Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 15:21-28 bible study (November 5, 2024)

November 5, 2024:  Tuesday Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 15:21-28

Good morning and the LORD'S richest blessing be with you today and always.

Thank you for all of your prayers over the past months of our online Bible studies, but more than that I thank God for your partnership in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Today the Gospel of Mark shares with us in his inimitable style, a precise description of what each criminal was facing in terms of how their individual cross was to be moved to the site of their crucifixion. It even included the Roman soldiers grabbing by-standers to aid a particular criminal in getting the cross hauled to the place of their death. I started right away today to address the passage, because I have been thinking about how often we really appreciate the faceted glass in our worship space, or on the Sunday's when we arrive are we too busy for any time for contemplation about the symbols which the artist included in the windows?  I know, their colors alone enhance our worship time, drawing us into giving praise to God, and to the Son. Paraments on the altar are also meant to draw us into the color and symbols of our Christian faith and our worship journey. There is one more too. The Stations of the cross are meant to be a way to reflect every time we come to church, on the sacrifice, the burden of not only the cross Christ was carrying, but also the burden of the sin of God's children, a weighty burden of unimaginable mass which our Savior carried for all of us.  I implore you to take the time when you come to worship to offer your prayers of confession and amazement at the immeasurable love of God for each one of us as you contemplate the altar, the cross, the windows, and the stations of the cross. 

As I said above, Mark, in almost all things, meets the criteria for being the first of the Gospels to be written, perhaps as early as 50 through 70 in the Common Era.  It is the shortest and most precise of all the Gospels. We see it on the face of things, that Mark seems to be the source for Matthew's Gospel, and then both are sources for Luke and John as each of the other Gospels adds to Mark's text, their own special emphasis and knowledge.  Jesus, beaten, and weakened by the sleep deprivation of His time with the Roman cohort. The visual picture of what Christ endures during His bearing of His cross. Simon of Cyrene was the first to be drawn in to help Jesus in the bearing of His cross. If we turn to The Acts of the Apostle's 13:1 there is a list of the men of Antioch which included a Simeon, which is another way of referring to Simon, and also the fact that Simeon's other name was Niger, which indicates that he was dark skinned.  Simon was from Cyrene, which is in Africa, which should show to us that he was likely dark skinned. This particular way of searching for the identity of the man who would aid Christ, is really all that we have. Maybe it is enough, but for you, there needs to be something more concrete, but this is what scholars are left with, it is what we have.  Interestingly enough this may all be a sign that Simon's life was transformed by helping Christ as He came to Golgotha. Were there words shared, or was it just the power of Christ's presence with him? I think today how the power of Christ transforms lives today, and are those transformations any less powerful in our times than in Jesus' time? So maybe Simon begins to travel in Christian circles and ends up being one of the saints who helps Paul and Barnabas to get on their way to spread of Gospel.

This reading finds us wanting more than Mark gives us. Thankfully, we have the other Gospels to use as added resources. However, Mark shares with us the vivid picture of Christ being offered a drugging combination to alleviate the pain of His crucifixion. But He was having none of it. At this point, Christ is only looking forward to being present with His Father once more. It is not uncommon for a dying person to refuse drinks and food.  It is the body's way of moving on to death. Forcing water and/or food only causes the individual more pain. I know, it's' tough for us to understand, and we often press forward to try to get our loved one to take some hydration or food because we want them not to leave, and to show signs of normalcy.  In our reading for today, we are like Christ's disciples. We want this story to end differently, but without this story, our sins would not have been forgiven once and for all. Jesus is crucified between two criminals, ending his life in the same place for which He came, to bear the sins of us all, that we might be ready for life with God for ever, being found not guilty for our sin, so that we will be received into Christ's heavenly Kingdom.

I will be back on Thursday as we work in the OT Book of Esther.

With love in Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 15:15-20 bible study (November 4, 2024)

November 4, 2024:  Monday Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 15:15-20

Grace and Peace be with you, as it has always been throughout your life with Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

I often come to you right away in this letter requesting prayers, and I will do that in a minute. Today give God a prayer of thanks for answering our prayers for Kandice in Hawaii. For a reason that her cancer doctors do not understand, her cancer number dropped to 750 from 1000. This is a significant improvement, and we need to continue our prayers for Kandice and Lisa and Alexis as they continue their journey and battle this terrible disease for their wife and sister. Please also continue praying for Teri H. as she awaits the third hip replacement on the same hip! It has been slipping out the socket, and there are pieces of the metal hip that are now shearing off and ending up in her system. Her surgery is on the 18th of this month. Also pray for Della J. She is not feeling well, and her 91st birthday was yesterday. Happy Birthday Della!

