Lectio: Luke 15:1-3; 11b-32
March 12, 2010
The Parable of the Lost Sheep
1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
3 Then Jesus told them this parable:The Parable of the Lost Son
11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
31 ” ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ “
Grace. The Gospel story is Grace.
It is the story of us who, like the younger son, dig ourselves into the deepest hole imaginable. Through careless choices, honest mistakes, and willful rebellion and self-centeredness, we break ourselves. We lose all of our pride and dignity, and then dig further. Then, recognizing that we’ve dug as deeply as we can dig, that we’ve lost everything that we thought we had or were, we look around, shrug, and resign ourselves to the humiliation of “I told you so”, of “I’ve told you a thousand times”, and of “Do you really expect me to forgive you?”.
Even that would be a step up.
But, as we prepare ourselves to meet our Maker, our Maker changes the story. Our Maker re-Makes us by loving us, by choosing us again, by caring deeply for us even in our broken-down jalopy of a life. We are welcomed Home, tattered clothing and stories-we-can-never-tell and all.
And our Maker, our friend – the only friend we truly have left – spares us the tongue-lashing we believe we deserve, and instead, speaks kindness and love to us.
Our Maker speaks Grace.
Lectio: Matt 6:1-6
February 12, 2010
Matthew 6:1-6
The World Is Not a Stage
1 “Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding. 2-4“When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself. You’ve seen them in action, I’m sure—’playactors’ I call them— treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that’s all they get. When you help someone out, don’t think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.
Pray with Simplicity
5“And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?6“Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.
- Matthew 6:1-6, The Message
“When you’re trying to be good”
“When you do something for somebody else”
It seems clear, on first read, that Jesus’ starting point for this reminder is that he assumes that we are trying to live our faith, to wrestle with the implications of grace and of our engagement in the mission of God. But there’s a subtle element at play here: ”acting compassionate”, not “being compassionate”. ”Playing to the crowds”, rather than being content with our task.
“Just do it – quietly and unobtrusively”. Do it, but do it without fanfare – whatever the “it” of “trying to do good” is.
I’m writing this in a coffeeshop after visiting a nonprofit organization that I volunteer time with. I’m helping them use social networks to spread the word about the agencies they’re partnering with to help eradicate global poverty. I’m proud of their work, and I’m happy to be able to help. In fact, because I’m heading to a concert tonight, I’m wearing their logo t-shirt and hoping that other concertgoers notice the logo and I can share the story. I’m not quiet or unobtrusive, at least in my t-shirt choice.
And so I wonder, isn’t it good to tell people what we’re doing to help the less fortunate in our world? To give our friends opportunities to reach out beyond themselves?
If Jesus is consistent in His message – and I hope that He is – this is the same thing he’s saying when he says that murder is sin as much as being angry is. The attitude of my inner life matters as much as my actions; the meaning matters.
How I do what I do matters as much as what I do. And so, my life must be a constant purging of inappropriate behaviors and motivations, an ongoing challenge to center myself in my identity in Christ rather than my identity that I construct from my activities.
So, I must be in constant prayer, with a heart open to pruning and reshaping and corrective action. I must pray, simply and honestly, so that I may grow to be simple and honest.
The focus of my prayer must move from me (and my words) to my God, so that the focus of my life may move from me (and my actions) to my God.
“Just be there, as simply and as honestly as you can manage.” In my prayer, and in my actions.
Lectio: Luke 5:1-11
February 7, 2010
Luke 5:1-11
5:1 Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God,
5:2 he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.
5:3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.
5:4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
5:5 Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”
5:6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.
5:7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.
5:8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
5:9 For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken;
5:10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who are partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”
5:11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
Failure.
Failure is not the end of the end of the story. Peter and his crew were calling it a night. They fished all night and hadn’t caught anything. It had been a wasted night. No productivity in spite of lots of effort. That is one of the most frustrating experiences in any job. That feeling of working as hard as you can and for long hours and then having nothing to show for it. I recently had that feeling when I went on a writing retreat to complete a paper for a class I’m taking. Worked for 2 days and wrote close to 20 pages. When I got home i went to open the document so i could send it off for review and… and… nothing! It was empty. I had forgotten to save it properly. No backup. It was just gone. A whole weekend away from home, family and friends wasted. Lots of effort. Nothing to show for it. Frustration.
