Seasons. An Advent and Lent Podcast By Willow Park Church

Advent Day 28. Christmas Eve. Music: Oh, Holy Night/O Come, O Come, Emanuel. Performed by Salt Of The Sound. Your Presence. Written and Performed by Simon Wester (Feat. Ricki Ejderkvist) Special thank you to all our artists who were featured on the Seasons Reflections Podcast including Dear Gravity, Luke Parker, Allswell, Maximilian, Simon Wester and Salt of The Sound. It’s Christmas Eve, the holiest night of the year, as the stores shut down, and the friends and families settle in for a meal we spend time in the traditional veneration of the saints, celebrating the one who holds the stars in place, the one who knit you together in your mother's womb, the Shepherd who leads us beside still waters, Jesus Christ. The Word of God who comes to us as a baby, a baby in a manger. As we began our Journey 28 days ago we heard the poems of the Prophet Isaiah crying out for the one who will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, and Prince of Peace. We heard him speak of the aching imbalance of power rectified as the wolf lays down with the lamb. We heard Paul placing his hope in the one who didn’t consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. We heard John's Gospel speak of the Light that comes into our world as the Word made flesh, We heard of John the Baptist preparing the way for the Lord and Mary singing her song of Salvation,  lifting up the humble and feeding the hungry. Now, on this final day of our journey, we hear the story that we wait on every year during advent, the Story of the birth of Jesus. As a child with Ukrainian Heritage, I enjoyed Christmas morning, as every child does, but I enjoyed Christmas Eve more. Christmas Eve in my home had a mysterious quality to it that appealed to my young imagination. We would all bundle up and head to my Aunties house where no one was allowed to eat until we saw the first star come out, though my brother and my cousins would always seem to find our way to sneak a few pickles. We would sit around the table eating our traditional Ukrainian Christmas Dinner telling stories of the year past. After dinner Candles were lit, special treats were served, and then we would sit around the tree where someone would read The Christmas Story.  We would then open our presents and celebrate Christmas as a family. One of the greatest gifts we can provide for children is to give them a Christmas tradition that, along with Santa, the tree, the presents, and all the rest, also has a memorable telling of the story of the babe born in Bethlehem. In The Everlasting Man, G.K. Chesterton says that anyone “whose childhood has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards an association in his mind between two ideas that most of mankind must regard as remote from each other; the idea of a baby and the idea of unknown strength that sustains the stars. His instincts and imagination can still connect them.” The story of the birth in the city of David of a saviour who is Christ the Lord, captured my imagination as a child, and, lo, these many years later it still does. As We read The Christmas story from the gospel of Luke, we see the unknown strength of the creator, placed tenderly in what we know far more tangibly as a baby in a manger..... .....So perhaps at the end of this holy day you can find a quiet moment to light a candle, read Luke’s Christmas story, and allow your imagination to transport you to a stable in Bethlehem two thousand years ago where there is a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. Then, like Mary, you can keep all these things and ponder them in your heart.

Advent day 27. Our Friend. Music: Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, Performed by Salt of the Sound The Pilgrimage Series, Written and Performed by Dear Gravity. Advent and Christmas are seasons of song—without our carols, it just wouldn’t be Christmas. Looking back to my early Christmas memories, many of them revolve around song. Singing in the church Christmas pageant, singing silent night at a Christmas eve candle lit service or even carollers singing in the streets. Christmas is marked with song. Songs are poetry set to music, and poetry is how we express the indescribable. The precision of style has its place, but it cannot properly speak of the transcendent. Language that aspires to describe the divine is best done as poetry. By poetry, I don’t necessarily mean rhyming verse, but language that prioritizes form over function, and beauty over utility. The power of poetry to speak of the divine is why Genesis opens with poetry, why the Hebrew prophets were mostly poets, why the psalms are all poetry, and why so much of the best of the New Testament is poetic: The Beatitudes, the prologue to John’s Gospel, Paul’s ode to love that is I Corinthians 13, and the majestic anthems of praise found in Revelation. Perhaps you don’t see yourself as a poet, but there are times when the only thing you can do with your deeply divine thoughts is to scribble them down in a journal or notepad. On Thursday we looked at Mary’s revolutionary song, the Magnificat and today we have Zechariah’s song before us—a song composed at the birth of his son, John the Baptist. Zechariah’s prophetic song might be described as a poetic meditation on salvation. What a beautiful song of salvation! Zechariah’s poem says that through Messiah we are saved from enemies and hate, fear and foes, placing our feet on the path of peace. And isn’t that all we really want—to be set free from fear and to walk in peace? But throughout history, we have seen, time and time again, that the desired path to peace is through conquering those who stand in the way of peace. War and vengeance will no more lead to peace than drought will lead to a bountiful harvest. We must not make the mistake of thinking that this salvation can come by the way of the world. A world under the sway of the wicked one says we’re saved from our enemies by destroying our enemies; that we’re saved from those who hate us by hating them even more; that we’re saved by fear by placing the highest priority on security; that we can only walk in peace when we have eliminated every possible threat. The Messiah won’t play the devil’s game of trying to conquer fear by fear, hate by hate, violence by violence. Messiah will be the saviour who guides our feet into the way of peace. The kingdom that Jesus brings to us is a kingdom that this world has never seen before. One of peace, love, hope and joy. The contrast of the advancement of the kingdoms of this world and the advancement of the kingdom of God couldn’t be more clear. This kingdom is known to some as the Upside-down kingdom. We can see a very clear statement of Jesus proclaiming the upside-down kingdom in John chapter 15. Here Jesus famously says: Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.

Advent Day 26. The Birth of John. Music written and recorded by Simon Wester. Today we continue our Journey to Christmas day through the book of Luke by looking at the life of John the Baptist. One that was marked with humility of his place in history, as well as adulation for the message of the coming Kingdom of God. First, the country priest, Zechariah, encountered an angel while offering incense in the Temple. Then his long-barren wife was found to be with child. Now upon the birth of the child, and after nine months of enforced silence, the mute priest speaks for the first time. It is clear to the people that knew the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, that this child will have some sort of important role in the story that is unfolding before them, but they couldn’t know how important he would be. Perhaps a priest? The new King? Let’s jump ahead about thirty years and try to answer their question. What John did not become is what most people would have expected—he did not become a priest like his father. Instead of following Zechariah into the priesthood, John retreated into the wilderness. Luke says it like this, “The child grew and became strong in spirit, and was in the wilderness until the day he publicly appeared to Israel.” (Luke 1:80) At some point, maybe in his teen years, John left his home and began to live in the rugged Judean wilderness. Perhaps his elderly parents were already dead by then. Of course, we don’t know. What we know is what Luke tells us: that John lived in the wilderness becoming spiritually strong until he began to preach and baptize at the Jordan River in the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius (AD 28). John was the prophet who, as the angel Gabriel told Zechariah, would “come in the spirit and power of Elijah.” (Luke 1:17) But John was more than a prophet, he was the forerunner foretold by Isaiah and Malachi. It was his prophetic task to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. John did this by preaching a message of repentance and baptizing the penitent. John's sermons were filled with themes of justice—calling the rich to share their wealth and the police to stop employing violent tactics of intimidation. (See Luke 3:10–14) John’s preaching was wildly popular with the masses and drew huge crowds from Jerusalem. But, predictably, John’s ministry had little or no effect on the Temple establishment. The apex of John’s meteoric ministry was to baptize Jesus. Once that was accomplished, the crowds began to leave John and follow Jesus instead. John the Baptist took his diminished role with humility and grace, telling his disciples, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30) A few months after he had baptized Jesus, John was arrested by Herod, and not long after that, he was executed. Jesus himself delivered John’s eulogy in advance, saying, “Among those born of women no one is greater than John; yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” (Luke 7:28) Jesus was indicating that John was the culmination of an era that began with Abraham, but now a new age was dawning with the coming of the Son of Man. John's willingness to decrease in importance shows an unusual humility. John shows us that the ultimate message of Christ reaching those who are hurting is more important than any accolades that we this side of eternity. Devotional Adapted from The Anticipated Christ. 

Advent Day 25 Music. May I Recieve, Written and recorded by Allswell. Wooden Starlight, Written and Recorded by Dear Gravity.  The Magnificat Our reading today is a song that has become one of the most frequently prayed passages of Scripture in Christianity. Song of Mary is most commonly known as the Magnificat which is Latin for Magnifies. As significant as Mary is in the Christian story, we only hear her speak four times: to the angel at the Annunciation, to Jesus at age twelve in the Temple, to Jesus at the wedding feast in Cana, and here in the Magnificat. The Magnificat is certainly a hymn of praise, but it’s also a subversive revolutionary anthem. What you may or may not notice about the  Magnificat is that it is an adaptation of Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2:1–10. Hannah became the mother of the prophet Samuel. She had been barren and was bitterly tormented by her husband’s second wife, but Hannah conceived after making a vow to dedicate her firstborn son to the Lord. Her song is a hymn of gratitude and triumph that speaks of how God intervenes on behalf of the unfortunate. Part of Hannah’s song goes like this: He raises the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the ash heap, He makes them sit with princes. In comparing the songs of Hannah and Mary we see how the New Testament is dependent upon the First Testament. And what stands out about both songs is how revolutionary they are. As we hear the Magnificat, Think of how subversive these words were in the context of Mary’s time—the time of King Herod. Luke 1:46-55 Mary’s Magnificat anticipates what will happen when her son grows up and begins to proclaim the good news of the new peaceable kingdom. It will be a message welcomed by the poor, the sick, the downcast and outcasts who are open to Jesus’ message while the rich and powerful will mostly resist it. What we should learn from the Magnificat is that the grace of God flows downhill toward the lowly places in our lives where we are humble, weak, and poor. There may be places in your life where you are strong, successful, and rich. And this can be a blessing. But be careful and always remember that grace flows downhill. In our contemporary context, we need a Christianity formed by the Magnificat. In the western world, we are typically inclined toward ideas of success and anthems of strength. But the grace of God does not run uphill toward the pinnacles of success and strength, it rolls downhill toward the low places of humility and trust. Advent is not just about waiting, but about waiting in the right place. The right place to wait for the grace of God is the lowly ash heap of your barrenness and brokenness. This is where the grace of God will appear. Before we listen to ready yourself in a place of worship, as we hear Mary’s song, let it be our continued prayer for the Peace of God’s kingdom to come this Christmas. Perhaps you are feeling near the bottom of the hill and are in need to grace to run to you. As we finish today we will hear the beatitudes. If you are hurting, lonely or otherwise downtrodden take comfort in knowing that this Christmas, we await the King of Kings, the creator of the all thigs, who comes to this earth to bring you comfort, peace, hope and joy.

Advent day 24 Music: Simon Wester.  Let Joy Resound October 28, 2022 Advent - Joy Emmanuel has come! Rejoice, without a hint of doubt. Let joy resound, and praises ring. Hallelujah! Christ is here, and in the fullness of the age, returns to reign as promised King. Allan J. Gillespie What news would make you literally leap for joy? What would it take for you to jump up and down and throw your hat in the air? It’s what people did at the end of WWII and at the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s what you might do if you won the lottery or found out that you’re cancer-free. When war ends and tyranny topples, when prosperity comes and sickness goes, it’s the kind of good news that elicits exuberant celebration. The good news that Mary and Elizabeth celebrate together, is the good news that the kingdom of God is at last breaking into a world dominated by proud and brutal tyrants. Elizabeth had endured long years of heartbreaking infertility—a sorrow made worse by the undeserved stigma associated with barrenness in ancient societies. Elizabeth describes her experience of childlessness as “the disgrace I have endured among my people.” (Luke 1:25) But now she is six months pregnant with a child who will be known to history as John the Baptist. Mary is a much younger relative of Elizabeth and is carrying in her womb the Son of God conceived by the Holy Spirit. We can assume that the only other person aware of Mary’s miraculous pregnancy is her fiancé Joseph—and an angel had to explain the nature of her pregnancy to him. We can also imagine that Mary longed for a trusted friend in whom she could confide, and this is why she made the long journey into the hill country of Judea to be with her older relative Elizabeth. As it turns out both of these women have quite a story to tell. Both Mary and Elizabeth had just had their lives turned on its head, and they needed someone they knew and trusted to celebrate and process what was happening in their newfound and unexpected pregnancies. When Mary arrives at the home of Zechariah and greets her relative with the customary, Shalom, Elizabeth responds with an astounding prophetic utterance: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! Why am I so honoured that the mother of my Lord should come to visit me?” And at that moment John the Baptist in the womb of his mother began to leap for joy. What a beautiful picture of irrepressible joy. The anticipation of the coming of the kingdom of God is marked by unbridled elation. Truly the kingdom of God is “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17) The two worlds of what we now know today as the Old Testament and the New Testament are at long last colliding in the form of two baby boys born to these two most unexpectant mothers. John, theologically known as the second coming of Elijah, has come to close out the old testament and usher in the new kingdom brought by this baby being carried by Mary. The old leaps for joy as the new kingdom is ushered in. What we traditionally anticipate at Christmas is Hope, Joy, Peace and Love, but what can happen is the reality of this world can become too much to bear. What we anticipate at Christmas, can at times be a distant dream as opposed to the intended reality that Jesus came to bring.

Music: Gabriels Message, Salt of The Sound Simon Wester, Dear Gravity  As a teenager growing up in Calgary in the 90’s, most days I would travel home from school on city transit. My High school was an inner-city school and we lived on the outskirts of the city.  Travelling by two busses and a train, my daily journey would last about an hour and a half. Quite often, on those journeys home, I would ask God if he would like me to speak to anyone. I had numerous fascinating conversations with various people that would often last the entire route and lead to some deep and meaningful connections. Little did I know, that in those little moments of trying my best to listen to the Holy Spirit, I was playing my part in being a God-bearer. In today’s Christmas story, we meet THE God-Bearer of the Christmas story, Mary. It was through a young and poor Jewish maiden named Mary living in the backwater Galilean village of Nazareth during the Roman occupation of the first century that the Word of God, took on flesh and became God and Man. In Christian theology, we call this event the Incarnation and Mary is known as the Theotokos—the God-bearer. The Incarnation of Christ through the one who bore God is one of the most sacred confessions and sublime mysteries of Christian faith. It’s the story of how through the cooperation of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit the Divine-Eternal became a human. And it begins with the Annunciation—the Announcement. In the sixth month of her relative Elizabeth’s pregnancy, the angel Gabriel came to Nazareth to tell an engaged, but not yet married, virgin that she will conceive and give birth to a son named Jesus and that he will be the long-awaited Messiah whose kingdom will have no end. When Mary questioned the angel saying, “How can this be? I do not know a man?”, the angel simply responded, “The Holy Spirit.” This is the enduring pattern by which God brings redemptive newness into the world. How? The Holy Spirit. Mary as the mother of Christ is the entirely unique Theotokos. But on another level, Mary is the universal archetype for all who yield to the Holy Spirit and say with the Virgin, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be unto me according to your word.” As a teenager on the bus ride home from my innercity school I was learning how to say yes to the Holy Spirit, O became a lesser theotokos through whom God can bring something holy into the world. This Christmas we see the partnership between the trinity and humanity come to an uttermost peak.  God, coming to this world as a human, brought into this world by a human who simply said yes to what the Holy of the Holy Spirit asked of this young lady from Galilee.

Advent Day 22. Music: Simon Wester, Salt of The Sound  Today, as we enter the fourth and our final week of Advent we move into Luke’s Gospel. This week we will walk through the Christmas story opening with Zechariah and Elizabeth and culminating With Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, the angels and shepherds. Luke’s Gospel gives us more Advent and Christmas themes than any other. After his preliminary dedication to Theophilus, Luke begins his Gospel with these words: “In the days of King Herod.” Luke’s story is set during the dark days when Judea was occupied by Rome and their king was a client of Caesar. Herod the Great (72–4 BC) was installed as the King of Judea by the Roman Senate in 37 BC as a reward for military service on behalf of the empire. Herod was a daring general and a great builder, but he was also a corrupt and paranoid king capable of astonishing cruelty. After waiting so long for a king, Herod was certainly not the righteous king the pious of Israel had been praying for. As Luke’s story opens Herod has reigned for some thirty years, his dynasty is in place, and the hope for a messianic king seemed farther away than ever. At the same time there lived in the hill country of Judea a humble priest and his wife—Zechariah and Elizabeth. They were blameless, but blamelessness had not led to blessedness, for Elizabeth was barren. They had prayed for a child for decades, but no child had come, and now they were getting on in years. Of course by this point in the Bible we see this as the foreshadowing of a special birth—barren women giving birth to great sons is a common biblical motif seen in Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, and the wife of Manoah. And sure enough, when Zechariah is chosen by lot to offer incense in the Temple—a once in a lifetime opportunity—he encounters the angel Gabriel who tells him that his wife will bear a son, his name is to be called John, and he will prepare the people for the coming of Messiah. Luke 1:5-25 Gabriel began his announcement to Zechariah by saying, “Do not be afraid.” Angels always say “fear not” because this is what heaven has to say to earth. Then the angel says, “Your prayer has been heard.” Zechariah and Elizabeth had been praying for a child for a long time, perhaps for as long as Herod had been king. The answer to their prayer had been delayed so that God can give them more than a child—God will give them the forerunner of Messiah! Sometimes the answer to our prayers is delayed so that God can answer them in a way greater than we could ever imagine. Among the instructions given to Zechariah was that John was to drink no wine. John the Baptist drinks no wine because he’s not the one who brings the party, he only prepares the way. The party begins when Jesus turns the water to wine at the wedding feast in Cana. John is Advent; Jesus is Christmas Adapted from The Anticipated Christ 

Music: Oh Holy Night, Performed by Salt of the Sound.  As we approach the threshold of our final week of our Advent prayer times together we read the most wonderful message of all —the Word made flesh! The Eternal Logos, the Infinite Idea, the Logic of Love, the Divine Wisdom, God’s Understanding of God’s Self, assumed human nature to heal human nature. The moment the Word became flesh the salvation of humanity was guaranteed. All the events of God’s salvation would have to run their course through time, from incarnation to crucifixion to resurrection, but the salvific end was always inevitable. When the Word was made flesh, the creator and giver of life, light and love, moved into the neighbourhood, walked our streets, and conversed with us. The apostles of Christ saw, and through their witness we too have seen, the beauty of the Father fully displayed in the life of Jesus Christ—a life overflowing with grace and truth. The grace and truth of God that Moses and the Prophets could never fully embody is fully found in the Word made flesh. From the infinite fullness of God there is an endless flow of grace into humanity. Imagine an hourglass with its two spheres and the connecting point where the sand flows from the upper sphere into the lower. Now imagine an upper sphere that is infinite. That’s what we find in the Word made flesh. Jesus became the point that connects the infinite grace of God with the finite deficiency of humanity. This is salvation. This is why we say, Merry Christmas! 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and[b] is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. John concludes his poetic prologue by insisting that no one has ever seen God—it is God the Son who is near the Father’s heart who has made God known. We might protest and point out that Abraham saw God and had a meal with him under the oaks of Mamre; Jacob saw God with angels ascending and descending on the ladder at Bethel; Moses saw God face to face on Mount Sinai and his face shone from the encounter. There were many other encounters such as these.   But John knows all of this, and that’s what makes his apostolic assertation so daring. By the Holy Spirit John asserts that no matter what dreams, visions, revelations, epiphanies, theophanies, or Christophanies people have had in times past, compared to the revelation we have in the Word made flesh, no one has ever seen God! All ideas and images of God must surrender to the supreme revelation of God as seen in Jesus Christ. Christ alone is the perfect definition of who God is. The conclusion we are to draw from John at the beginning of the fourth Gospel is this: God is like Jesus. God has always been like Jesus. There has never been a time when God wasn’t like Jesus. We haven’t always known this, but now we do. What sticks out to you the most in these verses? Why is the Word coming to Earth such a big deal in the great scope of human history? “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” What might your life be like if God moved into your street?

