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Life Is An Ongoing Story.

Moving From Ordinary to Extraordinary

3/25/2018

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“Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple...

                                       ~ Mark 11:1-11

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Christopher Slatoff
Jesus Being Nailed to the Cross, bronze
click to see more details on his website.


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As Holy Week begins our Lenten journey is drawing closer to its inevitable end. In just a few more days my kids can begin to eat chocolate and use hair gel again.

No matter what you have fasted or feasted upon, it all comes to an end at the cross of Good Friday. And if we’re not mindful, we just might walk past it on our way to Easter.
 
Palm Sunday typically speaks of Jesus’ triumphant ride into Jerusalem. But while we are busy waving palms and shouting our hallelujahs, we forget that this event is not so much about a grand entrance as it is a divine exit.

​I think it’s important for us to look at this day, not from the perspective of the crowd, but from the eyes of Christ who saw a Roman cross with his name on it.

For he knew a joyous resurrection can’t escape the sorrow of that icon!
Someone once said,  “The cross has become so ordinary that we hardly see it anymore.” Let’s think about that for a moment.
 
That’s like saying the noose of the Ku Klux Klan or the gas chambers of Nazi Germany are as noticeable as the dust on our history books. The cross was a serious weapon of war. And I doubt anyone who witnessed a loved one being crucified ever forgot the brutality and pain this innocuous piece of wood represented. That was its point. It was designed to make a lasting impression.

The cross of Christ was not ordinary – but extraordinary. I find it hard to believe that we’ve become so jaded that we can no longer see God’s ability to take something so horrific and humiliating, and transform it into something so honorable and liberating. 
 
Christopher Slatoff, an artist who has been working on a series of sculptures depicting the Stations of the Cross, wants us to see this iconic weapon for it’s true beauty – God’s redeeming love. While the Stations of the Cross is highly symbolic to the church, Slatoff wanted the public to see the humanity of Jesus, in it’s rawest form, so we wouldn’t forget the divine gift his sacrifice provided.
 
One of his sculptures entitled “Jesus Being Nailed To The Cross” (pictured above) is located on the campus of Fuller Seminary. To stand above it, as the Roman soldiers bang the nails into Jesus’ flesh, you realize this is anything but ordinary. That was his point.  
 
I had the privilege to meet Slatoff while I was a student at Fuller. His lecture on this particular sculpture, and all its well-researched details, would change my perspective indefinitely.
 
One of the things that stood out to me was not the agony carved into Jesus’ face or the serious concentration of the two hammer-wielding soldiers who were just doing their job.  Instead it was the ordinariness of the wood beams that formed the cross he was being nailed to. They were plain and nondescript – nearly invisible to all the drama that was unfolding.  
 
I’m sure most by-standers don’t focus on the wood, muchless what they created – a vile manner of execution that inflicted an anguished death and struck fear into all who witnessed its despicable power. It was by far the greatest weapon Caesar had in its arsenal. Killing one person could silence a thousand more from rebelling against him.   
 
Remember the central message of Jesus’ ministry was, “The Kingdom of God is at hand!” Declaring this was dangerous. If God is King over all, then what role does Caesar play? The cross was supposed to silence such nonsense once and for all. But instead it set into motion a plan only God’s creative imagination could execute.
 
This one cross, made up of two ordinary wood beams, held a man whose death was anything but ordinary.  While his crucifixion was the world’s way of saying no to everything Jesus stood for, it would come to represent God’s affirming love and redemption for human kind.   Those who fixed their eyes upon it and believed would be saved, redeemed, and forgiven.

Each time I walked passed Slatoff’s sculpture I found it harder and harder to ignore God’s extraordinary love pouring out from those nail holes; calling out to me “This is my body and blood which is given to you.” It’s impossible to see it as anything less than grace.
 
Jill Carattini writes, “The symbol of the cross is an instrument of death. It is also, curiously, a symbol of God’s kindness. Far from ordinary, it suggests, at the very least, a beautiful and terrible love quite beyond us.”   
 
The way I see it, the cross is us. It represents our moral bankruptcy when we are left to our own devices. And the body, broken and bleeding on it, is God’s most vulnerable love and restoration. Jesus’ death is a raw reminder that God’s love can never be silenced, and it can never be killed.
 
