The Joy of the Cantata: Bible in the BIG Story

    First, a Presupposition.  I presuppose that the Bible is the BIG Story of Jesus.  Genesis to Revelation, Jesus is the center.  The rest of this post depends on that presupposition.

    Secondly, we are joyfully able to present our Easter Cantata:

THE CHANCEL CHOIR AND GUESTS PRESENT:

JESUS! THE RESURRECTION OF THE MESSIAH

Music by Mary McDonald; Words and Narration by Rose Aspinall

     Usually, on a Sunday, we do a focused piece of the Big story of the Bible.  We use a resource, the Lectionary, that offers a three year cycle of Scripture readings, focused pieces of the Big story.  From this, we draw on our Sunday passages to share in worship.  Usually.

    This Sunday is the Cantata: a Big Story of the BIG Story of Scripture.  In musical form, we take a journey through death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  10AM, April 6, 10 W. Maple Ave., Merchantville, NJ.  Come and listen!

    So, for Traveling Worship, we do not have the 'usual' focused bit of the story.  But we do have this piece, drawn from the narration:

“Jesus, our most merciful and faithful High Priest₁, You are the living bread₂ Who was broken₃.  You took on our likeness and became obedient to death-even death on a cross!₄  While we were sinners, You died for us₅, forever tearing down the wall that separated us from the Father₆ and paying the price to purchase back everything we’d lost₇; our birthright₈.  You ushered in the new covenant and sealed it with Your own blood₉.  Our redemption was indeed costly₁₀.  You are the radiance of God, the exact imprint of His nature!₁₁  Forever, You are exalted, Eternal God and Savior!₁₂  Amen.”

It is a prayer, it is an introduction to one of the musical passages, it is a celebration.  Perhaps most powerfully is that this passage is an integration.  We are not focused on chapter and verse, as is the usual custom, but on the Big story, the drawing together of many verses, integrating them to tell the magnificent story of Jesus.

    It is an invitation to come at the Bible in a slightly different way.  Instead of going deep on a single passage, this takes you across the blessings of God's Word, to see how the whole story comes together in detail and depth that one passage just cannot accomplish.  Want to take a closer look for yourselves?  See the list below.  These are the connections I found.

₁ Hebrews 2:17

₂ John 6:51

₃ 1 Corinthians 11: 23-24

₄ Philippians 2:8

₅ Romans 5:8

₆ Ephesians 2:14

₇ Matthew 16:26

₈ Colossians 1:12

₉ Matthew 26:28

₁₀ 1 Peter 1: 18-19

₁₁ Hebrews 1:3

₁₂ 1 Timothy 1: 17; Psalm 92: 8, Hebrews 7:25

Peace,
Pastor Peter

Traveling Worship: In Anticipation of April 6, 2025

     This Sunday is our Easter Cantata so our Scripture is drawn from the Narration in "Jesus!: The Resurrection of the Messiah" by Mary McDonald and Rose Aspinall.  You will note that the narration is annotated.  In the follow up post to this one, we will look at that more closely.

Traveling Worship To April 6, 2025

Traveling Worship                                       Preparing for April 6, 2025

From Sunday’s Scripture Lesson

Jesus, our most merciful and faithful High Priest₁, You are the living bread₂ Who was broken₃.  You took on our likeness and became obedient to death-even death on a cross!₄  While we were sinners, You died for us₅, forever tearing down the wall that separated us from the Father₆ and paying the price to purchase back everything we’d lost₇; our birthright₈.  You ushered in the new covenant and sealed it with Your own blood₉.  Our redemption was indeed costly₁₀.  You are the radiance of God, the exact imprint of His nature!₁₁  Forever, You are exalted, Eternal God and Savior!₁₂  Amen.

A Hymn to follow: “To God Be The Glory”

To God be the glory, great things He hath done,
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
Who yielded His life our redemption to win,
And opened the life-gate that all may go in.

 

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
  Let the earth hear His voice;
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
  Let the people rejoice;
Oh, come to the Father, through Jesus the Son,
  And give Him the glory; great things He hath done.

 

To Close, The Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.  Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.  Amen.

Amen and Amen

Peace,

Pastor Peter

Branding "Those" People

     Luke 15: 1-2: "Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him (Jesus).  And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow (Jesus) welcomes sinners and eats with them.""

