Maintaining the natural balance of things

Morning: Psalms 121, 122, 123; Exodus 5:1-6:1; I Corinthians 14:20-40

Evening: Psalms 124, 125, 126; Mark 9:42-50

Our choices have consequences ... this is a common theme for Jesus. But we understand differently how those consequences come about. Some think that life works like a courtroom where a judge pronounces ‘sentences’ for bad behaviour. Jesus teaches that life works more like the Cold War cartoon ... Two enemies stand waist-deep in a pool of gasoline, threatening one another; one has 10 matches, the other has 9! Your behaviour is your choice. Its consequences - for good or ill - follow from your actions. Disturb the God-given balance of Mother Nature and she will work to restore it.

In whose name?

Morning: Psalm 31; Exodus 4:10-31; I Corinthians 14:1-19

Evening: Psalm 35; Mark 9:30-41

For some people, if you’re not part of their crowd, you’re not 100% real. Jesus’s disciples turn on one person who follows Jesus and serves his ways but is not one of them ... How dare this upstart heal people in Jesus’s name when he’s not one of us!? I mean, we’re the in group, right? On the contrary, Jesus’ sole concern is whether you serve the truth, not whether you have taken out a membership. To live true to what Jesus stands for is to act ‘in his name’.

I Am … with you

Morning: Psalm 118; Exodus 3:16-4:12; Romans 12:1-21

Evening: Psalm 145; John 8:46-59

Fred Buechner writes that since God told Moses her name, she hasn’t had a moments peace since! Well, Buechner actually used a male pronoun for God. But, more importantly, the name God gave to Moses was “I am”. When Jesus was confronted by the religious leaders about his authority, he said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” With this simple phrase, Jesus is identified as God in human flesh, God alongside us. That is the essence of the Christian Good News ... that the eternal God, the Creator of all things, is not distant from us, but close at hand.

‘I believe; help my unbelief!’

Morning: Psalm 107:33-43; 108:1-6; Exodus 2:23 – 3:15; I Corinthians 13:1-13

Evening: Psalm 33; Mark 9:14-29

Do you ever think: I believe in God, but I have doubts? ... Belief is complicated; it is rarely ever total. We have many doubts. Ironically, doubts demand stronger faith. One author says that doubts are what keeps faith alive and moving. If I lose faith because of things I do not understand, I actually presume that I ought to understand everything. But I don’t. Do you? Withholding belief until I comprehend fully leaves me forever undecided. When I understand, of course I will not need belief. In the meantime, believing is a fair step on the way to knowing.

A still more excellent way

Morning: Psalm 102; Exodus 2:1-22; I Corinthians 12:27-13:3

Evening: Psalm 107:1-32; Mark 9:2-13

St. Paul speaks about a way of understanding community ... as being like a body. He calls the Church the Body of Christ, because it has many members, many gifts, which, when joined together, and when every member is playing his or her part, as in an orchestra, something beautiful occurs. Such a community is an astounding combination of gifts, all interacting wonderfully as one. But still more excellent than this is when all of it happens in the presence of love. Without love, even a gifted community is nothing. Love is what makes us Christ’s Body.

Let us go into this world with kindness

Morning: Psalm 69:1-38; Exodus 1:6-22; I Corinthians 12:12-26

Evening: Psalm 73; Mark 8:27-9:1

I heard a doctor in Pembroke speaking about how important to her in these days have been people’s simple acts of kindness ... kindness is letting go of your priorities for the sake of someone else. Brian McLaren took a prayer of Teresa of Avila and put it into a song, sung by Steve Bell ... have a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqR7nzjJM7I ... Christ has no body here but ours, no hands, no feet here on earth but ours; ours the eyes through which he looks on this world with kindness ... Let us go now into this world with kindness.

Power to become ourselves

Morning: Psalms 85, 87; Isaiah 52:7-12; Hebrews 2:5-10

Evening: Psalms 110:1-5, 132; John 1:9-14

This sacred season is a close encounter with the power of death ... it is clearly a season of suffering and pain, of sorrow for lost lives and livelihoods, of lament that we have mistakenly disrupted nature and denied our mistake. Yet this sacred season ends not in death, but in life ... if we repent, turning away from the power of death to welcome the truth that our hearts know well ... God comes in Jesus and offers us the power to become ourselves. This is the remarkable possibility calling to us from beyond this valley of the shadow.