Gospel for June 30, 2024

 

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Mark 5:21-43
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Jesus is very busy. He is traveling around the countryside of Galilee preaching and healing.  He has crossed the Sea of Galilee in a boat with his disciples.  In the process, he had tried to catch a quick nap while in the boat when a violent storm arose and the panicked disciples cried out for his intervention.   Effortlessly he had calmed the winds. Then, on landing on the Gentile shores of the Gerasenes, Jesus had cast demons out of a man who was living desperately and wildly among the tombs, and Jesus sent the legions of demons into a herd of pigs which then drowned themselves in the Sea of Galilee.

On his return by boat to the Jewish side of the lake, his busy pace resumes.  A large crowd gathers around him.  And then Jairus, a leader of the local synagogue, pleads with Jesus to come and heal his critically ill daughter.

Does this intervention by Jairus suggest that Jesus has gained credibility with local Jewish authorities? Or is this the last, desperate attempt by a father to find healing for his sick daughter?  Or perhaps both?

In any event, Jesus agrees to accompany Jairus to his daughter’s side.  But Jesus’ ministry is often interrupted by other events.  The woman who has had a hemorrhage for twelve years reaches timidly for the hem of his garment.

Note the disparity — the leader of the synagogue pleads openly for Jesus to come to his daughter’s aid.  On the other hand, this woman is extremely reticent.  In part, this may reflect the attitude toward gender that existed at this time.  A man, especially in an important role in the community, could come openly and boldly and ask for help from Jesus — albeit, the text does tell us that Jairus fell at his feet, suggesting great humility.  But a woman?  And what the translation doesn’t make clear is that hemorrhage was likely a menstrual flow that didn’t stop — for twelve years!  According to Mosaic Law, such a condition made this woman ritually unclean.  For her to touch Jesus would be to defile him, according to their customs!

No wonder she was so reticent!  And yet, she overcame her hesitation.

What follows is deep sensitivity and compassion on Jesus’ part.  He is so keenly sensitive spiritually and interpersonally that he is:

  aware that power had gone forth from him.

He seeks out the person who has touched him, because there has been a connection.  How could he identify one person in that pushing, reaching crowd that had touched him?

But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.

Jesus makes the spiritual connection.  This is not merely an act of healing on his part, but an act of faith on hers:

“Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

When Jesus heals, it is holistic — body and spirit.

Jesus then completes his mission at the home of Jairus, where family and friends are grieving and loudly lamenting.  The girl has died in Jairus’ absence.   Jesus himself now makes a statement of faith:

“Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.”

The response of the people there was scornful laughter, and Jesus asserts his authority:

he put them all outside.

He would not permit skeptics and scoffers to distract from his work.

He takes only the girl’s parents, and his followers, and enters the room where the little girl lies dead.  In one of the most tender moments in Scripture, the Gospel says:

He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about.

Jesus is extremely sensitive and practical:

and told them to give her something to eat.

As a curious sidebar, we note that this little girl was twelve; the woman with the hemorrhage had suffered with her condition for twelve years.

Of more importance, though, is what Jesus tells the witnesses:

He strictly ordered them that no one should know this.

This is the “Messianic Secret” that is especially prominent in the Gospel of Mark.  Jesus is not ready to be fully disclosed as Messiah.

APPLY:  

There are two key perspectives in this account of Jesus the healer.  On the one hand, we see the desperation of faith.  Those who are suffering, or watching loved ones suffer, can’t waste time and energy with doubt and theological discussions.  All they can do is reach out to Jesus for help.

Sometimes theological discussion is a luxury.  Faith begins not with questions — not that there’s anything wrong with questioning — but faith begins with crying out to God.

Second, we see in Jesus a challenging example of ministry.  We may prefer a regular routine, a predetermined schedule — but ministry doesn’t come at us in that way.  When people have needs, they may break through calendars and day-timers, and cross boundaries.

May we have the flexibility that Jesus has as we respond to the needs of others.

RESPOND: 

I confess that in 35 years of ministry, what has been most difficult for me at times is the interrupted nature of ministry.  My priorities have been upended by a personal crisis, an accident, a tragedy, an illness, a death.

