Daily Liturgy and Scripture

The day after Christmas, it's a bit difficult to think about Jesus' betrayal and arrest. We may not have even opened all our Christmas presents yet, but we we are rushing him off to crucifixion. And yet, this is why he came. To live a live that we should model, to show us the way of sacrifice, and to give himself up, a sacrifice for many. But maybe I'm getting too far ahead of myself. In this mome...

Merry Christmas! Glory to the newborn king! Of course, today is one of the most important days of the year: we remember that God became a man, lived upon the earth, and became the living Word before the eyes of men. May the Word so live in our hearts that it becomes living and vibrant among all those we encounter.

Bodies matter. It's easy to spiritualize ourselves to the point that we focus on the unseen and the intangible, but the tangible is important. Just as Song of Songs brings bodies into the holy canon of Scripture, so Jesus presents his own body as the enduring symbol of God's commitment to his people.

It is difficult to come to terms with God's judgement. But could he be God without it? God cannot live beside corruption and sin, or He wouldn't be holy. If we are defined by those things, the Spirit cannot live within us. 

Not everyone who claims to be a believer really is one. This was true of Israel and it's true of the church today. We can be careful to follow our Savior daily, though, and to allow his work to transform our lives. When he does, we won't have to stop and consider how much we should give or if we know we're one of his people.

Where do we take our refuge? Psalms says we should take it in the Lord. In Luke, Jesus is facing a group of religious leaders who take shelter in their power, but Jesus calls to attention their lack of love for God, their willingness to destroy his Son. Certainly, there have been many steps leading up to that point. Years of focus on power have led them to this point. Where are they now? Wishing t...

How do we prepare the way for Jesus? Hopefully, in the way he wishes us to. While there was fanfare, Jesus took a break to weep. What a parade. After mourning for Israel's lack of obedience, he heads to the temple to remind the people of the holy place that it should be, not the center of commerce it had become. He didn't stop to flex and show off, he rode to his death on the back of a donkey. So...

When Jesus tells a story it's often important to clarify which of the characters we should pay attention to and which ones are just story pieces. In the story of the nobleman who gave his servants money to care for, we should particularly look at the action of the servants more than the nobleman. We should also remember that they weren't working with their own money, it all belonged to the noblema...

Sometimes it's hard to see beauty, but God puts it in front of us all the time. From a blind man who could literally see nothing to a tax collector who swapped greed for the glorious picture of God's economy, Jesus opened the eyes of many, revealing a better way.

A good balance today in the scripture between sacrifice and the riches God provides. Isaiah paints a word picture of the prosperity God wants to bring his people, while Jesus tells a rich man that he needs to become poor. In both cases, We must remember to put ourselves in God's hands. Trying to do the work of God on our own pitiful energy will never do.

What keeps us from seeing the Kingdom of God? Fixing our eyes on the kingdom of the world. It may not be bad things, it could very well be good things that we love too much. It may even be family. Jesus is clear when he talks about entering the Kingdom. No one who looks back for something they they love more is ready.

What do the people of God look like? They look compassionate and sacrificial, just as Jesus did. But how do we respond to this great gift of God, admission to his amazing kingdom? With gratitude. People who are grateful for what they have act differently than those who think they are entitled. They do not act haughty, they do not hold their status over others. If we are to become the true citizens...

The passage about the rich man and Lazarus is often taken as a literal picture of Hell, and maybe it is. I don't think that's the point Jesus was trying to make, though. Where do we want our reward to be? Do we want to scrape together all the goods we can on earth, or do we want to build up treasure in Heaven? Lazarus had no choice; he was without goods and without means. But the rich man, who Jes...

Isaiah and Luke are more connected that we may initially think today. Isaiah is talking about including outsiders in worship, and then turns to his own to point out how unfit they are as a holy people. Luke gives us the well-known parable of the prodigal son... and the other son. It is in the son who stayed home, who never broke the rules, where we may find a hard lesson for ourselves. Do you see...

How do we count the cost of something that hasn't happened yet? It's impossible to know what laying everything on the line for Jesus will mean, and it's possible many of us would never commit if we knew what that cost would mean. So what does Jesus ask for, if not seeing the future? He asks for daily faith and obedience. He asks that we consider everything else secondary, so if the most important...

In the story of the banquet, Jesus affirms that God has invited his chosen people first. When they decline to join him, he invites everyone else. What's intriguing about the story is that the objective all along was a full banquet, tables teeming with guests. God desires our company. It is still our choice to come, but others will invited to fill our place if we decline.

I have heard it said that all Jesus' Sabbath miracles were healing miracles, and I think that's true. Watchman Nee, a Christian brother from China, has said this: "Grace means God does something for me. Law means I do something for God." If I bring the grace of the Sabbath into the demonstrations that Jesus made on that day, I start to get a better idea of how Sabbath works best. Certainly, we hav...

It is God's desire to deliver his people. In Isaiah, we see him sending his "suffering servant," and in Luke, the suffering servant himself appears to explain how God agonizes of the unfaithfulness of his people but continues being patient. In Jesus' story, we see that played out in the illustration of a fig tree. In our lives, we must allow ourselves to be formed by him lest we be like the unfrui...

How do we know God is a God of mercy? Because through the prophets he takes great joy in declaring the end of suffering. It is important to be authentic representatives; he does also form his people in ways we sometimes wish he wouldn't. Jesus tells us that if we wish to claim the benefits of being his people, we must also claim the responsibility and the holy (set apart) call of bearing his name....

The Kingdom of God is upside down. We can't earn it, it is a gift of God. The least are greatest, and those who want it all must lose everything. This flies in the face of our natural tendency to work and earn, but that's because it's not part of the world we're accustomed to living in.

It has always been God's intention to form a people who serve as a light to those who do not know him. This thread runs throughout the story of God and man from the beginning. At times, he needs to work drastically to protect his people, and those he would rather bless feel his wrath. At other times, he works through those same outsiders to form his own people. His ultimate purpose is still a peop...

It's not always easy to tell who is doing the work of God and who is doing the work of the devil, but Jesus assures us that they don't work together. Does our life match his? Are work working for the purposes he showed us? Or is the fruit of our labors something else?

In Isaiah today, God reminds his people through the prophet that he is going to do something unexpected so that the people will know that it is God doing it, the real God. When we reach Luke, we see Jesus make an example of someone who the Israelites would have despised as the hero of his story. God specializes in the unexpected, because he's always more than we can understand. Our best response i...

There's an old hymn that declares out relationship with God like this: "What a fellowship, what a joy divine." Sometimes we spend so much time trying to figure out what God is doing, what he will do, or what he's done, that we forget the real gift is God's presence. Do you have relationships that just want to get busy doing something when you show up? The best ones, though, are the relationships t...

God never allows himself to be boxed in. In Isaiah, he chooses the pagan king Cyrus to be the instrument of Israel's salvation, even though Cyrus does not know God. In Luke, he refuses to allow his disciples to inflict rage on those who reject them. Truly, our God is leaving himself open to  outsiders, and the pain that making oneself vulnerable brings.