feet) and she’s looking forward to seeing a friend down in town.
A woman is suddenly in view, climbing up from the townside. Her shawl is poor, edged with raggedness. She is intent on watching the upward progress of her steps; she doesn’t notice the young girl descending; they come upon each other, awkwardly, and step to the side of one another. The woman recognizes the young girl. “You are the daughter of Jairus, are you not?” she asks. The girl nods her head, carefully. “Will you do me a favor, then, my dear?” the woman asks. The girl squints her head and says nothing. (This situation, to her, feels fraught.) “Ask your abba to tell you the story—whether now or later tonight—of your twelve years and my twelve years. We will always share a story together, you and I…” The woman walks off upward, smiling a smile to herself. The girl watches her climb. “What the Lord Jesus looks for in us is a life laid at His feet—and that in view of His death and burial and of a future day. His burial was already in view that day in the home in Bethany. Today it is His crowning that is in view—when He shall be acclaimed in glory as the Anointed One, the Christ of God. Yes, then we shall pour out our all upon Him! But it is a precious thing—indeed it is a far more precious thing to Him—that we should anoint Him now, not with any material oil but with something costly, something from our hearts. “That which is merely external and superficial has no place here. It has already been dealt with by the Cross, and we have given our consent to God’s judgment upon it and learnt to know in experience its cutting off. What God is demanding of us now is represented by that flask of alabaster: something mined from the depths, something turned and chased and wrought upon, something that, because it is so truly of the Lord, we cherish as Mary cherished that flask—and we would not, we dare not break it. It comes now from the heart, from the very depth of our being; and we come to the Lord with that, and we break it and pour it out and say: ‘Lord, here it is. It is all Yours, because You are worthy!’—and the Lord has got what He desired. May He receive such an anointing from us today.” Watchman Nee
The Normal Christian Life "On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, 'If any man is thirsty, he can come to me and drink!'" (Jn. 7:37, Phillips) * * * "Jesus Christ is a God whom we approach without pride and before whom we humble ourselves without despair." Blaise Pascal
Pensées I’m sure many of you, having been serious about investigating the Way of Jesus for years yourself, are perfectly familiar with the opening of the famous “faith chapter”—Hebrews 11. Probably you know it in its most natural rendering, like this: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation.” (ESV) My favorite version of the New Testament renders it like this: “Now faith means putting our full confidence in the things we hope for, it means being certain of things we cannot see. It was this kind of faith that won their reputation for the saints of old.” (Phillips) Both are good. But the original Greek is interesting, because the word-order is almost never like ours, and the words used are so full of potential for our understanding phrasings, and meanings, so differently. In fact, if I could re-render these two famous verses differently for you, they would go like this: “Now belief (or faith (or trust)) is the foundation (and structure) of things hoped for, the argument for those pragmatic things currently unseen. In this way, the ancients bore witness.”
My friends, “faith” is the ascription of what we see and feel in front of ourselves over and unto everything we know of Jesus within that space. I think we Christians think of “faith,” too often, only as a macrocosmic eternal economy when, from the pages of the New Testament—and especially in the Gospels—it’s very clear that it’s both that and also microcosmic and totally tied to the moment we’re in. Belief is foundational, and also structural. It’s the building-block of a growing hope; and this occurs amidst the pragmatic things of the everyday. The “ancients” who believed gave their testimony not by esoteric etherealisms; they believed concretely in the constant, the now, the ever-present Today realities of God. You see, to have a constant unchanging place of recourse is not to regress: in fact, not to call constantly upon this One is to attempt to live life without Life. And if Jesus wasn’t bluffing when He referred to Himself as “the Way, the truth, the life,” then there’s no place where this recourse is not applicable. Moving through life, we may move with Him: the Way. Seeking the higher, deeper wisdoms and truths available, He makes these plain: the Truth Himself. Desiring that our everyday may find its richest, realest meaning, we may look to Him: Life. On the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee stands a little town that is currently going about the normalcies of a normal mid-morning. The sun has long been up—it is climbing higher and higher over the opposite shoreline’s hills, out over the water—and it is starting to feel like the day will be quite warm. Shall you and I go on a little stroll together?
