pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: death


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In the Light

Reading: John 12: 20-36

As Jesus is speaking of His own impending death He is also calling us to be willing to offer our earthly life as well.  This does imply a faith we are willing to die for.  But it also speaks of us dying to self and all of the earthly desires that compete with the divine nature within us.  As a means of encouragement, Jesus reminds us that when a seed dies it produces a crop.  When we are willing to surrender our all to Jesus, then our old self falls to the ground and dies as our new self rises up to produce a harvest of faith.

Jesus encourages us to walk in the light.  When we have chosen to give up our old self we are choosing to step out of the darkness.  The darkness can hide our imperfections and defects.  When we step away from the darkness and into the light of Jesus Christ, we begin to see that the ways we were living were not pleasing to God.  We realize that we were living to please and glorify self.  And just as the dawn rises and light slowly creeps across the landscape, so too does His light.  As we grow in our faith, the light continues to shine into dark corner after dark corner as He continues to refine us.

This choice of laying aside self and walking in His light is a hard choice.  Jesus acknowledges the hard choice that He too faced and yet recognizes that this is why He came – to offer His all for you and me.  He leaves us no wiggle room as well.  He wants us to feel our discomfort over having to choose light or dark.  He urges us on, asking us to put our trust in the light so that we might become sons of light, heirs of an eternal inheritance, receivers of the gift of true life.


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Oh What Love

Readings: Psalm 31: 14-15, Psalm 118:1, Isaiah 50:7, and Philippians 2:9

Today we celebrate both Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday.  With palms we celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  It is an event filled with joy yet tinged with sadness as well.  This happy parade marks the beginning of Holy Week.  The events of this week will contain a good deal of despair but in the end hope is triumphant.  The passion of Jesus for humanity reveals the depth of His love for us.

Today’s Psalm readings remind us of the truth and steadfastness of God.  In Psalm 31 we are reminded to trust God because He WILL deliver us.  Yes, there will be trials, but He will see us through them.  Psalm 118 reminds us of the why: because God is good and because His love endures forever.  When we choose to fully trust our lives to God, we discover that He will deliver us each and every time because of the depth of His love for us.

That depth of love allowed His own Son to be tried, tortured, and crucified because God knew that death would not have the last word.  God knew that the grave could not contain His Son.  God knew that love is stronger than death.  So sin was  heaped upon Jesus on that cross.  He bore them all as the perfect sacrifice.  Oh what depth of love the Father has for you and me!  Oh what love.


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The Power to Save

Today is All Saints’ Day, a day we remember the faithful who have died in the past year.  For our church, twenty pictures will be shown and twenty names read.  With the reading of each name we will remember the grace, faith, and love that each person shared with their life.  We will recall how we ministered and witnessed alongside each as well.  And we will again celebrate the victory won by each through their saving faith in Jesus Christ.

Today’s reading is the story of Lazarus.  Jesus arrives late at the scene – four days after he has died.  Mary, Martha, and many family and friends are grieving.  Mary voices what many are thinking, “If only you’d arrived sooner.”  They believe Jesus could have healed him.  Jesus is touched deeply.  He cries for his friends and is moved to do something extraordinary.  Jesus raises Lazarus to life.  Was it to alleviate the intense sadness felt by all?  Was it to give a glimpse of the victory to be won over death in Jesus’ resurrection?  Was it both?

On this day and in this story we are reminded that Jesus is there with us in our lives.  He cried and hurt for his friend Lazarus and for those who grieved for him.  In our grief He hurts right along with us as well.  We are also reminded that death does not have the last word.  For all the saints we recognize today and one day for us as well, Jesus has the power to save.  May we too all one day hear, “Well done good and faithful servant” as we each experience Jesus’ victory over death.

Scripture reference:  John 11: 32-44


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His Promise

Job wrestles with the question many people wrestle with: why did this happen to me?  In general, we view the world as good and God as loving and caring.  Most people believe these things to be true.  Yet for most, believers included, we almost always ask the ‘why  question when unexplained or unjust suffering and trials come our way.  It is a natural question to ask.  We wrestle with this question, because at least a little, in our minds, we think that if we are faithful that no bad should come our way.  We track right along with Job’s thinking.  This too is a natural thought process.

In Job’s day the common understanding was that if evil or bad befell someone, it was because of sin.  For example, if one were blind it was because of sin in their life or in their parent’s life.  This idea is backed up by the experience of the nation of Israel.  Sin causes separation from God, then they experience trial, exile, or some other calamity.  The view that God blessed Israel with peace, victory… when they were faithful was also a dominant belief.  We mostly hold these beliefs today as well.  Good brings good and evil brings evil is still a common thought process.  It also holds generally true in life: if you are nice to someone, usually they are nice in return.  The reverse is also true.

