Epiphany 4 (Mark 1:21-28)
“On the Sabbath, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.”
The seventh day is the day of Real Presence.
The Sabbath day completes the creation of the universe. The world is not complete until our Heavenly Father forms time itself according to the Pattern of the co-eternal Word, the Beloved, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the real presence of the infinite and eternal God in the universe of matter, energy, time and space. God the Father designed the Sabbath to remind of the reality of the Son.
Under the Old Covenant, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday is the day of Real Presence. It is the day God the Father set aside and sanctified. It is the promise of the Father woven into the very fabric of the universe that he is with and he is for us. It is the time when the timeless touches time, hallows time and holds time in the pattern of the Beloved.
Holy Mother Mary taught her son that the Sabbath Day is the day the faithful hear the call to worship and assemble to immerse our minds, hearts and wills in the steadfast holy love of God. God the Holy Spirit issues the call to worship on the seventh day as the invitation to the marriage feast. It is an invitation to celebrate. It is an invitation to receive the blessing God designed into the universe so we can live the blessing and be the blessing to others.
Throughout the time of the prophets most people in Israel most of the time ignored the Sabbath. As they ignored the call to worship so they very quickly abandoned God. As they abandoned God their perception of the world and other people narrowed. They lost faith and lived by fear.
By the time Jesus came into the world most people in Israel most of the time attempted to keep the Sabbath. Sadly, they thought of the Sabbath as a Law to keep in order to gain God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath.
They took a simple command to sanctify the seventh day and complicated it. The complication came in the desire to find the loop holes.
They understood that the Sabbath was a day of rest. They understood that they were called to stop work on the Sabbath Day. Sadly, they teased out the meaning of the command not to work and develop a way around the invitation to meet God at the time and place God appointed to meet them.
Once such work around was to sell their business to a Gentile, a non-Jew, for a day. The contract stipulated that the Gentile was obligated to turn the day’s profit over to the owner and to sell the business back to the owner on sundown Saturday. The Gentile would run the business on the Sabbath so the owner could keep the law and preserve his profit.
It was a law based solution to a fear based problem. The fear was lack of income if the business owner actually kept the Sabbath as God intended. Fear erodes faith. God created the seventh day to be a day of faith. Faith does not ask what is the minimum I must do to gain God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. Faith is the door way to an experience of the infinite and eternal love of the co-eternal beloved.
Law based religion sees only the burden of the Sabbath. Faith based religion sees the Sabbath as the invitation to experience the personal relationship with the divine in a moment of time.
The religious culture of first century Israel tended to hold the outward forms of the Law and miss the inward grace. Not everyone took this approach. Certainly there were some who perceived the joy of the Sabbath. Many others experienced the Sabbath as a burden.
It is no surprise then that Jesus would encounter demonic presence on the Sabbath in the synagogue. In a fear based religious culture there is a profound distortion of Divine Law and Divine Love that opens a door for the spiritual distortion of the fallen angels.
The fallen angels fell because they rejected love and holiness in order to seize knowledge and power. They chose to separate from God long before God created the material universe. In that choice they lost the truth of their own nature. They yielded their original purity to Lucifer and Lucifer repaid them by murdering their true selves.
The fallen angels are now burnt out remnants of their former glory. They are spirits of spite who hate God from whom they separated, Lucifer who betrayed them, humanity whom they envy and themselves for what they have by their own choice have become. They sealed their spirits in separation through pride and now exist in a state of what the poet John Milton once called “heroic despair.”
Fallen angels, demons, will use fear based religion to bully and intimate human beings. Their attitude is: If I’m going down I will take as many of you with me as I can. They cannot force any human being to do anything. They can use fear to deceive and manipulate people. On a rare occasion they can even take possession of a human being.
On that Sabbath Day in the synagogue in Capernaum, Jesus manifested the Real Presence of the Living God on earth. Jesus fulfilled the very pattern of the Sabbath. In that pattern, Jesus brought the grace of God to all assembled. Jesus assured the people that there is no condemnation in God.
