Crazy John?

Mark 1:4-8 - And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.  John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.  I baptize you with[e] water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

 

As we said yesterday, Mark begins his gospel account with the announcement that the Messiah would be preceded by another messenger who will prepare the way.  Immediately after this announcement, we meet this messenger, John the Baptist, in the wilderness.  He is “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

 

This is not the baptism with which most modern-day Christians are familiar.   It is not an initiation rite.  There is no such thing as a “Christian” yet.  As we will learn throughout his gospel, Mark says plainly what he means.  This is a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  To repent literally means “to turn away.”  John pleads with those who come to hear him to turn away from their sinful ways because the Messiah is coming.  John’s words come at the end of a very spiritually dry period of a few hundred years where no prophet’s voice is heard and God’s people have been oppressed my multiple empires.  The suggestion here is that people had fallen asleep spiritually.  John is the alarm bell piercing their slumber. 

 

Mark uses John’s clothing to point out that this clarion call is not coming from the comfortable religious establishment that quietly colludes with Rome.  No priest in Jerusalem would be caught dead wearing camel’s hair or leather.  Neither would they dine on the bugs and honey you could find in the wilderness.  This message comes from one who has himself repented of all the trappings of the religious establishment before he asks anyone else to repent.  John is the son of a priest, but he sheds the priestly signs of comfort and wealth.  His message is “do what I have done, because something amazing is about happen and you might just miss it.” 

 

It's a message that’s hard to hear even today.  We read about John and often picture him as “a crazy old man in the woods.” 

“Oh, that’s just John.  Pay no attention to him.” 

 

People dismissed John two thousand years ago and people still dismiss God’s messengers calling for change today.  They misunderstood John back then and they misunderstand still today.  John is not saying we need to change things;  He’s announcing that things are about to change whether we want them to or not.  We can prepare ourselves for that or we can miss what God is doing altogether. 

 

Question:   In what way is John’s message of “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” a message for you today? For the church today?

 

Prayer:  Holy Spirit, show us the ways in which we have grown too comfortable and content in our faith.  Wake us up with the news of what you are about to do in us and in the world.

 

Song:  Song of Repentance – New Wine Worship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE4YYHr2SF8

Making Amends

Matthew 5:23-24, NIV - “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

 

Matthew 25:40, NIV - ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

 

                As we wind up our series on forgiveness this week, we come to the topic of making amends.  We’ve talked about God’s forgiveness of us, us forgiving others, and even us forgiving God.  But what do we do when we have received forgiveness from others or God.  The appropriate thing to do is to make amends.  In our relationships with other humans, making amends can even be the appropriate thing to do when the person we have hurt has not forgiven us.  Making amends, in these cases, can even help the other person be more receptive to forgiving you.  It should be noted that making amends is NOT a way to manipulate the other into forgiving you.  Making amends requires a genuine desire to benefit those we have hurt.

                But what exactly is making amends?  Biblically speaking, it is very close to the biblical notion of repentance.  In the original biblical language Greek, repent means “to turn away.”  When we repent, we turn away from the hurtful behavior.  We work not to repeat the actions that harmed others.  So to apply this to the notion of “making amends,” this means that we begin to act towards the person we hurt in ways that demonstrate our commitment to not hurting them again.  Certainly showing kindness, empathy, and compassion is part of this, but the heart of making amends is helping the other to see that we know what we did was wrong.  We know it caused harm and our actions show that we are doing all we can not to repeat the behavior. 

                Note the urgency of Jesus’s instruction in the first scripture above that is taken from the Sermon on the Mount.  Why would one not offer a gift to God (worship) before making every effort to make amends with those who have something against us.  The urgency comes from the fact that our relationships with others have a direct influence on our relationship with God.  The second scripture above also makes this point.  The way you treat others is, in effect, the way you treat God.  The importance of making amends is not only for improving our relations with people.  It is a way of improving our relationship with God. 

                As I said before, the purpose of making amends is NOT to extract forgiveness from others.  Therefore, even if our efforts to make amends with others does not result in a restored relationship with the other person, genuinely knowing we have done all we can to try and repair our human relationships still improves our relationship with God.  It also sets us up for better relationships with other people because we have changed our hurtful behavior.  Making amends where we have made mistkes is part of healthy spiritual, emotional, and relational growth.  It is part of becoming a better version of ourselves.

 

Question:  Thinking about someone who you have hurt in the past, is there something you need to do to demonstrate your commitment to not repeating the offense?