This morning, we move into the next part of chapter 15 in the Gospel of Mark. Christ's trial before Pilate has taken place, the order for His crucifixion has been given, and soldiers have been ordered to prepare a cross. While that is happening, Jesus is in the hands of the Roman soldiers. One can only imagine the frustration of these soldiers, perhaps not for Jesus, but for the whole of Jewish people whose lives the Romans must oversee. That frustration reveals itself in the treatment of Jesus as a Jewish man, who just happens to also be the only begotten Son of God, the Savior. For the soldiers, this is just one more frustrating task to do, and in doing it, they are probably not familiar with the religious involvements of the Temple authorities.  What they do know is that Jesus has already undergone the degradation of scourging before He even gets to them. That practice was a brutal beating and shredding of its victim's back with a heavy knotted rope until the flesh is torn and bleeding. But in these verses Jesus is now facing their ridicule, continuing whipping, and the abuse of His entire body. Roman soldiers were known around the near east as the bearers of brutality. All of this seemed to be a way of dealing with the "cult" which Jesus began.  If we go beyond the crucifixion, then we come to all of the ways that the people who worshiped multiple gods, treated the Christians. Even in destroyed Pompeii, there are drawings on the wall of the destroyed city of Christians in positions of bowing to a donkey with the words under it "This man worships his god". Christians around the world are all too familiar with being treated in this way. When the Reformation of the 15 hundreds began, this new vision for praising God and discerning the God's Truth through His Holy Word in the Bible brought persecution and death by the Roman Church of the time, due to this new thinking being a threat to the orthodoxy of the Roman Church.  Today within the Church again Confessing Christians are faced with persecution by the Christian Nationalists, who if they come to power in the government will work to destroy those of us who claim to Believe in God's Grace and Love for all of His children. The forward thinking of the churches of the Reformation will be seen with anger and a hostile environment. Once again, some 5 hundred years after the Reformation, we may now be faced with defending our leaders and seeking to keep one another safe from the hatred for the doctrines of the church we love.  The question becomes will we run and hide like most of the disciples, or will we stand with the Love of Jesus Christ in the face of other "Christians", who would choose to condemn all that we have come to know as the LORD'S truth for this life, and for eternity? ( I use the word  "Christians" here when  the Spirit, and my heart, tell me those churches have lost their way, closed their hearts, and have found the Truth of God to be inadequate compared to the wealth and power they can gain if they ignore the Gospel of Jesus Christ.)  I pray that religious freedom will continue in our nation. We have been set free by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. When others may try to harm us, we still know that we are set free to serve the truth of the Gospel no matter what may be happening around us!

With Love in Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study - Esther 6:12-8:2 (October 31, 2024)

October 31, 2024:  Thursday Old Testament Bible Study - Esther 6:12-8:2

May the blessings of the Saints in Light brighten your day, and light your life's pathway of faith.

In our daily life we are not very different from the Book of Esther. We go through our lives often not thinking of the myriads of blessings and gifts that those who believe in Jesus Christ receive every day, and the power of the Spirit's inbreaking guidance and care which also comes to us every day. Though we may not always think about God, He is not far away from us but is constantly hoping that we will reach out to Him in prayer, thanksgiving, and love.

In our prayers let us remember Annette who had knee replacement last week. Pray for good progress in her healing. Pray for me too please. I have had a health issue come up this week, and I’m waiting for the doctor's action which should come sometime today.  It should be in the form of a prescription. Keep Kandice and Jeff in your prayers too, as they both suffer from cancer which cannot be cured with today's advances in cancer care. Pray for peace in our world too. Pray for the war in the Middle East, which seems to be growing in size, and especially for the people of the nations involved who all become the victims of this war, and especially for the people trying to survive in the Gaza strip, now with greatly diminished supplies of aid being allowed to reach them, and for the people of the Ukraine and Russia as the Ukrainian people fight for their democracy and land to survive.  And, closer to home, let us pray for this election time in our nation, that we all might have a greater sense of Christ's Peace in our lives, as we seek to be the democracy light for the world, and to have the result of this election be that our government will be sensitive to the needs of all of the people in our nation.

On to our study today which covers a large section of the book of Esther 6:12 - 8:2. In our passage for today we see the culmination of Esther's work to undue the murderous hatred that Haman has for the Jews, and others who live in Xerxes' kingdom. Haman has become so infuriated with Mordecai, that he has devoted his wealth, and even his devotion to the king as a means to destroy Mordecai and his people, the Judahites. In this passage we have come to know that Esther has a great deal of "pull" with Xerxes. It is interesting that her wishes get granted by the king on the day of the wine banquet, which is the second day of this grand party which Esther is throwing. We might just as well say it plainly, the king is probably not all that completely together on this day of heavy drinking.  Remember, Xerxes likes a good 6-month long party. Haman plotted to kill Mordecai, and instead, he becomes the victim of his own anger and hatred. In the Gospel, in the garden on that last night before His crucifixion, Jesus tells Peter that the person who lives by violence, in all likely hood will die by it themselves. One of the important things that we know is happening, but we have yet to hear this important thing take shape in the narrative of this Scripture, is any mention of God. But even Haman's advisors and counselors, as well as his family, tell Haman that he should have known better than to take on the Judahites, because they always seem to come out on top, no matter how difficult the current crises are in the lives of their people. Is it any wonder that in the intervening centuries that many hateful and scapegoating violent leaders have tried to destroy the Judahites without success? Even in Rome, the Judahites were blamed for the Caesar's financial issues, or the one most familiar to us is the German leader Hitler who attempted to obliterate the Jews from the face of the earth, hoping to blame them for the financial crisis that the whole world was facing after the Great Depression of the 1930's.  Of course there is also the story of Moses, and the release of the Hebrews by the 7 plagues which God sends down, and which is commemorated in the Passover.  Time and again, when the crises had become unbearable, God steps in to bring His Salvation to that situation. The very same truth is here in Esther, but with no mention of the benefactor of this victory for His children. There is irony here too. Now Mordecai will become the master of Haman's home, property, and family, and that huge hanging scaffold that Haman planned to hang Mordecai from, now is the means for Haman's own death. I hope that in your everyday lives, that you are able to see the hand of God all around you too, because His Hand is always, in with, and around you!

Next Thursday we will move on to the next reading from Esther that speaks to the issues which surround using self-defense to protect the ones we love and ourselves too.

With Love in Christ, Pastor Kim