Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 14:27-31 bible study (October 8, 2024)

October 8, 2024:  Tuesday Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 14:27-31

May Christ's gift of faith be your strong courage and hope in all things in your lives.

Good morning my dear friends.  Sunday at church we had a virtual laying on of hands from the congregation for Kandice, Lisa, and Alexis as their family deals with the very sad news that there is little more that can be done for Kandice as her cancer has begun to spread.  Lisa called this morning, and we were able to talk about all of this, and she and Kandice were very thankful for laying on of hands.  Please continue to hold them in your prayers, along with Robert who is now working to handle multiple health problems.  Please also pray today for the people of Florida, both its citizens and all who are vacationing at theme parks in Orlando.  They will all be hit with winds exceeding 100 miles per hour on Thursday.  Pray for the safety of those who are evacuating, and for those who will stay.  It will indeed be very difficult for us as a nation if two or three more hurricanes hit Florida this year.  Some of us might like to say it is God's punishment for how things are going there, but I believe, in reality, that this terrible storm damage is hitting that state because of the failure of God's children to really shepherd and steward on behalf of creation itself.  Global warming is real in our lifetimes.

Today we continue in the Gospel of Mark 14:27-31.  The Passover meal has now been eaten, and it is time for these often repeated by Christ conversations to be introduced into this important Jewish Holiday.  What Jesus has to say is very troubling, but it doesn't take long for us to understand how quickly the disciples changed their opinions and choices about all of this.  They would indeed stay hidden, so that even after His death, Jesus would have to come to them in the Spirit to move their courage and responsibility to the action of sharing the Good News in spite of their fear.  In this passage, Jesus once again speaks of His death and departure from them.  And, that their reaction will be to fall away.  How disappointing it must have been for Jesus.  After all He had been enduring, and His disciples being eyewitnesses to the miracles, and having heard the messages of the Truth of God many times over, they would still fall away because their faith was not strong enough to endure all of it, before the coming of the Spirit.  When Jesus presents the beatitudes in Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount, it was difficult His disciples, and yes, even for us today, to comprehend the blessedness of the actions about which He spoke.  But all things from God are blessings if we understand that God is really in control all of the time, even in the really bad things that can happen to people who are living lives of faith.  In the steel of Christ’s faith, He could always see blessing at every turn.  The list isn't easy to endure, even though Christ does!

1. Through Christ blessed is the pain and torment and every torture of the body

2. Through Christ blessed be the loss and failure of friends and family, and the sacrifice of love.

3. Through Christ blessed be the failure and the ruin of every earthly hope

4. Through Christ blessed be all sorrow and torment, hardships, and endurance that demand courage.

Out of all of these things that we tend to be weak in the knees about in our lives comes, readiness to handle them all, for love, friendship, and the success of God's kingdom work, because we live in faith, just as Christ did. 

And the first of the disciples who came to know these blessings and their outcome was Peter.  In this passage Peter is in the wrong place in his heart and head, unprepared to lose the Master, and perhaps even more unprepared to live filled with faith that trusts the LORD in all things, both good and bad.  But if Peter's faith was skewered a bit, his love for Jesus was not.  It is so much better to place loving the LORD above all the uncertainty that our lives must face.  This whole passage brings us to its climax when Jesus announces that the betrayer has come.   You and I know what comes next.  Jesus did not run away or try to escape through the garden.  He stood in His ground of faith, ready to understand what lay ahead as a blessed event, and how it would fulfill the forgiveness which God had, and has always, wanted for His Creation.

Next Monday we will spend time in the passage about Christ's arrest.

