November 12, 2024: Monday Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 15:29-32
Blessings and Peace in the name of Jesus Christ be with you today.
I prayed for you all as I fell off to sleep last night, and I certainly thank God for the prayers you hold in your hearts and minds for me with God. My brother Rick, a Vietnam Vet of the Navy, and his wife Connie are both really struggling with their health. They have hired a person to come in to do their laundry in the basement of their home, and to clean once a week. Neither of them is able to manage the basement stairs any longer. It is funny how we don't think about that when we are setting things up in our homes and forgetting that someday we are going to be "old". I know that many of you have gone through this process in your lives too. We are entering into a very busy season in the weeks ahead, with Christ the King Sunday giving us an opportunity to end the Church Year, November 24th, with a pumpkin pie fellowship after the service, and then Dec 1, Advent One, we will celebrate with Gospel Music Sunday, followed by our traditional chili luncheon after worship. You can sign up at church or call into the office to let us know that you will be joining us for worship and lunch too. After that it is a few short weeks to Christmas Eve Worship. We will turn around twice and discover that it has come and gone already. Please keep Terri H in your prayers as she gets her third hip replacement on the same hip done on the 18th of November. And our good friend, worship leader, and grounds and property keeper, is down with walking pneumonia. Pray for Robert for healing. It is a good time over the next couple of weeks to ask ourselves, who our king is? And has that king done for us that we had hoped, or should we perhaps be turning to the One True King every day, Jesus Christ. Just for your consideration.
Today we continue in Mark as Christ is now on the cross and being sacrificed at the hands of the Romans and Jews. Except for John, it would appear that no one else has stayed to witness this horrific event. It may well be possible that Mark, the writer of this Gospel, is watching though is not with the Marys and John. His description is really quite different from the other Gospels, especially in the way in which the two criminals interact with Jesus as they, being criminals, are suffering the consequences of their crimes. Apparently, both of them deride Jesus! Around Jesus, and with those who process through this gruesome sight of capital punishment that is being meted out by the Roman army. The taunting is constant. If you are the king of the Jews, then get yourself down from there, and then we will believe in you. What more did Jesus ever need to do than preach the Truth of God's Love, reminding His people of his kindness and power for healing the "ills" of this world? But Jesus knew that His death on the cross was absolutely necessary if there was to be a right relationship between the sin of people, and the righteousness and Holiness of His Father in Heaven. Coming down would never convince anyone who had closed out the Holy Spirit in their lives, making it impossible to come to faith in God's only begotten Son. However, for those who believed, and who believe today, there could never be the loss of faith in Christ's lovely act of dying on the cross to bring the gifts of Life, Forgiveness, and Salvation to all of God's creation. There has never been another who could die for the sins of everyone, but that does not mean that because of brokenness and sin, other innocents in the world will not suffer the consequences. For you and me that means that we may be the ones today who, barring the Truth of the Gospels and the Spirit, will have to suffer the continuing consequences of the world's sin. There is a legend that Martin Luther, standing in trial before the Pope's most powerful persecutors and asked to recant the 95 theses, said, "Here I Stand, I can do no Other!" Roland Bainton, a Luther Scholar, whose text is titled Here I stand, says that Luther said this, but later scholars have found no evidence that these were his words. But in reality, it is exactly how Luther felt about the 95 articles for debate in the Church. If challenged about the Truth which you hold in your life, will you be able to say, "Here I also stand. There is no other Truth, but Christ Crucified, Resurrected, and Ascended, and He is the Savior of the world, bringing God's Grace into the midst of God's children. This will always mean loving God above all else, and loving all people like we love ourselves.
Here I Stand, I Can Do No Other!
I am the shepherd of American's flock and the Truth of the Gospel, Pastor Kim
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