In giving himself over completely and willingly to God, as a living sacrifice for us all, Jesus would become triumphant over death. But in order to get there he had to make the painful journey. And so too must we. This is not an ordinary request, is it?
 
But the good news is: God will use whatever means necessary to reclaim us as one of his own. This means God can use a broken marriage to transform a broken heart. God can use the murder of innocent students to bring peace into a violent world. God can take tears of sorrow to bring about shouts of joyous hallelujahs.  
 
Those who lined the streets of Jerusalem to welcome Jesus had no idea where his journey was headed. But we do. We know the cross is just a stepping stone to everlasting life.
 
Maybe that’s why it seems ordinary, or why we might over look it. We are no longer shocked or afraid, because we know the tomb will be empty when they roll away the stone on Easter morning. But while we seem know that God can do the most extraordinary things, we still have trouble seeing God at work within ourselves.   
 
If God can take two ordinary planks of wood and do the impossible, then imagine what God’s doing right now in you.  
 
The place you are standing today is no accident. Every experience you having, is preparing you for the place God wants you to be tomorrow. We do not know which part of our life God will use to accomplish our greatness, all we know is that we must  pick up our cross and make the journey from ordinary to extraordinary.
The world may overlook the power of the cross. They might see it as an utterly foolish thing to do, as Paul wrote to the churches in Corinth. But that does not stop God from doing what God wants to do. Like a sculptor to clay, God shapes and molds our sorrow and pain into something more beautiful than we can ever realize.
 
The world can try to strip the cross of it’s meaning, or empty it of its beauty, hope, and depth. But what the Romans and the world would eventually come to discover, the cross couldn’t be emptied of Christ.
 
Even where the cross is obscure, Christ is still near - working within each one of us to redeem all of creation back to where we belong…in the extraordinary love of God.
 
Let us pray:
Lord God, we have no problem singing your praises and offering you our joys hallelujahs, but picking up the cross and following in the path of Jesus often seems impossible. Give us your Spirit so that we may remain focus, and always be strengthened to do the impossible. Amen.
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Forgotten and Fixed

3/18/2018

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“Have mercy on me, O God,
​according to your steadfast love.”

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Based on Psalm 51

"Lord have mercy on me, was the kneeling drunkards plea. And as he knelt there on the ground, I know that God in heaven looked down.” 
 
In 1996, Johnny Cash sang this remake of the Carter Family song, "Kneeling Drunkard's Plea." In it, God hears the cry of a man kneeling at his mother’s grave.  For whatever personal reasons, he didn’t make it in time to say good-bye. But he shouts up to God for mercy, and God looks down upon him. Depending on how you see yourself this song, or at least the portion I read, God’s mercy could be interpreted in two ways.
 
The first way is that God looks down upon the drunk, and shakes his head in disgust. God then picks up an index card and a pencil, and begins to scribble down all the sins this drunk had committed in his life.
 
God then he hands the card to an angel who rushes it to a gigantic warehouse filled with countless white cards just like this one. It's here they are all safely stored there until that fateful day when the drunk is brought before God in judgment. That’s one way of interpreting the Bible and Christianity.

The other way is more like this. God looks down on the drunk and sees a man, empty, broken and in dire need of help. God feels the man’s pain, and has empathy. When God hears the man crying over his mother’s grave, He can't help but be reminded of all the tears shed at his son’s death.
 
God knows the drunkard’s story, because he has walked with people just like him. People whose bad choices...have made their life a living hell. So in hearing the man cry out, “Lord, have mercy on me,” God pulls out his pencil and begins to erase the man’s index card. Ever since Abel’s blood cried out from the ground, God has responded mercifully to our pleas.
 
This is exactly what Psalm 51 is all about: God’s Mercy. More than a poem or a song of praise, I often turn to this passage when I offer up prayers for healing and spiritual renewal. However, this is not your typical prayer either.
 
Each stanza is a cry of passion and pain. Every word hungers for grace and salvation. Simply reading it or reciting it won’t cut it. It needs to be wailed from a place in your heart where you dare not go.  You have to vocalize the pain and suffering. For our hearts to heal, we must first be honest about their brokenness. 