This story also contains elements of unrealized potential and underutilized capacity. Peter and co. had plenty of potential to catch a lot of fish. They knew how to fish. They also had the right tools and equipment. They had a team, boats, nets – everything commercial fishermen of that time would need to have a thriving fishing business. They obviously had knowledge and experience and knew what they were doing. But it just didn’t happen, it didn’t come together for them.
This is a good place in the story to stop. To sit with it before moving onto to the resolution. Frankly this is where most of us live. This is where i spend most of my time. Feeling like a failure. Knowing there’s more potential and capacity but not sure how to get at it.
So we can ask ourselves some pointed questions here: Where do you feel like a failure? Sit with that question for a few minutes, a day or even a week… I’m not recommending we beat ourselves up with it just get real honest.
Once that is firmly fixed we can move onto the rest of the story and the resolution and ask: Are we willing to let Jesus lead us in that area and do what he says even if we don’t see the point? That’s my favorite part of the story when Peter essentially says, “Look! We’ve been fishing all night and nothing but if you say so…” I would have loved to have seen Peter’s body language at this point. i wonder if he rolled his eyes as he turned around to tell the crew they were going back out… I wonder if he was thinking “What does a carpenter know about fishing, anyway!” I wonder if he was little perturbed by the whole thing.
Sometimes we need to do what Jesus tells us even when (and possibly especially when) we don’t see the point.
So where is Jesus asking for your obedience?
Ultimately this story is about Peter’s call to be a “fisher of men and women.” He would later catch thousands of people for the first Jesus movement. That story is in Acts 2. This story is kind of like the prequel to that one. In both stories however God shows up in powerful ways and unlocks the potential and capacity we could never even see…
Lectio: Luke 4:21-30
January 29, 2010
29 January, 2010
Then he started explaining, “This passage of scripture has just been fulfilled — while you were listening!”
Those present were giving their opinions of him and were surprised by the gracious words he spoke. They also said, “But this is Joseph’s son, right?”
Jesus replied to them, “The next line you’ll give me is , ‘Doctor, heal your own self!’ or ‘Do here in your hometown, too, everything we heard you did in Capernaum!’ ” Then he said, “This is the way it is: prophets never get a hearing among those who ‘know them best.’ The truth is, there were lots of widows in Israel during the prophet Elijah’s lifetime, when there was a severe three and a half year drought and widespread famine. But God didn’t send Elijah to any of them; he was sent only to a widow of Sarepta in the region of Sidon — a non-Jew. And there were lots of lepers in Israel during the prophet Elisha’s lifetime. But none of them were healed except Naaman from Syria — a non-Jew.”
When the crowd heard this they erupted in anger, took action, and drove Jesus outside the city, leading him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, intending to throw him over the edge. But he made his way between them and left.
____________
We have no health insurance — yes, we’re involuntarily one of that large crowd — and own one car that’s shared between 3 adults since our son totaled his own car a few weeks back. Make that, we “owned one car.”
Yesterday Jody drove to her annual check-up at a public health clinic not far from where we live. While she was inside waiting to be seen, a young man (age 30) was gunned down just outside the clinic while driving a car (which was not his). As he was dying, he lost control of the vehicle and it plowed into ours, knocking it off the street and onto the sidewalk against a tree. This was the first homicide in Cincinnati for 2010.
When I arrived at the scene in a borrowed car the clinic was still in lock-down mode (with Jody inside) and our car and the area around it were taped off as a crime scene, so it was several several hours in bone-chilling weather before it was released to be towed away.
Losing two cars in quick succession is for us a major loss because, quite frankly, we don’t have money for another. On the one hand something valuable to us was stripped away — and it feels like a number of things have been stripped away of late — yet on the other hand a much greater stripping occurred in the murder of a young man. Most things can eventually be replaced. Not so with people.
____________
Whenever I come to this dramatic passage from Luke 4, I’m always challenged by the huge loss that takes place. The people in the synagogue have just heard a stunning pronouncement from Jesus, yet their previous experience and knowledge of him (“Isn’t this Joe’s boy?!”) prevents them from receiving the one person they most need to receive. Furthermore their secret challenge for Jesus to produce something off the hook (“Do here in your hometown what we heard you did in Capernaum!”) prevents them from receiving what he actually might like to give them.