Advent Day 20 Music: Be Thou My Vision, Performed by Allswell Morning Prayer and Life Written and Performed by Simon Wester As we ended yesterday speaking of the Light of God, we now come to John the Baptist, who came as a witness to testify concerning that light. In the dark world of idolatry, all illumination is precious. The ancient Hebrews had the moonlight of the Law and the starry constellations of the Prophets by which they could navigate through the shadows of night on their journey toward truth. The Gentiles had the flickering candles of nature’s witness and Greek wisdom by which they could pursue the creator. (Acts 17:27) Moonlight, starlight, and candlelight are faint illuminations in the darkness of night. But as we spoke on yesterday, when the sun rises the darkness is altogether dispelled—the night is done, and the day has dawned. The prophet Malachi spoke of the coming of Messiah as the sun of righteousness that will rise with healing in its wings. (Malachi 4:2) And John the Evangelist tells us that the light from the life of Jesus Christ is the illumination of true enlightenment. In the life of Jesus Christ, we receive the dual enlightenment revealing who God is and how to be human. Like the sun streaming in the window in the morning announcing that it’s a new day, John the Baptist was the herald to announce the coming of the True Light. John was not the Light, and he was the witness sent to testify to the Light. John is to Jesus what the Bible is to Jesus. The Bible itself came to bear witness to the Light. The True Light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. The Bible testified to him and cried out, “This is he of whom I said’ John 1:6-13 6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. We read in Colossians 2:17 regarding the rules and laws of the old testament that These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. The old testament laws, holidays and festivals all pointed toward Jesus, but they are Shadows of the reality of what is to come. I love the late summer evening walks with my kids that cast long shadows in front of our meandering walks. As we look at the shadow of us walking along as the sun begins to set, our shadow becomes more and more pronounced. But our shadows are just us minus all light, dimension, and definition. We can see the shape of who we are, but the reality is not found in the shadow, its found in who we are. This Christmas we wait on the reality of Christ. The new reality. Jesus is the light, definition, and dimension of what the old covenant was pointing to.

The Light. Music: May You Find The Light. Written and Performed by Salt of The Sound. The Wonder. Written and Performed by Dear Gravity  John 1:1-5 Over the next three days, we will spend our time in the poetic prologue of John's Gospel- one of my favourite passages in the entire bible. In the theologically rich opening poem to the Fourth Gospel, we see an amalgamation of Hebrew revelation and Greek wisdom—a blend that describes Christian theology itself. John opens his book with an echo back to Genesis 1:1. John writes that in the beginning was the Word—the Eternal Logos, the Infinite Idea, the Logic of Love, the Divine Wisdom. This Logos is the wisdom by which God founded the earth and established the heavens. The Logos is the creative Word of God in the intricacy of the Trinity—and this Word is Christ. Jesus Christ as the Word of God is both the creator and the sustainer of creation—as the Apostle Paul says, “In him all things hold together”. A century ago, in the aftermath of a global war and a global pandemic, the Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote, “things fall apart, the center cannot hold.” In the context of the time Yeats’ poem had a prophetic truth to it. But the greater truth is that there is a center that holds—the Eternal Logos that sustains all things and which cannot be overcome by the chaotic darkness of evil. Every star and every galaxy, every blade of grass and every grain of sand continues to exist because they are sustained by the Eternal Word of God. The Word Became Flesh 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it. As we heard about yesterday, Christ is supreme above all, he sustains creation alongside things seen and things unseen. In this passage at the beginning of John, we see that God is sustaining creation through his word and that Word remains the ever present, uncreated Jesus. As we have heard over the last few days, Jesus never ceased to be the eternal God who has always existed, the creator and sustainer of all things, and the source of eternal life. What John also tells us is that Jesus is Light. Every year at Christmas I look forward to lighting up my house with Christmas lights and seeing all different light displays in the neighbourhood. Some might say it’s a silly tradition, but I think it’s a beautiful reminder of the light that comes to the world at Christmas. light that has come into the darkness of our world. A beacon of light from a lighthouse when darkness and peril prevail. CS Lewis says “I believe in Christ as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” Verse 4 says that his life brought life to everyone. As Christ came to us those 2020 years ago, bringing a light to our dark world, so does he bring light into our present darkness that we may persistently experience throughout our lives. a light of a lighthouse not only alerts the captain of the location of the lighthouse, but it shines light on the surroundings, giving the ship a safe passage home. Jesus comes to this world as a light that shines in the darkness. Not only to show us who he is, but to guide us through the turbulent life that we all live here on the earth.

Music: Among Us, written and performed by Salt of the Sound. Among Us, written and performed by Simon Wester. Secret Place, written and performed by Simon Wester   You won't find many scriptures in the New Testament outside of the Gospels that point directly to the birth of Christ and the meaning behind what we celebrate at Christmas. With that said, today, we find ourselves in the third of four of Paul's prison letters speaking to the people of Colosse and clearly communicating that Jesus is indeed the visible image of the invisible God. Today we read one of the most explicit statements about the divine nature of Christ that is found anywhere in the bible. Jesus is not only equal to God, as we read about in Philippians 2, but he is God. As the visible image of the invisible God, he is the exact representation of God. He not only reflects God, but he reveals God to us; as supreme over all creation, he has all the priority and authority. Jesus came from Heaven, not from the earth's dust; therefore, he is the uncreated one and has authority over the world. But he didn't think of equality with God as something to cling to (Phil 2). During Advent, we wait for God to come into humanity; we don't wait for a prophet or a good teacher; we are waiting on God, creator of Heaven and Earth, the one who spoke the world into existence, to come and dwell among us. The church of Colosse had several misconceptions about Christ that Paul directly refuted; here are two of those. One, they said that Christ was not the Unique Son of God but rather one of many intermediaries between God and man. And two, they refused to see Christ as Salvation, insisting that people could find God only through special and secret knowledge. This Advent, we now understand that we wait for the unique Son of God who is Salvation for all people! Todays reading comes from Colossians 1:15-20 Christ Is Supreme 15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,[e] 16 for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. 17 He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. 18 Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead.[f] So he is first in everything. 19 For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, 20 and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ's blood on the cross.

The Secret It’s a beautiful day. You’re sitting on your deck and reading Ephesians in the New Living Translation. And your eyes fall upon the words: “God’s secret plan has now been revealed to us; it is a plan centered on Christ.” (Eph. 1:9) You pause, just for a moment with this thought floating in your head: God’s secret plan. There was a Newsweek article a number of years ago, about the mega-bestseller book, The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne. The article begins like this: “Decoding The Secret” Oprah lives by it. Millions are reading it. The latest self-help sensation claims we can change our lives by thinking. The book is basically a mishmash of pantheism, pseudo-science and the-power-of-positive-thinking. The latest in a long line of “the secret of success” books dating back seventy years to Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich!. This one is written by a savy Australian TV talk show producer. The article goes on to say the “secret” of The Secret is what Byrne calls “the law of attraction,” which holds that you create your own reality through your thoughts. Rhonda Byrne says she got The Secret. From the back of the book: You hold in your hand a Great Secret. It has been passed down through the ages, highly coveted, hidden, lost, stolen, and bought for vast sums of money. This centuries-hold Secret has been understood by some of the most prominent people in history: Plato, Galileo, Beethoven, Edison, Carnegie,— along with inventors, theologians, scientists, and great thinkers. Now The Secret is revealed to the world. Interestingly, the Apostle Paul made a similar claim when he said, “God’s secret plan has now been revealed to us; it is a plan centered on Christ.” Through the Scriptures in Isaiah, we have been hearing of this not so secret that God had to bring about a peaceable Kingdom, unlike the Kingdoms that had come before. Paul says the secret is centered on Christ. Ephesians 1:6-11 6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.[b] 7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. 8 He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. 9 God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ—which is to fulfill his own good plan. 10 And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. 11 Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God,[c] for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan.

After Leaving Isaiah and the prophetic poems looking forward to the coming of a new Kingdom in Christ, we will now move ahead 600 years to see what the early church understood about the king that had come to them and taught all about the new Kingdom. We begin with Paul the Apostles letter to the Philippians. He begins this scripture by reminding us that once we have found the new kingdom we need to realign our minds to the understanding of the one we have been waiting for in the leading up to Christmas. When people in the ancient world thought of heroic leaders, rulers and kings they often thought of Alexander the Great. At the age of 20 he succeeded his father Philip to the throne of Macedonia, quickly made himself master of all Greece, and then set about the task – to him, it seemed, quite small – of conquering the rest of the world. By the time he died at the age of 33 he had succeeded to such an extent that it made sense, within the thought of the time, for him to be regarded as divine. Only when we grasp this, do we see just how deeply subversive, how utterly counter-cultural, was Paul’s gospel message concerning Jesus of Nazareth, whose resurrection had declared him to be Israel’s Messiah and the world’s true Lord. He was the reality, and Alexander and Augustus were the caricature. In today's reading, we see the true humility of the king that we wait for, this Christmas on full display. Turning the idea in what way kingdoms are run on its head. He ‘emptied himself ‘. People have sometimes thought that this means that Jesus, having been divine up to that point, somehow stopped being divine when he became human, and then went back to being divine again. This is, in fact, completely untrue. The point of verse 6 is that Jesus was indeed already equal with God; somehow, Paul is saying, Jesus already existed even before he became a human being But the decision to become human, and to go all the way along the road of obedience, obedience to the divine plan of salvation, yes, all the way to the cross – this decision was not a decision to stop being divine. It was a decision about what it really meant to be divine. There is so much goodness and mystery packed into this verse, and also also packaged into Christmas that there comes a point that we need to embrace and understand and appreciate the mystery of who Jesus is and that he is fully God and fully human. As we read this verse one more time, take some time to appreciate the wonder of God. Allow the spirit to speak to you about the mysterious miracle of Christmas and the birth of God into humanity.

Advent Day 15. Year of the Lord Music: Oh Holy Night, Performed by Salt of the Sound Encounter, Performed by Simon Wester In this poem, Isaiah speaks in the voice of the Anointed One—the Messiah. The spirit of Yahweh is upon Messiah to bring good news (gospel) to the oppressed, the broken-hearted, the captives, the prisoners. These are the Jewish exiles who are brokenhearted over the loss of Jerusalem and their temple and have become oppressed captive prisoners in Babylon. By the spirit of Yahweh, Messiah announces the good news of healing, liberation, and restoration. In the first message Jesus ever preached, he proclaimed this passage to announce the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus did literally renew sight to the blind and set the spiritually oppressed free in his real-time interactions with the people he walked the earth with. However, his good news was meant to be so much more. To extend well past his time here on earth. Jesus, our God, and saviour, is one who cares for the poor, brokenhearted, the captives, and those who grieve and mourn. That is not who the people were waiting for. They were still in the mindset that their saviour needed to be like the kings of old. When Jesus came to us two thousand and twenty years ago, he came to show us not what we wanted but what we needed. And what we needed was to be set free from the oppression of the religious zealots and from oppressive teachers. The oppressed in that day wanted a savour that would come and overpower their enemies with violence and to exact revenge from their time in slavery. But Jesus was coming to break the cycle of violence and retribution and replace it with forgiveness and grace. Now, as we listen again, I want us to hear Jesus proclaim this to the people in Jerusalem as he announced his ministry. You will notice a slight change. He omits “the day of vengeance of our God,” Imagine yourself seated in the Synagog with all the religious leaders. What is their reaction? Jesus has just announced that he is the one Isaiah had been predicting all this time. This entire time that we have spent in Isaiah has been leading us to this moment in Lukes Gospel. 16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,  because he has anointed me  to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners  and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, 19  to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”[f] 20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Lord Jesus, we have known your message of grace and forgiveness, but we confess that we have not always been careful to live out this important message daily. Jesus, help us to be likeminded in your message of good news and to be quick to forgive and even quicker to be gracious with those around us.

Today is Saturday, December 10th, the 14th day of advent. Every Saturday, we focus on a passage from the book of Psalms that points to the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ. Today’s passage is Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19. This is a passage that was written by David for Solomon, his son, the next in line to the throne of Israel. The psalm, which we will read in a moment, focuses on what kind of kingdom the King would bring to the people of Israel. While the psalm is about Solomon’s kingdom, it is also about a different kingdom and a different king - the king and kingdom that would come from the line of David, the shoot of Jesse, the Messiah. And this kingdom, unlike Solomon’s, which ended in disarray, would last forever. Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19 This passage describes the kingdom that the Messiah would bring to the world. The first seven verses of this advent reading give us many promises about what Jesus’ kingdom will be like. Firstly, Jesus’ kingdom is a kingdom of righteousness. “May he judge your people with righteousness...”. Jesus will judge the world with equity and justice. He will right every wrong, he will wipe every tear away from our eyes, he will make all things new, and injustice will no longer reign. Jesus also makes the unrighteous to be righteous in God’s eyes, through his loving sacrifice for the sins of the world. In Jesus’ kingdom, justice rolls like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Secondly, Jesus’ kingdom is a kingdom of peace. “Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people”. Prosperity can also be translated as peace. Christ said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.” He brings peace between God and man, that man may know the loving and gracious God who created them. He brings peace between man and fellow man, that conflict may cease and peaceable relationships may grow. He brings peace in man’s own soul, that in the most difficult and trying circumstance, we can know a peace that passes all understanding. Thirdly, Jesus’ kingdom is a kingdom of protection. “May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the children of the needy...”. He cares for the weak, and has a heart for the poor. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” He sees those who are weak and lowly and is gentle with them and says that he will defend their cause. He will do this and He calls his children to do this, too. Fourthly, Jesus’ kingdom is a kingdom of victory “May he... crush the oppressor.” Christ came to bring people from death to life, from darkness to life, from the reign of the enemy to the reign of the God of love. Through his death on the cross and his resurrection, Jesus defeated the enemy and the sting of death. The people of Christ now live in eternal victory. Fifthly and finally, Jesus’ Kingdom is a kingdom of flourishing in grace. “May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth! In his days may the righteous flourish, and peace abound, till the moon be no more!” In Jesus’ kingdom, the righteous are strengthened, fed, loved, and comforted. In his kingdom, the Holy Spirit will come like rain onto our souls, softening the hard soil, quenching our thirst, and feeding us, making us fruitful. There is only one response to the promise of this glorious kingdom that we now live in, and that is to praise and bless the name of the Lord. “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen!” To bless is to make reverent and holy, and so we lift up the name of Jesus in reverence and awe, for he alone does wondrous things. May his glory and magnificence cover the earth, that all may know him and live in his kingdom.

Today Is Friday, the 8th of December and the 13th day of Advent. The Jewish exiles in Babylon will soon be allowed to return to Jerusalem. Still, after fifty years in exile, many of them are about to "return" to a place they've never been, and Isaiah wants them to understand that "home" is a very different place than Babylon. Isaiah prompts images of one selling milk and wine as a vendor at a market. Come, buy and eat! The vendor is selling what would be a luxury in milk and wine. But in Babylon, the Jewish exiles cannot afford these tokens of abundance. They're exiles, immigrants, cheap labour, the underclass—the "good life" in Babylon is out of their reach. Now God is depicted here as a vendor, calling out, "are you thirsty?" I have milk and wine! Take your pick, you don't need money for what I give you. What Yahweh is presenting is a totally new economy. An economy of generosity and not exploitation. Because many of the Exiles have only ever known the consumerist and militaristic Babylon, the idea of a Kingdom based on peace would be almost impossible to fathom. Isaiah's poem ends by saying that as the exiles return in peace, the mountains will break into song and the trees will applaud their return. Painful things like thorns will be replaced with pleasant things like the cypress. This is the end of exile. But as the Jewish exiles returned home, were they really home? They were still dominated by foreign powers—the Persian Empire, the Seleucid Empire, the Roman Empire. Perhaps this poem song is indicative not of the Kingdom being realized in 537 BC, but a promise of the King who will one day come, who is the Word made flesh. When all milk and wine will run freely, and no one will thirst, and all will know peace.

Today we will look at the fourth and most famous of the Servant Songs; it’s with the fourth song that we most clearly see the Servant as one who suffers. Though this song may be more associated with Lent or even Good Friday, we should understand that to properly anticipate the Christ, Isaiah’s song of the Suffering Servant must be heard. Isaiah begins his song by announcing that the Servant will succeed, prosper, and be exalted,  But considering what will follow in the rest of the Song, We may see this as a worrying hint as to what lies ahead. when Isaiah says that the Servant will be “lifted up,” Jesus speaks, in his final week of ministry of being “lifted up.” “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. (John 12:32–33) This middle portion of the fourth Servant Song is the prime example of why the book of Isaiah is often called the “Fifth Gospel.” The first Christians saw the suffering and vindication of Jesus throughout Isaiah 53, and thus these verses appear repeatedly in the Gospels and Epistles. Isaiah’s Suffering Servant poem contain the narrative contours of the Passion story. The Servant is depicted as the arm of God sent to bring salvation to Israel. Jesus is God, coming to rescue us. As the Servant becomes a public figure, he is ultimately rejected and despised, wounded and bruised, oppressed and afflicted. Finally the Servant, Jesus, is put to death. In the middle portion of the song, the poet asks how the unjustly executed Servant could have a future, but in the closing lines of the song we are told that the Servant does indeed have a future—a glorious future. The conclusion of the poem speaks both of the death of the Servant (“he poured out himself unto death”) and his glorious future (“he shall see his offspring”). Today, as we come into advent, we wait for our Peaceable King who was wounded for our transgression and bruised for our iniquities. As I read this long song in the intended three parts. At the end of each section take some time to allow the words read to permeate your soul. I encourage you to invite the holy spirit to speak to you in whichever way The Spirit knows you need. In the haste of the Christmas season it is good for us to slow down and remember what it is we are Read.