    So, we have tax collectors and sinners and Pharisees and scribes, oh my! Audience participation in the presence of our Lord Jesus.  There are two 'teams' bound by the conjunction "and".

    At one end of the moral field, we have the tax collectors and the sinners, called in the text "The Listeners".  At the other, we have the scribes and the Pharisees, called in the text "The Grumblers".  And in these two verses, we have the makings of a showdown.  

    The Grumblers are talking smack about Jesus and the Listeners.  "This fellow (Jesus) welcomes and eats with them (those people)."  Those people, tax collectors and sinners, collectively called the Sinners.

    One of my presuppositions is that the Bible says a lot with few words, so all words have context and meaning for us.  When the Gospel mentions a 'crowd', its a crowd.  So these categories of individuals coming to Jesus have meaning to deeper our understanding of the text.   

    First, the easy ones.  On the Listener side, these would be the tax collectors.  They are grouped with a larger set called "the Sinners" by the Grumblers, but there is a distinction to them.

    The tax collectors are collaborators with the Romans.  Simply put, the Romans hire greedy locals to collect the taxes that Rome deems is owed to them.  These treacherous locals are given muscle and some degree of protection to collect what is owed, and more than what is owed (their take).  It is a profitable business because the Romans labels complaints as sedition and will arrest the complainer.

    For examples, the disciple Matthew (Levi) and Zacchaeus, in the gospels, are identified as tax collectors.

    It is easier to identify the Pharisees.  They are the teaching class amongst the Grumblers.  Jesus, from the outside, might be classed with this group, those teaching the law in the present circumstances.  The difference is that Jesus is...well...right.  The Pharisees are frequently targets of Jesus' ire and cutting observations.  So, there is friction and jealousy at play.  

    In the New Testament, Paul self-identifies with the Pharisees.

    The other group among the Listeners, "Those" people, are more generically labeled 'the sinners'.  In modern thinking, 'sinners' is a universal term for humanity, as from Paul's words: 'For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God'.  Among the Grumblers, it seems to describe people who have been publicly shamed for particularly loathsome ways of breaking the law of Moses.    

    This could be what distinguishes them from 'tax collectors' because collaborating with the occupying power is not something the Law of Moses really deals with.

    These 'loathsome' people are likely so branded and shamed because they offend the sensibilities of the Pharisees and scribes.  So, morality crimes?  History has branded Mary Magdalene as particularly fallen (sinful) as a sex worker, so perhaps labels haven't changed?  I am thinking too of the woman dragged in front of Jesus to be stoned for adultery and his response was "You who are without sin (not a sinner) cast the first stone".  If there is a distinction to tax collectors, "Those" people who are Sinners are likely to fall into categories of transgressions of the law of Moses that particularly offend the sensibilities of the Grumblers.       

    The other group among the Grumblers, the scribes, are also ambiguous in nature.   A scribe, a transcriber, someone who is literate and has neat enough handwriting to make a living at it?  (Remember, it was all written by hand back then).  But we do get a bit more about them, like Jesus is said "to speak with authority, unlike the scribes".

    I think the scribes are a professional class who, at the root of their work, are tasked with copying the Bible (the Old Testament) and other relevant manuscripts for religious use.  We take the printed word (on page or screen) for granted so it is very hard to wrap our minds around what it took to copy over, copy over, copy over.  The rules for transcription of the Old Testament hebrew are mind-boggling in their detail and precision (the quest for the holy grail of "No Typo").

    How these Grumblers were different from the Pharisees might include a couple of things.  The Pharisees seem to be teachings 'in the here and now', how to be faithful in a world that is very different from the high points of the nation of Israel (like they used to be free).  The scribes, intimate with the content of the text, would they have deeper knowledge of the text itself?

    For example, when the Magi come in search of the baby Jesus, king of the Jews, Herod calls together the chief priests (top of the heap of religious leadership) and the scribes (the experts) to tell him where the baby is to be born (spoilers, its Bethlehem).  In Jesus, we have both the Pharisees and scribes coming at Him.  Jesus' advantage is two-fold.  He knows God's plan in the moment (versus the Phariees), and He does not have the guy who copied the text, but the authority of the one who INSPIRED it!  

    So, "Those" people, the Listeners, the tax collectors and sinners are coming to Jesus to hear the message of salvation, of hope, of relief.  They are different from the Grumblers because they know the are sinners and are seeking Jesus' hope and grace. 

