pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: sacrifice


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Servant

Reading: Luke 17: 5-10

In the opening verses of Luke 17, Jesus has just instructed the disciples to keep from sinning, to not lead others into sinning, and to always offer forgiveness to those who sin against them.  Then Jesus adds a point of emphasis: forgive up to seven times in one day.  Seven represents eternity for His audience.  Jesus is saying to forgive over and over and over and over and…  The disciples response to this idea is the opening line of today’s passage: “Increase our faith!”. In other words, if you are asking this of us Jesus, you better bump up our faith.

To this request Jesus offers a parable.  The main character is a servant.  Jesus often parallels being a disciple with being a servant.  The servant-master relationship is obe that would have been very familiar and well-understood by His audience.  A servant’s job is to serve the master.  Of course the servant would come in from a long day’s work and still waiting upon the master until all their needs are met before retiring for the day.  It is what servants do.  They put their master’s needs ahead of their own.  The servant doesn’t hang around on the periphery waiting for a nice ‘thank you’ either.  It’s just their job.

Then Jesus extends the understanding and application of the parable to the disciples and to us.  He says this too is how a disciple conducts themselves.  As disciples we are called to be servants not only to our Master but to all people as well.  We are called to serve others, to sacrifice for others, to set aside our own interests and wants for the needs of others.  We are called to place others before self.  In living out the Gospel, we are to simply love and serve all as Jesus loved and served all.  Today and each day, may we pray for and strive to live out of a servant’s heart.


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Suffering, Loving, Sacrifice

Reading: 2 Timothy 1: 8-14

“Join with me in suffering for the gospel”, Paul says to Timothy.  “Take up your cross and follow me”, says Jesus.  This idea that we too will suffer for our faith is a common refrain in the New Testament.  While most of us will certainly not face the cross like Jesus or be beaten and imprisoned like Paul, each of us will be called upon to willingly suffer for our faith.  To sacrifice is at the root of our faith.

Death and imprisonment do not threaten the typical Christian in the 21st century.  While we must acknowledge that this reality exists for some Christians in our world today, for most of us the suffering we are called to is of a different nature.  Some of the suffering we face will be caused by our faith.  For example, at times the choices to abstain from things or activities may bring a little persecution our way.  At other times choosing to speak up for one dealing with injustice or to stand up for one being bullied or abused may draw some negative attention our way.  Faith and following the way of Christ can lead to public suffering.

Our faith can also lead to more private suffering.  When we choose to give away or provide food or clothing or shelter to one in need it is at a cost to ourselves.  We live with less so another can have some.  When we choose time with God or church or family over work or some other secular pursuit we are sacrificing wealth or popularity or promotion.  This too can bring suffering.  When we choose to befriend or engage the outcast or ostracized or to walk with someone who is struggling in life, we sacrifice time and energy and may also open ourselves up to ridicule or persecution or some other form of suffering.  Faith calls us to live God with all we are and to love neighbor as Christ first loved us.  Faith asks us to place self after God and others.

As we live out our faith may we be willing to suffer and sacrifice so that all may come to know and experience Christ’s love, hope, and mercy through our extravagant love and servant’s sacrifice.


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Blessings

Reading: Hebrews 13: 1-8 and 15-16

Throughout the New Testament we are reminded to love as Jesus loved and to be a servant to all.  The examples abound and the expectations are clear.  The idea that whenever we “do this for the least of these” (Matthew 25:40), we do for Jesus.  We are called to do as Jesus would have done.  Jesus loved all people where they were at and gave to each as they had need.  There was never one that came to Jesus and was rebuffed or ignored.  He treated all with love.

Verse 8 of today’s reading states, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”.  Who Jesus is does not change.  He loves all people still.  He will love all people forever.  As Jesus’ agents of love, we are to continue to live out our lives as Jesus did, offering love and care to all.  In doing so, people come to experience Jesus and His presence in their lives too.  It is a blessing to them.

But perhaps it is a greater blessing to us.  In following Jesus’example and living out our call to be Jesus’ light in our world, we are in His presence each and every time we offer His love to another.  We are reminded that Jesus is in us each time we serve another.  Each time we do so we too are touched by His love.  It is a blessing to us.  In the process we too are changed as we are increasingly transformed more and more into the image and likeness of Christ.

As we share Christ’s love and offer ourselves as living sacrifices for God’s glory, the world is impacted by love.  So are we.  Today may we be pleasing to the Lord our God in all we do and say.  May the blessings ever flow!