Job was seen as righteous and good in his pre-trial life.  Once the bad befell him, his wife and friends assumed he had sinned.  They thought, Why else would God do this?  But Job knew he was still faithful, upright, blameless.  So he asked God the ‘why?’ question.  God’s response was big questions that did not really answers Job’s question.  God asked Job is he could bring floods or lightning or even rain.  He asked if he could provide prey for the lion or food for the raven.  He asked if Job was there at the creation of the earth.  The questions do not provide an answer but turn Job back inward.

God created a world that is good and has order and logic.  There is both good and evil.  Both must exist if we are to have free will.  God does not force us to obey Him or to be faithful to Him.  We do so out of love.  We love because He first loved us.  Love is our grateful response to the love God poured out in Jesus Christ.  In life there is free will and logical consequences.  The world was created as good, not as perfect.  Perfect will be the new heaven when Christ returns.  So some rains waters the crops and some rains flood the fields.  Illness and death are part of life.  So is birth and good health.  Like Job, in the midst of our pain and suffering we ask ‘why?’  But the answer is elusive.  It does not come in many cases.  But the promise we receive in Christ is not elusive: Jesus saves all who call on His name and through His saving grace we will all one day enter that perfect world.  Hold onto the promise.  Live the promise.  Share the promise.

Scripture reference: Job 38: 34-41


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Jesus Our Hope

In a physical sense we are much like all other living creatures.  We share much of the same DNA.  In addition, some animals have a language, some use tools, and some even have social orders and live in families.  All of the living creatures on earth experience illness and death.  The feelings of loss and pain associated with death are exhibited by many others species as well.

Two of the things though that separates humanity from other creatures is our superior intellect and our reasoning ability.  As time has evolved we have come to understand the intricacies of the human body and have sought means to extend life.  To be alive is awesome and amazing so we fight to preserve life.  Over time in our society the act of death has developed a fear and has become something to be avoided at almost all cost.  For many there is a meaninglessness and an unknown to dying.  For those without faith, there is a finality that has no hope and peace in death.

Jesus became incarnate so that ultimately He could experience suffering and death.  This sounds so countercultural because it is.  Yes, Jesus also come to put a human face and example on God’s great love for us.  But in the end Jesus came to suffer and die in sacrificial love for us.  He willingly bore the cross and the weight of our sins.  Through His blood He paid the cost for us to have eternal life.

In Hebrews we are reminded that all of creation is subject to Jesus.  Yet out of love for us He allowed Himself to the subject to death.  For all who call on Jesus as Lord and Savior, we find grace and forgiveness.  In Jesus we know that death does not have the final word.  In Him rests our eternal hope and a peace that passes understanding in the midst of death.  Jesus is our hope.  Thank you Jesus.

Scripture reference: Hebrews 2: 5-12


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Willing, Trusting, Obedient

When danger or death is on the horizon it brings up feelings of fear and doubt and sorrow in many.  It can be almost paralyzing.  In a few it stirs up courage and determination and focus.  No matter what your first reaction to the realization that life hangs in the balance, the second must be to connect to God in prayer.

When Haman secured the decree to blot out the Jews, Mordecai put on sackcloth and went to the city gate to fast and pray.  He invited other Jews to join him.  Esther got word of this and sent him clothes.  He rejected them because he know this was a time of great need.  He also realized that God had called upon him to stir up Esther so that she may see her role as well.  He knew that the time of her divine appointment was upon her.

When Esther came to terms with the fact that this was indeed the moment for which God placed her in the palace, she accepted her role.  She set her mind on fasting and praying for three days and invited all the Jews in the city to join her.  Esther did not want prayers for someone else to step up or for God himself to intervene.  She wanted prayers that her role in this would be blessed by God.  In Esther there was no fear because her hope lay in God alone.

From time to time we are each faced with something that puts us to the test.  It may be concerning health or employment or family relationships.  There will also be times when we are not directly affected but do have a hand in the situation and its solution.  In today’s text we see an example of willing servants who trusted their very lives into God’s hands.  Because of their relationship with God they did not fear any outcome.  Each walked into their divine appointment fully trusting God.  Lord, instill in me such a willing heart, such a trusting soul, and such an obedient mind.

Scripture reference: Esther 9: 20-22


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Call of Christ

Christ chose to come and live among us.  God incarnate made the choice to walk in a human body. In the form of Jesus, God stepped out of heaven and down among us.  The people who lived with Jesus and witnessed His life were blessed to be in His presence, as are we who read about Him 2,000 years later.