The people were astonished at Jesus’ teaching. There is no fear in Jesus. There is only infinite and eternal love. It was that love that our first parents Adam and Eve rejected. It was that love the fallen angels abandoned.
The demons possessing the man in the synagogue cried out in fear and anger as they recognized the Real Presence of God in Jesus. They had known his glory once in the Heavenly realms. They had abandoned him then in a vain effort to acquire his power. They now feared he would use that power to destroy them.
Love cannot co-exist with fear. Perfect love casts out fear. Jesus is that perfect love the fallen angels made an original choice to reject. They would not and could not embrace that love and so they fled from that love. Jesus released the man from the demonic powers by the Real Presence of Divine Love on the Day of Real Presence.
Everyone in the synagogue that day experienced the reality of the seventh day. The reality of the Sabbath is Jesus himself. The reality is the grace of God activated by the faith of people through the love of Jesus. Sadly, not everyone chose to enter into the joy of that reality through faith.
Jesus liberated the possessed man from the demons. Some saw his action as a manifestation of a superior knowledge and power. Some envied that power. Some coveted that power. Some reacted with an even greater fear of that power. Some responded by faith.
The seventh day of Real Presence in the New Covenant is the day of resurrection. The principle is still the same. It is the Day God the Father invites us to meet God the Son at the altar of sacrificial love to be transformed by God the Holy Spirit. It is the day God himself designed and created as the day of grace. It is the call to live by grace through faith.
It is the day of perfect love that transforms fear into faith. It is the blessing of the infinite and eternal touching time and transforming time.
On the Sabbath day Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. He taught that God just doesn’t have love God is love. The demons fled from that love. The spiritually oppressed found liberation in that love.
It is on the Sabbath Day of real presence Jesus meets us and completes us and sets us free to be the love of God.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Epiphany 3
Epiphany 3 (Mark 1:14-20)
“The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Repent and believe the Gospel.”
The time is fulfilled.
All things in this world and of this world have a beginning, a middle and an end. The birth of Jesus is the end of one phase of human history and the beginning of another. It is the end of the prophetic age. With the arrest and execution of John the Baptist the prophetic age ends. After John, there are no divinely appointed prophets.
With the death of the last of the prophets, human history moves into the Church Age. As Jesus calls people to follow him he begins to train the leadership for the Church.
The Church Age is also the Kingdom Age. The Kingdom of Heaven has come in to the world through the incarnation of the co-eternal Word of God, the Beloved. In Jesus, God the Father offers all people everywhere the gift of a new life and a new way of living. The Kingdom of Heaven is that new life and new way of living.
The church is the body of Christ, the continuation of the incarnation. As we each individually unite with Christ in baptism we receive the new life of Christ to become the body of Christ on earth in our specific culture and generation. Jesus wants the Church to continue the mission he initiated when he lived on earth in person.
The mission is our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. It is the call to receive the gift of reunification with the Father through the Son. It is the call to enter a way of living characterized by personal transformation in thought, word and deed by the Holy Spirit.
The process of transformation is the new way of living Jesus offers. And the pattern in the process is repentance and faith.
In the process of transformation, Jesus shows us where we need to change. He shows us our particular sins. Those sins can be willful, ignorant and even inherited.
Willful sin is active rebellion against Divine Law. Divine Law is the impersonal aspect of God present in the world. Divine Law is revealed in the Bible. The Ten Commandments are Divine Law. During Lent we recite the Ten Commandments every Sunday to remind us of Divine Law.
All particular sins: lying, cheating, stealing, bullying, gossiping and all the others- are distortions of an original virtue. Lying is a distortion of Truth. God created us to tell the truth. The distortion of the virtue of truth into the vice of lying is a result of the original choice our species made to separate from God.
That separation killed a portion of our spirit and has left us all in a state of profound spiritual pain. It is the pain that distorts the virtues into vices. And it is the way of living from the place of separation that leads to our tendency to rebel against Divine Law.
The spiritual pain of separation is the defining power of the old life. The love of Jesus is the defining power of the new life God gives us.
The distortion of virtue into vice through particular sins is the way of living that proceeds from the old life. The transformation of vice back into its original virtue through repentance is the process of the new way of living.