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The Circle

Reading: Hebrews 12: 18-24

Hebrews 12 offers a new perspective on God.  The God embodied in Jesus is the same God whose voice can thunder and who can be terrifying.  God is unchanging.  What changes or evolves is our understanding of God.  Stand at the window and watch and listen to the power in a magnificent thunderstorm.  Witness God’s voice booming!  Sit with a family that has just lost a loved one who they think was not saved, witness the unspoken questions and fear.  Consider the conviction we feel when we sin.  We quickly repent and seek forgiveness so that we are back in God’s love and away from the terrifying feeling of being outside of God’s love.

Through Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit we experience God differently.  God is now more personal, more easily accessed.  Jesus and the Holy Spirit function as more open conduits to heaven and God’s love.  In Jesus the man we saw the living God, first on earth and now in heaven.  Hebrews reminds us that Jesus is “the mediator of a new covenant” where grace and forgiveness comes through His blood sacrificed on the cross.  It is a free gift to us all.  It costs us nothing.  What a change in the previous relationship!  Jesus is also the mediator that stands between us and God and with the Holy Spirit intercedes for each of us.  This is what has changed, not God.

Faith and our response to it has also changed significantly.  Before Christ’s time on earth, faith in God was seen as an exclusive thing.  Either you were part of God’s chosen people, or you were not.  Jews were in, everyone else was out.  Faith led the Jews to care for one another, to live a life of obedience to God’s ways, and to worship God alone.  Jesus changed who was in the circle.  Through Jesus, all people are chosen people.  There are no limits or exclusions to the new covenant.  There is now no Jew or Gentile, no slave or free, …  We are to be Jesus’ hands and feet, loving all people with a servant’s heart.  We are to be Jesus’ voice, offering the good news to all peoples of all nations, ever working to expand the circle, ever seeking to build the kingdom here on earth.

What role shall we play today?  How will we each be a part of widening the circle, of helping another to step inside so they too can know God’s love?


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The Message

Reading: Galatians 1: 6-12

Paul opens his letter to the Galatians with some strong language and some hard words.  His words carry some emotion and urgency.  The church he founded there has begun to drift away from its origins and he does not like the change.  Paul taught them the gospel he received directly in a revelation from Jesus and it is important to him that the Galatians continue to hold dearly to the original message.  Paul knows that the message does not have to change much to really affect their faith.

All that Jesus taught and did in the Gospels can be boiled down to a few essentials.  First, love God completely.  Recognize Him as supreme, as Lord, as king of kings.  Second, love neighbor as Jesus first loved us.  His sacrifice on the cross let us know how much He loves us.  Now Jesus tells us to go and do the same: put others and their needs first no matter the cost to us.  Third, grace wins.  God’s love and His mercies never fail, making all who call on Him as Lord and Savior new creations every morning.  Our grateful response to this amazing love and mercy is to offer our lives daily in service to God.

Paul knew how essential the pure message of the gospel was.  He knew that our faith would lead to action.  He knew if the gospel message was changed or distorted, we would begin to follow our own way more than Jesus’ way.  Our belief really does lead to action.  When our belief is correctly rooted in the message of Jesus Christ, then our lives bear fruit according to this message.  May we cling tightly to the truth found in Jesus Christ, living daily as authentic witnesses to His light and love.


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Consuming Fire

Reading: 1 Kings 18: 20-39

What a contrast we have in today’s story.  One team builds their altar and places the sacrifice on it.  They dance about the sacrifice, they pray and shout to their god.  Then they resort to cutting themselves and crying out more urgently to gain their god’s attention.  Their god does not answer.  Their god does not satisfy their pleas.  All is done in vain.

We scrape together our dollars to buy a bigger house or a fancier car.  We work late every day as the announcement date for who will be promoted or made partner draws near.  We show up early with our neatly dressed little family and sit in the front pew so everyone can see we are there again this Sunday.

Then the other team steps to center stage.  But instead of a team of 450 it is a one man show.  He builds the altar and places the sacrifice on it.  The audience has seen this show before.  But then he digs a big trench around that altar.  Interest rises.  Then he has people dump bucket after bucket of water on the sacrifice and altar.  The trench fills with water.  The audience slides up to the edges of their seats.  Then he simply asks for his god to make it known that He is the Lord God, the one and only true God.  He trusts that God will answer.  He knows this God.  And fire falls from heaven and consumes it all – the sacrifice, the wood, the altar stones, the water.  The fire of God consumes everything.