Advent Day 11.  Music: Goodness, Touched by Heaven; Written and Performed by Simon Wester Where I Rest, Written and Performed by Salt of The Sound.  Over the next three days we will be winding down our time in the book of Isaiah. The first two days we, will look at the Suffering servant poems. Today we will look at the promise of a one who will sustain the weary, and on our penultimate day in Isaiah, we will look at how the promised King at Christmas carries us toward Lent.  In our final day of Isaiah we will look ahead to the promise of a new kingdom! The Servant Songs are four poems that depict Israel as Yahweh’s servant to whom promises are given and concerning whom predictions are made. And though it is clear that the servant is Israel, the personification of Israel as Yahweh’s servant is always presented as an individual. As such, there is nothing in the Old Testament that more clearly informs messianic expectations than the Servant Songs of Isaiah. Two that we will be omitting are Isaiah 42:1–9 A Light to the Nations and Isaiah 49:1–7 Salvation to the Ends of the Earth When we look at these four poems as a whole we can ask and answer an enormously important question: Who is the Messiah? Messiah is Israel embodied in one person who fulfills Israel’s vocation and is glorified among the nations, but who also suffers greatly in the accomplishment of this task. Today we read the third servant song in Isaiah 50:4–9 A Word for the Weary The degree to which the Servant Songs informed Jesus of his impending suffering is probably enormous. In Luke, Jesus foretells his disciples the fate of the Son of Man: “He will be handed over to the Gentiles; and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him.” (Luke 18:32–33) In the third Servant Song, we begin to clearly see the suffering and humiliation that will befall the Servant in the course of his mission. In verse 6 the Servant says, I gave my back to those who beat me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. But we will save the anticipated suffering of the Servant for the fourth song. In this meditation, I want to focus on how the Servant says he knows how to “sustain the weary with a word.” Excerpt From The Anticipate Christ.

Confession Music: When I Survey, Performed by Salt of the Sound Grounded, Written and Performed by Salt of the Sound Awake, Written and Performed by Salt of the Sound  As we continue our reading from Day 9 of Advent, we see how the highway of comfort will be paved. Isaiah reports that God, who has seemingly gone into exile, is about to return to Jerusalem. From the mountain tops, it must be proclaimed: “do not fear; God is coming!” But who is coming? In which way will God emerge? He will tend the flock like a shepherd:  He will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them close to his heart;  and he will gently lead them. Not the image of a God who some might suppose would be one that comes to conquer and fight. But an image of a shepherd who gathers the vulnerable in his arms and carries them close to his heart. In response to this good news, Israel is to pave the way. valleys are to be lifted up, mountains made low, hills made level, and rough places made smooth. Isaiah 40:3-11 And how will this salvation come? It will come as the word of God. Frail humanity has failed them—kings and princes, priests and people have all failed and Israel has been led into exile. Human constancy is like grass—the grass that withers and the flower that fades. But now God is about to end the exile and send his word—his enduring word that is unencumbered by human frailty. From this very first of Isaiah of the Exile’s poems we gain powerful messianic expectations. Thus it should be no surprise that Mark, the first Gospel written, begins with Isaiah 40. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophet Isaiah: Behold, I am sending my messenger before you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” (Mark 1:1–3) And so John the Baptist appeared in the Judean wilderness, preaching a message of repentance in preparation for the coming of Messiah. John also baptized people in the Jordan river, not only as a public act of repentance but also as a symbolic re-entry into the promised land. John’s baptism said this: We are returning from our exile in sin; we are rethinking our ways of idolatry and injustice; we are preparing our hearts for the arrival our true king. During this advent season, let us take some time to make straight in the desert, raise the valleys and lower the mountains and hills. To make that space we must look inside of ourselves and ask God to search us through to help us see where we need to confess and turn to make those highways straight, the hills low and the rugged places plain. As we spend the next few moments reflecting, lets ask God to show us areas in our hearts that we need to confess, and make smooth for the coming King this Christmas. CONFESSION OF SIN MOST MERCIFUL GOD, WE CONFESS THAT WE HAVE SINNED AGAINST YOU IN THOUGHT, WORD, AND DEED, BY WHAT WE HAVE DONE, AND BY WHAT WE HAVE LEFT UNDONE. WE HAVE NOT LOVED YOU WITH OUR WHOLE HEART; WE HAVE NOT LOVED OUR NEIGHBORS AS OURSELVES. WE ARE TRULY SORRY AND WE HUMBLY REPENT. FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR SON JESUS CHRIST, HAVE MERCY ON US AND FORGIVE US; THAT WE MAY DELIGHT IN YOUR WILL, AND WALK IN YOUR WAYS, TO THE GLORY OF YOUR NAME. AMEN.

Advent Day 9. Comfort  Music: Passage of Time, Written and Performed by Simon Wester Goodness, Written and Performed by Simon Wester Devtion,  Written and Performed by Dear Gravity  The book of Isaiah is like a mini-Bible. Just as the Bible is divided into a first Testament with thirty-nine books and a second Testament with twenty-seven books, so Isaiah consists of two halves: the first thirty-nine chapters written in Jerusalem before the exile and the final twenty-seven chapters written in Babylon during the exile. Between the two halves is a kind of “intertestamental period” of about a century and a half. In the gap between the poems of Isaiah of Jerusalem (1–39) and Isaiah of the Exile (40–66) is where the book of Lamentations is situated chronologically. Lamentations is a collection of poems attributed to Jeremiah that give artistic expression to the grief that came upon the Jewish people in 587 BC when Jerusalem was destroyed and the population deported to Babylon. One of the recurring themes in Lamentations is that there is no one to offer comfort: She weeps bitterly in the night With tears on her cheeks, She has none to comfort. Her downfall was terrible, With none to comfort. Zion stretches out her hands, But there is none to comfort. They heard my groaning, But there was none to comfort. (Lamentations 1:2, 9, 17, 21) But at last comfort has come. The first line of Isaiah of the Exile’s first poem begins with “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.” And with good reason, these are the first words in Handel’s Messiah. The second half of Isaiah is so full of gospel themes that it is often described as the Fifth Gospel. As much as we have heard the hopeful message of the first half of the book of Isaiah, we are now leaving Isaiah of Jerusalem behind us, the woes have been pronounced, judgment has been threatened, catastrophe has fallen, and now it is time to comfort the people of God. Today’s reading comes from Isiah Chapter 40:1-5 Comfort for God’s People 40 Comfort, comfort my people,  says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,  and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed,  that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand  double for all her sins. 3 A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare  the way for the Lord[a]; make straight in the desert  a highway for our God.[b] 4 Every valley shall be raised up,  every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level,  the rugged places a plain. 5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,  and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Advent Day 8. The Desert, Isaiah 35:1-10 Music: In Quietness, Written and Performed by Luke Parker. Be Still, Written and Performed by Simon Wester. A New Deep, Written and Performed by Dear Gravity. In 2008, while working in England, I had the opportunity to fly to The Gambia with a local school I worked with during my time in England. During our Flight, we passed over the Western Sahara Desert. I have never felt so small as I did at that time. We flew over an endless desert for two hours with small villages seemingly placed randomly throughout. I allowed myself to imagine what it would be like to find myself wandering in the desert. To be left to wander, looking for water and a place to find any shelter or life. It left me with a feeling of hopelessness. When Isaiah penned the rivers in the desert poem, Judah was in a bad way. Internally Judah was corrupt, and externally it was under threat of invasion. For years the nation had been wandering with no signs of hope, let alone any possibility of Joy But as we have heard throughout the readings of Isaiah, the prophet who brings the message of hope does so even during the most toilsome times. In this poem, the Joy of the Redeemed, we see Joy erupt from sorrow. In the midst of pain the promise that those in the desert will soon be glad. Someday soon, Isaiah says, “you will see the glory of God” When you are lost in the wilderness, sometimes the best thing you can do is stop and wait, even if waiting is the last thing that you want to do. But that is what we do at advent, we wait. When we are lost and feel hopeless sometimes we will do almost anything to fill the void and make something happen, but we’re not very good at waiting—it feels too much like doing nothing. But it’s not doing nothing. As we wait, we slowly become contemplative enough to discern what God is doing. Unless we intentionally cultivate some contemplative slowness in our soul, it doesn’t matter if God acts, because we will most likely miss it. When God entered humanity through Jesus many people who were supposed to understand the significance of the moment, missed the beauty of who had arrived in the manger. but the contemplatives like Simeon and Anna perceived the arrival of God’s salvation because they learned how to wait. The deeper truth is that God is always acting because God is always loving his creation. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are always inviting us into their house of love. As I thought about wandering in the desert, the possibility of being in a spiritual desert is much more real. This Advent, we wait for Jesus, the one who will open the eyes of the blind, open the ears of the deaf, and cause us to leap for joy.

Advent Day 7.  Psalm 122  Music: Holy Spirit; Written and performed by Maximilian  Secret Place; written and performed by Simon Wester  Every Saturday, we’re going to look at a passage from the book of Psalms, and see how it points us to Jesus during this Advent season. The psalms are a blend of prophecy and story, of heartache and hope, of struggle and deliverance, and there is much that we can learn as we reflect and meditate on them. Psalm 1, for example, says that the one who meditates on Scripture and delights in God’s word, will be blessed. They will prosper, they will be like a tree planted by a stream. They will yield fruit, and their leaves will not wither. In other words, delighting in the word of God and taking time to meditate on scripture is giving our souls what they need in order to thrive and flourish.  As we meditate on the Psalms during Advent, may we experience the presence of the Lord, and in turn, the blessing of the Lord. Today’s psalm, Psalm 122, was written by David for the people of Israel to sing on their way towards Jerusalem, where they would worship at their feasts. And he starts the song by saying that he was glad when he got to go to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. Now, Jerusalem was chosen by David to be the place where the Ark of the Lord, the very presence of God, would dwell. The infinite God, unbound by time and space, decided to constrain himself to one location, in order to assure his people of his presence and his promises to them.  As one writer says, “He is everywhere, but he was there.” David was glad because he was going to be in the very presence of God. This advent, we are invited to join David and the people of Israel in this journey. Just as they were on their way to Jerusalem, we are on our way towards Christ’s birth. Just as the people of Israel got to go to the house of the Lord, we get to go to his house, too. But there is an important distinction to make between our journey and the people of Israel’s journey. They had to go to a specific place at specific times in order to experience God’s presence. But we get to experience God’s presence every moment. God’s presence is here, with us, right now, through the Holy Spirit. We experience his presence, his Holy Spirit, because of Christ’s coming. The infinite God, unbound by time and space, decided to constrain himself, once again, to one location. But Christ came so that all may experience his presence at all times, through the Holy Spirit. And in his presence, we give thanks to him. In his presence, we find peace. In his presence, we find freedom. Let us be glad that we can be in the presence of God today.  Let us be glad that we can experience his peace. And let us be glad as we wait for Jesus’s coming with the eager expectation that, through him, we can go to the house of the Lord. Let’s spend some time in prayer. Pray that the Holy Spirit would fill you with his presence. Pray that you would know the peace and freedom of Christ this season. And pray that you would enjoy and delight in the Lord’s presence with you

Home Music:  Home by Luke Parker Morning Prayer by Simon Wester  Home a place where you are accepted, a place where you belong. A place where the outside pain and frustration should be held at bay in the safety of those who love and care for you. As we have explored the preliminary prophetic poems of Isaiah, a theme began to show itself. The kingdom of God has no room for those who place themselves as more valuable than those who are broken and hurting. After this long series of poems pronouncing God’s judgment on the enemies of Judah, Isaiah aims for something different. Isaiah takes aim at death itself. Isaiah tells us of the destruction of the burial shroud that has been engulfing the people of Israel. This burial cloth has been turned from a cloak of death to a tablecloth for a great feast. Today’s reading comes from Isiah 25:6-9 In Jerusalem,[a] the Lord of Heaven’s Armies  will spread a wonderful feast  for all the people of the world. It will be a delicious banquet  with clear, well-aged wine and choice meat. 7 There he will remove the cloud of gloom,  the shadow of death that hangs over the earth. 8 He will swallow up death forever!  The Sovereign Lord will wipe away all tears. He will remove forever all insults and mockery  against his land and people.  The Lord has spoken! 9 In that day the people will proclaim, “This is our God!  We trusted in him, and he saved us! This is the Lord, in whom we trusted.  Let us rejoice in the salvation he brings!” The funeral has become a feast! Isaiah’s stunning eschatological hope proclaims that when death has been swallowed up forever, God will wipe away the tears from all faces. John the Revelator incorporates Isaiah’s poem in the culmination of his grand vision: And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. (Revelation 21:4) In this poem, Isaiah anticipates a day when death will be destroyed by God and the heirs of salvation will rejoice and say, “This is what we’ve been waiting for!” And that’s what Advent is all about—anticipating and waiting. But as those who believe that the anticipated Christ has arrived in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, we are invited to live in the joyful tension of the “now and not yet.” While we await the final redemption of all things in Christ, we celebrate the fact that the feast has already begun. As Christians, we are invited into this great feast whenever we participate in communion. When Jesus first sat down with the disciples in the upper room, he began the eternal participation of the feast that celebrates the end of death! This Christmas, we are home. We are invited to take the hand of the one who conquered death and come home and sit at the table of the one who loves and accepts us. Isaiah 41:13 For I hold you by your right hand—  I, the Lord your God. And I say to you,  ‘Don’t be afraid. I am here to help you.

The Lion lays down with the Lamb. Music: Salt of the Sound, Oh Holy Night Dear Gravity: Layer Upon Layer Quite possibly my favourite passage in the book of Isaiah; I come back to it in my mind time and time again. As we continue our journey through the foretelling of the coming of King Jesus, Isaiah gives us a glimpse into what a peaceable kingdom would look like.  Before we read today's passage, I do see what Isaiah is talking about when he talks about a lion lying down with a lamb. Isaiah imagines a human world as if it were an animal Kingdom. This is referred to as Zoomorphism. You can see zoomorphism represented in movies and stories such as Winnie the Pooh, where each animal has a human personality. The timid one is Piglet, the downtrodden one is a donkey, the excitable Tigger is a Tiger, and a wise old owl is watching over the Hundred Acre Wood. We also see this used in the Scripture. One clear example is when the Holy Spirit descended like a dove. In this scripture we are about to read, we aren’t seeing an ultimate peaceable heaven where a lion is no longer a carnivore and will eat grass alongside a lamb. If we literalize this poem, we are missing the point. Isaiah sees the predatory nature of humanity. As we have already seen, Isaiah is deeply concerned with how the rich and powerful treat the vulnerable and the weak. Today’s reading comes from Isaiah 11:6-9 The wolf will live with the lamb,  the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling[a] together;  and a little child will lead them. 7 The cow will feed with the bear,  their young will lie down together,  and the lion will eat straw like the ox. 8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den,  and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest. 9 They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. But do lions really ever lie down with lambs? Yes, they do! We see it in the ministry of Jesus. Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector in Jericho, was a wolf who worked for the Roman beast and got rich by cheating the poor. But when Jesus came to his house, the wolf in his heart was slain. When Zacchaeus pledged to give away half of his fortune and make four-fold restitution, the wolf was lying down with the lamb. Saul of Tarsus was a lion violently devouring the flock of God, but when he encountered Jesus on the Damascus road, he not only stopped attacking the flock, he became a faithful shepherd. In Christ, Isaiah’s dream comes true, and the lion does lie down with the Lamb. Suppose the world is still dangerous because human predators behave beastly toward the vulnerable. In that case, it is because the earth is not yet full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea…so we continue to pray. Take some time to imagine the scenario of the lion lying down with the lamb. Where in our world do we see an imbalance of power taking advantage of the weak? Are you, at this moment, at the aching end of an imbalance of power? Pray for wisdom on how to move toward a proper resolution and find a way out of that situation. Now lets us take a moment to search our hearts and see if there are times in our relationships with our family, friends or business partners when we may be on the hurtful end of a relationship. Perhaps, at times, we can be the lion.

Advent Day 4. The Root Of Jesse. Isaiah 11:1-5, 10 Music By: Allswell, Intro/Arise  Simon Wester, Encounter  Tree of Jesse You may have seen the Orthodox Icon of the Tree of Jesse in passing. This beautiful icon depicts the ancestors of Jesus Christ, shown in a branching tree which rises from Jesse of Bethlehem, the father of King David. It is the original use of the family tree as a schematic representation of a genealogy. The Tree of Jesse originates in a passage in the biblical Book of Isaiah, which metaphorically describes the descent of the Messiah and is accepted by Christians as referring to Jesus. The various figures depicted in the lineage of Jesus are drawn from those names listed in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. Some versions of the icon depict the tree growing up out of a sleeping man—Jesse, the father of King David and the predecessor of the Davidic line. The hero, known as the "Tree of Jesse," is derived from our Advent scripture reading for today. Isaiah begins the root of Jesse's poem with a description of a branch bearing fruit coming up from an old dead stump. An image of a stump that used to be a great tree, filled with the promise of Justice and righteousness, now is an old, rotten remnant of what was once beautiful. What was once filled with the promises of prosperity, Justice, and hope is now a shadow of what was promised. Somehow and someway, there will be the life that comes from the once great kingdom that has since fallen. Only Three Generations removed from King David did the genealogy begin its descent into darkness, and now, 300 years later, the once great tree, filled with the fruit of righteousness and Justice, is but an old, dead stump. Take a moment to imagine this dead, dried and forgotten stump. You can see it off in the distance as you approach it. As you approach it, you see something forming in the centre. You see a small branch beginning to emerge. As this branch immerges and reaches for the skies, you see other branches form out of it. As they form, green leave form on the ends of the branches. Now imagine the dark and dry places in your life that only the freshwater of the spirit can revive. Ask him now to fill those places and bring life from death.

Seasons, And Advent and Lent Podcast by Willow Park Church  The Land of Galilee had the misfortune of being in the corridor between the Northern and Southern empires of the ancient near east, so, as you could imagine, Galilee would be the ground which many boots of battle would march along, and the fertile farmers’ fields of Galilee would often turn into bloody battlefields for the competing armies. Brian Zahnd, in the book The Anticipated Christ, from which this podcast is greatly inspired, writes that The valley of Megiddo (Armageddon) would eventually become a grim poetic way of speaking of war itself. No doubt there was plenty of gloom and anguish in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali in the days of Isaiah. But the poet imagines a future when those living in the gloom of Galilee would see a great light and rejoice as people do when a long war is finally over. Sometimes our lives can feel like a great battleground! Wars are fought, and we seem to be caught in the middle. The world over wars being waged with the lives of the innocent caught in the crossfire of conflicted governments contending to accumulate power and wealth. Places like Ukraine and Russia, Myanmar (mee-ann-mar), Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, the Congo, and Syria name a few are all gripped by war with innocent lives being lost. During advent, we can anticipate a great day when the long war will finally be over, and the peace of God's kingdom will reign. Today's reading comes from Isaiah 9:1-7 Clearly, Isaiah is anticipating a Messiah, a King from the line of David that will be characterized by justice and great peace. Isaiah is confident that this will come to pass, and he heaps of praises for the future king. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And though he doesn’t expressly say so, we can probably assume that Isaiah had pinned his hopes on Hezekiah, the son of King Ahaz, as the messianic child “born unto us.” Hezekiah did turn out to be a rare, good king of Judah, but he wasn’t the Messiah. It would be another 700 years before the people of Israel would meet their true King. Brian also says… It’s only in the light of Christ that we can look back upon Isaiah’s poem and fully appreciate its prophetic significance. For example, when Isaiah says, “the government shall be upon his shoulders,” we would first regard this as a poetic way of saying that the messianic king will possess full authority. But in the light of Christ, we see the cross—indeed, the cross is the government of God! People may hope that Christ would come to rule apart from the Cross, but Christ and his rule of peace are brought from the cross. The shape of Christ’s government is eternally cruciform. Messiah is not just another king ruling with a sword—that would keep the world in the gloom and anguish of Iron Age Galilee. It was when Jesus began to preach the good news of the peaceable kingdom that the messianic light began to shine in Galilee. Let us take a few moments to pray for those who live in war-torn countries that they might know Jesus, who rules with love and peace and knows the pain of hatred and war. Pray that they might know that the King that we anticipate this Christmas walks with them through pain and suffering and will be a comfort in those times of deep distress and fear. Lord Jesus, we confess that you truly are the Prince of Peace and that the government upon your shoulders is the cross you bore. Give us the grace to walk in the light of the cross that we might live as subjects of the King, who is a Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. Amen. Music:  Allswell, May I Recieve  Dear Gravity, Is there a way? 