But there’s more to this psalm than a plea for forgiveness. There’s a plea for re-creation – to be cleansed, restored, washed and made new again.  The key to our healing and renewal is, of course, God’s creative mercy and grace. Only the creator of all life is able to take the dust of our broken hearts and regenerate abundant life.    
 
I want you to imagine writing all the sins you’ve committed over the last 24 hours on an index card, and then handing it over to God.  
 
Now if you understand God to be a vindictive judge who holds every sin you’ve ever done in some filing cabinet, then you might be reluctant to give your card over to God.  This perception has caused many of us to carry fear in our heart.  Its like whatever you did has made you somehow ugly and unforgivable.  
 
To quote the band Mercy Me, “No matter the bumps, no matter the bruises, no matter the scars, still the truth is the cross has made you flawless.”   How better off would the world be, if we stopped hiding from God and instead started crying out to God with a loud voice?
 
What does this mean to you and me?
Brennan Manning says, “Jesus comes for sinners, for us who are outcast, or caught up in squalid choices and failed dreams.” That’s pretty much the sum of the gospel.

Just as he came to the blind and the lame, the lepers and the demon possessed, Jesus loves the prostitute who prays to her Sunday School God to help her find a different job so she can support her 2-year-old daughter.  
 
He comes to love corporate executives, dope-sick addicts, lonely teachers, burned out bartenders, tired social workers, IRS agents, EMTs, janitors, AIDS patients, frustrated caretakers, movie stars, sports stars, the unknown, and the unwanted. This list is endless, because there's no ending to God's love.
 
Jesus comes to you...he comes to me. He does not come to condemn us to the hell we find ourselves in. He comes to break bread with us; to talk and pray with us; to heals us, tolerates us, and of course, to do unthinkable for us. Our of great love, Jesus gives himself up as a servant and sacrifice for all.
 
At the end of the day, what God desires the most isn't an index card...but a relationship with you and me.  It’s been said, "If God condemned every sinner then who would he have left to forgive?" God gave his son to restore the joy of our salvation and to put a new and right spirit within us.

We must be like the psalmist who trusts God enough to cry out in pain, and to seek God for compassion and mercy.  His cries are inspiration for us all to turn to the words of the prophet Jeremiah, “from the least to the greatest, says the Lord, I will forgive their iniquities and remember their sin no more.”
 
God knows what we have done. But do we know what God can do?
God forgets so we can remember to live anew, without the shame and guilt of our past, or without fear of meeting God in the future.
 
This psalm is often used by the Church on Ash Wednesday as a way for us to begin Lent with a clean and contrite heart. But I chose to it for today, as we enter our last week of our Lenten journey before Holy Week, because we continue to discover stuff about ourselves in this spiritual practice.
 
Lent is time for training our hearts and eyes to focus on a God who meets us in our brokenness, and loves us into holiness. God meets our grief with grace; our pain with the great paradox that our salvation will come through our suffering, not in spite of it.
 
Let us leave here today remembering the cries of the psalmist, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love.”
 
In the final verse Johnny Cash joyfully proclaims, “Three years have passed since she went away. Her son is sleeping beside her today. And I know that in heaven his mother he sees, for God has heard that drunkard's plea.”
 
Now if that isn't Good News, then “Lord, have mercy on me.”
 
Let us pray:  Lord have mercy on us, according to your abundant love and mercy. Blot out our transgressions, and wash us clean so that our hearts may be restored with the joy of your salvation and sing your praises.
 
 
Works Cited
Bartlett, David L., Barbara Brown Taylor, ed. Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 3. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.
Manning, Brennan. The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat Up, and Burnt Out. Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books, 2005.


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Fix Your Eyes On The Cross

3/11/2018

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Just as the cure for the snake is a snake, the cure for all human life is the sacrifice of one man’s life.

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Numbers 21:4-9   and   John 3:14-18

The fourth week of Lent greets us with an odd piece of scripture from the Book of Numbers. In John’s gospel, Jesus quotes from this pasage in his secret conversation with Nicodemus.
 
I love this story because it’s weird, if not down right icky. As we move closer to the High Holy week, it reminds to watch our step as we make our way towards the suffering cross and the redemptive glory of Easter.
 