 

Prayer:  Jesus, thank You for your instruction in making amends.  However, the nitty-gritty of exactly how to do it in specific relationships is really heard.  Guide my heart to know how I can “turn away” from the behavior(s) that harmed the other and the courage to replace those mistakes with action that helps assure the other that I am committed to change.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who have lost a loved one recently.

 

Song:  Turn My Heart – Lynn DeShazo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QhJKj4e8o4

Matthew 12:38-45 - The Sign of Jonah

 

Daily Devo w/ Pastor Eric October 26, 2021

The “Sign of Jonah”

Matthew 12:38-45, NLT - One day some teachers of religious law and Pharisees came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, we want you to show us a miraculous sign to prove your authority.”

But Jesus replied, “Only an evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign; but the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah.  For as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.

“The people of Nineveh will stand up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, for they repented of their sins at the preaching of Jonah. Now someone greater than Jonah is here—but you refuse to repent.  The queen of Sheba will also stand up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, for she came from a distant land to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Now someone greater than Solomon is here—but you refuse to listen.

“When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, seeking rest but finding none.  Then it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from.’ So it returns and finds its former home empty, swept, and in order.  Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before. That will be the experience of this evil generation.”

 

We rejoin the spirted conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees/religious teachers.  After being warned by Jesus that they are teetering on the edge of sin that is unforgivable, the leaders ask Jesus for a sign to prove he has authority to say such harsh things to them.  Remember, they have witnessed several “signs” already, including demon-exorcisms, countless healings, and even a resurrection or two.  So Jesus, who isn’t a show-us-a-miracle traveling road show, refuses to perform on-demand for the leaders who will no more be swayed from their murderous intent than they have been up until now.  Instead, Jesus’s critique of them continues.

“Only an evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign; but the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah.”(v. 39)

Once again, Jesus stops short of actually calling the leaders evil and adulterous, but He might as well have.  But as I have encouraged us to do before, let’s not distance ourselves from the targets of Jesus’s polemic here.  We need to hear Jesus’s warnings to those who should know better, because the warnings are for us as well.  Don’t continue to demand proof as a basis for faith when all the proof necessary has already been given.  Only people who have already steeled themselves against such proof and betrayed the faith insist on signs being given.    

                Jesus is angry and one of the words he uses here helps us understand why – generation (“only and evil, adulterous generation…”).  Jesus is making a charge against specific individuals; he’s leveling an evaluation of an entire generation.  Implied here is the troubling thought that, not only have these leaders turned against the God they claim to serve, they are leading and will continue to lead others to do the same.  Jesus is not just calling out evil. He is calling out systemic evil.  When Nineveh was called out by Jonah, they repented.  When the Queen of Sheba heard about the wisdom of Solomon, she traveled across the world to hear it personally.  But now, God-in-the-flesh is standing before these leaders and they continue to demand proof and cast doubts into the hearts of their followers.  Shame, shame.

                This grave warning still calls out all who persist in setting themselves against obvious truth and leading others to do the same.  Jesus says that the only sign that will ever be given for such rebels is “the sign of Jonah.”  Jonah was willingly thrown into the sea by those in peril so that those in peril might be saved from the wrath all around them.  Long before He is crucified, Jesus alludes to his ultimate sign;  he will die at the hands of those who oppose Him, but their “victory” is actually their once-and-for-all defeat.  Truth will prevail in the end.  And the “generation” that fought against truth and brought others down with them will find themselves in a worse situation than they were in before.

                It’s extremely hard to resist the temptation to conclude that Jesus’s warning is not for us.  But every generation recorded in the Bible and all the generations since the last word of the Bible was scribbled down have struggled with embracing the obvious signs they have already been given in favor of looking for a sign that will never come.  I already have all the “proof” I will ever need that I should follow Jesus with all that I have.  You have that proof as well.  This leads to a very uncomfortable question.

 

Question:  Why do we continue to resist truth we already know deep in our hearts is right? 

 

Prayer:  Have mercy on us Lord when we refuse to receive the truth You offer – the truth that could set us free.  Help us let go of our resistance even when it is so hard to do so, lest we become part of a generation that stands on the wrong side of Your warning.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the healing of divisions within the worldwide church. 