The Holy Spirit convicts us of our complicity in a particular sin. Then, He invites us to repent, to say: “Yes, this behavior is contrary to God’s Law. I am sorry. I want to change”. Finally, he offers to transform the desire to sin into a desire to choose God’s standard of holiness. Then, the Holy Spirit actually transforms particular sins back into their original virtues.
Love is the foundation that infuses the new life into our souls. Faith is the substance that facilitates the choice to repent and transform.
Jesus calls all people everywhere to receive the gift of reunification with God the Father. The call to reunification is the invitation to salvation.
Once we make a real choice to receive the gift of salvation, reunification with God, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit into our souls to help us unravel the many distortions of thought, word and deed that we call sins.
There is willful sin. There is also the sin of ignorance. Sometimes we just don’t realize how our actions and attitudes are so damaging to our souls and to other people. We say: well, that’s just the way I am and God accepts me just as I am.
Jesus comes to you as you are. He loves you as you are. He offers the gift of salvation to you as you are. And, he sends the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, to show you where you need to change in order to live the new life of divine love and compassion. He reminds that nothing of the old life can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Nothing of the old way of living can continue in the Kingdom of Heaven. The more we resist the active ministry of the Holy Spirit in the call to repentance and the power of transformation the less we will enjoy the new life Jesus gives us.
There is also inherited sin. This is the pattern of culture that forms the way we think and how we see the world. The Bible is very clear that all human culture is distorted by sin. From time to time the Holy Spirit will ask us to examine our cultural assumptions about God, life, other people and ourselves.
The time of the Kingdom of Heaven is now. It is not a future event we are preparing for. The Prophetic Age was the age of preparation. The current age is the Kingdom Age. In this age Jesus calls us to continue the reality of the Incarnation by receiving the gift of reunification with God in Him. We become who call created us to be and calls us to be as we yield our self will to Divine will through repentance and transformation.
The way forward in this Kingdom Age is by grace through faith. The Way forward for the Church as the Universal Body of Christ and for each of us as particular members of the universal Church is faith. Faith activates the power of the new life. The power of the new life is the real presence of infinite and eternal love in our souls. That real presence is Jesus.
Our Heavenly Father has fulfilled the time. Therefore receive the gift of a new life in Jesus. Make a real choice by faith to repent of your particular sins and allow the Holy Spirit to transform those sins back into their original virtues.
“The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Repent and believe the Gospel.”
The time is fulfilled.
All things in this world and of this world have a beginning, a middle and an end. The birth of Jesus is the end of one phase of human history and the beginning of another. It is the end of the prophetic age. With the arrest and execution of John the Baptist the prophetic age ends. After John, there are no divinely appointed prophets.
With the death of the last of the prophets, human history moves into the Church Age. As Jesus calls people to follow him he begins to train the leadership for the Church.
The Church Age is also the Kingdom Age. The Kingdom of Heaven has come in to the world through the incarnation of the co-eternal Word of God, the Beloved. In Jesus, God the Father offers all people everywhere the gift of a new life and a new way of living. The Kingdom of Heaven is that new life and new way of living.
The church is the body of Christ, the continuation of the incarnation. As we each individually unite with Christ in baptism we receive the new life of Christ to become the body of Christ on earth in our specific culture and generation. Jesus wants the Church to continue the mission he initiated when he lived on earth in person.
The mission is our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. It is the call to receive the gift of reunification with the Father through the Son. It is the call to enter a way of living characterized by personal transformation in thought, word and deed by the Holy Spirit.
The process of transformation is the new way of living Jesus offers. And the pattern in the process is repentance and faith.
In the process of transformation, Jesus shows us where we need to change. He shows us our particular sins. Those sins can be willful, ignorant and even inherited.
Willful sin is active rebellion against Divine Law. Divine Law is the impersonal aspect of God present in the world. Divine Law is revealed in the Bible. The Ten Commandments are Divine Law. During Lent we recite the Ten Commandments every Sunday to remind us of Divine Law.