And because of their narrow understanding of Jesus, they flip very quickly from wonder to bewilderment to anger, driving him from the synagogue out to a spot where they can murder him for his “unorthodoxy.”
When I read this I’m reminded that I don’t have the luxury of framing the story as their actual loss. (This isn’t a story about good guys and villains.) The sobering truth is that this is just as much a story about my potential loss. God reminds me that I must be open to seeing Jesus in a different way. God reminds me that my lack of openness will only lead to questioning, skepticism and anger. I’m reminded that God is always pushing, pressing into whatever openness and receptivity of heart are present, and if that means going around me and into some strange places (like to a widow outside Israel or a leper outside Israel), well, God is God.
The Jesus I want to hold onto would give us health insurance, would protect the one car we own, wouldn’t strip anything away, wouldn’t allow people to be gunned down on a street. In short, the Jesus I want to hold onto would do everything according to my desires. If this is the Jesus I want, then of course this is the Jesus I get, but it’s not much, and because Jesus will not suffer being caged, I’ll end up bewildered or angry like his hometown crowd, missing the larger work of God in my life and in the world. God is at work this day. There is redemption waiting for the family of the slain man, for those who shot him, for our family as well. This is for all of us “the year of God’s favor.”
Lectio: John 2:1-11
January 15, 2010
John 2:1-11
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
In few other places in scripture do we see the intricacies of being fully human yet fully divine more than in the story of the wedding at Cana.
Here the Son of God, His nature explained in the Nicene Creed as “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father…” shows His humanity by taking a directive from His jewish mother. After He initially objected to it, she sweety ignored his objection telling the servants “Do whatever he tells you”.
Being also a fully human jewish boy honoring his mother, Jesus turns the water into wine, all 120-180 gallons worth! That’s a lot of wine! Ken Collins observes in his writing “A Wild & Crazy Guy?” By turning the water into wine Jesus prolonged the party. He also notes that whatever gift God gives, it is of the highest quality. In this case good, sweet, wine.
This passage ends “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”
As always our belief is founded on His work and revelation.
Lectio: Luke 3:15-17; 21-22
January 8, 2010
The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
Fire and water. Judgment, love and acceptance. I find myself skimming past the scene of the wheat harvest as quickly as I can, but I see and I settle on the elements. I see water in baptism in the beginning and end; I see fire in the middle. The water is peaceful; the fire is terrifying.
I read again, and I see that the story is framed by Luke saying that the people are looking for Messiah, and paying attention to the signs they found around them. John’s message perked up their ears, even if it was hard. The unexpected was at hand. John deflects interest away from him and goes deeper. He’s not The One, but when water turns to Spirit and fire, a swift harvest will happen. Wheat, ground, fire. The people were baptized. Water again.
And now Spirit, visiting Jesus in peace and in encouragement. Father God’s voice lands as well; in the water Jesus has not Spirit and fire, but Spirit and love.
Is love the unquenchable fire?
Is it love and God’s pleasure that separates the shell from the jewel within?
Purify me, Lord. Separate the husk from the meat. Blow away the dust in my heart; as it settles to the ground receive the crop within. Love away all that is not you and yours.
Lectio: Luke 2:15-21
January 1, 2010
Luke 2:15-21
15-18As the angel choir withdrew into heaven, the sheepherders talked it over. “Let’s get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us.” They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed.
19-20Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they’d been told.
21When the eighth day arrived, the day of circumcision, the child was named Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived.
I am struck by the sheepherders sense of urgency in this passage. Different translations say things like “they went with haste” and they “hurried off” to find the yet unnamed Jesus. Mary’s response, on the other hand, in the midst of these cosmos-shaking events was “to treasure them in her heart” or as Peterson translates to “hold them deep within herself.” The shepherds let loose and were very verbose in their praise to God and sharing with everyone they met. Mary held back and pondered the events deep in her heart. Two very different responses to the same event.
I love that God makes room for different personalities and ways of responding to his revelation! There’s room in the kingdom-mansion for the cloistered contemplatives and the wild-eyed Pentecostals, the Mary’s and the Shepherds, the introverts and the extroverts, the book worms and the party-ers, the quiet and the verbose, the over-talkative Peters and the mystical Johns.