I hope by now you’ve figured out that Lent is more than a time for self-reflection. It’s also a time where our faith is vulnerable and put to the test. Which makes the Hebrew’s story timely for today.
 
Their plight reminds me of one of my least favorite scenes from a movie. If you’ve seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, you might know the scene where Indiana Jones is led to a deep, dark tomb that holds a clue to the treasure he’s seeking. Dropping his flaming torch down in the cavernous tomb, Indi discovers there’s something else down there as well…thousands of slithering, slimy snakes!
 
I can’t tell you what happens after that because my eyes are always tightly closed. But I can still hear the hissing sounds as Indiana Jones complains, “Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?”   

I imagine the Hebrew people were saying the same thing when they were faced with another obstacle out in the wilderness. During their great Exodus story God remains patient, putting up with their incessant whining and complaining.
 
Just as it was in Egypt, God hears their cries and comes to them; caring for their needs by sending them food and water, and a fiery light to guide them. When they bemoan about these gifts, God snaps and sends them something to really complain about…deadly snakes!  
 
I hate snakes, so I can sympathize with them. And their complaints do seem legit. I mean here they are, stuck in the wilderness – with no end in sight. It’s not like being stuck in traffic and complaining about being late to wherever you’re supposed to be. They don’t have a clue to where they’re going or why it’s taking so long to get there!  
 
Living with uncertainty is too much for them, and they begin to crack. Don’t you find it odd that the very gift God has given them has become the very thing that breaks them?  They want to go back to the way life used to be – enslaved in Egypt rather than live in freedom. They’d rather face the devil they know than to face the mysteries of God’s promise.  

If Lent has taught me anything it’s that we humans don’t like to wander for too long in our wilderness. It makes us uncomfortable, and puts us on edge. 
 
We like to know where we’re going and how long it will take. We like to have some control of our life, even over God. And when things don’t go as expected, when there’s traffic on our road of life, we make sure God gets an earful. In return, we get a bunch of snakes.
 
Seeing the error of their way, the Hebrew’s turn to Moses who goes to God on their behalf. If there is one thing they’ve learned on this journey – and we can take this to heart too – is that when they cry out to God, God listens. And God reacts, even if it seems a bit outrageous and weird.
 
God tells Moses to make a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. “Everyone who looks upon it shall live.” Moses knows better not to ignore God’s strange request. Because of his faithfulness, all the Israelites who died are immediately given new life, and all who were bitten are instantly healed.  You might say gazing upon this bronze serpent is the medical antidote to the deadly vipers that attack and harm us.  

If you’ve ever been to a hospital or a doctor’s office, you might have noticed the logo for American Medical Association has adopted a similar image – a reminder that sometimes our flesh and bones have to be ripped open or broken before we can be made right again. 
 
In his book A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway wrote, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” As Hemmingway’s real life struggles remind us, life is hard. Sometimes we feel like the snakes get the best of us.
 
The darkness of the world tricks us to believe life is stronger than we are. It bites at our heels until we feel like we can’t go on any further.  It fools us to think we’re alone, lost with out any hope in sight. But this Jewish story tells us something different.
 
No matter how bleak life might seem there is always hope, because God came to be with us, to intercede on our behalf.
 
Just as Moses lifted up the bronze serpent on a pole… so too will the Son of Man be lifted up for our sake. Popular for a reason, John’s famous bible verse reminds us that we are loved so much that God would send his Son to die for us, just so we can live.  Think about that: from death, comes life.

Jesus says that anyone who looks upon his cross, and believes, will be healed. He is telling us that salvation is linked directly to our healing. They are one in the same.
 
But this is no ordinary medicine, in which we all of a sudden get better only to die again at a ripe old age. His healing is everlasting. By quoting from Numbers, Jesus reminds us that everlasting life doesn’t begin in some far away utopia – it begins the moment our eyes and heart gaze upon the cross.  
 
Jesus doesn’t wait to heal us from all the toxic and venomous attacks we endure. Instead he is here now, ready to save us from the snakes that slither into our lives: self-doubt, fear, jealousy, greed, addiction, or worry.
 
Like Paul writes to the Ephesian churches, we are all dead because of our sin. We are led to believe the things of this world will save us, keep us comfortable, and drive those snakes away.
 