All particular sins: lying, cheating, stealing, bullying, gossiping and all the others- are distortions of an original virtue. Lying is a distortion of Truth. God created us to tell the truth. The distortion of the virtue of truth into the vice of lying is a result of the original choice our species made to separate from God.
That separation killed a portion of our spirit and has left us all in a state of profound spiritual pain. It is the pain that distorts the virtues into vices. And it is the way of living from the place of separation that leads to our tendency to rebel against Divine Law.
The spiritual pain of separation is the defining power of the old life. The love of Jesus is the defining power of the new life God gives us.
The distortion of virtue into vice through particular sins is the way of living that proceeds from the old life. The transformation of vice back into its original virtue through repentance is the process of the new way of living.
The Holy Spirit convicts us of our complicity in a particular sin. Then, He invites us to repent, to say: “Yes, this behavior is contrary to God’s Law. I am sorry. I want to change”. Finally, he offers to transform the desire to sin into a desire to choose God’s standard of holiness. Then, the Holy Spirit actually transforms particular sins back into their original virtues.
Love is the foundation that infuses the new life into our souls. Faith is the substance that facilitates the choice to repent and transform.
Jesus calls all people everywhere to receive the gift of reunification with God the Father. The call to reunification is the invitation to salvation.
Once we make a real choice to receive the gift of salvation, reunification with God, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit into our souls to help us unravel the many distortions of thought, word and deed that we call sins.
There is willful sin. There is also the sin of ignorance. Sometimes we just don’t realize how our actions and attitudes are so damaging to our souls and to other people. We say: well, that’s just the way I am and God accepts me just as I am.
Jesus comes to you as you are. He loves you as you are. He offers the gift of salvation to you as you are. And, he sends the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, to show you where you need to change in order to live the new life of divine love and compassion. He reminds that nothing of the old life can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Nothing of the old way of living can continue in the Kingdom of Heaven. The more we resist the active ministry of the Holy Spirit in the call to repentance and the power of transformation the less we will enjoy the new life Jesus gives us.
There is also inherited sin. This is the pattern of culture that forms the way we think and how we see the world. The Bible is very clear that all human culture is distorted by sin. From time to time the Holy Spirit will ask us to examine our cultural assumptions about God, life, other people and ourselves.
The time of the Kingdom of Heaven is now. It is not a future event we are preparing for. The Prophetic Age was the age of preparation. The current age is the Kingdom Age. In this age Jesus calls us to continue the reality of the Incarnation by receiving the gift of reunification with God in Him. We become who call created us to be and calls us to be as we yield our self will to Divine will through repentance and transformation.
The way forward in this Kingdom Age is by grace through faith. The Way forward for the Church as the Universal Body of Christ and for each of us as particular members of the universal Church is faith. Faith activates the power of the new life. The power of the new life is the real presence of infinite and eternal love in our souls. That real presence is Jesus.
Our Heavenly Father has fulfilled the time. Therefore receive the gift of a new life in Jesus. Make a real choice by faith to repent of your particular sins and allow the Holy Spirit to transform those sins back into their original virtues.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Epiphany
Epiphany 2012 (Matthew 2:1-12)
“They saw the young child with his Mary his mother and they fell down and worshipped him.”
Where is God?
Who or what is God?
People sometimes assert that if God is real He is distant and silent. The people who wrote the Bible had a very different perspective. They summarize the “mystery” of God by observing that God is constantly revealing himself to us in a myriad of ways.
The problem is not that God isn’t speaking to us. The problem is that we are not listening.
One of the most highly educated Biblical writers is St. Paul. He told the people of his day that in every generation and in every nation God provides a witness to his reality and his identity.
The wise men, the three kings, were Chaldeans. They were not descendants of Abraham. They were not even descendants of Judah. They were pagan astronomers and mathematicians. They used math to understand the movements of the sun, moon, planets and stars. And, they used their understanding of celestial mechanics to form calendars, clocks, engineering and philosophy.
They practiced science and applied science through the very ancient principle: “as above so below.”
