Read: Mark 4:1-12

For those outside everything is in parables, so that “they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand.” (vv. 11-12)

Those of us who teach preaching to seminary students cannot emphasize enough how vital it is to be clear. Preachers must be clear communicators. So why is it that in his parables Jesus seems intent on (to use a phrase from professor of preaching Tom Long) pumping fog into the sanctuary? When the disciples hear a parable that neither they nor anyone else really understood, Jesus tells them not to worry because confusing people was his goal. He quotes Isaiah to say that he speaks in parables so that folks won’t understand. Huh? You want people to be befuddled, Jesus? What can account for this?

Continue reading Words of Hope – Daily Devotional – Fog →

Read: Mark 1:40-42

Moved with pity, [Jesus] stretched out his hand and touched him. (v. 41)

Rules in the Bible always had well-grounded reasons behind them. The laws of Israel were a gift from God designed to keep people healthy and safe. Take, for instance, the rule on staying away from lepers. Leprosy was a contagious disease and so, difficult though it was for lepers to be isolated, the goal was to keep the disease from spreading. Touch a leper, and you yourself would become unclean and would be required to stay away from everyone else for a good week just to make sure you had not contracted leprosy yourself. Sin and its results in a fallen world (like disease) are like that: they spread, they infect.

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Read: Mark 1:14-15

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel. (v. 14)

Jesus’ very first sermon was clearly inspired by John the Baptist. Lots of preachers begin by modeling themselves on other good preachers, and Jesus did too by echoing his cousin John. And it’s a good thing Jesus took up this sermon, because John was no longer free to preach it himself. He’d been arrested, thrown in prison, and would never get out. By the time we get to Mark 8, we will read about the sad end of this great forerunner of God’s Messiah.

It’s very upsetting that John was arrested. And so maybe it seems like an odd time for Jesus to begin whipping up enthusiasm for what he calls “good news.” Can we proclaim good news in a time of bad news? Or, when the world reacts to the proclamation of God’s kingdom by locking up the first preacher who proclaimed it, isn’t that a pretty good indication that the gospel doesn’t have much of a chance in this world?

In truth the world has always resisted God’s kingdom. It put John the Baptist to an end, and eventually would get around to doing the same thing to Jesus and then later to the apostles. But here’s the wonder of it all: the gospel’s light has never gone out. The message has never died. God really is on the move re-creating the world through Jesus. The kingdom of God is near, and there’s no stopping it!

Prayer:

When we feel beaten down by the world, lift our eyes to see your kingdom all around us

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Read: Mark 1:1

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (v. 1)

Everything starts somewhere. The gospel did too, and so Mark makes his very first word (in Greek) “Beginning.” If this sounds like Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning . . .” you’re right. This was Mark’s intention. The arrival of God’s Son was an act of new creation, a new Genesis.

But no one is quite sure how much of Mark constitutes this “beginning.” Does Mark mean just Mark 1:1-8? All of Mark 1? Or could Mark mean the whole book is just the beginning? I prefer the latter option because of how Mark also ends in Mark 16:8. Since we just celebrated Easter, we may recall that Mark’s Gospel, at least in its most ancient version, concludes with terrified women fleeing from the empty tomb in silence.

Seems like an odd way to end! Can the gospel end in silence? No! But just before the women flee, they are told to go back to Galilee to see Jesus. But where in Mark is Galilee? Right back in Mark 1. It is as though Mark is saying, “Go back to the beginning. Now that you have seen the cross and the empty tomb, go back and reread my gospel. Because the whole thing is just the beginning. Now the story continues through you. Don’t let it end in silence but tell the whole story of how in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the whole world is being made new!”

Prayer:

Father God, open our lips that they may speak gospel truth.

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Read: Luke 23:32-33, 39-46

Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. (v. 32)

The first asks, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” The first man wants a Savior on his own terms. A Savior who lets sin go without consequence, making life easier and happier.

But the second criminal sees the truth: “We are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” The second criminal leaves the result up to Jesus with these words, “Remember me.” How you will, what you will, when you will, Jesus. Just please remember me.

The first man wants god as much of the world wants god. A god who is grandfatherly and kindly. A god who looks the other way with a wink.

Continue reading Words of Hope – Daily Devotional – Deliver Us →

Read: Luke 22:14-21

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them. (v. 19)

Some Lord’s Supper liturgies refer to the bread and wine as “ordinary things turned to an extra-ordinary purpose.” There is something of the miraculous afoot in the mundane.

Jesus’ words at table are reminiscent—and intentionally so—of Luke’s story of Jesus feeding the multitude. In both places he offers the same gestures: take, give thanks, break, and give. At the feeding of the 5,000, the result is that “they all ate and were satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces” (Luke 9:17). Ordinary things turned to extra-ordinary purpose. A miracle.

When disciples today participate at the Table of the Lord, we are reminded that God uses even mundane elements to create a miraculous moment. The hope embedded in this truth is that God will use even ordinary people for extra-ordinary purposes.