    The Grumblers, the Pharisees and the scribes, are coming to Jesus to try and knock his message down, relegating Jesus, 'this fellow', to the company of "Those" people.   

    This leads to the parable of the Prodigal Son, although in Luke, it is better labeled as being about Two Brothers, in this case, I would suggest, Listeners and to the Grumblers.

Peace,

Pastor Peter

Traveling Worship: In Advance of the Lord's Day, Sunday, March 30, 2025

 

Traveling Worship                                       Preparing for March 30, 2025

From Sunday’s Scripture Lesson

Luke 15: ²¹Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” ²²But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; ²⁴for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.  (The Full Scripture is: Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32)

A Hymn to follow: “Just As I Am”

Just as I am, without one plea but that Thy blood was shed for me, and that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

Just as I am, and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark blot, to Thee whose bold can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

Just as I am, Thou wilt receive, wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve; because Thy promise I believe, O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

A Prayer from Scripture: Taken from Psalm 32

Of David.
¹ Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
² Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

⁵ Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’, and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
          Selah

⁶ Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them. ⁷ You are a hiding-place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance.
          Selah

To Close, The Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.  Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.  Amen.

Amen and Amen
 

Traveling Worship: Worship for Those Who Cannot Come Home For Sunday Morning

     The Welcome and Announcements of this past Sunday morning, March 23, began with something I had not planned to say.  That is not unusual.  What was unusual was how "to the point" it was, like "Holy Spirit to the point" (which it is often not...).  The words were simple: Welcome Home!  

    We come Home to worship.  Our Home is situated in the House of God.  But that is a convenience, because the Home, to quote the deep wisdom, is where the Heart is.  Our Heart is the Heart of the people of the First Presbyterian Church of Merchantville, and our Home is where the hearts of the many gather as one Heart in the Lord.  But if something were ever to happen to the building, the Heart of our church, our people, would not end.  Our Home would still be there.  On Sunday mornings, our Home is blessed to gather in the Sanctuary. 

    So that is piece number 1.

    There are people in our congregation who cannot come to the House.  The first line of thinking when it comes to these folks is that they are our senior members, those homebound, or in rehab or hospital, or in long term care.  So we take the Home to them.  When we gather to worship, we share God's Word, we sing, we pray.  So, to make something available to our care team (it is a more loosely affiliated group of caring folks who do visits than a formal 'team' team).  It is a resource.

    So that is piece number 2.

    When we are taking Home to those who cannot join us, it is more than those who are unable, for reasons of age, illness, or infirmity, to join us.  We compete with a sinful world where the busyness of Sunday has been an intention attempt to drown out the Lord's Day.  We are forced to pick.  And while it would be very easy to judge those who do not "pick" church, where is the Jesus in that?  So, for anyone who cannot come Home, why not prepare a piece of Home in advance?  

    This piece can serve as a sneak peek for next Sunday as well! 

    So that is piece number 3.

    In preparing for worship, taking the Scripture "on the road" with me as Pastor, using it in the moments when Scripture is appropriate to share (in non-critical moments where the power of Psalm 23 might carry God's strength) is something I have tried to do for a number of years.  It is a two-way street, bring the Scripture to those who are not able to come on Sunday, bring back the Spirit's work in the wider community of what the Scripture means, letting the community mold our response to God's Word in the sermon.

    Voila, piece number 4.

    We take all these bits, and we shove them into a de-mystified (to remove idolatrous overtones) "Magic 8" ball, and we shake it up, and we get FPC Merchantville's "Traveling Worship: Bring it to Heart and Home".   It is a two part process:

    1. To assemble as many of us as we can to worship in our Home on Sunday morning.

    2. To bring Home to as many of us as can to worship who are unable to assemble.

    Traveling Worship.

Peace,

Pastor Peter

Calling Out God's Displeasure In Time of Disaster

     It happened during Hurricane Katrina.  It also happened during Superstorm Sandy.  It happened even earlier, after September 11, 2001.  These happenings are news reports that I remember after this times of disaster and attack.  Certain leaders within the Christian community, whose soapboxes were big enough to attract news coverage, stood up and proclaimed these events to be punishments from God for the sins of New Orleans; of New York City; and, in the case of 9/11, of NYC and the entire United States of America.