In the Love of Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 14:22-26 bible study (October 7, 2024)

October 7, 2024:  Monday Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 14:22-26

Be joyful in Christ every day.  It really does seem like we have a number of members who are in need of personal prayers this past week.  Please pray for Liisa and Raul as they begin their journey raising the twin granddaughters, who are in middle school.  They picked them up yesterday, and headed to western CA.  Prayers for the church's good friends and hard worker Robert.  He has just discovered that he has a number of illnesses which will require some life changes.  Pray for his healing.  Please also pray for Sharyn Burt's good friends Bobbie and Sharon who both have serious health issues.  Pray to for Maggie's sister Pam who brain surgery on the 3rd to improve the effects of Parkinsons.  Pray as well for Elody and Christian whose new twins have been in the NICU for 2 months.  Here is one for us though, offer prayers of thanksgiving for Camille who was testing for cancer of the blood.  She is clear and OK.  And for some reason our member Carmelita and her friend Milton are on my mind this morning.  Offer prayers for the LORD to be present in their lives, guiding them every day.  And we must also pray for comfort and peace for Kandice, Lisa, and Alexis as the news of Kandice's cancer has begun to spread throughout her body.  Prayers for a miracle of healing would be great too!  We must also pray for peace in the Middle East conflicts.

Today we are in the passage in Mark which details the Words of Christ in the consecration of the Sacrament of Holy Communion.  It is hard for me to believe that this December 30th I have been speaking these words of grace and love for all who accept Christ as their Lord and Savior.  It is here that Jesus moves the remembrance which was present in the Passover meal to a status of the Holy and Living Presence of Himself in the bread and wine of this grace-filled meal.  Note that it still contained the remembrance part but added to it His own Living Presence.   This IS my body.  This IS my blood.

We are called in this Meal to do more than remember.  We are offered the opportunity to once again have Christ's gifts of Life, Forgiveness, and Salvation, just as we did at our Baptisms.  Just a reminder - The only way that a person can come to this meal believing in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, is when they are drawn to its grace and love by the power of the Holy Spirit.  So, Baptism may not be a pre requisite for belief to be present.  Peter found this out when he traveled to the home of a Roman Soldier whose members, servants, and slaves had come to belief, but had never been Baptized.  When we think about the Passover in Egypt its is important for us to remember that an important part of being saved from the Angel of Death as the eating of the Lamb whose blood had been given for them to use to mark their homes with the sign of its blood.  In reality Christ is really renewing all of this.  He too will lose His body to sacrifice, giving up His life's blood to save us from death.  But in our meal of bread and wine it is Christ, who by the power of God, saves us from sin and death when we pass through the grave, the gate of death, and are welcomed into the LORD'S eternal kingdom, Heaven.  We cannot fail to see all of the parallels between these two events, one given to free the SLAVES (us) and of Himself to become the Lamb of Life for all of us. 

Let's take a few minutes to talk about the Passover Meal and its symbols:

1. The cup of the Kiddush.  Kiddush is translated at sanctification.  In other words, this cup was intended to make this meal more than the physical food and drink.   It was to separate this meal from the other meals which people eat.

2. The first handwashing, implying that a person must be clean who is to preside over this celebration and remembrance.

3. A piece of parsley or lettuce was then taken to dip in the salt water, and then it was eaten.  This leafy food was meant as a reminder of the hyssop with which was used to smear the blood of the lamb on the door frame, in order for the Angel of Death to move past this house.

4. The breaking of the bread, which was then offered with two blessings, both of which give praise and thanks to God for His provision in the world.  At this time in the meal only a small amount of the bread was eaten, reminding the guests at the meal that this represented the Break of Affliction, reminding them too that as slaves they never had a whole loaf of bread to share.

5. Next comes the story of the deliverance from Egypt which the youngest at the table would read or recite.  For the Jewish people this meal will always be just a meal of remembrance, never one of ritual in which the original story might be lost.

6. At this point in the meal, Psalms 113 and 114 are sung.  These Psalms, along with others up to 118, are songs of the Praise of God.

7. At this time, the second cup of wine and water is drunk.  Its name is the cup of Haggadah, the cup of explaining.

8. Now all the participants in the meal wash their hands, cleansed to receive the meal.

9. Grace is said.  Blessed art thou O LORD, our God who brings forth fruit from the earth.  Blessed art though O God, who has sanctified us with thy commandments and enjoined us to eat unleavened cakes.  After this prayer of blessing, all are invited to receive another small piece of bread.

10. Next, some of the bitter herbs are placed between two pieces of the bread and dipped in the Charoset as a reminder of the bricks and mud that their ancestors has made as slaved in Egypt.

