Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 13:7-8, 24-27 bible study (September 10, 2024)

September 10, 2024:  Tuesday Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 13:7-8, 24-27

Good morning and the LORD'S blessings be with you throughout this day which the LORD has made.

Please offer prayers of thanksgiving that Vanessa's fiancé, Alain, has received his immigration visa so he will soon be able to be with Vanessa and their son, Elan. I am certain that they can hardly wait to be back together. Remember that we have a meal coming up on the first Sunday of October, yes, it’s that time already, and its theme on our Gospel Music Sunday will be Italian.  Please let us know that you will be joining us so that the table and chair set up in the parish hall will be appropriately large. And, coming up on the last Sunday of this month is Rally Day at 9AM. It will be a time of fun and games and wetting our appetite for the Book of Ruth. Sign up please to bring a brunch type item to share. We will gather in the parish hall.

Today we are back in chapter 13 with the imagery of the world as Christ prepares to return. It is important in this list of dark things happening, that we don't miss the really important point that Jesus unmistakably speaks of His coming again!  But there is so much more here that we must try to understand from our Western culture perspective. We see many of the things which Jesus describes happening all around us in the world, and yet, we must realize that each of these Day of the Lord three pictures of which Jesus speaks are a part and parcel of the prophetic speaking and writing of the Jewish people from long before Christ, and even in contemporary Jewish writings.

1. The Day of the Lord was to be preceded by a time of wars. We find in 4 Ezra 9:3 the following images:

   1. Quaking of places

   2. Tumult of peoples

   3. Scheming of nations

   4. Confusion of leaders

   5. the Disquietude of princes.

   In 4 Ezra 13:31 the writings say, "And there shall come astonishment of mind upon the dwellers of the earth. And they shall plan to war one against another, city against city, place against place, people against people, and kingdom against kingdom. Of course, in the coming of the Messiah, the Jewish people expected that there would be many wars as Jerusalem and Israel became the pinnacle of God's choice in the world. 4 Ezra was popular literature in Jesus’ day.

2. The Day of the Lord was to be preceded by the darkening of the sun and moon. This is frequent imagery in the Old Testament. Amos 8:9, Joel 2:10, and 3:15, Ezekiel 32:7-8 Isaiah 13:10 and 34:4.  Jesus is using the mind image which so many of the Jews had about the coming of the Messiah.

3. It was a regular part of the imagery that the Jews were to be gathered back to Palestine from the four corners of the earth. Both Isaiah 27:13 and 35:8-10 as well as Micah 7:12 and Zechariah 10:6-11 carry this tradition in their prophecy.

But now we come to how we view these Day of the Lord materials in Scripture. For His message, which is sourced from the prophets and in contemporary writings of the Jews of Jesus' own time, we must realize that Jesus is neither giving a map of eternity nor a timetable to the future. Jesus' own words tell of that even he does not know the time of these events. Only the Father knows. And looking at all of this information takes us right back to the beginning of this text. What is important is that Jesus is coming again!

I pray that you are able to hold Christ in your hearts throughout this day.

In Christ's love, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 13:3-6, 21-23 bible study (September 9, 2024)

September 9, 2024:  Monday Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 13:3-6, 21-23

My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

Good afternoon to you. I know that you expect this study to be out on Monday Morning. However, I had annual med meetings for two of our boys today early, and then I have been picking up the pieces from having my debit card and some credit cards hacked over the last two weeks which mean that life ins, car ins, and some regularly deducted payments needed to be changed for them to remain in effect.  It is certainly not my happiest way to spend my time. Today we continue in Mark 13, but as I told you before we began in this chapter, we were going to move around, not taking the verses in order. Today's reading is no different. We will be looking at verses 3-6 and verses 21-23. Yesterday we celebrated the Baptism of Elan, Vanessa's baby. What fun it was to share this event with her family and with the congregation. We shall all continue our prayers for Elan, and for his father, Alain, who finally got his Visa approved to come to the U.S. to be with Vanessa and the baby. May the LORD shower His richest blessings on this young family. Please keep Della J in your prayers too as she has spent some recovery time dealing with dehydration. We hope to see here soon at church.