Following Jesus means suspending my own agenda and my own plans and following the flexible flow of ministry.

Lord, when we are desperate to touch the hem of your garment, or for you to visit a house of death, you come to us.  May we be your agents of ministry also, and respond to real need when it arises.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
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Epistle for June 30, 2024

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

In addition to their purpose as a source of encouragement and sound doctrine, the epistles of Paul are also very pragmatic letters to local churches from a practical church leader.

In this case, part of 2 Corinthians is written as a kind of “stewardship letter,” encouraging the Corinthian Christians to give generously.  His motive here is not personal — he makes it clear in 1 Corinthians that though the apostles can legitimately receive financial support for their ministry, he declines such support.  The offering he is seeking from the churches is to bring relief to the persecuted church in Jerusalem that is suffering through a time of famine.

He uses two appeals to the Corinthians. First, he compliments them:

But as you abound in everything, in faith, utterance, knowledge, all earnestness, and in your love to us, see that you also abound in this grace.

Paul is not above sincere flattery and praise as he encourages them to do the right thing.

He doesn’t invoke apostolic authority.  This is not a command, but a request — a kind of measure of the genuineness of their love.

His second appeal, though, is grounded in doctrinal truth.  He lifts up the sacrificial example of Jesus, who has given his own life with the utmost generosity:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.

He makes it clear, though, that he is not asking them to bankrupt themselves. Rather, he is asking for proportional giving:  

For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what you have, not according to what you don’t have. For this is not that others may be eased and you distressed, but for equality.

Finally, he cites scriptural authority from Exodus 16:18, with reference to the gathering of manna by the Israelites when they were in the wilderness:

As it is written, “He who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.”

This is to support his argument that each should give in proportion to what they have received.

APPLY:  

When stewardship Sunday rolls around, or a leader in a local church makes a statement about budgets and giving, there is often a predictable reaction from some folks: “all they ever do around here is talk about money!  They should stick to preaching the Gospel!”

The truth is, the Scriptures themselves are very practical about the “business” of being a church. Pure doctrine and theological truth is placed side by side with practical concerns about morals, lifestyle, and, yes, even giving!

Embedded in this passage from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is a powerful statement about the life and ministry of Jesus:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.

Implied in this passage is a wealth of background about the nature of Jesus as the Son of God, who has left his place at the right hand of the Father and humbled himself to become the sacrifice for our sins.

Philippians 2:6-8 develops the same theme about the nature of Jesus:

existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, yes, the death of the cross.

Through Jesus’ voluntary self-emptying love, we are exalted with him to the highest place.  And through his voluntary impoverishment, we are made rich in grace.

Paul is appealing to the root of the Christian faith as a motivation for generosity — following the example of Jesus himself.

RESPOND: 

True Christian generosity is not grounded in guilt, or selfish motives for reward.  Instead, it is grounded in love and in emulation of Jesus himself.

Lord, remind me that my faith in you touches every aspect of my life, including my use of money.  Even there, how I spend money, how I share it for the things that you care about, is a reflection of my relationship with you.  May my giving follow the sacrificial example of Jesus. Amen. 

 PHOTOS:
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Psalm Reading for June 30, 2024

 

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 130
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Psalm 130 is described as a “Song of Ascents.”  These were Psalms sung by Israelite pilgrims as they climbed the temple mount in Jerusalem. This Psalm begins as a lamentation full of penitence, but ends with hope.

The Psalmist cries Out of the depths to the Lord.  The metaphor here suggests imagery that is familiar to the avid Bible reader.  The depths in this metaphor might be the depths of the sea, or perhaps the Pit, otherwise known as Sheol, the shadowy underworld of the dead.

What the metaphor suggests to us, though, are the depths of sorrow and grief.  The Psalmist is expressing his deep sense of distance and estrangement from joy and from God.  However, the first verses also express the Psalmist’s hope that the Lord will hear his cries.

In verses 3-4, we get a glimpse of the source of the Psalmist’s distress.  He poses the question to Yahweh:

If you, Yah, kept a record of sins,
Lord, who could stand?