Ancient peoples believed the reality of the divine manifested meaning and purpose to the realm of humanity through the movement of planets and stars. This belief found expression in four ways: science, philosophy, religion and superstition.
The science of ancient astronomy helped farmers understand the seasons and helped engineers create massive public buildings.
The philosophy formed an explanation for the mathematical order of nature in the concept of the logos. The logos is the pattern, plan and purpose that gives form to the order in the universe.
The religion attempted to regulate and restrain the tendency in human nature to ignore and rebel against this fundamental order that is infused in the natural world.
The superstition is the active rebellion against reason that seeks a hidden and secret meaning through knowledge and power. At the risk of offending anyone, astrology is a blend of polytheism, mysticism and occult speculation that re works the math and science of astronomy into a fanciful system by which people seek to acquire power through so called secret knowledge.
The Chaldeans were both astronomers and astrologers. They held reason, faith and superstition in a delicate balance. God spoke to them where they were and invited them to make a journey to a more complete understanding of who God is.
God initiated the journey for the wise men. He got their attention as they stood in their observatory in Babylon and pondered the appearance of a bright star.
In that star they recognized the pattern, plan and purpose of the logos, the very word of God. They traveled west to the place of the prophets. As with most educated people of that time and place they were familiar with the Old Testament observations of human behavior and human belief. They did not follow the star in total ignorance. They did follow the star with a mix of reason, faith and superstition.
They perceived the word of God. They paid heed to the word of God. They sought the advice of religious scholars in Jerusalem. Those scholars told them exactly what they needed know to complete their journey.
The scholars gave them the missing piece to the puzzle. From the revealed word of God in the Bible the scholars in Jerusalem directed the Chaldeans to travel to Bethlehem. It was in Bethlehem that they found what they were seeking. They found Mary. They found Jesus. They found and were found by God.
God does not leave himself without a witness. In every age and in every culture and for every person the Logos continually and consistently reveals himself. Some times he reveals himself in the beauty and order of the natural world. Sometimes he reveals himself in the patterns of math and science.
For the Chaledeans, he attracted their attention in a star. Then he directed them to Jerusalem to consult the scriptures. Finally, he spoke to them through the religious scholars to complete the journey of faith to meet Mary and Jesus in Bethlehem.
God speaks to all people everywhere in a myriad of ways to lead us to faith, hope and love in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the word of God, the logos, in human flesh. Jesus is the pattern, plan and purpose of life. God speaks to us where we are and always leads us to his Son, Jesus.
The reality is not the science, the philosophy or the religion. Those are the instruments God employs to help us in our journey to the reality. The reality is a personal relationship with the living God in the living Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus finds a lost and rebellious humanity in his own person. He gives us the gift of eternal life through reunification with God. He meets us where we are, loves us as we are, and offers to transform us by his own infinite love to be more fully and completely who God created us to be.
That is why the Chaldean wise men, the three kings, honored Mary and worshipped Jesus. All who seek the truth find the truth and they find the truth in Jesus Christ.
“They saw the young child with his Mary his mother and they fell down and worshipped him.”
Where is God?
Who or what is God?
People sometimes assert that if God is real He is distant and silent. The people who wrote the Bible had a very different perspective. They summarize the “mystery” of God by observing that God is constantly revealing himself to us in a myriad of ways.
The problem is not that God isn’t speaking to us. The problem is that we are not listening.
One of the most highly educated Biblical writers is St. Paul. He told the people of his day that in every generation and in every nation God provides a witness to his reality and his identity.
The wise men, the three kings, were Chaldeans. They were not descendants of Abraham. They were not even descendants of Judah. They were pagan astronomers and mathematicians. They used math to understand the movements of the sun, moon, planets and stars. And, they used their understanding of celestial mechanics to form calendars, clocks, engineering and philosophy.
They practiced science and applied science through the very ancient principle: “as above so below.”
Ancient peoples believed the reality of the divine manifested meaning and purpose to the realm of humanity through the movement of planets and stars. This belief found expression in four ways: science, philosophy, religion and superstition.
The science of ancient astronomy helped farmers understand the seasons and helped engineers create massive public buildings.