What we see in these two pieces of chapter 13 is Christ's giving to His disciples even more information about what they should expect after His death. And, indeed, these things happened quite often. Jesus warns the disciples about the fake messiahs who will come after him telling their own versions of their power and authority and truth.   He also says there will be many who come to lead the faithful astray with their heresies. There would be more than enough danger for the disciples from the enemies of Christs, and it would be much easier for the faithful to buy into the lies of those who came making their messianic claims. Let's remember the ways that heresy arises in the face of God's Truth.

1. Heresy arises from constructing doctrines which suit the needs of the one who creates them for their own benefit. People have an unusually large ability to tell the truths that please them. (and often groups of others who are willing to listen). I am willing to bet that Jesus is addressing the religious leaders of the day who in His time continue to add to the body of the Torah by writing out all of the ways one must behave in order to be right with God. Many of those rules were written for the personal convenience of the Pharisees and Scribes. They brought them wealth and authority! There are plenty of moral fools today, not necessarily unintelligent, but morally lacking in the sense of what pleases them.

2. Heresies arise from stressing only one part of the truth. The clearest that I can make this is to say if we only believe that God is Love, and that is all we address, our religion becomes a mushy half-truth. There is so much more to our God. We certainly know that God loves us, but we also know that He understands our short-comings and down-falls and the sins which we accept when we think that sinning is OK because it raises the amount of love and forgiveness that we will receive from God. Another way we might move is to only be able to think about God as Holy, and then to make that the center of what we believe, which means that we eliminate any possibility in our thinking of an intimate relationship with our Father in Heaven. If you and I get caught up in thinking solely of God's justice and judgement, then we will see Him sitting on His throne with anger and hostility toward His whole creation. One of the many reasons that it is so good to study the Bible is that it gives us a much more complete understanding of God and His place as our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of Life.

3. Heresy develops when a person divorces himself from Christian Fellowship. If we do not gather where the Truth of God is proclaimed, we are bound to come up with some pretty strange self-fulfilling theology without the input of scholars, clergy, and people of faith who surround us in worship and church.  Can you believe in Christ when you have allowed yourself to stay away from corporate worship and the faith community whose purpose is to undergird and strengthen one another’s' faith in God's promises! The flame of the Spirit dwindles when we pull away. Always remember what happens when a burning branch is pulled away from the fire. It's flames less brightly, and ultimately extinguishes and when pulled back to the main fire it rekindles. 

4. Heresy arises when we try to be completely intelligible - to explain everything. God is beyond our full comprehension and understanding. He has revealed to us what we can know, and kept from us all of what we can only contemplate, and perhaps not even begin to think about. You and I are bound to learn and grow in our understanding of God, and yet we are finite, and God is infinite. We have what we need to know now, and in heaven it remains to be seen what we will come to understand. Now we must worship, wonder, and adore.

Thanks for taking the time to be with me today.

God bless your always, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study on Nehemiah 12:44 ff to the end of the book (September 5, 2024)

September 5, 2024:  Thursday Bible Study on the Old Testament book of Nehemiah 12:44 ff to the end of the book

God's blessings and peace be with you today and always, and may you stay safe on this heat warned day. I am certainly hoping that after this next stretch of hot days that we are finally able to get down to where the temperatures should be for this time of the year, cool nights and afternoon temperatures that are high for just a few hours. Please keep the homeless in your prayers during this long hot next couple of weeks, especially Chris and his cat, who Melody and I met on the east Tucson Marketplace Blvd at south Kino Pkwy. We have been praying for his well-being and for the safety of his support cat in the heat every day. Pray for Jeff and Kandice who are battling terminal cancer. Both are working hard to keep their quality of life in a good place. Pray for our Church Council vice-president, Camille, as once again she is faced with uncertainty about the cancer that has several times gone into remission but has returned to need further treatment. Continue to pray for Teri and Butters, her dog. Their journey continues as Butters battles quality of life issues due to cancer. Pray for Vanessa and baby Elan as they prepare for his Baptism this Sunday. This is the day that the LORD has made, let us rejoice with thanksgiving for His gifts of new life filled with the promises of Holy Baptism. (Elan's nickname has already found its way into his little life. The family has named him Yo-yo) 