 

Song:  Come Tear Down the Walls/I Surrender All - Revere

https://youtu.be/pJhvXhA2CxU?t=103

Matthew 11:20-26 - A Jesus That Makes Us Uncomfortble

 

Daily Devo w/ Pastor Eric October 18, 2021

A Jesus that Makes Us Uncomfortable

 

Matthew 11:20-26, CEV - In the towns where Jesus had worked most of his miracles, the people refused to turn to God. So Jesus was upset with them and said:

You people of Chorazin are in for trouble! You people of Bethsaida are in for trouble too! If the miracles that took place in your towns had happened in Tyre and Sidon, the people there would have turned to God long ago. They would have dressed in sackcloth and put ashes on their heads. I tell you that on the day of judgment the people of Tyre and Sidon will get off easier than you will.

People of Capernaum, do you think you will be honored in heaven? You will go down to hell! If the miracles that took place in your town had happened in Sodom, that town would still be standing.  So I tell you that on the day of judgment the people of Sodom will get off easier than you.

At that moment Jesus said:

My Father, Lord of heaven and earth, I am grateful that you hid all this from wise and educated people and showed it to ordinary people.  Yes, Father, that is what pleased you.

                 

When we began this study of Matthew, I initially thought that it we would take selected passages of Matthew and move at a steady pace through the Gospel.  You might have noticed (since we are only on Chapter 11 two and half months later) that I was led early on to deal with every passage and skip none.  My primary reason for making this decision was that I did indeed feel that God was leading me to do so.  Along with that though, was a recognition that I needed to resist a tendency I have to skip over passages that are hard to comment on and uncomfortable to hear.  The above passage for today is one of those.  Reading and hearing this particular passage is important because it speaks directly to the resistance in us that tends to only pay attention to Jesus when his words are comfortable to hear. 

As Jesus traveled the Galilean countryside preaching, teaching, healing, and performing other miracles, some places were very receptive to his ministry and they turned wholeheartedly toward Him and the Kingdom He proclaimed.  This turning toward also implies a turning away from the way things were – this simultaneous turning away from and turning toward is the core definition of repentance.  The people who embraced Jesus’s kingdom saw their lives transformed.  This was Jesus’s intention for them and, by the way, it is still Jesus intention for us. 

But there were other towns, like Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, that may have enjoyed Jesus’s miracles, had their ears tickled by His teaching and may have even believed that Jesus was who He said He was, but there was no substantive change in their lives as a result.  They did NOT turn away from their old lives and they did NOT turn toward Jesus’s kingdom.  They may have enjoyed Jesus’s performance, but they were unchanged in any significant way. 

It's here where Jesus’s words get uncomfortable.  Judgement is coming for the those who do not turn away from their wickedness and lest we think that judgement is no big deal, Jesus recalls three cities whose terrible fates (Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom) will be better than the unrepentant cities he visited.  Tyre and Sidon were conquered and destroyed; Sodom was completely burned to the ground and wiped from the face of the earth.   All three cities were implored by the prophets to repent but did not prior to their destruction.   Like Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, they were unchanged by God’s word and works towards them.  Jesus emphatically proclaims there are dire consequences for making that collective choice.

My pastoral instinct is to try and soften Jesus’s words here – to offer some explanation for this harshness from the mouth of our Savior.  But to do so would be an attempt to “domesticate” Jesus, to make Him and His message something less jarring.  But the truth is that Jesus intends for His message to be jarring.   People do not change their ways when they are perfectly comfortable with their present ways.  There is no repentance (a simultaneous turning away from what was and a turning toward what is coming) in people who like what was just fine. 

So instead, my invitation today is “sit with” the discomfort of Jesus’s words above (and elsewhere).  Let that discomfort permeate your defenses and unsettle that in you which needs to be unsettled – those things in you that need to change.  Because Jesus proclaimed these warnings to whole cities (large groups/systems of people), I also invite us to let Jesus’s words unsettle in our own groups/systems of people that which needs to be unsettled – those systemic changes that need to happen in order for our cities to be aligned with the Kingdom of God. 

Tomorrow, we will hear the Jesus we like to hear, a Jesus who is “humble and gentle at heart” and who offers to lighten our load.  But today, we need to sit with the Jesus expects us and our cities to be changed by His words and warns us of the dire consequences coming if that change/repentance never comes. 

 

Question: What is something that would have to change if you were to turn toward Jesus even more than you have at this point in your life?

 

Prayer:  Investigate my life, O God, find out everything about me, Cross-examine and test me, get a clear picture of what I’m about; See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—then guide me on the road to eternal life. (Psalm 139:24-25, The Message) Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for specific places/situations of injustice that you are aware of right now in our world.

 

Song:  Lord Have Mercy - Michael W. Smith ft. Amy Grant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID0Mpy6zfts