Seasons, And Advent and Lent Podcast by Willow Park Church Peace  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God created Light and sky, God created the land and the seas, the sun and the moon and all the creatures that roam within it. God created Humans, and it was good, and man and God walked together in the Garden. The Bible tells a big story. Holy Scripture is a sacred saga of more than a thousand pages that takes us from creation to new creation, from paradise lost to paradise regained, from the Garden of Eden to the garden city of New Jerusalem. In every epic drama, there are antagonists who threaten goodness and menace justice In the Bible, we find the likes of Pharaoh, Goliath, Nebuchadnezzar, King Herod, and Pontius Pilate among the villains who are in league with the very embodiment of evil itself—the devil. It’s with these enemies that the heroes of the Bible—Moses, David, Daniel, John the Baptist, and most of all, Jesus—must struggle and prevail. The story contained in the scriptures wastes no time in introducing us to the main antagonist, that will stop at nothing to bring division between God and humans. What the enemy comes to do is bring war when there is peace, pain when there is health and division when there is stability. As we gather during Advent, we anticipate the peace that God intended in the Garden. Over the next few days, we will be reading from the prophet Isaiah. Seven centuries before Christ, Isaiah of Jerusalem began a poem with these words: In days to come. He doesn’t know when and even less how, but inspired by the Spirit, Isaiah imagines the kingdom of Israel becoming the true kingdom of God and gaining preeminence over the nations. The kingdom of God—will become famous the world over for its wisdom. A king will come to Jerusalem who possesses the very wisdom of Yahweh, and he will teach the way of God to the nations. And what will he teach? He will teach the way of peace. Those who hear the message of the Kingdom of God will know to abandon the folly of war. For the first three centuries, Christians knew that the kingdom of God and the kingdom of death and destruction of war were incompatible. With war abandoned in response to the teaching of the wise king, weapons of war are converted into instruments of agriculture. Since Cain slew Able in the fields, the place of peace and growth was turned into a place of war. Instead of plowshares, man has made swords of destruction. Now, the prince of peace comes to correct and restore. Turning swords back into plowshares. When the first Christians read Isaiah’s swords to plowshares poem, they recognized the wise king as Jesus and realized that God’s kingdom of peace had been inaugurated. The Apostle Paul said that Christ Jesus “became for us wisdom from God.” (1 Corinthians 1:30) For the Early Christians, War no longer belonged in the everyday. There was no longer the need to participate in the destruction that the Kingdoms of this world brought because they were baptized into the new kingdom of peace. We Christians, by living lives, surrendered to the anticipated King, have left our ways of conflict behind. As Jesus tells us in Johns's Gospel. Peace, I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. As Isaiah told us, In the days to come, we will one day know a peace that passes understanding. Music:  Salt of The Sound: Angel Gabriels Message Dear Gravity & Lauge: Candescent, Stellar Simon Wester: The Care Of Me

Seasons, And Advent and Lent Podcast by Willow Park Church We are living in a secular age. The sacred is pushed to the periphery. To keep The Sacred at the center of our lives can, at times, seem like an insurmountable task. To be a religious person in an irreligious world may be the last act of rebellion. But as we take moments out of our busy schedule to sit down in the sacred, may we see the hope, Joy, peace and love of Christ form around us throughout this Christmas season. In the Christian calendar, Christmas is anticipated by four weeks of waiting. This is what we call Advent.  Join us as we take time to reflect on the Hope, Joy, Peace and Love of The anticipated King, Jesus. During Advent, we await the arrival of the Messiah of whom the Hebrew prophets spoke. During Advent, we allow the messianic poems of the Hebrew prophets to seep deeply into our souls. With Isaiah and the great company of Hebrew prophets, we wait for the one who will bruise the serpent’s head. We wait for Immanuel—God with us. We wait for the King to come to Bethlehem, who will shepherd God’s people. We wait for the child born unto us upon whose shoulders the government will rest; we wait for the Prince of Peace in whose kingdom the lion lays down with the lamb. Advent is about waiting—a practice most of us in our secular age struggle with, but a holy practice we would be wise to cultivate. This Advent, we wait on the one who accepted us. The one who gave up his life for us to bring Hope, Joy, Peace and Love. Today's reading comes from Romans chapter 15:7-13. 7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. 8 For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews[b] on behalf of God’s truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed 9 and, moreover, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written: “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles;  I will sing the praises of your name.”[c] 10 Again, it says, “Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.”[d] 11 And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles;  let all the peoples extol him.”[e] 12 And again, Isaiah says, “The Root of Jesse will spring up,  one who will arise to rule over the nations;  in him the Gentiles will hope.”[f] 13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so on Easter Sunday, our forty-six-day journey with Jesus through Lent has come to an end and we begin with the first day of the new creation! The day that Jesus rose from the grave! Our long journey ended yesterday with Jesus laid to rest in a new tomb within the walled garden of Joseph of Arimathea near Golgotha. History and archeology suggest to us that in the time of Jesus, Golgotha was an abandoned quarry used as a garbage dump. So we could say it this way: Jesus, the stone rejected by the builders, was crucified in a quarry turned garbage dump, but he was buried as seed within a verdant garden. When Jesus is first seen alive in that garden on Easter morning, Mary Magdalene mistakes him for the gardener. But, in fact, it’s no mistake at all. Jesus is the gardener who turns garbage dumps into gardens! Jesus is not a conductor punching tickets for a train ride to heaven. Christian hope is not about getting from earth to heaven, it’s about getting heaven to earth. Jesus is not a lawyer to get us out of a legal jam with an angry judge. God is not mad at sinners. Jesus told Mary to tell his disciples that his Father was their Father too! Jesus is not a banker making loans from his surplus righteousness. Jesus is a gardener! A gardener cultivating resurrection life in all who will come to him. The conductor, lawyer, and banker metaphors are mostly false, giving a distorted view of salvation. The gardener metaphor is beautiful as it faithfully depicts the process of salvation in our lives. A gardener’s work is earthy and intimate. Gardeners have their hands in the humus. (We are humans from the hummus.) Conductors, lawyers and bankers are concerned with abstract and impersonal things like tickets, laws, and money. But gardeners handle living things with living hands. Jesus is not afraid to get his hands dirty in the humus of humanity. That Jesus is a gardener with a good heart and a green thumb should change your perspective. I promise you that your life is not so blighted that Jesus can’t nurture you into something beautiful. The empty tomb is the open door that leads us away from the ugly world of Gehennas and garbage dumps and back home to the God-intended garden. No one has captured the idea of Easter as the inauguration of a new world with Christ as the gardener better than G.K. Chesterton. I always anticipate Easter by reading this passage from The Everlasting Man. On the third day, the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; Zahnd, Brian. The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey (pp. 189-191). Kindle Edition. Music: KXC Worship. Kingdom Dreamers. Simon Wester - Hope and Life 

Today we will take a moment to reflect on our Lenten journey. As Jesus was laid to rest we can stop and reflect on the journey that we have all taken together. Take some time today to reflect on the goodness of God and the words he has spoken to us through our journey together. Music: Salt Of The Sound - Abide With Me. Dear Gravity - I Hope This Letter Finds You Well. 

On Good Friday we think about one thing: the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This is the epicenter of Christian faith. At the core of Christianity we don’t find perennial religion, meditation techniques, or a course in ethics, but a crucifixion. This is the enduring scandal of the gospel. The gospel is not motivational talks about happy marriages, being debt free, and achieving your destiny. That all belongs to the broader world of proverbial wisdom, and it’s fine as far as it goes, but it has little or nothing to do with the gospel. The gospel is about the cross and the cross is a scandal. When the Apostle Paul told the Corinthians that he had determined to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and him crucified, he admitted that the cross was often viewed as a scandal and folly. So be it. Any attempt to make Christianity less offensive and more palatable by de-emphasizing the cross is a betrayal of Jesus Christ himself. So today above all days we look unflinchingly at Christ crucified. To enter deep into the mystery of the cross is to encounter the greatest revelation of who God is. The Cross is the death by which Christ conquers Death. It’s the abolition of war and violence. It’s the supreme demonstration of the love of God. It’s the re-founding of the world around an axis of love. It’s the enduring model of co-suffering love we are to follow. It’s the eternal moment in which the sin of the world is forgiven. The cross is where Jesus reveals God as saviour. The cross is what God in Christ endures as he forgives. The cross is where the sin of the world coalesced into a hideous singularity so that it might be forgiven en masse. The cross is where the world violently sinned its sins in the body of the Son of God, and where he absorbed it all, praying, “Father, forgive them.” The cross is both ugly and beautiful. It’s as ugly as human sin and as beautiful as divine love—but in the end love and beauty win. Lord Jesus, as we look at you on the cross, with your arms outstretched in an accepting embrace, we pray, forgive us, Lord, for we know not what we do. Amen. Music: Dear Gravity, Simon Wester 

Today is Maundy (or mandate) Thursday, the day when Jesus at the Last Supper gave his disciples a new and supreme mandate to love one another.  At the Last Supper Jesus re-appropriated the ancient Passover meal commemorating Israel’s liberation from bondage in Egypt, giving us the sacramental meal of Communion by which we commemorate the Lord’s death and partake of his body and blood.  Of course the disciples didn’t know this was the last supper before Jesus’ suffering and death—they were still anticipating the arrival of the kingdom of God in the way of conventional conquest. Yet Jesus was explicit about this being the last meal of an old age, telling his disciples that he would not eat or drink again until the kingdom of God had come. And thus we see the significance of Jesus eating and drinking with his disciples following his resurrection! Sadly, the poignancy of this final meal was marred by a dispute among the disciples over who would be regarded as the greatest in the coming kingdom. Once again, for the last time before his death, Jesus stresses to his obtuse disciples that what is counted as greatness in the empires of the world is not what is counted as greatness in the kingdom of God.  Caesar and all his successors measure greatness by power—power to kill, power to obtain, power to control. But in the kingdom of Christ, greatness is measured by love, humility, and service. Jesus modelled this kingdom version of greatness when he washed his disciples’ feet during the Last Supper. Despite the disciples’ inability to fully grasp what he was saying and doing, Jesus spoke warmly about how they had stayed with him through his trials. As a result they are to eat and drink at his table in his kingdom. (Notice that in Jesus’ kingdom the central place of sacrament has shifted from temple to table.)  Finally Jesus says they will sit on twelve thrones and judge the reconfigured Israel that is the church. I often think of this passage of Scripture when I’m in a church that has statues or icons of the twelve Apostles ringing the interior dome, looking down upon the congregation. In the primacy we give to apostolic writings and practices, the Apostles do indeed judge the church. Zahnd, Brian. The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey (pp. 181-183). Music By: Dear Gravity,  Salt Of The Sound - Be Thou My Vision. 

On Wednesday evening of Holy Week Jesus is again in Bethany at the home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary, where dinner is given in his honour. During this dinner, Mary brings an alabaster jar filled with rare ointment of pure spikenard worth a year’s wages and anoints Jesus’ head with the entire contents. This is Mary’s extravagant way of acknowledging that Jesus is the Messiah—the anointed King of Israel. It would seem as though Mary is saying it’s time for Jesus to be publicly acknowledged as Messiah. But some of the disciples angrily scold Mary for her extravagance, saying, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? It could have been sold for three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” If we are honest with ourselves and had we not known the rest of the story, then we would probably be saying the same thing. We would expect Jesus to say that perfume worth tens of thousands of dollars would be better spent on feeding and clothing the poor than by wasting it on a single moment of outrageous worship. We would be inclined to agree that this kind of worship is a misspent endeavour. But we would be wrong. Jesus defends Mary by calling what she did a beautiful thing. This leaves us with much to ponder. Is it not true that there is no higher priority than doing good works of justice? Jesus indeed teaches us to provide for the poor—this is part of the second commandment to love your neighbour as yourself. But the first command is to love God with all of your heart. If we love God with no evidence of us seeking Justice in his name, do we truly love God? And conversely, Justice that is not rooted in the worship of God has no coherent foundation. So Jesus endorsed the extravagant anointing that Mary bestowed upon him. He even said that “wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” This emphasizes the truth that the gospel is not a salvation formula but the entire story of Jesus. Jesus also mysteriously says that Mary has anointed him for burial, which is certainly not what Mary was intending. Mary thought she was anointing Jesus for coronation, but Jesus says she anointed him for burial. Both are true. Jesus is the anointed King, and his coronation did launch the revolution of God’s kingdom, but it also involved the burial of Jesus, because his coronation came by crucifixion and the revolution came by the cross. This is the gospel that is to be proclaimed in all the world. As we read this again, place yourself at the table as Mary comes into the room. Knowing what you know now, what are the feelings and emotions that you feel regarding the anointing. When we think of the anointing of Kings, we think of official ceremonies like that of David and Saul being anointed by Samuel. But in this instance, a woman named Mary comes in and is overcome with worship that she anoints Jesus. She pays no attention to those around her and she is not embarrassed for her heart of worship and love for Jesus. Jesus defends this beautiful act of worship. She gave him praise, adoration Love and affection, In awe of Your glory The wonder of who You are Music: Building you a Throne by Maximillian. Simon Wester 

On Tuesday of Holy Week Jesus delivered his Olivet Discourse to his disciples, predicting that despite the impressive grandeur of Herod’s temple, within a generation the temple would be destroyed with “not one stone left upon another.” In the Olivet Discourse Jesus is not talking about the end of the world, but the end of the age—the end of the temple age. In John’s Gospel, when Jesus stages his protest in the temple and the authorities demand a sign to justify his actions, Jesus says the sign will be this: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” John then adds this commentary: “He was speaking of the temple of his body.” In other words, Herod’s temple is to be replaced by the body of Christ. A temple of lifeless stone will be replaced by a temple of living stone. This new temple of the body of Christ will not be fixed to a single geographical location, but will be a global temple located wherever two or three are gathered in the name of Jesus. In the New Covenant the chosen people are the human race and the holy land is the whole earth. In the Olivet Discourse Jesus gives the signs that will indicate that the temple age of ritual sacrifice and ethnic particularity is coming to an end. In this talk, Jesus describes the tumultuous events of the AD 60s and 70s—famines, plagues, earthquakes, the persecution of Christians found in the book of Acts, the rise of false Messiahs, the Jewish war that began in the year 66, and finally the Roman siege of Jerusalem that began in February of 70 and ended with the destruction of the temple on August 10. The destruction of the temple officially marked the end of the temple age and confirmed that the rule of the Son of Man as envisioned by the prophet Daniel had indeed begun with Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. The most important sentence in the Olivet Discourse is when Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have happened.” In other words, people who were alive when Jesus was teaching in Jerusalem would live to see all of these predictions about the end of the temple age come to pass. And that’s exactly what happened. Now is not the time to sift through the Olivet Discourse looking for signs by which to alarm people about the end of the world. Instead, now is the time for us to be about the good work of being the new temple, the temple of living stones that is the global body of Christ. Now is not the time to focus on Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem—a prediction that came to pass almost two thousand years ago. Now is the time to work with Jesus in the construction of the New Jerusalem. Music by: Salt Of The Sound 

LENT Day 41 (Holy Monday) Mark 11:12–23  Jesus Disrupts the Temple On Palm Sunday  Jesus arrived in Jerusalem but did not spend the night in the city. It was far too dangerous to stay in Jerusalem at night when the temple police could arrest him without fear of a riot. So in the evening, Jesus retreated to Bethany on the Mount of Olives and then returned to teach in the temple each morning. On Monday Jesus enacted two pieces of prophetic theatre that are highly significant. As he walked down the Mount of Olives from Bethany on his way to the Temple, he stopped to look for fruit on a fig tree. This was a theatrical performance—obviously, Jesus knew it wasn’t the season for figs. Upon finding no fruit, he spoke to the fig tree, saying, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” Then he continued his journey to the temple where he engaged in another fruit inspection, and failing to find the fruit of fidelity and justice—the fruit the Hebrew prophets always called Israel to bear—Jesus staged an even more dramatic performance of prophetic theatre. Jesus made a whip and drove out the sheep for the sacrifices, overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of the pigeon sellers, and shouted, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of robbers!” Jesus is the climax of the Hebrew prophetic tradition. What is traditionally called the “cleansing of the temple” was not a cleansing at all, but a prophetic denunciation and a symbolic destruction of the temple. Six centuries earlier the prophet Jeremiah had denounced the temple as a den of robbers, meaning that the people of Jerusalem were using the temple as a hideout, believing that it gave them exemption from divine judgment for their idolatry and injustice. Jeremiah then predicted that the temple would be destroyed by fire that “will burn and not be quenched.” This prophecy came to pass about twenty years later in 587 BC when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed by the Babylonians. On Holy Monday Jesus re-enacted Jeremiah’s prophetic protest—a symbolic act that the priests, scribes, and Levites would have easily interpreted. Just as Jeremiah had predicted the destruction of the first temple, now Jesus is predicting the destruction of the second temple. Like the fig tree, the temple was barren of the fruit that God sought and it would never produce fruit again. Jesus’ action of temporarily halting the temple sacrifices during Passover week was highly provocative and extremely dangerous. It was only due to his popularity with the crowds of Passover pilgrims that Jesus wasn’t arrested on Monday. Nevertheless this action accelerated the plot among the chief priests to find a way to arrest Jesus in secret and Zahnd, Brian. The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey (pp. 168-171). Music by Simon Wester. Used With Permission. 