Today we come to the end of the book of Nehemiah and considering all of the guidance and leadership that Nehemiah has brought to the Judahite community, he finds himself quite frustrated. People are not doing the things that they have committed to. They are free of the heavy hand of Artaxerxes and free of exile. Nehemiah has done a really great job of keeping the records of the people, including the generational families who first came with Ezra. Not only is Nehemiah ordered in how he has approached all of this record keeping, but he also knows that the King of Persia will require an accounting of his steward upon whom he has so often depended, and upon whom he has placed his absolute trust. So, let’s consider what is happening.  There is at least one big surprise. When I come to you with that Advent request for special giving, I know that you have the privilege of rejecting my request. However, we did purchase as gifts for people around the globe, chicks, pigs, goats, and a cow, and you chose to be a part of these wonderful gifts of love in honor of the birthday of the Savior. But for Nehemiah there are people in the Judahite community who have not joined in to do the work to which they have been called. He feels forced to take action to discipline and reject them. Their presence is stricken from the Temple and Community. Their place in leadership is literally wiped clean, and their spaces in the city are cleaned out, and ritually cleansed by the Levite priests.  The big surprise in all of this is that the people of Moab are a group to whom this happens, and they are cast out to never be a part of what continues to happen in Jerusalem forever. So, the big question that we should be asking is, "What about Ruth?"  How is it that she will be accepted because of her beauty and ethical character? In fact, she will become an heir in the line of Mary, generations removed, but still a Moabite who is restored through her Boaz and his responsibility to care for Naomi, Ruth's Jewish mother-in-law, and to warmly welcome Ruth into the family providing the continuance of Naomi' family line through his marriage to Ruth the Moabite.  If you have more questions, I would love to see you on the last Sunday of September as we begin our study of the book of Ruth. How does this fit with Nehemiah's actions of rejecting the Moabites forever from Jerusalem and the temple? Does Deuteronomy 23 have something to say about this forever rejection that Nehemiah as put in place? I have some interesting ideas based on earlier Scripture that might help us understand why God would allow for this. Now another thing that happens while Nehemiah is back in Persia reporting on the progress that is being made in Jerusalem, is that an acting priest gives a space in the temple to Tobias the Ammonite! This is in direct conflict with the direction that Nehemiah has set. This might be a sign that not everyone in Jerusalem was happy with the direction that Nehemiah had set for the city, its temple, and those who were considered the Elect of God. Such an action by a temple priest would be cause for big trouble with Nehemiah.

In the next section in chapter 13: 15-31 we get a much clearer picture of what exactly is happening. Remember those long days of the reading of the Torah, and then all of the people promising to be the righteous people of God? What we see in this passage is Nehemiah's great frustration with the people. They have gone back to all of things that they were doing on the Sabbath before, and they are failing to "Remember the Sabbath Day to Keep it Holy". Some of us can remember those days in the 50s when traveling on a Sunday created all kinds of problems.  No gas stations open, restaurants closed, commercial establishments unavailable. It was meant to encourage an entire nation to keep the Sabbath, to remember its purpose. Those rules and laws were called the "Blue Laws". This is the very same thing that Nehemiah has put in place, but in his absence back in Persia, the people in Jerusalem went right back to their old ways of offending God on the Sabbath, but not just then, but welcoming those who were forbidden into their families through marriage.  All of this created all kinds of issues for the kind of purity that Nehemiah was looking for in this former exile community who now lived in Jerusalem and its surroundings. In this passage we hear about the kinds of actions that Nehemiah took against all of these things. He even got downright violent in some situations. At the end of this passage, Nehemiah appeals to God to remember how he put all of the good and just things in place, and by suggestion, asking that God not punish him for the sin of the people. As you and I know, God will take care of that later! I feel pretty certain that Nehemiah felt that the sin and brokenness in the lives of the Judahites was more than any one person, or even any nation, could move to prevent.

Next Thursday we move on to the O.T. book of Esther. (my mother's middle name)

With Love in Christ, Pastor Kim