I met with an old friend yesterday and he has been part of a church that is going after a “culture of revival” (his words). This translates to a lot of exuberance and praise and a high expectation for healing and signs and wonders. Typically my first response when hearing about churches like this is: “What is wrong with me? Am I lacking faith? Why don’t I see or expect more miracles?” Today’s passage was a helpful reminder that there are many different ways to respond to what God is doing. Quiet reflection is appropriate AND exuberance is appropriate. God not only makes room for both but embraces both without judgement.
+++ Lord, thank you for the diversity of personality in your kingdom! Please help me to accept the way I’m wired – the way you already do! – and rejoice with those who respond differently without feeling threatened. Thank you for the path you have put me on. Help me to embrace that path fully and follow you wholeheartedly into this new year… +++
Lectio: John 1:1-14
December 25, 2009
At the start of all was the Word.
The Word was with God.
The Word actually was God —
at the start of all and with God.
All things came into existence through the Word.
Apart from the Word not one thing that exists came into being.
Life was in the Word.
This life was light for humankind.
It shines, still shines, in the darkness;
darkness failed to snuff it out.
There was a man sent from God.
His name was John.
He came as a witness,
a witness to the Light,
came so that everyone would believe through him.
Make no mistake:
he wasn’t the Light;
he came only as a witness to the Light.
The Light was the True Light.
Coming into this world of ours
it provides light for all humankind.
He (the Light) was in our world,
and though the world was made through him,
the world didn’t know him, didn’t get him.
He came to what was his own,
and yet his own people didn’t receive him.
But some did.
For those believing in him
he gave an open door
to become children of God.
They are not born
by bloodline or human will or desire.
No, they are God-born.
__________________
For me translation is a form of both meditation and listening. The act of translating forces me to ponder or “listen” to the text in a way that feels very different from sitting with the English for a while. Much like in lectio divina, my habit is to read the text several times before even beginning. After making a start, I linger over each sentence, phrasing and rephrasing it, noticing connections with what goes before and comes after. There is some effort, but it doesn’t feel strained. That is, I’m not struggling to pin it down. That task is a dead end. Language is too subtle and nuanced and fluid to every be mastered. (No matter how good your particular phrasing may be, you can always come up with another that has its own merit.) Rather, I’m trying to sit with the text for a while, let it seep in and find a new voice through me in a language familiar to others. In this process the text speaks to me, and by faith I often take it to be the Lord speaking to me through the text. I don’t see this “voice” as something unusual and mystical; I take it as a very natural outcome of pausing long enough to listen.
What I “heard” most loudly in this reading was the part “the world didn’t know him, didn’t get him.” And what I noticed was how quickly I identified the world as “them,” meaning “someone other than myself.” That’s where I was checked. As long as I automatically align myself with the “good guys,” my ability to ask tough questions of myself, to receive the tough questioning of others, or to receive a loving critique from God is compromised. With the check, however, came an invitation and a desire to know him better, to “get him” better.
“Lord, I want to be one who knows you, who gets you, who walks through your open door into childhood, a state of dependency and trust where I am born and reborn in you.”
lectio: luke 1:39-45
December 18, 2009
Not long after being visited by the angel, Mary made a hurried trip to a village in the hill country of Judea. Once there, she entered the home of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth, embracing and kissing her. And the moment Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby inside her suddenly moved as if leaping. Elizabeth, for her part, was filled with the Holy Spirit and blurted out loudly:
“God’s hand is on you in a special way! And God’s hand is also on the child you’ll give birth to! I’m so honored to have the mother of my Lord come to see me! The moment your greeting hit my ears, the baby inside me suddenly moved, leaping for joy! You’re blessed for believing that what God spoke to you is going to happen!”
There is a communion among women who are carrying children or have born children that men will never directly experience. Men experience this fellowship obliquely, from the outside rather than inside. We are excluded by gender from the mystery of pregnancy, this profoundly embodied experience of carrying and nurturing life within us and then delivering that life into the world. As I slowly read and reread this small vignette, entering the story as best as I could in my imagination, I experienced several longings that touch on this intimate communion.
I longed first for my own “Elizabeth” to whom I would run in order to share something precious. I know so so many younger people. Most of my life exists among them. Of peers I have a good handful. But what I lack right now is that older, wiser person to whom I would naturally run to share something that I could count on to be understood. But I also longed for something precious to share, something that would produce the same level of joy and excitement in me that these two woman certainly shared.