Today is the first day of Holy Week—the journey from Palm Sunday to the end of Lent on Holy Saturday.  More than any week in the year this is a time for deep reflection on the life and message of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ triumphal entry on Palm Sunday sets up a confrontation with the principalities and powers represented by King Herod, the high priest Caiaphas, and the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.  The Roman governor ordinarily resided at a Herodian palace in the coastal city of Caesarea, but during Passover (a feast celebrating Jewish liberation from foreign domination) the governor had to be in Jerusalem to suppress any uprisings that might occur during this volatile week. Coming from Caesarea, Pilate entered the city from the west, riding a warhorse at the head of the Imperial Calvary. The Roman governor’s entrance into Jerusalem was essentially a military parade. It was intended as a show of force to intimidate any would-be revolutionaries. Military parades, then and now, are how empires demonstrate that they rule the world through their superior capacity to wage war.  When Jesus arrived at the Mount of Olives east of Jerusalem, he deliberately enacted this five-hundred-year-old prophesy from Zechariah.  Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will take away the chariot from Ephraim, and the warhorse from Jerusalem. The weapons of war will be broken, and he will teach peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. Coming from the Mount of Olives, Jesus not only entered Jerusalem from the opposite direction than the Roman governor, but in the opposite manner. Instead of riding a warhorse like Pilate and all the warhorse riders throughout history, Jesus rides a donkey, and not even a full grown donkey, but a donkey’s colt.  Jesus’ triumphal entry was the anti-military parade. It was a mockery of Rome’s intimidating show of military power. It also presented Jerusalem with a stark contrast between the way of war and the way of peace. At the beginning of Holy Week, Pontius Pilate and Jesus of Nazareth are at the head of two very different parades.  The question for us is which parade are we marching in—the military parade of Pilate that still believes the world is to be shaped by war, or the peace parade of Jesus that understands that with the coming of Christ war has been abolished? Lord Jesus, on this Palm Sunday may our hosannas herald the arrival of the Prince of Peace and may we ever march in your parade of peace. Amen. Zahnd, Brian. The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey (pp. 165-168). Kindle Edition. Music: Salt Of The Sound, Simon Wester

At Golgotha we find a crowd of cruel mockers and jeering priests and they only add to the horrors of that long day’s dying. But they aren’t the only people there, for at the foot of the cross we also find family and friends of Jesus, and this provides us with one of the most tender moments of the Passion. Even as Jesus is dying on the cross, his love and compassion reaches out to others as he commits his mother and John to a relationship of mutual care: “Here is your son. Here is your mother.” Looking down upon them from the cross, Jesus draws Mary and John into a new mother-son relationship: “And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.” What we have in this episode with Jesus, Mary, and John is a poignant picture of Jesus’ vision for his church—a community of faith centered around our Lord and his cross, caring for one another. We really should see the church as our mother; and the church really should think of its members as beloved children. I know the experience of church doesn’t always live up to this vision, and I know it’s easy to be critical of the church, but still I hear Jesus say, “Here is your mother.” I have no quibble with the Orthodox and Catholic veneration of Mary, but I do prefer to see Mary as a revered personification of the church. So when I hear Jesus speaking from the cross directing a disciple to care for his mother, I take it as a sacred plea from Christ to care lovingly for the church as our mother. And so my commitment to Jesus is in part expressed in a filial devotion to the church. Jesus is my Lord and Savior, but the church is my mother—a mother who both provides care and is to be cared for. I’m speaking of the church not as a cold (and sometime cruel) institution, but as the kind of community where many people have their only real opportunity to find love, acceptance, and dignity. As a pastor I know of many people where the church has truly become a mother to them. I know of situations where the church has treated specific people better than their own mother. At its best there’s nothing like the church. A place where Matthew 25 is just a normal day—a place where the poor are fed and clothed, the sick are helped and healed, a place where the immigrant is welcomed, and the prisoner is given dignity. A place where everyone is saint and sinner. A place where a judge and a felon can sit side by side on the same pew with equal status in Christ. A place where we not only carry each other’s burdens, but when necessary carry each other, because, despite our vast differences in education and opportunity, opinions and politics, we are learning to love one another like Jesus loves us—unconditionally. This is the church I believe in. Lord Jesus, help us to behold the church as our mother. And help us to care for our mother, the church, in such a way that she can provide motherly love and care for her sons and daughters. Amen. Zahnd, Brian. The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

38 The charge was written above him: ‘This is the King of the Jews.’ 39 One of the bad characters who was hanging there began to insult him. ‘Aren’t you the Messiah?’ he said. ‘Rescue yourself – and us, too!’ 40 But the other one told him off. ‘Don’t you fear God?’ he said. ‘You’re sharing the same fate that he is! 41 In our case it’s fair enough; we’re getting exactly what we asked for. But this fellow hasn’t done anything out of order. 42 ‘Jesus,’ he went on, ‘remember me when you finally become king.’ 43 ‘I’m telling you the truth,’ replied Jesus, ‘you’ll be with me in paradise, this very day.’ When we think of crucifixion we instinctively think of Jesus for obvious reasons. But this may cause us to think that crucifixion was something relatively unique to Jesus. It was not. The Roman Empire crucified hundreds of thousands of victims. Indeed, one of the scandals of Good Friday is that Jesus was but one of three that day. Jesus was not even granted the macabre dignity of his own crucifixion but was among a trio of victims. Jesus doesn’t die as a lone sufferer, but as Immanuel among the sufferers. On Good Friday we behold the gruesome spectacle of the God-Man nailed to a tree. This is the only theodicy that comes close to working. Yes, life is filled with horrible and undeserved suffering, but God does not exempt himself from it; rather God in Christ fully shares it with us. As God the suffering of Christ is wholly unique; but as a human, his suffering is in solidarity with all human suffering. Golgotha is where divine impassability intersects with human suffering. Often human suffering seems pointless and meaningless, but it is pointless meaninglessness shared by God and Christ. And once God is involved it is no longer pointless or meaningless…for by his wounds we are healed. Christ crucified with victims on either side of him also presents us with a powerful image: Jesus among the victims in solidarity with them, but simultaneously becoming the dividing point. To see Jesus Christ hung upon a cross wearing a crown of thorns, with victims on either side, is, perhaps, the most powerful single image of the gospel. Incarnation, forgiveness, and kingdom are all present. The three crosses of Golgotha also presents us with the image of choice—for how we respond to Jesus determines everything. One of the crucified revolutionaries sees in Jesus the possibility of a new kingdom and believes. This victim sees the inscription, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” and believes that Jesus truly is a king with a kingdom and asks to be remembered in this coming kingdom. To this dying man, Jesus promises union with him in Paradise. The other crucified revolutionary, though himself a victim, can’t resist participating in the old way of victimizing others. This is the seductive power of scapegoating—even as he dies on a cross, this victim finds cruel solace in joining the crowd in blaming another. But when we deal with our fear and anger, our pain and shame by blaming others, we achieve union with the satan, and that keeps us locked in our own self-imposed hell. One thief sees in Jesus the possibility of a new kingdom centred on forgiveness and belief. The other thief cannot resist the old satanic way of exporting guilt through blame…but only one response leads to the Paradise of union with Christ. Lord Jesus, we look to you on the cross wearing your crown of thorns and believe in your kingdom of love and forgiveness. Jesus, remember us and lead us into the blessed Paradise of union with you. Amen. Music: Salt Of The Sound - In Prayer - Jesus Keep Me Near The Cross

The Soldiers Mock Jesus 16 The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. 17 They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. 18 And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” 19 Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. 20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. The Crucifixion of Jesus 21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. Today’s reading is only one verse, but it contains an enormous message—when Jesus came to the end of his strength, there was someone there to carry his cross for him. As Jesus faltered under the load of the cross, Simon of Cyrene was given the supreme honour of carrying it for him. From the story of Simon of Cyrene we are reminded that there are limits to what we can bear, but when we reach those limits God will send someone to help. David was the great hero who had killed Goliath, but there was a giant David couldn’t kill. When Ishbi-benob, the brother of Goliath, was about to kill David because the king had grown weary in battle, Abishai came to David’s rescue and slew the giant. Elijah was the mighty man of God who called down fire from heaven and prevailed in his contest with the four hundred prophets of Baal. But when the prophet fled from Jezebel and was depressed, curled up in a fetal position under a broom tree praying to die, God arranged for Elisha to become his companion and to share his prophetic mantle. And when Jesus Christ the Son of God reached his limit and could carry his cross no more, there was Simon of Cyrene to carry it for him. Some days we can slay Goliath with a slingshot, some days we can’t. Some days we can call down fire from heaven, some days we’re curled up under the broom tree. Some days we can handle anything, some days it’s all too much. That’s when we need someone to help us. There was a giant David couldn’t kill, so Abishai did it for him. There was a trial Elijah couldn’t handle, so Elisha was given to him. And there was a cross Jesus couldn’t carry, but Simon of Cyrene was there to carry it for him. This is the beauty of the body of Christ and why the church is so necessary. Christianity is not a solo project; we can’t go it alone. David couldn’t do it by himself. Elijah couldn’t do it by himself. Even Jesus couldn’t do it by himself. And you can’t do it by yourself. Some days we have the honour of being Simon of Cyrene and helping a brother or sister carry their cross when it has become too much for them. On other days we are the ones in need of a Simon of Cyrene. Whether we are helping or being helped, it’s all the grace of God. Reliction question. Reflect on a time when you have needed the help of someone to carry a burden. And when have you been asked to help carry a burden for someone? Thank God for both those moments. Musci: Dear Gravity, Salt Of The Sound - Nearer to Thee. 

As the Roman governor Pontius Pilate—a man infamous in history for his cruelty—condemns Jesus to crucifixion, Barabbas is drawn into the sacred drama. Who was Barabbas? To understand the identity of Barabbas is to bring the tragedy of Good Friday into sharp focus—perhaps sharper than we would like. In understanding Barabbas, films like The Passion of the Christ have done us a disservice. Barabbas was not a deranged serial killer as depicted in Mel Gibson’s movie. Why would a crowd ever clamour for the release of a common murderer?  If we imagine Barabbas as a homicidal maniac, we will never imagine ourselves among the crowd shouting, “Give us Barabbas!” But we should. Barabbas wasn’t a common criminal, he was a national hero. Barabbas wasn’t a serial killer, he was a political prisoner. Barabbas wasn’t a murderous bandit, he was a revolutionary leader. Barabbas was a Jewish insurgent who had led an insurrection against the Roman occupation and who had killed someone during the uprising—probably a Roman soldier or a Jewish collaborator. Barabbas would have been viewed as a popular hero among much of Jerusalem’s population who longed for liberation from foreign occupation by whatever means. Barabbas wasn’t the Boston strangler. Barabbas was William Wallace or George Washington or Che Guevara. That casts Barabbas in a completely different light! Some ancient New Testament manuscripts give us the revolutionary’s full name as Jesus Barabbas, that is, Jesus Son of the Father. Jesus Barabbas is a rival messiah!  On Good Friday we are given the choice between two versions of Jesus—Jesus Barabbas or Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus of Nazareth calls us to the way of peace by loving our enemies and the practice of radical forgiveness. Jesus Barabbas is willing to fight our wars and kill our enemies in the name of freedom. Recently a well-known megachurch pastor said, “When I’m looking for a leader I want the meanest, toughest son of a gun I can find.” Whether he understands it or not, this evangelical pastor is saying, “Give us Barabbas!” For many American Christians, the politics of Jesus are dismissed as impractical and so they kick the can down the road saying, “maybe someday we can turn our swords into plowshares, but now is the time for us to build more B-2 bombers and stockpile nukes so we can kill all our enemies.” The crowd that gathers on Good Friday shouting, “Give us Barabbas!,” is far more plausible and numerous than most of us imagine. If we think that killing our enemies is compatible with Christian ethics, we are in effect saying, “Give us Barabbas!” But Lent is the time to rethink everything in the light of Christ. We are not called to scrutinize the Sermon on the Mount through the lens of the Pentagon; we are called to follow Jesus by embodying the kingdom of God here and now, no matter what the rest of the world does. Music by Simon Wester

Peter had made a rash vow that he would never desert or deny Jesus, even if it meant prison or death. And in the garden of Gethsemane Peter had bravely drawn his sword and used it in defence of his master. But when Jesus disarmed Peter and healed the wounded man in the arresting party, all the fight went out of the brash fisherman. If Jesus wasn’t going to fight for himself, why should he risk his life? So Peter fled from the garden. But later Peter secretly followed Jesus all the way into the courtyard of the high priest to see what would happen. And that’s where things began to fall apart. Perhaps without even knowing what he was doing, Peter denied having any association with Jesus to a servant girl. Later he did it again. And when a group of bystanders said they didn’t believe his denials because his country bumpkin Galilean accent gave him away, Peter cursed and swore he didn’t know the man! That’s when the rooster crowed. Matthew tells us what happened next in a short, painful sentence. “And he went out and wept bitterly.” I suppose we’ve all heard that rooster crow—the rooster of conviction that alerts us to how we’ve failed to live up to our lofty promise to faithfully follow Jesus. And we’ve all known the bitter tears of self-reproach induced by our failure. Yet this is one of the things I love about the Bible: it makes no attempt to cover up the sins of its seminal figures. We know about the crimes of Moses and David; we know about the failures of Abraham and Elijah; we know about the sins of Peter and Paul. Yet Moses and David, Abraham and Elijah, Peter and Paul are still presented as heroes of the faith. In the Bible all the saints are sinners. And we who are sinners called to be saints should find comfort in this. It’s not sin that disqualifies us as disciples of Jesus, but quitting. Peter denied Jesus, but he didn’t quit, and he was forgiven and restored. Judas betrayed Jesus…and hung himself. Judas’ betrayal of Jesus and Peter’s denial of Jesus were not categorically different sins; they may have differed in culpability, but they were similar. If Peter could be forgiven and restored, so could Judas. When you hear the rooster crow, you may weep bitterly for a while, but don’t give up, don’t quit. The rooster’s crow of conviction doesn’t signal the end of your journey, it just helps you get back on track. Just as Jesus restored Peter, Jesus can restore you. Music by Simon Wester (Used with permission) 

The Parable of the Prodigal: The Father and the Younger Son 11 Jesus went on: ‘Once there was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger son said to the father, “Father, give me my share in the property.” So he divided up his livelihood between them. 13 Not many days later the younger son turned his share into cash, and set off for a country far away, where he spent his share in having a riotous good time. 14 ‘When he had spent it all, a severe famine came on that country, and he found himself destitute. 15 So he went and attached himself to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into the fields to feed his pigs. 16 He longed to satisfy his hunger with the pods that the pigs were eating, and nobody gave him anything. 17 ‘He came to his senses. “Just think!” he said to himself. “There are all my father’s hired hands with plenty to eat – and here am I, starving to death! 18 I shall get up and go to my father, and I’ll say to him: ‘Father; I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I don’t deserve to be called your son any longer. Make me like one of your hired hands.’ ” 20 And he got up and went to his father. ‘While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and his heart was stirred with love and pity. He ran to him, hugged him tight, and kissed him. 21 “Father,” the son began, “I have sinned against heaven and before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son any longer.” 22 But the father said to his servants, “Hurry! Bring the best clothes and put them on him! Put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet! 23 And bring the calf that we’ve fattened up, kill it, and let’s eat and have a party! 24 This son of mine was dead, and is alive again! He was lost, and now he’s found!” And they began to celebrate.’ The Parable of the Prodigal: The Father and the Older Son 25 ‘The older son was out in the fields. When he came home, and got near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the servants and asked what was going on. 27 ‘ “Your brother’s come home!” he said. “And your father has thrown a great party – he’s killed the fattened calf! – because he’s got him back safe and well!” 28 ‘He flew into a rage, and wouldn’t go in. ‘Then his father came out and pleaded with him. 29 “Look here!” he said to his father, “I’ve been slaving for you all these years! I’ve never disobeyed a single commandment of yours. And you never even gave me a young goat so I could have a party with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours comes home, once he’s finished gobbling up your livelihood with his whores, you kill the fattened calf for him!” 31 ‘ “My son,” he replied, “you’re always with me. Everything I have belongs to you. 32 But we had to celebrate and be happy! This brother of yours was dead and is alive again! He was lost, and now he’s found!” ’ Music: Salt Of The Sound. In Prayer (Used with permission)

43 At once, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived, accompanied by a crowd, with swords and clubs, from the chief priests, the legal experts, and the elders. 44 The betrayer had given them a coded sign: ‘The one I kiss – that’s him! Seize him and take him away safely.’ 45 He came up to Jesus at once. ‘Rabbi!’ he said, and kissed him. 46 The crowd laid hands on him and seized him.

Jesus at Gethsemane Today we begin the stations of the cross. Traditionally these are stations of the cross that are visited once Jesus is condemned to death by Pilate. We will be doing an adaptation of his last 18 hours before his death, starting with his betrayal on Maunday Thursday to his burial at sunset on Good Friday. The first station is located in the Garden of Gethsemane. 32 They came to a place called Gethsemane. ‘Stay here,’ said Jesus to the disciples, ‘while I pray.’ 33 He took Peter, James and John with him, and became quite overcome and deeply distressed. 34 ‘ “My soul is disturbed within me”, he said, ‘right to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch.’ 35 He went a little further, and fell on the ground and prayed that, if possible, the moment might pass from him. 36 ‘Abba, father,’ he said, ‘all things are possible for you! Take this cup away from me! But – not what I want, but what you want.’ 37 He returned and found them sleeping. ‘Are you asleep, Simon?’ he said to Peter. ‘Couldn’t you keep watch for a single hour? 38 Watch and pray so that you won’t come into the time of trouble. The spirit is eager, but the body is weak.’ 39 Once more he went off and prayed, saying the same words. 40 And again, when he returned, he found them asleep, because their eyes were very heavy. They had no words to answer him. 41 But the third time he came, he said to them, ‘All right – sleep as much as you like now. Have a good rest. The job is done, the time has come – and look! The son of man is betrayed into the clutches of sinners. 42 Get up, let’s be on our way. Here comes the man who’s going to betray me.’ Our mediations on the Man of Sorrows begin as we see the Humanity of Jesus pressed to the breaking point in Gethsemane – an Aramaic word that means oil press. Here in the garden of the oil press, the anointed Messiah is under such pressure that he says “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” This kind of language from Jesus shocks us. At Gethsemane, we don't encounter a Jesus who is unflappable and impassable,a Jesus who knows what it is to be under horrible pressure. At Gethsemane, we see a Jesus who pleads for the cup of death to be taken away from him three times. At Gethsemane, we see two natures of Christ in one person. First human nature pleads, “remove this cup from me,” But the divine nature adds, “yet not what I want but what you want.” To read the gospel with unflinching honesty prevents us from denying the full humanity of Christ. Too many Christians have a hard time believing that Christ was fully human. People think that God is masquerading in human disguise. But at Gethsemane, we see the full humanity of Christ on display as he recoils from suffering and death. at Gethsemane, we are reminded that the Jesus who walked on water also sat at the well of Sychar weary from walking. At Gethsemane, we witness in hushed reverence as Jesus willingly empties himself of divine privilege in order to fully share in human suffering. As we read a few days ago in Philippians, the apostle Paul describes it like this: “Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to, but emptied himself.” This willing descent into suffering and death becomes a source of our salvation. By his wounds, we are healed. Music by: Simon Wester (Used with Permission) 