Maybe the house is a little small but we are comfortable.  Maybe the car isn’t shiny and new anymore but it runs well and is reliable.  Maybe that project can get done tomorrow.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Maybe we could trust this God with all we have.  Maybe He really is able to do all things.  Maybe He loves us unconditionally.  When we pursue and place our trust in the one true Lord of life, then the gods of this world have no sway in our lives.  When we seek first the things of God, we do not have any desires left for the things of this world for His fire consumes us.  Consume us today, O Lord our God.


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Follow

Reading: John 10: 22-30

The Jews in the temple ask Jesus a question I think we ask often.  We may not always ask it verbally but I think we certainly do with our decisions and actions.  They ask Jesus if he is the Messiah.  Is he the one coming to redeem Israel, to restore them to their rightful place amongst the great nations?  They are looking for Jesus to do something grand.

His response perplexes: “You do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep”.  Believe that you are the Messiah?  I’m sure they are thinking something along these lines: ‘Rid us of these Romans and make Israel great and then we will believe and then we will follow.  For now though, we’ll just do our own thing.  Yes it is nice that that guy can now walk and that that guy can see and that you fed all those people.  Really neat stuff (for them), but when will you really start leading, doing really important stuff (for us)?’

We are sometimes a lot like them.  Yes Jesus, I love you and believe in you and want to dedicate my life to you, but first I need to…  Yes Jesus, I will serve and follow you, but first would you…  We like Jesus, but too often on our terms and conditions.  Like the Jews in the temple that day, we expect or maybe even demand something grand from Jesus.  Then we will be all in.  Then…

And Jesus says to us: my sheep follow me.  It is not about what I can do for you.  It’s about what I do to you, about what I do in you.  The miracles, they just show that I am who I say I am: the Son of God, the Word made flesh.  Follow me, be my sheep, do what I did: love, serve, sacrifice, forgive.  The you will be my sheep.  Then you will know a peace that passes understanding.  Then you will begin to live eternal life.  Follow me.


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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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Love Lived Out

For many who return to work today, it signals the end of the Christmas season.  For most it is a return to the normal routine and it is a good thing.  We are creatures of habit.  For the students, vacation lasts a little longer.  But soon enough, even for them, it is nice to return to the routine of school, to seeing friends on a regular basis, and to having a schedule.

For some, Christmas has given them a taste of what a connection to God is like.  Much like the Israelites in today’s reading, they now have a memory of what life could be like.  The people of God recalled life before exile and they long to return to their homeland and to experience life under God’s loving care.  Through Christmas, many people experience what life could be like.  For many, Christmas this year was filled with God’s love and on Christmas Eve they experienced God’s presence as a tangible feeling.  Perhaps this is you or someone you know.  There is a deep call within each of us to connect to God and to experience life as He intended it to be.

In the high of Christmas we see what life should be like.  We realize life has been less than it could be.  But it does not have to be this way.  Through Jesus Christ, God invites us all to order our lives as they should be, focusing on others instead of self, just as Jesus did.  In this loving, giving, self-sacrificing model, we begin to experience life as it should be.  Life lived to the full is a life of love for God that grows and overflows to become love for neighbor.  May our love for God and neighbor be a light shining in the darkness this day, drawing others to the light and love of God, to love lived out.

Scripure reference: Jeremiah 31: 7-9


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Sacrifice and Offering

The Old Testament guided the daily lives of the Israelites.  Much of life was dedicated to the study and understanding of God’s holy word.  The rabbis and priests were among the most respected members of the community.  At the temple, the center of life, much of the activity revolved around the sacrificial system and ways of making offerings that had developed over many years.  By the time of Jesus, maybe the systems were less than perfect.  In the scriptures we see Jesus clearing the temples as He chased away the money changers and sellers of goods.

So when Jesus announces an end to these ways of connecting to and relating to God and offers a new way, the people are unsure and they question.  This announcement would be a little akin to your church announcing that from now on Coke and Doritos would be used for communion.  It is hard to change tradition.  Then Jesus goes on to say that God no longer desires these offerings and sacrifices.  And then to really muddle the waters, Jesus says that His body will be the final sacrifice.  But as events unfolded, all of this made sense to His followers and to us today.  In dying for our sins, Jesus established a new relationship between God and mankind – one built upon love and grace.  For all believers, Jesus is the path to salvation and eternal life.

Jesus also changed how we look at sacrifice and offering.  In Jesus, these things were no longer requirements, but were now gifts.  We give of ourselves out of love for God and our fellow man.  We willingly sacrifice our own selfish desires for the good and well-being of others.  Through our lives, may others experience His grace and love.

Scripture reference: Hebrews 10: 5-10