Cutlerville East Christian Reformed Church

The Gospel of Mark is written to an authentic, countercultural, persecuted church in Rome. Mark’s intention is that the Roman church was to understand that they might undergo similar rejection to that of Jesus, and chapter 15 is his true-to-reality recruitment poster. Reflecting on Jesus’ example in dealing with rejection might give them and us the strength and wisdom to endure when rejection come...

American Indian lore tells a story of an eagle raised as a prairie chicken and limited to a prairie chicken lifestyle instead of soaring as an eagle. Solomon, in Ecclesiastes, has been talking about a prairie chicken lifestyle, strictly “under the sun” living (horizontal, without God in the picture) and found it meaningless. God created us to soar like eagles, he set eternity in our hearts (Eccl....

Writing to suffering church in Rome, Mark pays special attention to these scenes at the high priest’s house. Here he contrasts the failure of one man, Peter, with the steadiness of the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, in order to teach the early church what was necessary for living in a hostile world. It is a contrast between two rocks.  Scripture: Mark 14:53-72 

In Ecclesiastes, Solomon has been blasting away at “under the sun” lifestyles and philosophies: they sound good, but in the end they are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Now he turns to the ultimate issues of life and death. Again, as we’ve seen, how one reads Ecclesiastes is somewhat dependent on one’s world and life view. Let’s read these verses from each perspective.  Scripture: Ecclesias...

In this passage, one might be tempted to focus on the hideous betrayal by Judas, looked on by some as the most horrible crime ever perpetrated.  Or perhaps on the momentary courage of Peter in defending Jesus.  Or even the odd mix of Jews and Gentiles in the posse that came to arrest him.  But the clear focus in the story is Jesus: his sovereign (kingly) control over the situation, but also his wi...

Solomon now turns his attention to this sticky issue for believers and those who are not:  injustice and tragedy in the world.  When faced with injustice, our initial reaction is:  who's in charge here?  There is a natural link between injustice and authority, with a sense that the authority under which injustice happens is at fault.  Solomon shares some wisdom here to help us approach author...

 Only Jesus knew what awaited these bold disciples of his. They sounded so confident, so assured when James and John said they could drink the cup Jesus would drink (10:38-40); when Peter, with the crucifixion only hours away, loudly stated: “Even if all fall away, I will not” (14:29). Bold. Confident. But definitely not prepared for the next hours and days. So Jesus takes his confident confidants...

  Solomon hasn’t spoken much yet about wisdom, surprising given his notoriety for it and all his proverbs. But from this point on, we will hear the word “wisdom” 35 times. But it is a bit different than Proverbs; in Ecclesiastes he overturns some of the conventional wisdom of the day with uncommon sense wisdom. These are Solomon’s “rules for the good life.” 

Scripture: John 6:60-71

This message explores the strength of Stephen's convictions about who Jesus was, and how we too should be strongly convicted to face the challenges of our culture and world and be prepared to face the consequences without hesitation. Scripture: Acts 7 (particularly vv51-59)

 We now turn our focus to Lent. It is two days away from the Passover, which for the Jews was like the 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter all rolled into one. It was THE Jewish holiday/holy day. But not everyone was so festive. In the midst of it all, a conspiracy was being fine-tuned. From the beginning of Mark, the religious establishment wanted to kill Jesus. He revealed their hypo...

We now listen to discourse on money, which sounds eerily familiar. But, as Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 3, there is nothing new under the sun. John Rockefeller once said, " I have made many millions, but they have brought me no happiness. I would barter then all for the days I sat on an office stool in Cleveland and counted myself rich on $3 a week." Henry Ford said, "I was happier...

Have you ever gotten so involved in work in some ministry - and there is so much to be done - that you have no time to eat and you worked yourself to exhaustion?  Maybe it was a good exhaustion but it was exhaustion just the same.  Jesus knew that kind of exhaustion as we encountered in Mark 4, and now his Apostles have too.  Now the stage was set for the only miracle story that appears in all fou...

Solomon now turns his observant eye toward man as worshiper, and he didn't like what he saw.  This too could be meaningless, event though it is our "above-the-sun" connection.  Solomon warns well-meaning worshipers to "stay alert!"  In many airports, at the pick-up and drop-off area,  you here a non-stop recording: "The white zone is for loading and unloading only.  N...

While the previous story was about "friendlies," people Jesus knew and grew up with, now mark turns the story of an "unfriendly" Herod Antipas, and his flashback on the demise of John the Baptist. When the prophet John clashed with Herod Antipas, it raised the issue of conscience.

Ecclesiastes 4 In the midst of the troubled world of the 1960s, a singer named Paul Simon wrote a prophetic song. When there's nothing but trouble, he sang, one thing will get you through: a friend. Solomon is singing this song in Ecclesiastes 4. To this point, "life is meaningless" has been his theme. But what about when you add "troubled waters" to the mix? We all face t...

If Mark 5 was about faith, then Mark 6 is about unbelief. There were many times that Jesus was “burned” by unbelief, when he felt the pain of rejection. Perhaps the pain was most personal when it came from his hometown, Nazareth. He had several encounters with them, whether as they attempted to throw him off a cliff, or saying he was “out of his mind.” In our passage today, we see another attempt...

We will celebrate the Cadets and GEMS programs by focusing on both their themes, which dovetail quite nicely. Both turn to God as the one who is in control, who is an unshakeable fortress. In whatever life throws our way, we also can and need to turn to God. In him we can say with David, “I will never be shaken,” and hear the challenge to Joshua, “Be strong and courageous.”  Scripture:  Joshua 1:1...

Here we have a true picture of a faith healer and his healing, as he applies his power to sickness and death. But there couldn’t be a greater contrast between his two “patients” — a prominent leader of the local synagogue and an outcast, unclean, poor and terribly sick woman. They are two vastly different people, but both found themselves beyond help and responded to Jesus with faltering faith. Yo...

After everything else Solomon has said about the vanity and futility of life, we might expect him to say something pessimistic and very discouraging about time. He might have complained that time is short and we never have enough of it for all we have to do. Or talked about the tyranny of time, that it controls over lives down to the millisecond. Or that time is fleeting, that we are running out o...

 CS Lewis writes: There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist and magician with the same delight. Both extremes please Satan. As we approach such a passage, we need...

Solomon had many questions.  He searched for meaning in life under the sun.  He engaged in horizontal living, under the heaven, without God in the picture. And his solution seems to be: If that's all there is, let's just enjoy ourselves or, as the Roman's used to say: "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die."  We still see people living this way everyday, looking for...

Scripture: Mark 4:35-41  The keeping, protecting power of Christ over his people is a truth we all need to understand and believe, because it is life changing. The disciples also had to learn this, and it may be what the storm they  encountered on the Sea of Galilee was meant to teach. We’ll use this story to peek at the process of understanding the power of Jesus Christ. 

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 1 

Is your life going in the right direction?  God's direction?  Repentance means to turn around and go a new direction.  The start of a New Year is a great time to repent and start a new direction.