In Praise of Jesus Christ 15 He is the image of God, the invisible one, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For in him all things were created, in the heavens and here on the earth. Things we can see and things we cannot, – thrones and lordships and rulers and powers – all things were created both through him and for him. 17 And he is ahead, prior to all else and in him all things hold together; 18 and he himself is supreme, the Head over the body, the church. He is the start of it all, firstborn from realms of the dead; so in all things he might be the chief. 19 For in him all the Fullness was glad to dwell 20 and through him to reconcile all to himself, making peace through the blood of his cross, through him – yes, things on the earth, and also the things in the heavens. As we continue our journey towards the cross and Easter, I wanted to take time yesterday and today to look at two passages outside of the gospels that explicitly talk about who Jesus is. Today we are looking at a poem written in Paul's letter to the Colossians, in Praise of Jesus Christ. If you heard there was a TV program coming out and it was called "This is the head," you could draw many conclusions about what the show would be about before you saw it. Could it be a program about archaeology, with people looking at the human remains of a skeleton? Or it could be a show looking for a new head of operations. Or it could be a program about a grand river, and the river's source is the Head. There are many possibilities, and most likely the show wouldn't be about any of these, and proceed to talk about the importance of shampoo! The point is, there are many different meanings for the word Head, and this poem that we are now looking at is based on different meanings in Hebrew for the word Head. Jesus Christ is the firstborn (Vs. 15 and 18) Jesus Christ is Supreme (translated here to Ahead) Jesus Christ is the Head of the church. Jesus Christ is the beginning. This poem is beautifully balanced, and as we listen to it, we can see that Paul was trying to tell the Colossians something, but what is it? They need to know above all if they are to grow as Christians, increasing in wisdom, power, patience, and thanksgiving through the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ. It is worth going slowly through the poem and pondering the depths of the meanings that are to be found in it. There are three in particular that the poem points to. First, by looking at Jesus, we discover who God is. God is like Jesus. God has always been like Jesus. There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus. ... But now we do. Second, Jesus holds together the old world and new, creation and new creation. What we know in this world is sometimes beautiful and wonderful, but it has been corrupted by sin and evil. God's new Kingdom will have everything laid out as God had planned it. Jesus is the Head of our wonderful new creation. Third, Jesus is therefore the blueprint for the genuine humanness which is on offer in the Gospel. As the Head of the body, the church; as the first to rise again from the dead; as the one through whom new creation has begun; Jesus is indeed the one in whom we are called to discover what true humanness means to practice. As we listen again, take time to allow the poem's rhythms to grow in your heart. Allow the deep meanings of the poem to infiltrate your heart. Music: Simon Wester (Used With Permission) 

As we continue our Lenten journey, we must recognize the royal sacrifice that Jesus made and how he demonstrates to us how we should live our lives as he lived his. Jesus demonstrates that his kingdom is a kingdom that lays down royal rights rather than claiming more power and pride. When we live a life of humility, we do so in the footsteps of the creator of the universe. One of the most remarkable things about the Bible is that we find the narrative told from the perspective of the poor, the oppressed, the enslaved, the conquered, the occupied, the defeated in it; this is what makes it prophetic. We know that the winners typically write history; this is true — except in the case of the Bible, it’s the opposite! This is the subversive genius of the Hebrew prophets. They wrote from a bottom-up perspective. Every story is told from the vantage point of the underclass. But what happens if we lose sight of the prophetically subversive vantage point of the Bible? What happens if those on top in this world read themselves into the story, not as imperial Kings of Egypt, Babylon, and Rome, but as the Israelites? That’s when you get the bizarre phenomenon of the elite and entitled reading themselves into the story as the slaves and the hurting, and they end up using the Bible to endorse their dominance as God’s will. This is Roman Christianity after Constantine. This is Christendom on crusade. This is making the Bible dance a jig for our own amusement. As Jesus preached the arrival of the kingdom of God, he would frequently emphasize the revolutionary character of God’s reign by saying things like, “the last will be first and the first last.” As we hear this wonderful poem about the provocative nature of the kingdom of God, we see Jesus laying down his royal rights and taking on the nature of a servant. Confirming that the story of the Bible is to be written from the perspective of the unappreciated and unacknowledged. Imagine this: An influential, charismatic figure arrives on the world scene and amasses a great following by announcing the arrival of a new world arrangement where those at the bottom are to be promoted and those on top are to have their lifestyle “restructured.” How do people receive this? Now think about Jesus announcing the arrival of God’s kingdom with the proclamation of his counterintuitive Beatitudes. When Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” how was that received? Well, it depends on who is hearing it. The poor Galilean peasant would hear it as good news (gospel), while the Roman in his villa would hear it with deep suspicion. As we listen to this again, look at the ultimate sacrifice Jesus made for us. How does it change our perspective knowing that Jesus lay down his rightful place in heaven to come and die so that we may take on the image of Christ? And as we take on the image of Christ, what does that look like for you and me? Music: Salt of The Sound - Dwell Among Us (Used with Permission)  Dear Gravity: I Hope This Letter Finds You Well. 

Today is Wednesday the 30th of March, the 29th day of Lent. Today’s reading comes from Matthew 7:7-12 7 ‘Ask and it will be given to you! Search and you will find! Knock and the door will be opened for you! 8 Everyone who asks receives; everyone who searches finds; everyone who knocks will have the door opened. 9 Don’t you see? Supposing your son asks you for bread – which of you is going to give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish – which of you is going to give him a serpent? 11 Well then: if you know how to give good gifts to your children, evil as you are, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! 12 ‘So whatever you want people to do to you, do just that to them. Yes; this is what the law and the prophets are all about.’ We are called to live our lives in expressed acknowledgement and utter dependence upon God. We are to act like and see ourselves and behave as those that are utterly dependent upon God. We should live lives that are completely unexplainable if the God of the bible doesn’t exist. Because it’s too easy to say we believe in God, yet at the same time, live as if he didn’t. We live in a time where we have produced a society and completely tries to live apart from God. We have pushed God to the periphery. Certainly, in North America, we have a basic belief that God is involved on some sort of level in our lives, but as for our complete dependence on him? That is not how most North Americans live. God is calling us to Ask, Seek and Knock. The God whom Jesus reveals to us in his preaching, he shows us to be a gracious and generous father. But what is God gracious with? Well. Previously, in Chapter 6, we understand that God is not calling us to store up treasures here on earth, so we can ascertain that God is not expressly saying that he wants to give us all sorts of treasures of this world. As we read this same passage in the book of Luke, it says.  If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” What God is generous with and what Jesus is saying for us to ask, seek and knock and you will be given what you need and that his Christ living in you through the spirit of God. What we look for to bring comfort in this world is things that we can gain independently. Fame, fortune and power. Well, after Easter Sunday, when the disciples met the resurrected Jesus in the upper room, their perspective on what they would be asking for had changed dramatically. Prior to the death of Jesus, the “ask, seek, knock” of the disciples would be see the reign of God come with power take hold of the roman army. After the resurrection, when Jesus enters the upper room and the disciples realize who God is, their “Ask, Seek, Knock” is completely changed. When we encounter the King, our request becomes that his spirit would dwell in us, and we would live a life worthy of the calling of Jesus. What Jesus is promising if you ask, seek and knock is the presence of God residing in our hearts, minds and souls. Ask, and Jesus will stay with you. Seek, and Jesus will be found by you Knock and Jesus will come to the door. Music: Salt of The Sound. In Prayer. I Need Thee (Used With Permission) 

Do Not Worry  Today's reading in the Sermon on the Mount shows us how much our Father in heaven cares for us. Has it ever struck you what a basically happy person Jesus was? Yes, according to the prophesies, we know that he was a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. We know the scene in Gethsemane where he is wrestling with his Father. We understand that the world's darkness and sadness descended upon him on the cross. We know he wept at the tomb of Lazarus. But these are exceptions, the dark patches painted onto the bright background. As we read a passage like this, we can see the brightness of Jesus shining through. He had watched the birds wheeling around, high up on the currents of the air in the Galilean hills, simply enjoying being alive. Jesus had figured out that the birds never really seemed to do the humans' work, yet mostly stayed alive and well. He had seen the thousands of different kinds of flowers growing in the fertile Galilee soil and had held his breath at their fragile beauty. Jesus knew that these lilies would be better-taken care of than someone in the care of Solomon with all his resources. Jesus had a robust and lively sense of his Father's goodness, the creator of the world. His whole Spirituality is many a mile from those teachers who insisted that the present world is filled with shadows and gloom and vanity, and that true philosophy consists in escaping it. His teaching grew out of his experience. When he told his followers not to worry about tomorrow, we must assume he led by example. Jesus wasn't looking ahead anxiously, even though he would be justified. Jesus seemed to have the skill of living entirely in the present, giving attention to the needs and beauty that lay before him, celebrating the goodness of God here and now. And he wanted his followers to do the same. When Jesus tells us not to worry about what to eat, or drink, or wear, he doesn't mean that these things don't matter. He is not saying to wear the rattiest clothing and eat and drink as little as possible. Far from it! Jesus likes to party as much as anyone. The point of this is priorities. Put the world first, and you'll find it gets moth-eaten in your hands. But put God first, and you'll get the world thrown in. Living totally without worry sounds, to many people, as impossible as living totally without breathing. Some people are so hooked on worry that if they haven't got anything to worry about, they worry that they have forgotten something to worry about in the first place. Here, at the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, is an invitation that surprisingly few people try to take up—the invitation not to worry.

Today we are starting our week in the Lord's prayer. Prayer has become a lot of different things over the history of the church, and indeed it has become a lot of other things in our personal lives. I clearly remember my first times praying in Front of people some 30 years ago and not wanting to slip up. I tried my hardest to get the words just right so that 1. I wouldn't make a fool of myself, and 2. I might look good. I also remember the not-so-distant past when I have thought roughly the same thought. As simple as it is, we can complicate prayer far more than need be. Today, in the sermon on the mount, we are reminded how simple prayer not only can be but how simple prayer must be. Our father wants us to talk to him, and he has done everything to make talking with him as easy as possible. Sometimes we need to go back to the Lord's prayer and remember what prayer is all about. Everything we need in a prayer list is right here in this passage. We will hear each section of the Lord's prayer as we reflect, including an expanded prayer. After praying, take a few moments to sit with the Lord's prayer section. Perhaps write out a thought or pray aloud to your father in heaven. After we get through this exercise, we will take a moment to hear what God wants to speak to us in response. Our Father, Holy Father, Abba Father, in the heavens, Hallowed, holy, sacred be your name. From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, The name of the Lord is to be praised. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts, The whole earth is full of your glory. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, Who was and is and is to come. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, On earth, as it is in heaven. Thy government come, thy politics be done, On earth, as it is in heaven. Thy reign and rule come, thy plans and purposes be done, On earth, as it is in heaven. May we be in anticipation of the age to come. May we embody the reign of Christ here and now. Give us day by day our daily bread. Provide for the poor among us. As we seek first your kingdom and your justice, May all we need be provided for us. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Transform us by the Holy Spirit into a forgiving community of forgiven sinners. Lead us not into trouble, trial, tribulation or temptation. Be mindful of our frame, we are just dust, We can only take so much. Lead us out of the wilderness into the promised land that flows with milk and honey, Lead us out of the badlands into resurrection country. Deliver us from evil and the evil one. Save us from satan, the accuser and adversary. So that every tongue that rises against us in accusation you will condemn. So that every fiery dart of the wicked one is extinguished by the shield of faith. So that as we submit to you and resist the devil, the devil flees. So that as we draw near to Jesus Christ lifted up, His cross becomes for us the center, the very core of love expressed in forgiveness, the only true hope of the world; And the devil, who become the false ruler of the fallen world, Is driven out from among us. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen. Music: Salt Of The Sound - In Prayer (Used with Permission) 

Today is Sunday the 27th of March, the 26th day of Lent. Today’s reading comes from Matthew 5: 43-48 43 ‘You heard that it was said, “Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” 44 But I tell you: love your enemies! Pray for people who persecute you! 45 That way, you’ll be children of your father in heaven! After all, he makes his sun rise on bad and good alike, and sends rain both on the upright and on the unjust. 46 Look at it like this: if you love those who love you, do you expect a special reward? Even tax-collectors do that, don’t they? 47 And if you only greet your own family, what’s so special about that? Even Gentiles do that, don’t they? 48 Well then: you must be perfect, just as your heavenly father is perfect.’ Today we arrive at the most extraordinary passage in the Sermon on the Mount. If you have assumed that the sermon on the mount is little more than a collection of religious cliches, I hope that today we can lay that thinking to rest. What we see in this passage is amazing, and if need be, life-changing teaching. Jesus begins in this passage like he has 5 times before in the sermon on the Mount. “You have heard it said” By saying this, Jesus captures the assumptions of a culture. He says this is what the people have heard before, this is the script that they have been given, and this is what you have believed, but today I want to show you a better way. He begins by saying that you have heard it said to love your neighbour and hate your enemies. Without saying the word hate, we have been brought up in a world that encourages us to love those that are similar to us, and distance ourselves from those that are different. We as Christians would never use the word hate, but there is a line in western culture of “us and them” The most simplistic and comfortable way of looking at the world is through a lease of good and bad and good and evil. Most likely we place ourselves in the good category and others in the other category. Today’s reading is calling us to love those that we don’t understand. If we want to be more like our father in heaven, then we need to find a way to reach out and love those who are different than us. Those we don’t naturally see as a fit within our Christian dogma. Jesus didn’t just tell us to love our enemies, he lived this life as well. As we lead up to lent, we will soon see the greatest demonstration of loving enemies. When Jesus hung on the cross he prayed for the people that placed him on that cross: “Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” Before we hear this passage again let's ask God to reveal to us who we need to show his love to. Perhaps it's just someone down the street who believes a different religion than us, or a different set of morals, or beliefs.  Ask God how you can show his love Music: Dear Gravity 

Today's reading comes from Matthew 5: 13-16 Salt and Light 13 'You're the salt of the earth! But if the salt becomes tasteless, how is it going to get salty again? It's no good for anything. You might as well throw it out and walk all over it. 14 'You're the light of the world! A city can't be hidden if it's on top of a hill. 15 People don't light a lamp and put it under a bucket; they put it on a lampstand. Then it gives light to everybody in the house. 16 That's how you must shine your light in front of people! Then they will see what wonderful things you do, and they'll give glory to your father in heaven. As we hear Jesus speak to us about being the salt and the light, he speaks to us about our identity in this world. Who are we? We are salt and light. As salt, we are both a seasoning and a preservative for our world. If you need a bit of flavour in your food, you add a bit of salt to add flavour. In Jesus' times, there was no refrigeration to preserve food, so salt was also used as a preservative to keep food and help it last. Jesus is sprinkling us into this world to add the flavour of Christ and God's love. We are also a preservative to uphold the integrity of what it means to be Christlike and demonstrate who Jesus is and preserve his image for the world to see. Being the salt of the earth, we are not the morality police. Salt does not preserve food by calling out the rottenness in the food that it surrounds, salt preserves the food simply by being present—so preventing decay. Jesus also calls us to be the light of the world. Interestingly, Jesus calls us the light of the world because in John 8, he calls himself the light of the world. So what is it? Are we the light, or is Jesus? it is both and. It works like this: we are to be a mirror reflection of the light of Jesus in the world for the sake of the world. We are indeed following Jesus and so we are walking in that light but that light is not for us alone. As light, we are reflecting the light of God's love into a world growing dark because of tribalism, rage, and despair. We are called to reflect something different in the world God loves. The pollution of perpetual rage has left people in a place of bitterness, cynicism, and despair, which is an awful state of existence. We who follow Jesus are the hopeful hope-bringers who shine the hope of the gospel into the darkness of despair. Music: Salt of The Sound and Simon Wester (Used with Permission) 

Jesus began his sermon with words that seem to contradict each other and a message that is backwards from the way we tend to see things in our world. Many years ago there was a movie made about the first Test pilot to break the sound barrier. No plane had ever flown faster than the speed of sound. Many people didn't believe it was possible. Some thought that the plane would disintegrate under the forces that would be generated. Eventually, in the movie, various pilots took their planes over the magic figure of 735 mph, only to have the planes disintegrate with the huge vibrations, or to crash. The controls, it seemed, refused to work properly once the plane had come to the sound barrier. Finally, at the climax of the movie, another test pilot figured out what to do. Seemed that when the plane broke the sound barrier the controls began to work backwards. Pulling the stick to make the plane bring its nose up send it downwards instead. Greatly daring, he flew to the same speed. But the critical moment, instead of pulling the stick back he pushed it forwards. That would normally send the plane into a dive, but his hunch had been correct. The nose came up, and the plane flew on, fast and free, faster than anyone had travelled before. This story is not historically accurate. Chuck Yeager, the first human to move faster than the speed of sound in real life, was often asked whether he has done it the way it was shown in the movie, but instead, it wasn't like that. However, the story gives a graphic illustration of what Jesus is doing in these apparently simple words. He is taking the controls and making them work backwards. The only explanation seems to be that Jesus is taking God's people through the sound barrier - taking them somewhere they've never been before. People often say what a wonderful teaching the Beatitudes is, and if only people would obey it the world would be a better place. But if we think that Jesus is just telling us how to act or behave, we will miss what is really going on. These blessings, the wonderful news that he is announcing, are not saying try hard to live like this. They are saying that people who already are like this are in good shape. They are in the hands of God. Jesus is not suggesting that these are simply timeless truths. He is saying that mourners often go uncomforted, the meek don't inherit the earth, those who long for justice frequently take that long into the grave. This is an announcement, not just a philosophical analysis of the world. It's about something that is starting to happen, not just a general truth of life. It is Gospel: Good news, not good advice. Let's listen one more time, but this time let's hear the beatitudes shared with a bit more description. Blessed are those who are poor at being spiritual, For the kingdom of heaven is well-suited for ordinary people. Blessed are the depressed who mourn and grieve, For they create space to encounter comfort from another. Blessed are the gentle and trusting, who are not grasping and clutching, For God will personally guarantee their share when heaven comes to earth. Blessed are those who ache for the world to be made right, For them the government of God is a dream come true. Blessed are those who give mercy, For they will get it back when they need it most. Blessed are those who have a clean window in their soul, For they will perceive God when and where others don’t. Blessed are the bridge-builders in a war-torn world, For they are God’s children working in the family business. Blessed are those who are mocked and misunderstood for the right reasons, For the kingdom of heaven comes to earth amidst such persecution. Music: Salt of The Sound/Simon Wester. 