In a spiritual sense, I guess you could say that I found myself wanting to be pregnant, wanting to have new and tangible life taking root in me, life I could identify and share with at least one other who really “got it,” something I could get excited about.
I also experienced a longing to see with more regularity and greater precision God’s “seed” in others, and not just to see it but also respond to it as enthusiastically as Elizabeth did to Mary — to identify the “fruit of their body.” I still have a strong tendency to leave my thoughts unverbalized. So much goes unsaid that needs to find daylight, so lately I’ve been making regular attempts to tell others what they mean to me and what I see in them that’s good and beautiful and holy. Elizabeth, infused by the Spirit, is an exemplar: “God’s hand is on you in a special way! God’s hand is also on the child you’ll give birth to!” John, too, even while still in utero, is an exemplar, because “he leapt for joy” upon hearing the voice of his Lord’s mother. (The verb used for “leap” is often used of animals frolicking out of sheer exuberance for life.) This tells me he noticed and responded to the presence of God in Mary.
“Lord, let your life come to me in surprising and unexpected ways as it did to both Mary and Elizabeth. Let me share the joy of carrying, nurturing and birthing — even at my own risk — the life you place within me. Give me as well the discernment to notice that same life in others. I want to name it loudly, clearly and with joy after noticing it. Whatever you’ve placed in others that reflects you, no matter how faint, may I learn to see it and bless it. Amen.”
lectio: luke 3:1-6
December 4, 2009
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
”THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS,
’MAKE READY THE WAY OF THE LORD,
MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT.
’EVERY RAVINE WILL BE FILLED,
AND EVERY MOUNTAIN AND HILL WILL BE BROUGHT LOW;
THE CROOKED WILL BECOME STRAIGHT,
AND THE ROUGH ROADS SMOOTH;
AND ALL FLESH WILL SEE THE SALVATION OF GOD.’”
Luke 3:1-6
verses 1 and 2 - as one trained in the craft of history, i appreciate the context-setting that luke does here, giving us the international, national and local context of those who wield power; and yet in the midst of all these ‘power people’, the word of God comes to john in the wilderness…not in the palaces and temples of power, but the wilderness. the wilderness has often seemed like a dry wasteland and the absence of God to me. but i testify that it has been in the wilderness seasons of my life – when i was athirst and my soul dried up – that is when God has given me his word, like a sudden rainshower…utterly refreshing and life to one in the wilderness; this also reminds me that it is into the wilderness that God – in the exodus – led the former slaves of Egypt to make of them a covenant people, ready to embody His Way…
verse 3 – stunning: ‘preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins;’ it strikes me today that i often rush through these words, assuming so much, because i have heard sermon-after-sermon about them. but today as i re-read them over and over, what strikes me is that john isn’t preaching a repentance [greek: metanoia/"change you mind"] about your sins, but it says change your mind about “the forgiveness of sins”. these people knew they were sinners; they lived in a culture seeped in the teaching of torah and if that wasn’t enough, the pharisees are there to provoke them. but what john offers is a word about forgiveness…and this strikes me as a good word for myself as well: how often am i trying to convince people about the sin in their lives that they all ready know about? i need to begin speaking much more of forgiveness, and practicing it. the significance of forgiveness can be lost on me sometimes, but if preaching forgiveness gets john in trouble with the temple authorities, then it should probably get me in trouble as well; and it reminds me of the situation of the apostle paul: if we are not being accused by the pharisees and temple authorities of our day of having too much grace (like paul was in romans 6) then we probably are not really practicing the radical way of forgiveness and grace; but, like paul, in taking the radical way of Jesus, we will likely need to explain ourselves, because it is not cheap grace nor easy forgiveness, but it is scandalous!
verses 4-6 – again, reflecting what had happened in verse 2, a voice proclaiming – crying out – in the wilderness; the echo of the word of God spoken in dry, lonely places is heard round the world. there will be no obstacle to God coming to redeem and deliver His people…chills run up my spine as i read: “and all flesh will see the salvation of God.” even so, come Lord Jesus.
++Lord Jesus, help us to embrace the way of forgiveness. Help us change our minds concerning the forgiveness of sins, and see that we cannot do it, it is only in You that we may find the deep grace of a delivering God. Let us see Your salvation, O God Most High! Amen.++