Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study on Nehemiah 1:1-4 (April 18, 2024)

April 18, 2024:  Thursday Bible Study on the Old Testament book of Nehemiah 1:1-4

May the Joy and Peace of Christ's Resurrection fill all of your days.

Today please pray for Letitia who was in a three-car accident on Houghton Road.  She is headed to the hospital to get checked over.  She has lots of Pain and soreness already, and as far as I know, her car was substantially damaged.  Her service Dog, Candy, was in the car, but uninjured. 

Please remember our Yard Sale at American starts tomorrow at 9am - 2pm, and then again on Saturday.  Thank you all for your donations, and for the time and effort too.  God bless each and every one of you.  Come see what we have, it might be something that you really need or want, or just come to say hello.  We are hoping to send a generous gift to the Kartchners in Hawaii. 

Old Testament book of Nehemiah

Today we step into the Old Testament text of Nehemiah.  This book and Ezra are often handled together.  In fact, they are present and contemporaries of one another about one hundred years after the first group of exiles headed back to Jerusalem so they could begin and hopefully complete the large undertaking of rebuilding the city and the Temple.  As we know, the biggest issue with which Ezra dealt was the blending of the peoples of the region in marriage and economy.  When Nehemiah receives word of the terrible conditions in Jerusalem, He too, like Ezra, prayers to God in distress over the lack of movement to restore the city and Temple.  Now thirteen years later, the protective wall is down, and some of it burned, and gates to the city are nearly destroyed.  I wonder if we will see in Nehemiah what became of the large sums of money and the furnishings of the temple which Ezra brought back with him.  It really does seem that by now, it should have been encumbered to do the work and hire laborers too.  But for Ezra the issue of purity of the faithful was the most important thing to be rectified.  In the opening of Nehemiah, we discover that even in the most western province of Persia, that little had been known about the struggles in Jerusalem.  Though it sounds, in this passage, like the condition of the city might be from it's destruction from the time of the Persian conquering of over 100 years ago, it may have been from really current regional and tribal issues. and since the entire region was under that hand of Persia, even the near west of the Persian kingdom had not yet heard the news about the Judahites, the bans on marriage and even foreign spouses and children who in recent years had been removed from the people of Israel's exile population, and then, knowing the tribal and regional issues, there were plenty of battles around Jerusalem, including those which may have come from families who's partners and children had been summarily removed from the population.  As we know from our own experience with our own southern border, and current masses of people who are coming north from South America and Central America to find hope and life improvements, there is such a wide and varied opinion about these people here in our nation, and yet in spite of what some Christian communities may think politically about this problem, or blessing, we must, in order to find the Word of God through Christ for these situations, realize that historically failing to treat immigrants humanely caused a breach between Israel and God.  Israel failed, and Judah too, because they chose dismissive and derisive care for the immigrant peoples in their midst.  But perhaps we will see through Nehemiah what must be done to overcome this failure.  But first, like Ezra, Nehemiah must come to God on the knees of his heart, broken and humbled before God due to the failures of leadership and faith on the part of the exiles.  What will come next as the people of God's election try again to get the resettlement right?

Happy Easter once again.   

In Christ's Love,    Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 9:14-19 bible study (April 16, 2024)

April 16, 2024:  Tuesday Morning Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 9:14-19

Blessing and Peace be with you on this beautiful Spring Day here in Tucson.

We received really good new in our congregation yesterday, and we are thanking God for His love and care for the adult child of our members who was lost in the mountains for 5 days with no food or water. Yesterday she was found alive and transported to ICU severely dehydrated. We prayed and prayed as a congregation for this adult's safety, and the beneficent One of all of Creation, answered the prayers that we offered.

As Jesus and James, John, and Peter come off the Mount (Hermon?), they are confronted by a problem which could bring great strife to Christ's journey to the cross. In His absence on the Mount of Transfiguration, the disciples left behind are faced with the inability to heal a child who has seizures and is unable to speak. Such a failure could mean that many would become less faithful and would see Christ as what He had already been claimed to be, a charlatan.

Whether it was the disciples who had failed, or if Christ had come off the Mount, and not dealt with the problems which this presented for Himself  and the disciples, it could certainly have supported the Pharisees, and others who through all of the hype of the Nazarene and what he had been doing and teaching could have lost its hold on those now coming to believe.  From this passage we learn that it is clear that Jesus is ready now to face the remaining short journey to the cross. The conversation with Moses and Elijah on the Mount had helped Jesus to cement His resolve to continue on. In the Disney animation, "Onward!", the story is so similar. Two brothers who have been ridiculed by classmates, one for his wild behavior, the other for his extreme shyness, set out on a journey to magically restore their father's life for just enough time for his shy son who never knew him to meet him. They became both discouraged and determined in their quest, and though they were often isolated because of who they were, they found in one another how they could live their lives with love for one another. Jesus knew how to continue His pathway to the cross, and how to deal with the everyday issues which surrounded His shared ministry with the disciples. Though Christ journey was to save the whole of the world and creation, He was also able to focus completely on the needs of one person. Sometimes you or I are that one person on whom Christ focuses, even when the whole world is such a mess of complicating, and sometimes deadly encounters for all people, Jesus works in both places to get God's message across. I have read ahead, and we all need to know how much we are represented in our individual issues, and yet the Christ of God chooses to always be with us.