Our reading today is about Jesus’ greatest miracle. The raising of Lazarus. This is the climactic 7th sign in the exquisitely crafted Gospel of John. John introduced us to the ministry of Jesus with the sign of turning water into wine. There we learn that Jesus is the one who brings the feast of the Kingdom of God. John concludes his records of the signs of Jesus by sharing with us Jesus’ greatest miracle of raising a man who was four days dead. This last sign points us to Jesus as the one that saves us from all that would destroy us, including the ultimate enemy, death itself. In his novel Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky writes about a central character who is an intelligent yet impoverished student in St. Petersburg named Raskolnikov. In the book, Raskolnikov commits the murder of a pawnbroker and her sister. In the course of the story, Raskolnikov befriends Sonya, a prostitute redeemed by Christ. In one of the most riveting scenes of the Novel, Raskolnikov, who is about to confess his crime to Sonya, asks her to read him the story of Jesus raising Lazarus. Before Sonya reads it, Raskolnikov asks her if she believes the story, to which she replies, “yes, with all my heart.” Raskolnikov is asking if there is any hope for someone like him to be redeemed. Sonya then reads the full story in the novel, and the scene ends like this: “That’s all about the raising of Lazarus,” she whispered. The candle was flickering out in the battered candlestick, casting a dim light in the destitute room upon the murderer and the harlot strangely come together over the reading of the eternal book.” The raising of Lazarus gives us a sign that no one is beyond the saving reach of Jesus Christ. No matter how dead we are in our sins, Jesus is the one who has the power to recall us back to life. This final sign foreshadows what we look forward to in the triumph of Easter Sunday. Jesus will defeat death. Christ is risen from the dead. Trampling down death by death And upon those in the tombs Bestowing life Lord Jesus, we believe that you are the resurrection and the life. Show us the glory of God by calling us out of our tombs of sin and restoring us to life. Music: Salt of The Sound, In Prayer  (used with Permission) Simon Wester, Be Still (used with permission)

Today, in our Gospel reading, we see Jesus as the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep and brings abundant life. But who are these false shepherds? The ones that come only to steal, kill and destroy? To understand this we need to understand that the shepherd motif is messianic. The most common title for the Messiah was the Son of David, thus indicating that the Messiah would not only come from the line of David but in some way be like David, who was a shepherd who became the King of Israel. The Prophet Micah predicted that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, as David was, and that he would lead, feed and protect the Lord's Flock. By the time Jesus came around, the Good Shepherd was an established metaphor for the Messiah. Therefore in this teaching, when Jesus speaks of the bad shepherds, he is speaking about the self-appointed false messiahs who were common throughout the first century. We actually know quite a bit about these false messiahs who rose and fell in and around the time of Jesus. There was Judas Bar Hezekiah, a messiah who supported his movement through a band of highway robbers. Another would-be messiah was Anthongs the Shepherd, a revolutionary who waged guerilla warfare, killing Roman soldiers. And Simon of Peraea, an escaped slave with messianic claims, destroyed Herod's palace in Jericho. Jesus was describing these three and other bad shepherds, who only came to Steal, Kill and destroy. Jesus contrasted his mission with the bad shepherds and false messiahs. He didn't come to steal, and he came to serve He didn't come to kill, and he came to lay down his life He didn't come to destroy but to bring abundant life. Today let us listen to the peaceable voice of our good shepherd. We live in a world filled with claims of “only I can fix it” But if it is a voice of greed, violence and hostility, then we know that it is not the voice of our Good Shepherd. Lord Jesus, you are the Good Shepherd who leads us in the way of peace; help us to know your voice so well that we will never be taken in by the false shepherds.

John constructs his Gospel around 7 signs: The water turned to wine in Cana, the healing of the royal official's son in Capernaum, the healing of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda, the feeding of the 5000 at the sea of Galilee, Jesus walking on water, The healing of this man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus from the dead. John doesn’t speak of these as miracles, but he speaks of them as signs. These signs are supposed to point us to something significant about the ministry of Jesus. Today we are reading the 6th sign, and this sign takes up the entire chapter, and is filled with drama as the man that was healed is left to defend himself. He bests the Pharisees in a theological debate and is expelled from the synagogue for it. The story opens with the disciples observing the man born blind and raising the theological question of who is to blame for it. But Jesus dismisses the line of questioning. What Jesus is saying is that when we observe someone suffering, the question should not be who is to blame? but how can we help? We have all seen Christian blame assigned to the victims of hurt and pain, but the blame is what the enemy does. What we, as followers of Jesus are called to, is co-suffering love. To mourn with those who mourn and weep with those who weep. Jesus is instructing his disciples, and is ultimately instructing us when we observe suffering,. We are not to take the opportunity to assign blame, but to take the opportunity to do the works of God by helping to heal, restore and alleviate the suffering as best we can. “Blame is the devils game, Love is the high calling of a Christian” As Hans Urs Von Balthasar said “Love alone is credible; nothing else can be believed” This brings us to the meaning of this sign. As we look at the end of the chapter we see the last verse: 41 ‘If you were blind,’ replied Jesus, ‘you wouldn’t be guilty of sin. But now, because you say, “We can see”, your sin remains.’ There is an innocence in admitting that we are too blind to pass judgement on others. We don’t have to have an opinion on everything, especially when it comes to the question of who is to blame. It will always be enough for us to say: “I don’t know who is to blame, I’m just here to help.” As we end, let's hear what Paul has to say in his second letter to the Corinthians. Chapter 1:3. 3 Let us bless God, the father of our Lord, King Jesus; he is the father of mercies and the God of all comfort. 4 He comforts us in all our trouble so that we can then comfort people in every kind of trouble, through the comfort with which God comforts us. Lord Jesus, We confess that we are too blind to pass judgment on others, so we turn away from seeking to blame and turn to share your love and comfort. Help us, we pray. Amen. Music (Used with Permission): Simon Wester, Passage Of Time Salt of The Sound, In Prayer 

John 8:1-11New Testament for Everyone 8 1 and Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 In the morning he went back to the Temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught out in adultery. They stood her out in the middle. 4 ‘Teacher,’ they said to him. ‘This woman was caught in the very act of adultery. 5 In the law, Moses commanded us to stone people like this. What do you say?’ 6 They said this to test him, so that they could frame a charge against him. Jesus squatted down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 When they went on pressing the question, he got up and said to them, ‘Whichever of you is without sin should throw the first stone at her.’ 8 And once again he squatted down and wrote on the ground. 9 When they heard that, they went off one by one, beginning with the oldest. Jesus was left alone, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus looked up. ‘Where are they, woman?’ he asked. ‘Hasn’t anybody condemned you?’ 11 ‘Nobody, sir,’ she replied. ‘Well, then,’ said Jesus, ‘I don’t condemn you either! Off you go – and from now on don’t sin again!’

A psalm of David. 1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. 2  He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3  he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths  for his name’s sake. 4 Even though I walk  through the darkest valley,[a] I will fear no evil,  for you are with me; your rod and your staff,  they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me  in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil;  my cup overflows. 6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me  all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord  forever. Let us take some time to reflect on David’s most well-known Psalm. As we live near the mountains, many of us will have come across wildlife in our time. Bears snakes, perhaps even Cougars. At one time or another, most of us have probably been told what to do if we ever happen upon such creatures. But in all honesty, we would probably all rather just avoid them altogether. A shepherd would know that these creatures exist and be very well equipped to deal with them and protect the sheep in his care. When we allow God our Shepherd to guide us, we can be assured that he has our best interest in mind. Knowing that if we follow close to him, the animals mentioned earlier may come near, but there is no safer place to be than near the Shepherd. When we choose to go our own way, however, we cannot blame the Shepherd for the environment we create for ourselves. When we choose independence from the Shepherd, we decide to fight our battles without the protection of the Good Shepherd, who wants to guide us through the wilderness that we call this life. Our Good Shepherd knows the green meadows and peaceful streams that will renew us in our darkest moments, and he knows the path that will give us the best chance against the predatory beasts. Even though we are bound to find dark valleys, we can choose to trust in Jesus, who has walked the darkest valley and will always be close beside us. Music: Salt Of The Sound: Abide With Me Dear Gravity: I Hope This Letter Finds You Well.

Jesus tells the Parable of the persistent widow. 18 Jesus told them a parable, about how they should always pray and not give up. 2 ‘There was once a judge in a certain town,’ he said, ‘who didn’t fear God, and didn’t have any respect for people. 3 There was a widow in that town, and she came to him and said, “Judge my case! Vindicate me against my enemy!” 4 ‘For a long time he refused. But, in the end, he said to himself, “It’s true that I don’t fear God, and don’t have any respect for people. 5 But because this widow is causing me a lot of trouble, I will put her case right and vindicate her, so that she doesn’t end up coming and giving me a black eye.” 6 ‘Well,’ said the master, ‘did you hear what this unjust judge says? 7 And don’t you think that God will see justice done for his chosen ones, who shout out to him day and night? Do you suppose he is deliberately delaying? 8 Let me tell you, he will vindicate them very quickly. But – when the son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth?’ Today's reading may catch us off guard. What is going on here? Why is this Judge, who clearly doesn't fear God, saying that he should grant her requests before she punches him in the face? Perhaps we should talk about this before we read this passage again. Suppose you have just sat down to watch a show like Judge Judy. Usually, when you are watching one of these shows you will come to your own conclusion of which way you think the Judge should give their verdict, and hopefully, the Judge will be someone of high character and make the right choice. In these shows, we see civil cases, where one person brings charges against another seeking justice for their small claim cases. The Judge makes the decision and gives her verdict, and its case is closed. In the ancient Jewish Law court. Every case was like this. If someone had stolen from you, it was your job to bring the charges to the court and plead with the Judge. If someone had murdered a relative of yours, the same would be true. Every case in Jesus' day was a matter of a judge deciding to vindicate one party. Vindication or justification means upholding their side of the story and deciding in their favour. The word Justification means precisely this: the Judge finds in one's favour at the end of the case. Here, in this parable, we are puzzled at first glance since, though Jesus intends to judge to stand for God, this Judge is about as unlike God as possible. He has no respect for God himself, and he doesn't care whether he does the right thing for people or not. The point of this parable is then to say: if even a rotten judge like that can be persuaded to do the right thing by someone who pesters him day and night until it happens, then, of course, God, who is Justice in person, and cares passionately about people, will vindicate them, will see that Justice is done. This parable is about praying for and waiting for Justice and vindication. A widow is among the most vulnerable in this Jewish society. Suppose the persistent pleading for Justice and vindication from a judge who doesn't know God is successful, then how much more do we think God, who loves us unconditionally, will bring Justice and vindication. Jesus told this story to teach his disciples that they should pray and never give up their pursuit of Justice, even in the face of indifference and even downright evil. So, let the widow's prayer become our prayer..." Grant me, Justice, against the adversary." As we listen to this again, let us remember that this is a parable that we should always pray and not give up. Music: Dear Gravity Simon Wester 

Yesterday we looked at the Pharisees. But who were the despised Tax Collectors? Tax collectors were Jewish collaborators with the Roman occupiers. For a hansom prophet, they undertook the onerous task of collecting tax revenue for the Roman empire from their fellow Jews. Generally, they employed no small amount of extortion and dishonesty in their work. It's little wonder that though rich, they were generally despised. It is important to note that the term "Sinners" in the bible is not referring merely to those who sin, but to those who have been formally excluded from Jewish religious life because of particular sins. The top of the list was the colluding, cheating tax collectors. Understanding who the tax collectors were helps us understand what's going on when Luke tells us, "The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying 'This man receives sinners and eats with them.'" The scandal was that Jesus was willing to dine with excluded tax collectors and exiled sinners before they repented. Jesus dined with both Pharisees and Tax Collectors. He was willing to share a table with the tax collectors despite their sins of dishonesty and extortion and the Pharisees despite their sins of self-righteousness and pride. When Jesus came to Jericho, he dined with Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector. Jesus didn't require any repentance before sitting at the table with him. By the end of the meal, without any written signs that Jesus preached at Zacchaeus, he pledged to amend his ways and right his wrongs and give half his wealth to the poor. Such is the transformative power of the unconditional love that animated the ministry of Jesus. What a thousand sermons from a hundred Pharisees could never accomplish, Jesus accomplished by simply sharing a meal with the most despised man in town. Jesus brought salvation to his house. Salvation came to Zacchaeus, not by a formal prayer in a religious temple, but by inviting Jesus into his real life as it was, and suddenly discovering that because of Jesus, he wanted to change his life. Salvation is not a status update but a fundamental transformation of our lives. At his core, Zacchaeus wasn't really a con and a cheat; he was really a wayward son of Abraham who needed to be sought after and loved and brought to the table of fellowship. Zacchaeus was a real-life prodigal son redeemed by love. Lord Jesus, may we again receive you into our home so that your love and grace can save us by transforming us into true sons and daughters of God. Amen. Music: Dear Gravity - Pilgrimage Series Salt Of The Sound - Known. 

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector 9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Most of us are predisposed to divide the world into good and bad people, the righteous and the unrighteous. But Jesus rarely does this. For Jesus, the prominent categories of differentiation are the proud and the humble. We are all sinners; the question is, are we proud sinners or are we humble sinners? If we are proud sinners, we concoct ways to justify ourselves by favourably comparing ourselves to people we deem “worse” than us. Looking for a lower watermark that makes shines a positive light on us. But if we are humble sinners, we throw ourselves entirely on the mercy of God. This is what Jesus sets forth in the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisees are a tragic story and a cautionary tale. They were a religious, political party that arose around 150 years before the birth of Jesus. The Pharisees urged their fellow Jews to preserve their Jewish identity and remain separate from the corrupting influence of the idolatrous Pegan world. The Pharisees were a covenant people and were looking to maintain their allegiance to the God of Israel by remaining separate from the sins of Idolatry.” It is important to note that Pharisees began as a sincere and commendable movement seeking to preserve Jewish identity in a Pegan ocean. Unfortunately, by the time of Jesus, the Pharisees had devolved into the self-appointed morality police, deeply infected with the disease of self-righteousness. They had become a movement aimed at taking back Israel for God and convinced of their own purity while aiming their anger at sinners, and those sinners we epitomized by the tax collectors. In Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë captures what the Pharisees had become in this scathing sentence: “He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee whoever ransacked a Bible to rake the promise to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours. This is what can happen if we adhere to the seductive adage, “hate the sin, but love the sinner.” It sounds good but almost always leads to the tragedy of a self-righteous life. Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the Tax collector teaches us to love the sinner and hate our own sin. The Pharisee is very aware of the tax collector as he poses before God in the parable. In the back corner, the tax collector is aware only of his own sin and his desperate need for God’s mercy. As we spend some time in a quiet space, let us employ the ancient Christian Practice of repeatedly praying the Jesus Prayer. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Amen. Music: Salt of The Sound. Lamb of God Simon Wester. The Secret Place, Touched By Heaven.

At the Home of Martha and Mary 38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” 41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one.[f] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Before we hear this again, let’s dig a bit deeper and see what is going on here. The primary purpose of prayer is not to get God to do what we think God ought to do but to be profoundly formed. Towards this end, we need both liturgical and contemplative forms of prayer. AKA: Talking with Jesus and just sitting at the feet of Jesus. Two thousand years ago, Mary of Bethany discovered that sitting with Jesus is the one thing that is necessary if we want to form our soul in the way of health and peace. When Jesus came to Jerusalem, he often stayed in the nearby village of Bethany as a guest of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. They had a large enough home to accommodate Jesus and his disciples. On this occasion, when Jesus was staying at their home, he was teaching the disciples while Martha was kept busy – the text says she was distracted - in serving the guests. Breaking the social norms of her day, Mary did not assister her sister in serving the Men but sat at Jesus’ feet as one of the disciples. When Martha, in her irritation, complained to Jesus and asked him to tell her sister to stop sitting and start doing, Jesus gently admonished Martha for being anxious and troubled about so many things. Jesus commended Mary for having chosen the one thing that really is necessary. Martha, the busy sister, is very well intended, but her noble intentions aren’t enough to prevent her from being anxious. Peace of mind is not an inherited reward for strict adherence to duty, but it is a state that is cultivated through contemplative practices centred on Jesus. Isaiah said, “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are stayed on you.” In liturgical and personal prayer, we use words to become adequately formed and to present our petitions. But in contemplative prayer, we sit silently, acknowledging the presence of Christ. After we listen to this passage again, position yourself at the feet of Jesus. Just sit with him. Be in his presence. I will pray a prayer. After I pray that prayer, simply sits with Jesus. For Jesus, himself is salvation, peace and healing. Christ, I acknowledge you. Christ above me, very God of very God. Christ below me, incarnate of the earth. Christ before me when seen. Christ behind me when unseen. Christ at my right hand in my strength Christ on my left in my weakness. Christ all around me filling all things everywhere with himself. Christ within me, formed by faith. Music: Salt Of The Sound - Abide With Me Meditations Volume 5

Luke 10:35-37. 26 ‘Well,’ replied Jesus, ‘what is written in the law? What’s your interpretation of it?’ 27 ‘You shall love the Lord your God’, he replied, ‘with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your understanding; and your neighbour as yourself.’ 28 ‘Well said!’ replied Jesus. ‘Do that and you will live.’ 29 ‘Ah,’ said the lawyer, wanting to win the point, ‘but who is my neighbour?’ 33 ‘But a travelling Samaritan came to where he was. When he saw him he was filled with pity. 34 He came over to him and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine. Then he put him on his own beast, took him to an inn, and looked after him. 35 The next morning, as he was going on his way, he gave the innkeeper two dinars. “Take care of him,” he said, “and on my way back I’ll pay you whatever else you need to spend on him.” Yesterday we saw how James and John wanted Jesus to nuke a Samaritan Village then we saw how differently Jesus reacted. Today, we see a member from the same group of people that James and John wanted to destroy become the parable's hero and focus. Jesus gives this parable in response to a Lawyer trying to wiggle his way out of loving his neighbour by asking for clarification on who constitutes a neighbour. The Lawyer had understood that Jesus had identified that we needed to love God and our neighbours, but the Scholar was looking for a loophole because there were obviously some people he didn't want to love. Jesus could have constructed the parable to show a noble Jew showing mercy on a Samaritan victim, and this would have been a step in the right direction, but it would have kept the Jew in the superior role. But Jesus casts his parable so that the Jew is the victim and the other Jewish people fail to act in love. The Samaritan is the hero of the story. This story is a shift in understanding that we need to view all people in the image of God. We need not stop relating to ourselves and others as “I” and “It,” and start referring to us and others as “I” and “His.” If we see every person we meet as His creation, then we will begin to treat everyone we meet as people created in the Image of God, no matter their background or track record. Rabbi Pinchas once asked his students to tell when the night had ended, and the day had begun. One student suggested that maybe it could be when you see an animal in the distance, and you can tell whether it is a sheep or a dog? "No," answered the rabbi. Another asked, "is it when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it's a fig tree or a date palm?" "No,” answered the rabbi. "Then when is it?" the pupils demanded. Rabbi Pinchas said, "It is when you can look into the face of any person and recognize them as your sister or brother. Until we are able to do that, it is still night." Rabbi Pinchas has mastered the lesson given to us by Jesus in this parable of the Good Samaritan. The question is who is my neighbour? And the answer is: Any person, loved one or enemy, that I have an opportunity to love help and alleviate their suffering. When we see all humans as image-bearers of Jesus and worthy of us bending our knee to help them up when they fall down - including those we call our enemy, then we will truly begin to love like Jesus loved God help us to see everyone we meet through your eyes. Lord Jesus, lead us in the way of life by teaching us how to recognize every person as our neighbour; and give us the grace to engage with our neighbours in co-suffering love. Amen Music: Dear Gravity - I Hope This Letter Finds You Well: See You Once More, The Wonders. 