    Those are particular instances that I can bear witness to.  I have to say that the condemnations of New Orleans, when they were set alongside the pictures and the video footage of the absolute devastation were particularly offensive to me.  

    This is not new, not by any stretch of the imagination.  I would doubt that there has been a natural or manmade disaster in the history of the Christian community that has NOT been interpreted somewhere in the community as punishment for our sins.  

    In Sunday's passage, there is two particularly poignant events that Jesus references.  One is an act of state terror.  Pilate is accused of perpetrating this terror, attacking and killing Galileans in the process of offering sacrifice in the temple, going so far as to add their blood to the blood of their animal sacrifices.  The second is a building collapse.  Eighteen people died when the tower of Siloam fell on them. 

    The question Jesus answers with a resounding NO is that these people were not worse-type sinners singled out for a particular kind of death because they somehow deserved it more.  In broader terms, disasters do not happen as God's punishment for sin.  Disaster can be a consequence of sin.  The attack on the temple was Roman power extended to preserve the 'peace' no matter who had to die.  It is almost a cliched experience, it has happened so often, that buildings collapse because greedy builders use substandard materials.  I cannot say if that is what happened at Siloam, but it is one possible 'consequence of sin' explanation.

    In both cases, Jesus' analysis of the situation is that if people do not repent, they will perish as the victims of these two disasters did.  The key to understand is that these people perished, this is not about the details of how.  "Unless you repent, you will perish..."  There is little 'gray area' here.  Someone is not 'punished more' in time of disaster.  On the flip side, someone who has repented can still die in a disaster.

    These verses do not explain why disasters happen.  "Where was God in all of this" will not find a direct answer here.  

    Rather, the takeaway of this passage comes in the form of a parable.  A fig tree that produces no fruit is a stand-in for us.  No fruit for years.  So it needs to be ripped up according to the owner of the garden.  It needs to perish.  But, in the parable, the gardener, the stand-in for Jesus, comes, offers to do everything he can for that fig tree to allow it to bear fruit.  Only after the gardener has done all that can be done will the judgement of perishing be revisited.

    That opens up a whole new, far greater 'gray area' for us, Jesus comes in for us, transcending how we might perish, to open up all the opportunities for repentance as our Lord and Savior.  For Jesus, it is not about trying to explain the reasons for how we die, but rather how we should never die.

Peace,
Pastor Peter

The Terror of the State

     We have a general sense of the precarious times in which Jesus lived.  The authorities were out to get him, almost from Day 1, because Jesus was a threat to the balance of permission that existed in that land, at that time.  I had written originally 'the balance of power' in that time.  But that does not fit the circumstance.  In our passage last week, the Pharisees warned Jesus that King Herod was out to get him.

    But Herod was not the king except by the permission of the Romans.  The Romans are the overlords of the whole empire.  They maintain the "Pax Romana", the Peace of Rome from one end of the empire to the other if two conditions are met. The first condition is the payment of taxes.  The second is not to cause a stink whose odor will waft back to Rome.  When the taxes are feeding the Imperium, people permitted to hold power can get away with just about anything.  Until it gets too smelly or it affects the profit margin.

    The Peace of Rome was then enforced by marching in and killing the peace-breakers until they were no more.  Like in the lands of the gospel some 40 years after Jesus.  The single largest army assembled by the Romans to that moment was not on the borders, not for an invasion, it was to put down the revolt whose smell had gotten back to Rome.

    I opened this post by saying a 'general sense' because we do not get too many specific details of the precarious times.  Yes, we read about Herod beheading John, but that was no so much King Herod suppressing opposition-the Bible tells us that Herod liked listening to John.  No, he was suckered into it by making a promise to a pretty girl that turned his head, a pretty girl who conspired with her mother to set these circumstances up.  And John the Baptizer paid the price.

    But our passage for this Sunday is very specific.  "...there were some present who told him (Jesus) about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices."

    This is Pontius Pilate, who will soon be judging Jesus.  He is the Roman governor, the true power in the land.  We shall hear from him in the events of Holy Week, where, generally, he does not come off as a tyrant.  He does not want to kill Jesus, he even tries to save him from death "knowing it was from jealousy" that this death plot had been hatched.  

    Derived from the second law of the Peace of Rome, "do not cause a stink that will waft back to Rome", the Romans reserved the application of the death penalty for themselves.  