11. The meal is eaten including all of the whole lamb.  There was to be none of the lamb left.

12. After eating the meal everyone's hands are to be washed again.

13. Any remaining unleavened bread is to be eaten after the main meal.

14. A prayer of thanksgiving is offered which contains a petition for the coming of the Messiah.  After this prayer the third cup of wine is consumed.  This cup is called the cup of thanksgiving and is accompanied by prayer.  "Blessed are You O LORD our God, King of the universe who has created the fruit of the vine.

15. The second part of the Hallel is sung.  Psalms 115-118.

16. The fourth cup is drunk as Psalm 136 is sung.  This Psalm is known as the Great Hallel.

17. Short prayers are said as for the closure of the Passover Feast.  All thy works shall praise thee ......, and the breath of all that lives shall praise You......

I hope that this gives you a little better understanding of the relationship between Christ's life, and the Passover meal.  In Christ it is clear that Jesus is confident about His coming death, but He is also confident in the coming Glory which all people will know through His death on the cross.

I will be back with you tomorrow as we move into the next part of the text for study in Mark. 

In Christ's Love, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study - Esther 3:22 - 4:27 (October 3, 2024)

October 3, 2024:  Thursday Old Testament Bible Study - Esther 3:22 - 4:27

Good morning on this beautiful day which the LORD has made. I am up early so that you will have this available when you wake up today. Please pray for peace in the Middle East during these next days. It would appear that the war between Iran's terrorist groups, Iran, Israel, and the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank may be expanding. I Pray that God will move the hearts of His people, which includes all of the people in these parts of the Middle East. Offer a prayer of thanksgiving that Melody is finally getting some relief from the case of shingles that she has been suffering with for the past week and a half. Offer prayers also for Robert for relief from his back pain. Pray too that your life is blessed because you engage in studying God's Word.

Today in our study we are in a very different part of this story of Esther. Haman has succeeded in getting the King's proclamation out to the conquered kings and the people in their lands that the Judahites are to be destroyed, as we all might expect, there is a great deal of grieving by the Judahites over their plight. Now that we are this far in the Book of Esther, we ought to have noticed something that is absent from the Book of Esther.  Nowhere in this text of the Old Testament is there any mention of God. When we read about Joseph, God's presence is spoken about, or if we are reading in the Exodus, the story of the plagues and Passover, it is about the action of God to set His people free. Everything that we are reading in Esther infers that she and her uncle Mordecai are indeed faithful. It must be that the author of this text we are using believed that anyone who reads this story would know that the LORD is present throughout this story. When we speak about miracles in the Word of God, it often seems that the people who are involved with them are unaware of this direction and action which God has set in motion. Esther is this kind of story. Though not spoken or written in the text God is truly present. We must know that as this horrific thinking of Haman and the king's seeming vulnerability to trusting Haman, or perhaps out of the king's own vanity and ego, God will find a way to move these lives and circumstances in the direction that He desires.  In the Exodus God makes it clear that He will always be with this people. After all, that is the Old Covenant (Old Testament) agreement between God and His children.  I will be your God, and you will be my people if you are obedient to my Law. Here in Esther God is certainly present without His being mentioned, and His covenant agreement with the Hebrews remains in effect in this part of Scripture too. In our text for today we find that Esther and Mordecai, along with others who are in sack cloth and ashes around the kingdom are grieving Xerxes' royal decree. God's deliverance comes through all who accept the places in life, who act with responsibility, and who act with courage because they know that their God is with them through it all. Here in Esther, we see her and Mordecai acting with courage that can only come from those who know the God all creation is present with them. Though we see Esther as a victim of a manipulative king, and she is caught up in all of this because she is beautiful, she acts out of her love for Mordecai and for her Judahite people, but not without fear and hesitation. Fear and hesitation are not incompatible with faith!  In this text we have the juxtaposition of Esther's plight as a victim, along with all of her people, while King Xerxes and Haman sit down to do what they both do so well, congratulating themselves on their action against the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with impunity. 

I want to thank you for being here with me, whether you are doing this on the internet, or are receiving it via snail mail.

I hope that you will rejoice in this new day and allow it to fill you with His Grace and Love.

In Christ, Pastor Kim