In one sense he is confessing his sin, but at the same time he is suggesting that in the face of God’s holiness no one could possibly be innocent.

And yet, he declares his confidence in the mercy of the Lord:

But there is forgiveness with you,
therefore you are feared.

This is an interesting statement.  The Psalmist seems to suggest that because God is forgiving, therefore he is worshiped by those whom he forgives.  Is this because of the forgiven sinner’s gratitude?  Or is Yahweh’s forgiveness so magnanimous that the sinner is overwhelmed with awe?

The Psalmist then turns to his own personal aspiration in verses 5 and 6 — he is longing for God’s forgiveness and presence:

I wait for Yahweh.
My soul waits.
I hope in his word.

He yearns for God’s self-disclosure, as his next imagery suggests:

My soul longs for the Lord more than watchmen long for the morning;
more than watchmen for the morning.

The repetition of these key lines is a Hebrew poetic technique that denotes a sense of emphasis.  The imagery of those watching for the morning may relate to the watchmen of the city who call out the hours, or to the Levites whose task it was to announce the sunrise on the Sabbath day or for a holy festival.  In other words, this suggests a highly anticipated event.  The Psalmist is eagerly and expectantly watching for the presence of the Lord and his mercy.

Finally, the Psalmist’s plea becomes corporate, imploring all Israel:

 Israel, hope in Yahweh,
for with Yahweh there is loving kindness.

This Psalm begins with a sense of lamentation but ends with a strong statement of faith about the nature of God’s character, power, and forgiveness:

With him is abundant redemption.
He will redeem Israel from all their sins.

APPLY:  

This Psalm suggests our paradoxical relationship with God.  When we consider God’s holiness and power, we are filled with despair.  Yet when we consider God’s loving kindness and his abundant redemption, we are filled with profound hope, even assurance.

There are many circumstances in which we might find ourselves crying to the Lord out of the depths of our own souls — illness, tragedy, the death of a loved one, a national catastrophe.  Here, the lamentation appears to be about a sense of personal guilt.

The fact is, measured against God’s holiness who could stand? This is a consistent theme in Scripture, reemphasized in the New Testament as Paul reminds us in Romans 3:23:

 all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

And yet, the power of God to redeem is also available to all who truly turn to the Lord in repentance, as the Psalmist calls upon the nation to do. For the Christian, this correlates with the Gospel’s solution to the universality of sin. Paul completes his thoughts from Romans 3:23. Though all have sinned they are now:  

justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God sent to be an atoning sacrifice, through faith in his blood, for a demonstration of his righteousness through the passing over of prior sins, in God’s forbearance (Romans 3:24-25).

God answers our sin with his steadfast love and mercy, expressed in Christ.

This is a SONrise  worth watching for! And we await his mercy and forgiveness with the same certainty with which the watchmen wait for the morning, assured that God will forgive us.

RESPOND: 

As an entry for May 24, 1738, John Wesley wrote in his journal that he attended St Paul’s Cathedral in London. There he heard a choir sing the verses from Psalm 130:

Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice. O let thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint. If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it? For there is mercy with thee; therefore shalt thou be feared. O Israel, trust in the Lord: For with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all his sins (Wesley’s Works).

At the time, John Wesley was experiencing what we might call a sense of alienation:

strange indifference, dullness, and coldness, and unusually frequent relapses into sin (Wesley’s Works).

And yet he was yearning for the assurance of faith that he saw in his new Moravian friends.  When he was invited to a Moravian class meeting that evening, he really didn’t want to go.  But he went anyway.  And he was to write later that while someone was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans (which focused on the great doctrine of justification by faith):

About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

Only those who have become acutely aware of the reality of their distance from God can fully appreciate the miracle of God’s steadfast love and the power of redemption.

From my own experience, the transition from the lowest depths to the highest of heights is like that of one passing from darkness to light.

Thanks be to God that we can cry out to God even from the depths of our soul, and in the worst of our human condition, and be confident that we are heard, forgiven, and redeemed!

Our Lord, hear my cries when I feel that I am in the depths, and raise me up through your steadfast love and mighty redemption.  Amen. 