    What else we can glean from this headline is that there were people from Galilee (like Jesus and the majority of his disciples) who'd come to the temple in Jerusalem to offer sacrifice.  This is the universal custom of worship for the Jews in this country.  Come to the holiest spot in Judaism for the offer of sacrifice according to the law of Moses.

    To commit these acts, Pilate must have invaded the temple precinct.  Sacrilege number 1, defiling the temple because he is not Jewish.  This was a custom the Romans were fastidious about observing otherwise.  The Romans had a fortress built overlooking the Temple, but their soldiers did not go into the temple...until they did.  Sacrilege number 2, executing these Galileans at worship.  Like coming into our sanctuary on a Sunday morning.  Sacrilege number 3, defiling their bodies to obtain their blood.  Sacrilege number 4, taking their blood and mingling it with the blood of their sacrifices.  In the law of Moses, blood=life.  When culling animals to be eaten, their blood is drained.  In the sacrificial practices of the temple, blood was shed on the altar as an atonement for the sins of the people (something else we will talk a lot more about during Holy Week).  This practice was deliberate, demeaning, and disgusting in its execution.  

    So, while it was a mockery of a trial, Jesus still had a trial.  For the Jews, the niceties had to be observed, the facade of due process acknowledged.  For the Romans, this illusion was fine and dandy as long as it maintained control.  A subdued population was as desirable as (or maybe even preferred to) a peaceful population, so long as the taxes flowed and the odor manageable.  But in an instance, the precarious nature of the whole system could shift and hideous atrocities committed, because its the Romans.  

    It was a dangerous time in which Jesus lived and taught.  It is not too often that the bible gives us more than a glimpse of just how dangerous it was.

Peace,
Pastor Peter

When Not All The Bad Guys Are Bad Guys

     Aren't the Pharisees supposed to be the bad guys?  Not the only bad guys of course, but line them up with the Sadducees, the priests, the elders, the scribes, the other leaders.  They, collectively, the Jewish leadership, are those who opposed Jesus.  

    Yet, in the lead-in to our passage, the Pharisees are warning Jesus about Herod.  At least, some of them are.  We know not all the leaders were against Jesus from other passages.  We know Nicodemus, a Pharisee, comes to Jesus in the night in John 3.  We know of Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin-the ruling council- is the individual who goes to Pilate to claim the body of Jesus after His crucifixion.  In John 19, both men are mentioned in the burying of Jesus.  

    We also know that there are debates that go on amongst the leadership.  Jesus is popular with them until he pushes too far; for example, over rules for Sabbath-keeping.  

    Jesus, at this moment, is on his way, town by village, teaching and preaching and doing what Jesus does, to Jerusalem.  It was at this very hour, according to verse 35, that the Pharisees warn Him that Herod is after His life.  And Jesus asks the Pharisees to go and tell that 'old fox' about what is to come, a prophecy about what we know as Holy Week.

    Jesus laments over Jerusalem, the place where prophets sent to it are killed.  Where He will be killed. 

    Jesus' death and resurrection needs to be understood from a couple of different perspectives here.  On the one hand, there is a plan of God in operation, who so loved the world that God sent His only begotten Son.  

    But one of the hallmarks of Luke is that he take pains to lay out the human circumstances of what is going on.  The implication is that these are the circumstances that God uses to achieve God's purpose.  It is why the Christmas story starts with the Emperor.  God picked the time, picked the Guy in Charge to do God's bidding to bring Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.

    That human perspective is in our passage from Luke 13.  Herod is conspiring to kill Jesus.  He's already killed John the Baptist.  We know from the historical record that he was a cruel and vicious individual when it came to any perceived threat to his personal status or authority.  There are political forces at work, there are religious forces as work, it is frankly complicated.  What Jesus is going, as he put it, 'casting out demons and performing cures', alongside his teaching and preaching, has gained favor not only with the people, but with some of the leadership as well.

    At least enough for some of the Pharisees to warn Jesus about Herod's plans.

    The takeaway might be that God's plans are clear but human circumstances are messy.  But there is more to it than that.  It is not just a 'takeaway'.  Because people have been persecuted and killed because of a narrow, black and white evaluation of Jesus' death and resurrection.

