the shadow of the cross

Good afternoon sisters and brothers,
Today we stand in the shadow of Christ's cross to see his suffering and his love for us. We see him abandoned by his disciples, beaten and mocked and tortured. It's tempting to skip right to Easter, but first we need to spend time with the condemned Jesus. He suffered for us out of amazing love.

God bless,
Sam

Mark 15:16-32

16Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor's headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort. 17And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him. 18And they began saluting him, "Hail, King of the Jews!" 19They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him. 20After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

21They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. 22Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull). 23And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. 24And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take.

25It was nine o'clock in the morning when they crucified him. 26The inscription of the charge against him read, "The King of the Jews." 27And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. 29Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, "Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30save yourself, and come down from the cross!" 31In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe." Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.

faith

Good morning friends,
Jesus comes down from the mountain to find a crowd and someone who needs healing. In the midst of giving his disciples a hard lesson about faith he tells them again that he will be killed. Somehow, that message is one they never seem to understand, but we can certainly sympathize that they feel distressed. How do we hold onto our faith when the world seems so scary? In the midst of everything, Jesus will never leave us.

God bless,
Sam

Matthew 17:14-23

14When they came to the crowd, a man came to him, knelt before him, 15and said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; he often falls into the fire and often into the water. 16And I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.” 17Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.” 18And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. 19Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” 20He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”



22As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands, 23and they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.” And they were greatly distressed.

baptized into death

Good morning sisters and brothers,
We pick up Paul's Letter to the Romans today (and Sunday in worship) after being away from it since before Lent. This letter is one of the most important in the Bible; it's also pretty challenging. To bring us up to speed very quickly, Paul begins the letter by explaining how both Jews and gentiles should know God but fall short of what he wants. God steps into that situation by forgiving our sins by grace through Jesus Christ. He explains that sin came into the world through one man, Adam, and forgiveness comes into the world through the one man Jesus Christ.

As we begin chapter 6 he explains one way of seeing how that forgiveness works. Sin is part of who we are naturally: it's in our bodies and spirits because everyone is separated from God. When we become part of Christ's body in baptism we die with him and the "death" of baptism breaks the power of sin in our lives. Now by God's grace we are alive again but free from sin. Don't feel bad if you have a hard time following Paul's argument; we're going to have a little time Sunday to chew on this idea some more. The point is that in Christ we are free from whatever holds us back from life and freedom.

Blessings as you live in that loving freedom today,
Sam

Romans 6:1-11

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? 2By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.



6We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

righteous by faith

Good morning friends,
I'd like to remind you that we'll be diving into the book The Shack this evening at the Boulevard. Everyone is welcome to take part; we should be in for some good discussion. Feel free to come even if you haven't read any of the book yet. For those with non-traditional schedules, I'll be leading worship today at St. Mark's and St. John's Episcopal Church on Culver Road at 12:10pm. The service includes prayer, communion, scripture and anointing for healing. It looks like a neat service and I'm excited to be part of it.

Today's reading gets deeper into how Abraham was justified by faith. He was justified because God "reckoned" or counted or credited Abraham as righteous. God reckoned Abraham righteous not because of Abraham's actions or for following the law (especially since the law wasn't given for hundreds more years). Instead, Abraham became righteous by trusting God's promise even in the face of hardship and challenges to that promise. In the same way we get right with God by putting our trust in him that he will save us from our sins through Christ's ministry. Christ died and rose again for us; with love like that, nothing can keep us away from God. God's promise often takes a twisting road, but it never fails.

God bless,
Sam

Romans 4:16-25

16For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us,

17as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 18Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.” 19He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.”
23Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, 24but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

preparing for teh end

Good afternoon all,
Sorry to get this out so late. I woke up at 8 for an 8:30 meeting. Jesus and his disciples are near Jerusalem for the Passover. This holiday remembers God's liberation of Israel from slavery in Egypt. The King of Egypt refused to let Israel go so God sent plagues against Egypt to humble the king. The Passover itself involved marking the doors of all the Israelite homes in Egypt with blood on the doorposts. When the final plague, the death of every first-born male struck, the angel of death killed each Egyptian first son, but passed over the houses marked with blood. Since that night more than 3000 years ago Jews have keep the Passover feast. The lamb talked about in the passage commemorates the lamb used to mark the houses. It was (and is) eaten along with other symbolically important foods including unleavened bread.

Jesus instructs his disciples to get an upper room ready so they can celebrate the Passover together. That dinner becomes what Christians know as the Last Supper. Like God freed Israel from slavery in Egypt, in Christ God frees us from selfishness and all the other ways the power of sin can keep us in slavery now. The blood of the passover lamb kept the Israelites safe from the angel of death; Christ's blood on the cross keeps us safe from Satan's grasp. The bread and wine at the passover table becomes the new covenant of love sealed by Jesus' blood, which we remember each time we come to the communion table. As Paul writes, "As often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes again."

May you remember God's love poured out for you today,
Sam

Luke 22: 1-13

Now the festival of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover, was near. 2The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to put Jesus to death, for they were afraid of the people. 3Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve; 4he went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers of the temple police about how he might betray him to them. 5They were greatly pleased and agreed to give him money. 6So he consented and began to look for an opportunity to betray him to them when no crowd was present.

7Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. 8So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover meal for us that we may eat it.” 9They asked him, “Where do you want us to make preparations for it?” 10“Listen,” he said to them, “when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him into the house he enters 11and say to the owner of the house, ‘The teacher asks you, “Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’ 12He will show you a large room upstairs, already furnished. Make preparations for us there.” 13So they went and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.