Next Monday we continue on in the Gospel of Mark 9:19-24. After what our family of faith has been through this past week, I was brought to tears by the words of the man who was the father of this child who he loved so much! more on Monday my good friends.

Please remember that American has a yard sale this Friday and Saturday from 9 to 2pm both days. We need help setting it up on Wednesday & Thursday from 10AM to 5PM.  We will be doing this on the patio. And we also need help on the sale days as well. Funds from this sale will be sent to the Kartchner family in Hawaii who are members of our church. Kandice has cancer which is extremely difficult to treat. She is now unable to work due to her health battle.

May God richly bless this sale for help for just one of His children, just as we will see Him do through Christ Jesus for the child with seizures and the inability to speak.

May God bless us all every day! Pastor Kim

Church Yard Sale Poster

Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 9:9-13 bible study (April 15, 2024)

April 15, 2024:  Monday Morning Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 9:9-13

Good morning, and continuing Easter Blessings!

This has been a difficult week. I suspect that you have had similar ones in your life too. I must say that over the years that I have served at American, my ministry has not usually been difficult and emotionally tough as I have been blessed to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord of All Things. This past week we had a parent of members become one of God's triumphant Saints. She was an integral part of this family's daily life, and though she had health issues for many years, whenever she came to worship, she always lit up the "room" where she was with a gracious smile and kind words. Other members to whom my family and the entire congregation have become close have a situation that has no closure for them at this time. Their family member hiked into the desert and has not come back since she left. Search teams of people, dogs, and by air have been unable to find her, and family is consumed with placing posters around the city, at grocery stores, homeless encampments, and other places where she may have shown up after her disappearance. We have surrounded them with love and prayers, with members searching too. We give thanks for Martha's gentle passing to be with the Lord, and pray for her family, children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren to know God's love and hope through Christ's Easter Resurrection and promise for all who believe. We pray for Katie's family in this time of uncertainty and any possible closure. May the God of all things surround Katie and them with His comfort and Love as we continue to pray for Katie's safety with hope in our Lord.

Gospel of Mark

Thanks for joining me today in our continuing study of Mark. Today we come to the aftereffects of being on the Mount of Transfigurations, and then returning back to what the disciples believe will be a massive change. We must remember that even though Jesus has been talking to the disciples about what is coming for him, they heard on the Mount that Jesus was coming with power and might. This nearly matched the historic beliefs about the Messiah coming to restore the promised land to its own fullness of power and rule over the kingdoms of their world. But they have also heard that the Messiah must suffer and die. (and be resurrected, which they do not understand) So what they have heard on the Mount is at the same time, exciting, and difficult. If they tell anyone, which Jesus has commanded them not to do, and that includes the other disciples, it will create difficulties which will cause people to try to force Christ into situations which could cause such fear and upheaval that Christ might never be able to take that journey to the cross.  What the disciples know is that before that major event is to take place that Elijah must return, and Jesus makes it clear to them that he has already returned, and in fact, has just done so on the Mount. The three who were with Jesus were looking for Elijah's return to stand in the midst of the community of Jews, to prophecy, and lead the people, but in reality, his return was for the benefit of Jesus. Rabbinic tradition taught the Jews that when Elijah came, he would precede the Messiah by three days, speaking to the world day one from the mountains of Israel lamenting the desolation of the land, after which he would cry "Peace Comes to the World". On the second day Elijah would cry out "Good Comes to the World". On the third day Elijah would cry out "Jeshuah (that is salvation) comes to the world". He would come to settle and restore all things from family issues, to national conflicts, to the restoration of right worship.  He would bring those wrongfully sent away, and send away those who had wrongfully stayed, removing them from Israel once and for all. Jesus tries to clarify the return of Elijah saying that he has already come, and the people have been unresponsive to him, and in fact they killed him. We don't have to think very long to remember who was the one to whom the people flocked for the repentance of sin, and who then was imprisoned and murdered on a sexual temptation of the king.  Yes, Jesus was talking about John the Baptist. If you are saying right now, "that's not fair”, he came disguised as a different person", then we all ought to know that we should expect something similar to happen when the Savior returns.  How will we know, and what should we do? We should be working every day to live by the Great Commandment. Loving God more than anything else, and to love one another as we love ourselves, and at the same time realizing that is our thanksgiving to God for the gift of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ! The disciples wanted only to believe what was known about the Messiah by faulty religious teaching and their own desire to have things the way that they were comfortable with them, and because of that, what Christ told them and what they had seen on the Mount were beyond their understanding. My question is, are we living as Christians today, and doing what the disciples did? We should never be surprised that God has done a brand-new thing for the world through His Only Begotten Son, the Light of the world. He has been raised from the dead, and has defeated our last enemy, death! No wonder you and I say on Easter, "Christ has Risen! He has Risen Indeed!

In Christ, Pastor Kim