    People of the Jewish faith have been (and still are) persecuted by Christians.  It may not be as obvious as it once was, but anti-Semitism is still very powerful in the hearts of many who claim Jesus as Lord and Savior.  One of the justifications, the rationalizations for this behavior, from the earliest persecutions of Jews by Christians, is to willfully misinterpret the Bible to claim that 'the Jews killed Jesus'.  Jews have been killed and their murder excused as retribution for Jesus' death.  To this day, I have heard people comment "well, the Jews killed Jesus" to justify their own racist attitudes.  

    So, its a little thing, little more than a detail in the narrative, the Pharisees warning Jesus.  But these details are important.  Understanding the gospel is important.  Because there is not a detail of our faith that cannot be pulled out of context, twisted out of any sense of recognition, and used to commit evil.  If we have any doubt about what Jesus wanted, remember He forgave them from the cross, 'for they know not what they do'.  But the same gospel that tells us of our assurance of faith, that tells us of our salvation in the death and resurrection in Jesus Christ, there have been some pretty twisted versions of that same Bible to be put out there.

    That is why is it SO important that we know our bibles for ourselves.  Because there are some truly bad people who will take the Bible to justify their evil actions, even 'in the name of Jesus'.

Peace,
Pastor Peter

Worship for March 16, 2025: A Visitation Resource

     Gathering for Worship in the widest possible extent is the centerpiece of the Christian community.  We get the single largest gathering of folks on Sunday morning.  Preparing for worship starts on Monday morning, or Tuesday morning if I get laid up on a Monday like yesterday.  

    What I try to do when visiting is bring Sunday's Bible Lesson with me.  Take what is coming for Sunday's sermon 'on the road', if you will.  However, in any visit, my first step is to ask the person I am visiting if they have a preferred passage.  What is dear to them in the moment.  I am coming in service to them, so I seek to follow their lead (and blessed have I been in those moments).  

    If it is a time of crisis, it may be appropriate to select something familiar and powerful that speaks God's truth (like Psalm 23).  If my fellow Christian does not have a passage, that is my preferred 'go-to'. Most times, I will know ahead if I am going to visit someone in time of crisis, so I will be prepared to go to something familiar and powerful.

    These include passages like Psalm 23 to speak of God's faith and power, Psalm 42 in time of sorry and crisis, Isaiah 40: 21-23 where God's strength to care for us is central, or Psalm 100 to praise the Lord.

    Most times, the visit is not a crisis nor does my fellow Christian have a passage on the tip of their tongue to share.  Most often, it is left to me to pick something.  Sunday's Bible Lesson is what I pick.  This is part of my worship, so I am not simply writing 'about' the passage  for a sermon, but taking it to the Church with me as we come to the Lord.  Bringing the Scripture with me is also a way to take a pastoral visit from a "one-on-one" to a connection to the wider worshipping community.    

    At present, it is in three pieces.  The first is a selection of verses from the passage for Sunday.  These are 'curated' verses, verses that are picked because they reflect on God's love and strength.  The second is a song from our hymn book that is familiar to our community.  So that it is not the same three songs over and over again, I am asking Kim's help to plumb the depths of the song life of this congregation.  The last piece is the Lord's Prayer.

    Feel free to talk up the Scripture, feel free to choose how many verses to sing, feel free to offer your own words in prayer (but close with the Lord's Prayer so the person we visit participates).  For me, in a time of pastoral visitation, the key is familiarity.  Let God's love be familiar, let the language of worship (music) be familiar, let the prayer be familiar.  Let God's presence be familiar.

    What follows in the big print (suitable to cut and paste and print) is a brief outline for use when visiting someone who is not able to come to worship, perhaps due to illness, due to being shut-in, due to the constraints of the job or family.  

    So, if you are visiting on behalf of the church, visiting with a desire to bring some Christian presence into the moment, seeking a brief meditation for yourself, I hope this will be helpful.

    If you would like this sent separately, please email me to let me know.  If you would like hard copies to be left to grab 'on the go', please email me and we will set a spot for them.  Those who can attend church are free and able to come to the Lord.  For those who are not, we have the capacity to bring the Lord to them.

Peace,
Pastor Peter

For Worship: Sunday, Mar. 16, 2025, from Luke 13 and Psalm 27

Prayers for God’s Strength

 

From Luke 13: ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’

From Psalm 27: ¹The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

¹³I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

¹⁴Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!