Jesus is rejected by a Samaritan Village 51 As the time came nearer for Jesus to be taken up, he settled it in his mind to go to Jerusalem. 52 He sent messengers ahead of him. They came into a Samaritan village to get them ready, 53 and they refused to receive him, because his mind was set on going to Jerusalem. 54 When the disciples James and John saw it, they said, ‘Master, do you want us to call down fire from heaven and burn them up?’ 55 He turned and rebuked them, 56 and they went on to another village. As Jesus begins his final journey into Jerusalem, he and his disciples pass through Samaria. The Samaritans were a people related to the ancient Israelites of the Northern Kingdom. They had a shared history with the Jewish people, but deep-seated hostilities between the two peoples were based on religious differences and territorial disputes. The conflict between the Jewish people and the Samaritans in Jesus' day was not unlike the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians today. That Jesus engaged with Samaritans, let alone used them as heroes in his parables, would be highly provocative to most Jewish people. One of the disputes between the Jews and Samaritans was about proper locations for ceremonial worship. The Jews said it was the temple in Jerusalem and the Samaritans claimed it was the mountains of Samaria where the patriarchs had built their alters. While Jesus and his disciples were passing through on their way to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, they were refused hospitality in a Samaritan village because of their religious differences. James and John were so offended that they asked if they could call down fire from heaven and burn up the village! A reaction that I think we would all agree with is a bit strong. James and John, who had just been with Elijah on mount Tabor pillaged the bible to find a warrant for their idea by citing the incident when Elijah twice called down fire from heaven. What we see in today's reading is the aptly named “Sons of Thunder” trying to coerce the prince of peace into a drone strike of their enemies. Yesterday we saw the idea floated that Jesus, Moses and Elijah be treated as equals with a shrine made for all three, but a voice from heaven said “This is my beloved son, listen to him!” But today, James and John have apparently forgotten about what they heard and are looking to bring fire. Jesus was unimpressed and rebuked the two disciples for and idea that, though we have seen in the bible, was utterly contrary to what Jesus came to accomplish. All Scripture is fulfilled in and by Jesus Christ. So, if we don’t see it in Jesus, we need to let it go. We are in constant contact with people we disagree with, and what Jesus is calling us to do is respond in love and peace, not hate and vengeance. In today's reading, we see a group of people refusing to host another group of people because of their religious differences. We also see some in the spurned group react in an unloving manner. Jesus calls us to peace, even when we disagree with people. Take some time to search your heart to see if you have ever reacted poorly towards those you disagree with? Perhaps take a moment to pray for those people. Ask God if there may be steps you can take to build a relationship that may have been broken. Music: Salt Of The Sound:  Holy Ground Simon Wester: Morning Prayer, Among Us 

The Transfiguration Jesus is what God has to say.  17 After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and James’s brother John, and led them off up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There he was transformed in front of them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light. 3 Then, astonishingly, Moses and Elijah appeared to them. They were talking with Jesus. 4 Peter just had to say something. ‘Master,’ he said to Jesus, ‘it’s wonderful for us to be here! If you want, I’ll make three shelters here – one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah!’ 5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them. Then there came a voice out of the cloud. ‘This is my dear son,’ said the voice, ‘and I’m delighted with him. Pay attention to him.’ 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were scared out of their wits. 7 Jesus came up and touched them. ‘Get up,’ he said, ‘and don’t be afraid.’ 8 When they raised their eyes, they saw nobody except Jesus, all by himself. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them strict instructions. ‘Don’t tell anyone about the vision,’ he said, ‘until the son of man has been raised from the dead.’ Music: Dear Gravity - To See Once More Simon Wester - My Refuge 

Matthew 20:1-16 The parable of the labourers in the vineyard could be one of the most scandalous parables that Jesus told. The idea that the worker who came into work at the end of the day would receive the same compensation as the worker who came in early and worked doesn’t sit right in our capitalistic and individualistic society, but there it is. Right there in the middle of the Gospel of Matthew. What this parable reveals is how vast the separation in our thinking about how the kingdom of God is and what our thinking of it tends to be. We really are never more prone to gloss over the teachings of Jesus than when he broaches the subject of money. In this parable, Jesus says the Kingdom of God is like a person who has worked only one hour being paid the same amount as someone who has worked all day. Think about that. In this story, a group of people worked all day and received a fair wage for a day's work, but the other group of people worked only one hour and still receive the same wage. We are convinced that this is inequitable We call it unfair The kingdom of God is a scandal of grace! Not an idea formed on merit. The vineyard owner, (who Is obviously represents God) was more interested in giving people what they needed rather than what they deserved. He was also willing to do this at his own expense. The vineyard owner is the only person that suffers loss in this story. In this story, no one is cheated. the anger of the first group at work was not based on injustice, but on envious resentment. The Vineyard owner didn’t want any of his workers to go home hungry, no matter how long they worked. This parable is designed to provoke the Pharisees who think that they deserve the love of God more than the others. You can see the similarities between this parable and the much more palatable cousin of this Parable, The prodigal son. If we fear that someone we deem as less deserving than us will be made equal to us based on their need and Gods love, we are still operating according to the economy and not according to grace. Do we read this as a labourer who has worked all day? If we do then why are we so convinced of our deservedness. God works based on need and that is it… and we all need him. Lord Jesus, help us to not be offended at your scandal of Grace. Thank you that we all come under one cover, and that cover is you. help us to see ourselves as paul saw himself. The chief of sinners saved by grace. Amen. Music: Salt of The Sound - I Neet Thee Dear Gravity - Peace Finds Breath Salt of the Sound - Stay 

Welcome to the Seasons Podcast from Willow Park Church - throughout the year we'll release devotions to help you in your walk with Jesus at key times of the year; Lent, Advent and more. 

Today's reading from Matthew 19:13-15 The Little Children and Jesus 13 Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. 14 Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." 15 When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there. Before we had kids, my wife and I were asked to take care of our friend's two-year-old for a few hours one afternoon. Lis was excited about the proposition of caring for our friend's kids. I thought it would be good practice to see what having kids around the house would be like just in case those future plans of having kids of our own came to fruition. When the parents left, all the wonder, excitement and bliss of having a child around the house quickly vanished into thin air. Picking up this, changing that, removing any and all dangerous items that I had never considered to be dangerous before. We were on high alert all day long! After this LONG afternoon of babysitting, my opinions on how much work children would take altered significantly…and as for babysitting ever again? I'd rather not. Lis, however, loved her time! It was like she knew kids would be tiny, sticky and very messy all along! Kids are fantastic, but they bring about a life that is unexpected and unwieldy. The disciples thought it was essential to protect Jesus from the unpredictability of children, but Jesus through different. How can we allow these children to come to our newfound king who will one day lead us into a great revolution? No king wants anything to do with kids! But God's Kingdom is built differently. The Kingdom of God is filled with the unexpected. We see in today's scripture reading that Jesus always has time for the children, as we hear him famously say, "Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them." As passé as it may sound too cynical ears if we want our Christianity to remain a realistic possibility through this secular age, one of the most valuable things we can do, shows the children we meet who Jesus is. We need to show them all the benefits of a christlike community and care for them like Jesus did. Some children may never experience this genuine love outside of the church. Children need an opportunity to come to Jesus and be cared for by people who love and know Jesus fully. That is why we need to be so thankful for our children, and we must continually pray for the kids we know. Our own children. Our extended family. The kids down the street that hit your car with their basketball from time to time. The Children that we see alone in the schoolyard. Pray for the people that care so generously for our children. Our kids' workers who continually welcome and love kids from all backgrounds. The single moms and dads that are working two jobs and trying their best to give stability and love to their kids when they come home from a busy day. The foster parents that just want to show the Love of Jesus to the children who come through their door, even if only for a few weeks. We Pray that our children and our children's children, and all the children in this world would know the Father's love.  Music - KXC Worship: Father (For Noah) Simon Wester: Among Us, Hope 

21 Then Peter came to Jesus. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘how many times must I forgive my brother when he sins against me? As many as seven times?’ 22 ‘I wouldn’t say seven times,’ replied Jesus. ‘Why not – seventy times seven?’ ... Matthew 18:21-35 Today we hear Jesus famously tell us that we are to forgive seventy times seven. Jesus responds to peters apparently generous offer of forgiveness by saying that's a good start, but lets just take that number and grow it exponentially. Jesus then gives us this remarkable example of the parable of the servant who is forgiven a preposterous debt of ten thousand talents. A talent is a monetary unit worth about 20 years' wages for a labourer. This servant's debt is equivalent to two million years' wages and tens of billions of dollars. A price far too high to pay. The first time that we hear this equation is in Genesis, where Lamech composed his bloody limerick – I have killed a man for wounding me, A young man for striking me. If Cain's vengeance is sevenfold, Then my vengeance is seventy times sevenfold. According to the Genealogy of Genesis, Lamech is the great great great grandson of Cain, the first murderer. Cain introduced murder, and Lemech threatened to multiply lethal vengeance seventy times seven. Lemechs insane commitment to vengeance led to exponential violence in the days of Noah one generation later. Long after the days of Noah, Moses tried to mitigate the Lemech like revenge to a reciprocating level of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Admittedly a step in the right direction, but a step that falls short of what true forgiveness looks like. As Gandhi observed, "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." In this world, with the escalation of war and the stakes getting higher and higher there needs to be a reappropriation of the Lamech equation. The most remarkable thing about a Christ-formed life is a life that is marked with forgiveness. If our faith is about anything, it is about forgiveness. As CS Lewis said, "To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you." Forgiveness is never easy, and it is never permissible for someone to hurt us again, but it is something that God has called us to. Forgiveness frees us and allows us to live a life as Jesus lived. If you are new to this journey of forgiveness, take the next few moments to ask God to help you on your journey to forgiving those who have hurt you, just as Jesus forgives us. Music -  Dear Gravity: To Lay Down Everything You've Built, I Hope This Letter Finds You Well Maximillian: Learning To Love

Today's reading comes from Matthew Chapter 18:10-14. Jesus gives the Parable of the lost sheep. 10 ‘Take care not to despise one of these little ones. I tell you this: in heaven, their angels are always gazing on the face of my father who lives there. 12 ‘How does it seem to you? If someone has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders off and goes missing, what will he do? He’ll leave the ninety-nine on the hillside and go off after the one that’s missing, won’t he? 13 And when, eventually, he finds it, I’ll tell you the truth: he will celebrate over that one more than over the ninety-nine who didn’t go missing! 14 It’s the same with your father in heaven. The last thing he wants is for a single one of these little ones to be lost.’ We live in a world gone wrong. We celebrate celebrities and nullify the ordinary, everyday person. We live in a world that likes to divide into little people and big people. The rich and famous, the influencers and the essential people are the ones we celebrate; the businessperson and the movie stars are who we talk about. The magazine shelves are covered with rich and beautiful people, and we feel like failures when we inevitably don't add up. The Counting Crows Song – Mr. Jones, mocked this longing for the big time. When I look at the television, I wanna see me starting right back at me. We all wanna be big stars. But we don't know why, and we don't know-how. The vast majority of us will never come close to measuring up to the stature of fame and fortune these celebrities have. The majority of humanity will always be the little people. People who don't measure up to the lofty expectations of the world. The ones that are usually overlooked and dismissed as unimportant. In a religion of celebrity and fame, most of us will be overlooked as uncredited extras in the movie of our world starting the big and influential people. But Jesus refuses to participate in our magazine shelf hierarchy. Jesus tells us that we must not despise the little ones. After the disciples had just inquired about who would be the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven at the beginning of chapter 18, Jesus gives us this parable of the great shepherd prioritizing the life of a little lost sheep. The good shepherd seeks out the lamb not because it's big and important but precisely because it is little, lost and overlooked. If our idea of the Kingdom is infected with the notion of greatness and bigness, we will inevitably have a distorted view of the true gospel. We will start to prioritize what Jesus taught us as fleeting and meaningless. This kind of thinking gives us the temptation to celebrate and give rise to the Christian celebrity. Yes, some Christians will gain notoriety, but it should be for Christlikeness and not because of fame and ability. The thirteenth-century Saint Frances of Assisi was one of the most well-known people in Europe, but he was known for his humility, poverty, peaceability and Christlikeness. Today, let us remember to pay attention to the little ones around us. The ones who are forgotten and frowned upon. Let us seek them out and care for them. If you feel like someone who is looked over and forgotten, remember that Jesus will always leave the 99 and look for you. You are so important. Be aware of the dignity given to you by God the creator. Remind others that they are loved by the creator of this universe. Lord Jesus, Forgive us for trying to look big when we are called to be humble. Remind us today to seek out those around us who are most often overlooked. Music By: Simon Wester - Goodness, Touched by Heaven One Hope Project - Come Close 

Today's reading comes from Matthew 17:14-20. Jesus heals a demon-possessed boy. 14 When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16 I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.” 17 “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” 18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” 20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” As far as I am concerned, faith is a bit of a mystery. Especially when talking about the faith that moves mountains and does the impossible. Faith can be confusing. Is there an equation that we must follow to allow us to have answered prayers? If I don’t get an answered prayer then am I doing it wrong? The idea that there is a specific formula to follow when expressing faith is a trap that can very easily fall into. If I have a certain amount of faith and pray a certain way, I will get the thing that I want. This is a trap that we need to avoid. Abraham was a great man of faith. The way his faith grew was by a life lived in obedience to God. He concentrated on being with God rather than doing amazing things. In order for us to do anything through faith, we must be in a relationship with him. Music: Salt of the Sound Meditations vol. 5. KXC Worship: Kingdom Dreamers. 

Today we hear the Temptation of Jesus in Matthews's gospel. Temptation in the Wilderness 4 Then Jesus was led out into the wilderness by the spirit to be tested by the devil. 2 He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and at the end of it was famished. 3 Then the tempter approached him. ‘If you really are God’s son,’ he said, ‘tell these stones to become bread!’ 4 ‘The Bible says’, replied Jesus, ‘that it takes more than bread to keep you alive. You actually live on every word that comes out of God’s mouth.’ 5 Then the devil took him off to the holy city, and stood him on a pinnacle of the Temple. 6 ‘If you really are God’s son,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down. The Bible does say, after all, that “God will give his angels a command about you”; and “they will carry you in their hands, so that you won’t hurt your foot against a stone.” ’ 7 ‘But the Bible also says’, replied Jesus, ‘that you mustn’t put the Lord your God to the test!’ 8 Then the devil took him off again, this time to a very high mountain. There he showed him all the magnificent kingdoms of the world. 9 ‘I’ll give the whole lot to you,’ he said, ‘if you will fall down and worship me.’ 10 ‘Get out of it, satan!’ replied Jesus. ‘The Bible says, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone!” ’ 11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and looked after him. Prior to his public ministry, Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness in prayer and fasting. During this time, the devil came and tempted Jesus. But how exactly did the devil come to him? Did he come dressed in red with a pitchfork, horns, and a forked tail? Did he say “Hi, I’m the devil, I’m here to tempt you. Shall we begin?” Of course not, the devil comes to Jesus the same way that he comes to all of us. Disguised in our own thoughts. As Jesus was in the wilderness he was considering the course of his ministry and how things would play out. The tempter came in and tempted Jesus to compromise the integrity of the mission not by overtly evil deeds, which Jesus wouldn’t even give a second thought to, but he tempted him with a trilogy of good ideas. Let's take some time to consider what "Good ideas", or temptations Jesus had faced. What can we learn from the temptations Jesus faced, and how he dealt with those temptations. Music: Simon Wester: Passage of TIme  https://music.apple.com/ca/artist/simon-wester/476739636 https://simonwester.bandcamp.com/

Today's reading comes from Mark Chapter 10 verse 46 – 52 Jesus heals Bartimaeus Today, we hear Bartimaeus call out to Jesus with a bold prayer, and Bartimeaus's life is changed forever! Sometimes we are afraid to pray those bold prayers, but God wants us to pray boldly! No matter the "result" of prayer, one thing is always certain, when we pray, we become closer to Jesus. I can live a life where not all my prayers are answered but would find this life very difficult if I couldn't pray at all. Our final song today is brought to us by Maximilian. Maximilian is a UK-based musician and missionary. He kindly agreed to allow us to use his music today. If you want to find out more about him and prayerfully consider supporting his upcoming crowdfunded album then click the link provided.  https://www.paypal.me/maxalbum https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbk_hJkZZomA4CgYfX0qrxQ Music: Maximilian - Holy Spirit Dear Gravity - With Expectation, Is There A Way. 

In this reading, Jesus predicts his death for a second time, and without even waiting for the predicted grave to cool, James and John ask Jesus for a seat with him in glory. James and John had no idea they were asking to go to the cross with Jesus rather than usher in a new violent kingdom of oppression and violence. Mark 10:32-40. Music by: Dear Gravity - I Hope This Letter Finds You Well: A New Deep Salt of the Sound - In Prayer, In Peace 

Today we hear the story of the rich young ruler and the famous Camel through the eye of a needle! What does this story mean for us today? How can we make sense of it? When we look at this story through the eyes of Jesus' love instead of the eyes of discipline and rejection, we can see it in a new light. God calls us to share what we have with those around us and not hoard it all for ourselves. Join us as we pray through Mark 10:17-30.  Music by: Simon Wester - Life, Among Us Salt of the Sound - I Need thee Every Hour 

As we begin our Lenten journey, we hear the first time that Jesus predicts his death. Peter won't have it! Peter knows that in this life, death is a failure, and he is not about to let Jesus fail. What Peter doesn't know, or what Peter chooses not to hear, is that Jesus will only be victorious through his death and ultimate resurrection. Mark 8:31-33 Jesus Predicts His Death (New Testament for Everyone)  31 Jesus now began to teach them something new. 'There's big trouble in store for the son of man,' he said. 'The elders, the chief priests and the scribes are going to reject him. He will be killed – and after three days he'll be raised.' 32 He said all this quite explicitly. At this, Peter took him aside and started to scold him. 33 But he turned round, saw the disciples, and scolded Peter. 'Get behind me, Accuser!' he said. 'You're thinking human thoughts, not God's thoughts.' As we begin our Lenten journey this Ash Wednesday, we are reminded of the death of Jesus and our need for reconciliation to him. We hear Jesus tell us that he is not headed to greatness as the world would see greatness. But he is headed to the cross and to death. Peter and the rest of the disciples understand that Jesus is on his way to the capital city to lay claim to the throne and become the King of the Jews. But without leaving it open to any misinterpretation, Jesus tells them that he is going to Jerusalem and will be betrayed by the religious leaders and pay the ultimate price of death by crucifixion. But this apparent defeat will turn into a great victory only when Jesus raises from the dead three days later. The disciples have probably heard this as Jesus referring to his resurrection at some point in the far-off future. No way is our leader going to die. Not yet, not in this way! The fact that Jesus could indeed become king of the Jews through suffering and death was inconceivable to Peter. For Peter, and many others, a messiah who has been killed is a failed messiah. Therefore, Peter cannot stand by and see his leader accept the fate of death because Peter hasn't signed up for failure. Jesus alone seems to understand that a breakthrough into new life is only attained through the experience of Loss. Martin Luther is right when he says that "Christianity is not a theology of glory, but a theology of the cross. But to choose the way of the cross over the way of glory is a hard lesson to learn. Like Peter, we also may be inclined to argue with Jesus when he calls us to choose the way of the cross. "Surely not, Jesus! I don't want to be on the losing team, I want to be great and win! But Jesus calls that type of thinking Satanic, Most of us are scripted to think that life is a game and the purpose of that game is to win. But the divine truth is that this life is a gift, and the purpose of this life is to learn to love well. Walter Bruggemann says that the problem with the rat race is that even if you win, you are still a rat. Or as Jesus put it, what do you gain if you win it all, but lose your soul? During this season of lent let's renew our commitment to take up our cross and follow Jesus. Take the next few moments to ask yourself this. Have I made it my goal in life to win at all costs or to love at all costs? Music: Abide With Me by Salt of the Sound          Stay by Salt of the Sound and Be Still The Earth