The philosophy formed an explanation for the mathematical order of nature in the concept of the logos. The logos is the pattern, plan and purpose that gives form to the order in the universe.
The religion attempted to regulate and restrain the tendency in human nature to ignore and rebel against this fundamental order that is infused in the natural world.
The superstition is the active rebellion against reason that seeks a hidden and secret meaning through knowledge and power. At the risk of offending anyone, astrology is a blend of polytheism, mysticism and occult speculation that re works the math and science of astronomy into a fanciful system by which people seek to acquire power through so called secret knowledge.
The Chaldeans were both astronomers and astrologers. They held reason, faith and superstition in a delicate balance. God spoke to them where they were and invited them to make a journey to a more complete understanding of who God is.
God initiated the journey for the wise men. He got their attention as they stood in their observatory in Babylon and pondered the appearance of a bright star.
In that star they recognized the pattern, plan and purpose of the logos, the very word of God. They traveled west to the place of the prophets. As with most educated people of that time and place they were familiar with the Old Testament observations of human behavior and human belief. They did not follow the star in total ignorance. They did follow the star with a mix of reason, faith and superstition.
They perceived the word of God. They paid heed to the word of God. They sought the advice of religious scholars in Jerusalem. Those scholars told them exactly what they needed know to complete their journey.
The scholars gave them the missing piece to the puzzle. From the revealed word of God in the Bible the scholars in Jerusalem directed the Chaldeans to travel to Bethlehem. It was in Bethlehem that they found what they were seeking. They found Mary. They found Jesus. They found and were found by God.
God does not leave himself without a witness. In every age and in every culture and for every person the Logos continually and consistently reveals himself. Some times he reveals himself in the beauty and order of the natural world. Sometimes he reveals himself in the patterns of math and science.
For the Chaledeans, he attracted their attention in a star. Then he directed them to Jerusalem to consult the scriptures. Finally, he spoke to them through the religious scholars to complete the journey of faith to meet Mary and Jesus in Bethlehem.
God speaks to all people everywhere in a myriad of ways to lead us to faith, hope and love in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the word of God, the logos, in human flesh. Jesus is the pattern, plan and purpose of life. God speaks to us where we are and always leads us to his Son, Jesus.
The reality is not the science, the philosophy or the religion. Those are the instruments God employs to help us in our journey to the reality. The reality is a personal relationship with the living God in the living Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus finds a lost and rebellious humanity in his own person. He gives us the gift of eternal life through reunification with God. He meets us where we are, loves us as we are, and offers to transform us by his own infinite love to be more fully and completely who God created us to be.
That is why the Chaldean wise men, the three kings, honored Mary and worshipped Jesus. All who seek the truth find the truth and they find the truth in Jesus Christ.
Epiphany 2 (John 1:43-51) “Follow me”.any 2
Epiphany 2 (John 1:43-51) “Follow me”.
Jesus is God’s invitation to a new life and a new way of living.
Epiphany season reminds us that life is a journey. It is a journey through time as we age. It is a journey through space as we leave home and make our own way in the world. It is a journey of discovery.
The new life in Jesus derives from the very nature of God. That nature is love. That love is infinite and eternal. The journey Jesus invites us to choose is a pilgrimage of exploration and delight in love.
In Jesus God finds us and calls us where we are. Through Jesus God reveals himself to us and offers to walk with us. We become more of who God created us to be as we make a real choice to cultivate the friendship God offers to us in Jesus.
Jesus is the way human beings can discover more about God, more about human nature, and more about our own unique identity.
Certainly, Peter and Andrew, James and John, Philip and Nathaniel all heard the invitation to follow Jesus as a personal invitation to enter into a new life and a new way of living through a new relationship.
At first, the relationship was of a teacher and a student. The three sets of brothers who heard Jesus were intrigued by his teaching. As with many people of their generation they were deeply religious but frustrated and confused by contradictory and competing claims to truth. They asked the question: which is the right religion? They also asked: who is the right teacher? What is the truth? How can we know the truth?
They thought Jesus would answer those questions. They weren’t prepared for the answer Jesus brought. They were looking for an answer in an institution, a set of laws and rituals, and in the categories of culture.