 

A Song: What A Friend We Have In Jesus

What a friend we have in Jesus All our sins and griefs to bear
What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer

O what peace we often forfeit O what needless pain we bear
All because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged Take it to the Lord in prayer

Can we find a friend so faithful Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness Take it to the Lord in prayer

 

The Lord’s Prayer

 Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy word be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.  Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.  Amen.

Finding the Center of our Lenten Journey

     There are three commands from God's Word that Jesus uses to stand up to Satan during his temptation in the wilderness.  They are as follows:

    1. One does not live by bread alone.

    2. Worship the Lord your God, and serve only Him.

    3. Do not put the Lord your God to the test.

    These make sense in the context of the temptations.  Jesus was famished and Satan told Him to use miraculous powers to make some bread.  Satan claimed the world and the ability to give it to Jesus if Jesus just worshipped him.  Satan dared Jesus to jump.  

    These look like three disconnected possibilities that Satan lays down to pull Jesus' faith off the rails.  What is interesting is that there is no portion of this where Satan challenges Jesus as Son of God or Messiah or Son of David, no place where Satan takes a pot shot at God's plan.  Nowhere does Satan say "You are NOT the GUY." Rather, his tactics are diversion, division, and challenge.

    This is where we should look for Satan's temptations in our own lives.  There will be very little in the way of "Jesus is wrong and I am right" in his tactics.  Rather, Satan picks at the edges.  Leave our belief in Jesus alone but come at us from the things of the world that will draw our eyes away from Jesus, that will send our hearts drifting.  

    Jesus was hungry.  Satan tried to exploit that fact.  

    That second temptation always nags at me.  Satan claims that the glory and the authority of all the kingdoms (which he offers to Jesus in exchange for worship) has been given over to Satan.  My first reaction is NO, God is in control.  But take a closer look at what is going on around us.  The world is a pretty awful place.  Sin abounds, greed abounds, exploitation abounds.  What really gets to me personally is that we have the capacity, as a race, to overcome all this and yet we don't.  So I can say God is in control.  But when Satan says the world's been given to him, yah, from the evidence of my senses, there is truth there.  Which in turn sucks me away from trusting God.

    Then Satan tells Jesus to go jump off a pinnacle.  Satan claims the angels will save Him, which I believe.  Jesus says "Don't test the Lord", which I also believe.  But if Satan had anybody else standing up there, Satan would be telling them to commit suicide.  Go, jump.  In the pastoral experience that I have had, someone intent on suicide is deep in darkness and depression, hope gone, no way out except this act of self-killing.  But Satan uses this too, whispering that, in this darkness, "Finally, I will be with my Lord..."

    Satan will pull us everywhere and anywhere to knock us off the pedestal of trusting the Lord.

    This is why the temptations of Jesus are paired with our passage from Romans.  The truths there ground us.  The truths there are why Jesus spoke so calmly and overwhelmingly against Satan.  

    "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

    "One believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved."

    "The scripture says, "No one who believes in Jesus will be put to shame.""

    "For, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.""

    There is our center for our Lenten journey.  That Jesus is Lord, that God raised Jesus, that we are saved in this truth, this love.  Absorb, celebrate, internalize, reflect on, meditate on, pull it through our souls to our very heart.  Looking at Satan and Jesus, the temptations of the devil were not designed to challenge the supremacy or the authority of Christ.  They were more insidious.  Misdirect, push the story away from the Lord, undermine our Savior.  

    To stand against temptation, we must have Jesus in our hearts, the knowledge of who He is and what He has done for us, how it is the truest, purest expression of God's love for us.  That is our anchor, that is our center.  This is the season when we double down on what that means for us.

Peace,
Pastor Peter

The Devil: A Brief Biography

     Across the Bible, there are three points that jump to my mind where the devil (Satan) engages in dialogue in the historical record.  This is not about his presence in the future as in the Book of Revelation or in the abstract where he is discussed.  

    The big one here in the New Testament is this interchange, our Supernatural Duel.  Jesus versus the Devil.  Temptations galore.  Well, it is not exactly theological "Wrestlemania", but it is almost a rite of passage for Jesus.  I believe we can gain clarity by looking at the two places in the Old Testament where Satan is a character in the narrative.

    The first is in the book of Genesis, chapter 3.  Satan appears in the form of a serpent and fools Adam and Eve into eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  In Eden, this was the only tree forbidden them to partake from.  The serpent appears to Eve, spins his tale and "she took some of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate."