In today’s culture, we are impressed when a president of a big company spends time with the workers or when a celebrity athlete spends time in a school or hospital.  At times we too are called to step out of or normal circle and to spend time ministering to the poor, the widow, the orphan, the prisoner.  For some it is a similar step to what Jesus did, willingly offering self for other’s benefit.

Christ set the ultimate example of giving when He submitted to death for our benefit.  Jesus Christ became totally powerless in order to gain ultimate power over death.  He had to be weak and vulnerable in order to gain strength and glory.  We are not called, in general, to give our lives for another, but we are all asked: what can you offer?

Scripture reference: Ephesians 1: 20-23


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A Good for Thanks

I wonder what went through His followers that day as they watched Jesus die.  Were they simply full of despair and could not think of anything past His pain and the hurt of losing Jesus?  Were they full of doubt and questions about who He really was – if Jesus was God’s son how could He die this way?  Were some even mad at Jesus for not calling down an army of angels to establish His kingdom right then and there?

2000 years later we look back on the scene and we know the story, we know the outcome.  Our perspective is different.  Even though we know the outcome, it is still good to sit in the moment for a bit, to remember the day Jesus died.

What goes through our minds as we look back at the crucifixion with our 20/20 hindsight?  As we look back do we see the brutal beating He took as he bore the stripes of our transgressions?  Do we recognize the stripes that stand for you and for me?  They are there, on His body, because He died for all sin – past, present, and future.  Do we see His blood running down his head, hands, feet and side as they nailed Him to the cross and pierced His side?  That blood is the new covenant that washes away our sins.  Do we see Jesus’ human body breathe its last as it hangs broken and battered on the cross?  Do we see in it the body that is now the bread of life to us?  Today is a good day to remember and to offer our thanks to our King and to our Redeemer.


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He Is Strong

Sin is in our world.  One does not have to look too far to see or find it.  In Romans 5 Paul was writing to a newly formed church that lived in dangerous times.  The Romans and the Jews were both openly against the church.  There could be a cost to saying you were a follower of the Way.  We too live in dangerous times.  We too could be asked to pay a cost for following Jesus.  While it is true that in many places around the world the cost is much higher, we now live in a culture that is not always friendly towards Christianity and is at times decidedly against our faith.

It is for these reasons that we must keep Christ’s redeeming act on the cross in the forefront of our minds.  Since Adam ate of the fruit, sin has been in the world.  It is an ever-present thing in our lives.  Satan comes at us from so many angles and in so many ways.  But praise be to God because He pursues us even more.  God was willing to become Christ incarnate, to walk amongst us, and to face death upon the cross so that He could bear the sins of the world and claim victory over sin and death through His resurrection.  Through Jesus’ obedience we are given the way to be restored into righteousness, so that we ae once again part of the good humanity that God first created.  We are set free from the burdens and chains of sin and death.

As we walk through Lent, we are called to be emptied and to be freed from what weighs us down.  As we look within ourselves may we find what God calls us to be as His child.  Through His strength may we strip away that which is of this world.  In our weakness may we reach out to Him, for He is strong.  May we daily be renewed in Christ as we walk through this holiest of seasons.


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Choices We Face

Life and prosperity or … death and destruction? Seems a pretty simple choice when put that way, doesn’t it? When one thinks in these terms concerning the big picture, it is hard to imagine many choosing death and destruction. But in the day to day decisions, we don’t always see things in this way. How easy it is to choose something that leads more toward death and destruction than towards life and prosperity!

In our decisions, if it is painted as “good” versus “evil” most would choose good. Few would explicitly choose evil. In life versus death we often think that death is so far away and it hardly seems a decision. If our neck were in a noose or if we had a gun to our head, then the choice would seem more real but it would hardly be a choice at that point! But Satan is much trickier than this!

Once one is on the path of following Christ it can seem almost easy. The daily following of God’s ways and His commands leads to a sense of contentment and knowing that no matter what, you are loved. Storms of life seem to be a bit less rocky; although they do come, there is a peace that resides in Christ that allows us to lean into Him during the trials of life.

But much can keep us from the path and much can pull at us once on the path. Sometimes is it just us – our ego, our judging attitudes, our need to be in control, ______ … you fill in your blank! Sometimes it is the messages culture and the media throw at us. So much points to other gods and idols. Sometimes it is so hard to see the path that leads to life eternal. But in those times, we can pray simple words asking the Holy Spirit to guide and lead us. Through our faith, God will show the way. Come Holy Spirit, come!!