So when we pray “give us this day our daily bread” (Matt. 6:11), we are also asking how we can help make “daily bread” available to those who are hungry, homeless, or hopeless. When we pray, “give us this day our daily bread,” we remember that God is always in the process of claiming ordinary things—including us—for extra-ordinary purposes.

Prayer:

God our provider, thank you for feeding us with daily bread and with Communion bread. We are ordinary people. Please use even us for extra-ordinary purposes in the day to come. Amen.

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Read: Luke 22:39-46

Not my will, but yours, be done. (v. 42)

“God’s will be done.” That’s what people say. When the diagnosis comes, when the child is killed in a playground accident, when natural disasters strike people who have no resources to start with. “God’s will be done” can be said so glibly, used as a way to circumvent our own pain or self-righteously avoid the pain of others. Jesus wrestled within himself and with God to get to that conclusion.

As a general rule, I don’t think we should try to be holier than Jesus. And, when Jesus prayed “your will be done” (see Matt. 6:10), it wasn’t as though he immediately stood up, shook the dirt out of his robes, dusted his hands off and put his game-face on. Jesus wrestled in the garden. This is good news for any of us who have struggled to find peace with God in terrible disappointment.

Continue reading Words of Hope – Daily Devotional – Your Kingdom, Your Will →

Read: Luke 19:45-48

It is written, “My house shall be a house of prayer,” but you have made it a den of robbers. (v. 46)

I have a friend who can walk into any thrift store, find something everyone else had overlooked, bring it home, spruce it up, and set it up as the loveliest decoration in the room. She sees the world differently. She finds beauty in strange places.

When Jesus walked into the temple, he saw it differently too. He saw the glory of what it should have been behind the chaos and money-changing it had become. He saw the glory of a “house of prayer” overshadowed by the gaudy showmanship of a “den of robbers.”

Continue reading Words of Hope – Daily Devotional – Hallowed Be Your Name →

Read: Luke 21:1-4

Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on. (vv. 3-4)

It doesn’t make sense. Jesus commended the widow in the story for doing the right thing. But the “right thing” sure looked pretty impractical. She stepped out in some kind of fearlessness or maybe in faith. We know at least this much, although her steps were small by earthly measure, she was reckoned as one who had “put in more than all of them.”

Because God is in heaven, he doesn’t measure according to earthly standards. God doesn’t grade according to our perceptions of reality. And, because God is Father, his primary relationship to us is that of love—the overwhelming, confounding love that does not require perfection but bestows perfection upon what it loves.

That is why the Heidelberg Catechism says that the very beginning of our prayer is this basic attitude: “a childlike reverence and trust,” the very sort of thing that allows us “to expect everything needed for body and soul from God’s almighty power” (A. 120-21).

Just as a well-loved child comes to expect generosity and care from her parents, so too a well-loved child grows capable of the simplest acts of generosity and care toward others.

Prayer:

Help us, God, to know the comfort and constancy of your hand so that we may dare to provide comfort and constancy to a world in flux and in need. Amen.

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Read: Luke 19:28-34

He set his face to go to Jerusalem. (Luke 9:51)

It had been a long journey for the disciples following Jesus. Ever since the whirlwind of events in Luke 9 his disciples had been waiting for Jesus to become Israel’s king. Instead, the ragtag little band wound their way through Samaria, trying to make sense of their master’s stories and confrontations, while dealing with their disappointed expectations.

With the capital just beyond the next hilltop, maybe the disciples finally dared to think, “This is it. Now Jesus is going to bust out the dissident politics, the blazing rhetoric, and start the radical revolution.” And it looked promising. Jesus sent some disciples up ahead to bring him “a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat” (v. 30). Based on the word used for “colt,” the disciples may not have been sure whether Jesus was looking for an unbroken stallion or some other four-legged animal.

Continue reading Words of Hope – Daily Devotional – Not What We Expected →

Read: Luke 19:1-10

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. (v. 10)

The crowd in Jericho was not pleased about Jesus hanging out with the rich oppressor Zacchaeus. Jesus’ conversation with the little guy in the sycamore tree seemed off script from his usual talk of caring for the poor and needy. So here we must re-consider Jesus, who loved the oppressed and the oppressor in equal measure. He wasn’t content to leave anyone in their alienation or sin.

The grace of God entered Zacchaeus’ life with such powerful effect that no one needed to preach at him, saying, “Jesus did you a big favor, buddy. Now, here’s the Ten Commandments and the way we do things around here. Get busy living up to it.” Rather, the grace of God goes to work, and a sinner makes a new start. Zacchaeus pledged to go the distance and immediately did what it took, making past wrongs right (v. 8). A rich man thus entered the kingdom of heaven by the grace of God, which is the only way for any of us.

Continue reading Words of Hope – Daily Devotional – Jesus’ Mission →