    The second is in the book of Job, chapters 1-2.  There is a 'heavenly council' and Satan, in the role of 'the accuser' is granted permission to rip Job's life down to nothing in order to get Job to 'curse God and die'.  

    The common thread is the presence of Satan to tear down the faithful.   

    That is not to say that the stories do not draw so many other questions.  Like in Job, why would God do that?  Does Satan really have permission to be in the 'heavenly council'?  What's it all about?  My favorite question is "Who got a human into that meeting to let the rest of us know about it?"  These questions pull us from what Satan is doing, trying to destroy the faith of Job.     

    As much as the questions that this "heavenly council" raise in Job, the question that distracts me is from Genesis,  What does it even mean that they 'walked with God' in the cool of the Garden?

    But unlike Job, the couple fall.

    SIDEBAR-A "What Bugs Me Moment": For any male out there who would like to lay off the sin and the blame on 'the wife', on the woman, read the text carefully.  Adam was there and did nothing.  Later, he would try to save his own skin by blaming Eve-and God for creating Eve.  Looking at the history of sin, I believe that more evil, destruction, death, and horror have come from the sin of blaming others than the sin of disobeying God.  Disobey God, own the disobedience, and Jesus forgives us.  Blame somebody else?  Deny ourselves that forgiveness. 

    These two passages foreshadow what happens to Jesus.  Satan shows up in an attempt to bring Him down, as before.  This time, it's kind of a combination of the two accounts in the Old Testament.  On the one hand, it repeats the pattern of the Fall of Humanity.  Satan is present and questioning Jesus, challenging him and tempting him.  But this time humanity, in Jesus, stands firm.  Would be like Eve or Adam simply looking at the snake, "God said 'not that tree' and that's good enough for me."  

    From the Job account, the challenge is in the heavenly council.  Job is the uninformed victim of it all.  But Jesus is absolutely informed as to what Satan is going to do.  Jesus knows that what happened to Job is going to happen to him, and worse.  For Job's life was spared.  The life of Jesus was not.  He was faithful unto death, even death on the cross.  But then His life was given back to Jesus.

    That's what is in it for us.  Satan seeks to undermine our faith.  But, in Jesus, it will not destroy us.  Because of Jesus, in the end, all will be restored to us and we will be made new.  

Peace,
Pastor Peter

    

    

    

The Battle of Forever, Jesus Style.

     Jesus versus the Devil, a duel of words and strength recorded in Luke 4, is our passage this week.  Ever heard the expression of having one hand tied behind your back when you are undertaking a 'battling' task?  That kind of feels what is happening here.  Jesus is out in the wilderness for 40 days, famished from an intentional fast, before the devil goes down to the wilderness, looking for a...no, THE soul to steal.

    If you have ever seen or heard of the movie "The Last Temptation of Christ", the title is based on its contrast to these first temptations of Christ.  This post is not so much about what the temptations were so much as how Jesus won the duel. 

    In "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", there is perhaps the most spectacular magical duel in the whole series (book and movie).  Dumbledore and Voldemort go head to head...well...wand to wand in this battle of might.  For those of us with a little more history under our belts, I was living in the Philippines and they paused school and set up closed circuit television for all of us to watch "the Thrilla in Manila" between Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier.  

    When it comes to a duel, that's what I envision.  So when Jesus goes head to head with the devil and beats him with the quoting of Scripture, I like the image of Jesus whacking the devil upside the head with a brass-bound King James version of the Bible.  But that is not how the power of Jesus is expressed.  The devil makes his offer, offers his temptation, and Jesus turns it down by drawing on the Bible's power to lay down God's Word over that of the Devil.

    Jesus versus the Devil.  Jesus looks Satan up and down, beats him every time starting with three little words, "It is written..."  There is, for us, the foundation of our own spiritual battles, our own moments when our faith and the world 'get into it'.  It is written in God's Word to us.  So it is not a matter of training up with wands and magic or working out in the gym and learning the techniques of pummeling the other guy.  

    But it is a matter of training up in what the Bible teaches us.  Training up in what God has given to us in His word.  Doing what Jesus did.  Being cool, being humble, knowing the words, living the words, laying them down when the world gets up in our faces.  

    "It is written...", spoken in the full Spirit and power of the Almighty.  There is nothing that can stand against such love.

Peace,
Pastor Peter