Jesus lived within that religious system and its expectations but he brought something radically new to the question. Jesus presented himself as the answer to these and other questions people were asking.
Jesus didn’t command people to follow a set of rules, perform a set of rituals or submit to one particular political agenda. Jesus said: follow me. Follow me.
Only Jesus could issue such an invitation. Only Jesus is the fullness of God in human flesh. Jesus issues the invitation with a mixture of infinite compassion and deep humility. The invitation “follow me” respects the process of choice God gives to every being God has created to experience love.
The most amazing, awesome and indeed terrifying import of Jesus is that He holds each of us in the center of Divine Love. He meets us where we are in time, in space, in culture and as individuals. His presence reveals to us that the activating principle of love for all created beings is real choice.
The testimony of Moses and the prophets is the reality of real choice. We are personally responsible to complete our own creation though the choices we make.
God the Father created us according to the pattern, plan and purpose of God the Son by the power of God the Holy Spirit. That pattern is open ended, creative, active dynamic. As beings created by love, through love and for love we have the real choice to follow the principle of love in the path of love. We are responsible to complete our own creation by following the path of love.
It is a real choice. The vast panorama of Biblical history shows us how our choices enter into the world of cause and effect and produce a result, a consequence.
Jesus is the very pattern of love. His invitation to follow him is a more particular and personal expression of the call to worship revealed in the first four of the Ten Commandments.
Jesus is God up front and personal. Jesus is God making his appeal to us to accept personal responsibility for our lives.
Those first disciples of Jesus heard the call and made a real choice to respond to the call. Their understanding was limited and in many ways distorted. They would need to learn to think in different categories. They would need to grow and mature. It was a process that began at a single point in time and continues forever. It continues forever because Jesus is forever.
Jesus himself is the answer to the question: what is truth? The answer appears, unfolds and evolves in a personal relationship.
Nathaniel made a real choice to listen to Jesus and to respond to Jesus. Jesus assured him that choice was pivotal. Through that choice to follow Jesus, Nathaniel would discover greater things than he had ever imagined. He would discover the real presence of the infinite and eternal God in a particular person at a particular place in a particular time.
The call to worship is the call to salvation. The call to salvation is the call to find ourselves in the center of divine love and compassion in Jesus Christ.
For Nathaniel and his brother Philip it was a call to spend the next three years following Jesus on his mission to preach, teach and heal. It was a journey that led the brothers to Jerusalem and Jesus to the cross. It was a journey that seemed to end tragically. That tragic end became a glorious new beginning.
For Nathaniel and Philip the journey led to the ends of the earth in the outpouring of apostolic evangelism in the first century.
In every generation and in every nation Jesus continues to invite people to follow him. As we make a real choice to follow Jesus we enter into a new relationship. The challenge of that relationship is the challenge of where we place our priorities, where we devote our time and attention.
The challenge of following Jesus is the choice to follow where he leads. He leads us to the alar of sacrifice in worship. He leads us to discipleship through Bible study and prayer. He leads us to service through acts of kindness, compassion, and fellowship. He leads us to participate in the proclamation of the Good News that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.
Our response to Jesus sets the pattern and purpose for our lives here and now and forever.
Jesus calls to us today as he called to Nathaniel. Follow me. Follow me into the Real Presence of Divine Love and Compassion at work in the world today. Follow me and become the active dynamic creative love of God at work in the world today. Follow me.
Jesus is God’s invitation to a new life and a new way of living.
Epiphany season reminds us that life is a journey. It is a journey through time as we age. It is a journey through space as we leave home and make our own way in the world. It is a journey of discovery.
The new life in Jesus derives from the very nature of God. That nature is love. That love is infinite and eternal. The journey Jesus invites us to choose is a pilgrimage of exploration and delight in love.
In Jesus God finds us and calls us where we are. Through Jesus God reveals himself to us and offers to walk with us. We become more of who God created us to be as we make a real choice to cultivate the friendship God offers to us in Jesus.
Jesus is the way human beings can discover more about God, more about human nature, and more about our own unique identity.
