Daily Liturgy and Scripture

It's funny that Jesus was prophesied about by those who meant to oppose him. Anyone who thinks that God needs our assistance to accomplish his ultimate purposes can take a note from this. While we join God in that work, it is very much God bringing it about. We are included in that work which is ongoing. (Also, if you wish to continue this reading plan, here's the rest of the year. )

Jesus enters a hostile territory to save a friend. This is a pretty good story in itself, but the saving is a resurrection, with a boost in the faith of his friends to boot. Since the Jewish leaders who questioned him were following, perhaps a few of them received a boost in their own faith as well.

To not recognize Jesus means you are not his follower. What he said to the contentious Jewish leaders remains true today. There are false versions of Jesus's message that lead to places that may seem good, but they certainly don't lead to Jesus.

The new way of approaching God is to approach Jesus. To walk in step with Jesus is to walk with God, and in God's direction. The illustration of the sheep pen with the robber and the workers illustrates this, and steps on a few toes along the way.

Hello, friends. :-)

All of the miracles Jesus performed on Sabbaths were healing miracles, making someone whole. And of course, doing so got him in trouble. If the Kingdom is subversive, then it is in this way: the thing which before could only point to our faults (the Law) has now been replaced with the way of Jesus, and that way does indeed bring wholness.

The language of family was familiar to the Jews, especially with the common bond of Abraham as their father. But Jesus was coming to establish a new Kingdom, a new kind of family. In this family, what came before Abraham was the common bond, and that was God.

To claim that God the Father speaks directly in your defense would have been pretty radical. It certainly would have stoked the ire of the religious leaders. Yet what Jesus spoke was confirmed by the church in the centuries that would follow: to see Jesus was to see God.

It seems that the familiarity that caused Jesus's family to doubt his divinity extended to his community. Everyone thought they knew who he was, because they had seen him grow up. But the eyewitnesses to his miracles had a different opinion, and that was the one that would grow the Kingdom of Jesus.

Sometimes those with whom we are most familiar have a hard time growing in our eyes. We know them so well, we can't easily see them as being different from the person we have always known. Such was the case with Jesus's family, who had a difficult time believing he was anything except their brother.

What would you do with the knowledge that your closest friends didn't really believe in you? Jesus had that knowledge, and his response was to continue challenging those who did believe. While that's not a great strategy if you're putting together a party, it's a pretty good one if you're building the Church.

Jesus feeding the people through a miracle and the manna that fed God's people in their flight from Egypt seem like a pretty obvious connection: in both cases, the people get their bellies full. But in Jesus's reckoning, the same negative outcome also happened: instead of worship and awe for the provider, the people only wanted more and more to fill their own bellies.

Do you get the sense that this whole passage is Jesus teaching his disciples? First by sitting, then by testing them with the loaves and fish, then by walking on the water? The ministry of Jesus lasted only about three years, and this may have been the pivotal point where they really started to understand who he was and what the Kingdom made by him looked like.

"You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." Keeping in mind that Jesus was arriving on the scene at a time when the Law was the absolute, it was something to say, "that points to me, here I am." Our task is the same: Jesus is the way, S...

It's interesting that the very accusation made by the religious leaders about work on the Sabbath is turned on its head by Jesus. The work he has come to do is the work of wholeness, and this is what he gives the man by the pool. Where the Law gave restrictions to keep people from sinning, Jesus gives fullness of life.

Jesus seems... maybe a little irritated?... that people need a sign in order to believe. He later comng mends Peter for not seeing but still believing. Nonetheless, he performs the wonders they ask for. Perhaps because their need for wholeness was part of their belief.

The new Kingdom, being laid out by its king, for the first time. This is what is happening in the conversation with Jesus and the woman at Jacob's well. It seems almost playful, and that's a notable change from the heavy weight of the Law.

John is yielding his ministry to Jesus, as he has always understood he will do. This is a part of the model of the new Kingdom, for though ministry may be given to some, all still point to the work of the Messiah.

Nehemiah's choice to come see Jesus at night might look sneaky, but it was a mark of respect. Open debate was common among Jewish teachers, but he seemed to want to figure out what Jesus was all about. Jesus gave him what he was looking for: a glimpse into how God was fulfilling the promise to the Jews and expanding the Kingdom.

Flipping over tables wasn't a choice Jesus made again, but this time it was for good reason. The holiness of God was being treated with little regard, and so he created a disturbance. In a whirl of feathers and fur, he cleared out the place where Gentiles were permitted to be in the temple structure, perhaps showing a future where Gentiles could truly be close to God.

John's handoff of ministry to Jesus is a prelude to the way of Jesus. In this way of thinking, you do not hoard for yourself. You make the way to Jesus, and he is the one who leads.

Only God knows fully the reason that John was so closely tied to the work of Jesus, but the work he did as an itinerant preacher gives us a pretty good idea: the Law was passing away as the main method God used to form his people, and John was the first messenger of the new way. He had his own set of disciples, but the ultimate goal was still Jesus. (Even John's disciples were recorded as bein...

The team you have around you is important in accomplishing your mission, and the church is no exception. Paul is in a struggle, and he needs to know who he can depend on, and who has abandoned his work.

The hard work over retraining to become followers of Jesus instead of followers of our own instincts is called discipleship. Paul outlines some pretty clear differences between those two paths, and also shows that he has been teaching by living it himself. For a young pastor like Timothy, this would be critical.

Working with people can be one of the most challenging jobs of a young church, especially for a young pastor like Timothy. To this challenge, Paul offers guidance. The church is still God's, the people are God's, and God is doing the work. The pastor stands with his people before God to lead in discipleship.