We’ll start at the water’s edge, looking east, looking out over the sea, enjoying the sparkling sunlight on the water’s surface, ruffled by a west wind. The beach along this stretch is pebbly; crunchy underfoot. To both sides of you are Capernaum’s native fishing fleet: the hulls of the boats all exposed, having been dragged up after the nighttime’s long work. The boats and nets are drying out nicely in the warm sunlight. Turning around, you begin to walk up the harbor-path toward the town—which isn’t much of a town—a mixture of homes built with earth-colored clay; some with white plaster. The sounds you hear are as follows: the squawking of the seagulls behind you at the beach; the breath of the wind through the trees and bushes; the sound of children at the village school; and the voices in Capernaum’s small market square. Let’s go up there. Again, it’s not much of a market—nothing as grand as you’d find down at Tiberias—but it has everything you’d need for the living of small, village life. You are passing past the seaside edge of the town, which squeezes narrowly between two buildings—the synagogue and the tax-collector’s offices—and now the view opens up to this central market. All around are the tables of the sellers, offering their wares. To your left are all the fishermen, or their appointed vendors; the smell of fish is strong as the morning heats up the last remains of the catch. Past them is the village butcher; then a series of booths operated by farmers from the surrounding countryside; then a baker; then a section reserved for a group of women who sell their handiworks. Shoppers are walking stall to stall, inspecting the goods. There is the general noise of question-asking, bargaining, comparing/contrasting. Everything is as you’d expect. Except, What’s this? Over there. Behind the back of the furthest stalls. A small group of men, following in the wake of one particular Man. Strangers. Travelers. The Man who leads is… strangely arresting. There is that something about Him which grabs the attention. He has a smile on His lips; He carries Himself with a certain confidence; He seems delighted and amused by everything He sees, looking around. Now you watch as He takes off His heavier outer cloak and hands it to one of His friends. His tunic, underneath, is plain; simple. He winds His way through the tables that ring the market and takes up a central position in the square. For some reason, others have started to notice Him too. He stands for a moment very still. He is watching all the people; they, in turn, are watching Him. Then, still smiling, He begins to speak with a loud sure voice; Capernaum’s entire market square is now listening. “Repent!” He says. “For the Kingdom of Heaven has arrived. The time has come. Believe the good news!” From the heart of Jesus to His follower: "I am the way, the truth and the life. Without the way there is no going; without the truth there is no knowing; without the life there is no living. I am the way that you should follow, the truth that you should believe, the life that you should hope for. I am the inviolable way, the infallible truth, the indestructible life. I am the straightest way, the sovereign truth, the authentic life, bless'd and eternal." Thomas à Kempis
The Imitation of Christ Book III, Ch. 56 “If there is anything in us, it is not our own; it is a gift of God. But if it is a gift of God, then it is entirely a debt one owes to love, that is, to the law of Christ. And if it is a debt owed to love, then I must serve others with it, not myself. “Thus my learning is not my own; it belongs to the unlearned and is the debt I owe them... My wisdom belongs to the foolish, my power to the oppressed. Thus my wealth belongs to the poor, my righteousness to the sinners... “It is with all these qualities that we must stand before God and intervene on behalf of those who do not have them, as though clothed with someone else's garment... But even before men we must, with the same love, render them service against their detractors and those who are violent toward them; for this is what Christ did for us.” Martin Luther
"Lectures on Galatians" “Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again: for forgiveness has risen from the grave!” John Chrysostom 4th Century, A.D. * * * * He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. (Psalm 103:10-14) Take your stand then with truth as your belt, righteousness your breastplate, the Gospel of peace firmly on your feet, salvation as your helmet and in your hand the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. Above all be sure you take faith as your shield, for it can quench every burning missile the enemy hurls at you. Pray at all times with every kind of spiritual prayer, keeping alert and persistent as you pray for all Christ’s men and women. (Ephesians 6:14-18)
Let me make this stupidly simple for our hearts today. The “truth” is Jesus; Jesus has already made us “righteous”; the “Gospel” is the Good News of Heaven about Jesus; our “salvation” is the free gift of Jesus; the “Word” is Jesus Himself; our “faith” is belief and trust in Jesus; we talk to the Father through the Way that Jesus made. Paul, in his letter to the Roman believers, actually said this famous section better, more succinctly, when he simply wrote: “Put on THE LORD JESUS…” (Rom. 13:14) So, our everyday work is what? Abiding in Jesus. Because, abiding is what? Going inside; living; “putting on.” |
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