Certainly, Peter and Andrew, James and John, Philip and Nathaniel all heard the invitation to follow Jesus as a personal invitation to enter into a new life and a new way of living through a new relationship.
At first, the relationship was of a teacher and a student. The three sets of brothers who heard Jesus were intrigued by his teaching. As with many people of their generation they were deeply religious but frustrated and confused by contradictory and competing claims to truth. They asked the question: which is the right religion? They also asked: who is the right teacher? What is the truth? How can we know the truth?
They thought Jesus would answer those questions. They weren’t prepared for the answer Jesus brought. They were looking for an answer in an institution, a set of laws and rituals, and in the categories of culture.
Jesus lived within that religious system and its expectations but he brought something radically new to the question. Jesus presented himself as the answer to these and other questions people were asking.
Jesus didn’t command people to follow a set of rules, perform a set of rituals or submit to one particular political agenda. Jesus said: follow me. Follow me.
Only Jesus could issue such an invitation. Only Jesus is the fullness of God in human flesh. Jesus issues the invitation with a mixture of infinite compassion and deep humility. The invitation “follow me” respects the process of choice God gives to every being God has created to experience love.
The most amazing, awesome and indeed terrifying import of Jesus is that He holds each of us in the center of Divine Love. He meets us where we are in time, in space, in culture and as individuals. His presence reveals to us that the activating principle of love for all created beings is real choice.
The testimony of Moses and the prophets is the reality of real choice. We are personally responsible to complete our own creation though the choices we make.
God the Father created us according to the pattern, plan and purpose of God the Son by the power of God the Holy Spirit. That pattern is open ended, creative, active dynamic. As beings created by love, through love and for love we have the real choice to follow the principle of love in the path of love. We are responsible to complete our own creation by following the path of love.
It is a real choice. The vast panorama of Biblical history shows us how our choices enter into the world of cause and effect and produce a result, a consequence.
Jesus is the very pattern of love. His invitation to follow him is a more particular and personal expression of the call to worship revealed in the first four of the Ten Commandments.
Jesus is God up front and personal. Jesus is God making his appeal to us to accept personal responsibility for our lives.
Those first disciples of Jesus heard the call and made a real choice to respond to the call. Their understanding was limited and in many ways distorted. They would need to learn to think in different categories. They would need to grow and mature. It was a process that began at a single point in time and continues forever. It continues forever because Jesus is forever.
Jesus himself is the answer to the question: what is truth? The answer appears, unfolds and evolves in a personal relationship.
Nathaniel made a real choice to listen to Jesus and to respond to Jesus. Jesus assured him that choice was pivotal. Through that choice to follow Jesus, Nathaniel would discover greater things than he had ever imagined. He would discover the real presence of the infinite and eternal God in a particular person at a particular place in a particular time.
The call to worship is the call to salvation. The call to salvation is the call to find ourselves in the center of divine love and compassion in Jesus Christ.
For Nathaniel and his brother Philip it was a call to spend the next three years following Jesus on his mission to preach, teach and heal. It was a journey that led the brothers to Jerusalem and Jesus to the cross. It was a journey that seemed to end tragically. That tragic end became a glorious new beginning.
For Nathaniel and Philip the journey led to the ends of the earth in the outpouring of apostolic evangelism in the first century.
In every generation and in every nation Jesus continues to invite people to follow him. As we make a real choice to follow Jesus we enter into a new relationship. The challenge of that relationship is the challenge of where we place our priorities, where we devote our time and attention.
The challenge of following Jesus is the choice to follow where he leads. He leads us to the alar of sacrifice in worship. He leads us to discipleship through Bible study and prayer. He leads us to service through acts of kindness, compassion, and fellowship. He leads us to participate in the proclamation of the Good News that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.
Our response to Jesus sets the pattern and purpose for our lives here and now and forever.
Jesus calls to us today as he called to Nathaniel. Follow me. Follow me into the Real Presence of Divine Love and Compassion at work in the world today. Follow me and become the active dynamic creative love of God at work in the world today. Follow me.
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