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Old Testament for June 30, 2024

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

The internal conflict between David and Saul has reached its climax in the midst of the ongoing external battles between Israel and the Philistines and the Amalekites.

David had been hunted by the paranoid and suspicious Saul who saw David as a threat to the throne of Israel.  David then pretended to defect to the Philistines — but when the time of battle came between the Israelites and the Philistines, the Philistine generals refused to allow David to go into battle with them.  Saul’s suspicion had alienated Saul from a loyal David; and now Philistine suspicion had spared David from having to fight against his liege.

So, when the final battle between the Israelites and the Philistines commenced, David was absent, fighting his own battle with the Amalekites who had raided his camp.

The battle with the Philistines was a disaster for the Israelites.  Jonathan and two of his royal brothers have been killed in battle by the Philistines.  Saul has committed suicide rather than fall into the hands of his enemies.

David had never flagged in his loyalty to the jealous King Saul — and he had never forgotten his friendship with Saul’s son Jonathan.

David, the singer of Psalms, now lifts a heartfelt lament for his fallen mentor Saul and his friend Jonathan.

There is no hint of gloating, or schadenfreude, which describes the emotion that barely conceals our joy at the downfall of our enemies.  This was not what David was feeling at all.

David cries out to his people:

Your glory, Israel, was slain on your high places!

His statement, How the mighty have fallen!  becomes a kind of refrain in this lamentation, repeated three times.  David is devastated at the reversal of expectations — the glory of Israel, in his mind, rested on these fallen heroes; and now the mighty lie dead. He is beside himself with confused grief.

His plea is that the Philistines might not be encouraged by this victory:

Don’t tell it in Gath.
Don’t publish it in the streets of Ashkelon,
lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,
lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.

He names two of the key city-states of the Philistines, Gath and Ashkelon, and begs that their Philistine daughters might not exult and celebrate over these fallen princes. One has an image of the ululating voices of Middle-eastern women as they celebrate their heroic men-folk. David doesn’t wish to encourage the enemies of Israel in any way.

David is very conscious of place — he prays that Gilboa, the mountain where the defeat has taken place, might never be watered by rain or dew.

David then extols the prowess and courage of Saul and Jonathan, who were united in life and in death.  And in answer to the celebration of the daughters of the Philistines, he cries out:

You daughters of Israel, weep over Saul,
who clothed you delicately in scarlet,
who put ornaments of gold on your clothing.

However, David mourns not because of the benefits he has received but because of his genuine love for his fallen friend:

Jonathan was slain on your high places.
I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan.
You have been very pleasant to me.
Your love to me was wonderful,
passing the love of women.
How the mighty have fallen,
and the weapons of war have perished!

His grief is deep and personal.

APPLY:  

I am reminded of Shakespeare’s Henry V, the King’s speech just before the battle of Agincourt in which he speaks of those who enter the fray with him:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition.
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Though few of us have experienced the bond of battle, true friendships are formed in times of challenge and mutual support.

No doubt, David’s great grief is accentuated by the fact that he wasn’t beside his king and his friends in this moment of trial.  We often find ourselves full of self-reproach after a time of tragedy and wonder aloud, “could I have made a difference if I’d been there?”

At this time, thoughts of royal succession and inheritance are far from David’s mind. There are times when we experience grief that we must simply allow the words and the tears to flow, without thinking of what will happen next. We simply must grieve.

RESPOND: 

In our cool, unemotional, and I daresay, ironic culture, there is something cathartic about unrestrained grief.  The capacity to grieve openly and unashamedly suggests that we have the capacity to experience true joy as well.

There is a line from a Simon and Garfunkel song that ironically extols the value of avoiding relationships:

I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

On the contrary, we must not refrain from true friendship simply because of the risk of loss.  A thousand years after David, his own descendant Jesus would stand at a graveside and weep for the death of his good friend Lazarus. Close friendship is worth the pain of grief.

Our Lord, deep feelings of friendship open us up to the risk of pain and grief. May you strengthen us in times of grief so that we may move on from sorrow to emotional closure and healing.  Amen.

PHOTOS:
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