We can’t save ourselves.  But Jesus can. God, who is rich in mercy, comes to us in our dead state and makes us alive again in Christ Jesus. The cross is our immediate healing and salvation. The snakes can’t win.
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God hears our cries, and gives us the antidote – the grace of God’s love that comes to us through Jesus Christ. We can accept God’s love and begin living in divine eternity today. Or we reject it and continue to suffer in a hell of our own making.
 
Hemmingway was right. The world will break us. It’s full of snakes that strike and strangle the life out of each and every one of us. But just as the cure for the snake is a snake, the cure for all of human life is the sacrifice of one man’s life. 
 
So perhaps Lent is not so much about you and I, as it is about the One who truly delivers us from the hardships we suffer and the complaints we offer.
 
Lent is a time for each one of us to get closer to Jesus and fix our eyes upon him by turning away from the evil that slithers and strikes out to bite us.
 
It’s a time to embrace the challenge of the Gospel, to pick up our cross and follow the Christ, who came not to condemn the world but to save us all.  
 
I hope that you will leave here today knowing this:
God does not give up on you. God does not abandon you. Or leaves you all alone to struggle. God knows first hand what it’s like to live in this world. And to suffer at the hands of betrayal and injustice.
 
For God loves you so much that he was willing to come to you, and rescue you, even if it means that he has to give up his life for you in order to do so.  
 
This is why we call it the Good News.
 

 
Let us pray:
Holy and Merciful God, as horrible and deadly as that brutal Roman cross was designed to be, you were able to transform it into a healing and life giving balm. As we move through the wilderness of Lent, may we never lose sight of that cross; knowing and believing that from it we receive your love and our own Easter celebration. Amen.
 

Works Cited
Bartlett, David L., and eds. Barbara Brown Taylor. Feasting on the Word: Year B Vol. 2. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008.
Helmer, Ben. Snakes. 03 11, 2018. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/stw/2018/02/11/snakes-lent-4-b-february-18-2018/ (accessed 03 09, 2018).

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Remodeled and Renewed.

3/4/2018

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God’s radical presence is among us; bringing about the changes needed for God’s Kingdom to be complete.

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John 2:13-22
So he made a whip out of cords, 
and drove all from the temple courts, 
both sheep and cattle; 
he scattered the coins 
of the money changers 
and overturned their tables. 
It’s hard for many people to see Jesus as…well, Jesus. But as all four gospels have recorded, it’s possible for the divine Son of God to act like a son of a human – throwing fits and behaving a bit ungodly.  
 
I don’t like Jesus acting like me because I struggle daily to be like him. I need him to be the better one, the more mature and even keel. But guess what? Jesus is like all of us, and that’s a good thing. He understands what it’s like to be human. It can be hard, hurtful, and frustrating.
 
We should celebrate that Jesus has feelings and emotions. And like many of us he has difficulties containing them; especially when life isn’t fair. He is not ashamed or afraid to show his passion for life and justice – the essence of God’s righteousness. So we ought not focus on Jesus being like us. But instead, we should all strive to be human’s like him.
 
With all that’s going on in our world, how might Jesus react in today’s political and religious climate.  What he might do if he walked into the U.S. Capital or sat in with the Supreme Court? 
 
Would he take a position on gun control if he sat with students and parents who lost their loved ones in Parkland, Columbine, or Sandy Hook?  Something tells me if he were here today, there would be a target on his back as big and bold as it was some 2,000 years ago.
Speaking for myself, Jesus is irresistibly attractive when he confronts the bad guys, or one-up’s the wise. I like being on his side of justice. But when Jesus shifts from being the Son of Mary and Joseph to speaking as the Son of God, I get an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach knowing I have more in common with those Jesus is reprimanding than with the righteous one himself.
 
We don’t have to look very far to see how our religious and political laws, or simple everyday life, clash wildly with what God wants from us all. Which is why we need Jesus to come inside and do a little house cleaning.
 
Uncomfortable as it is, John’s gospel reading is perfect for Lent. This is our time to take inventory and to toss away the stumbling blocks and trash bags we carry, so we can make more room in our lives for God’s love and peace. I believe this is exactly what Jesus is doing at the Temple.
 
In the midst of the religious and political chaos, Jesus enters the sacred space whose name literally means "The house of many nations.” His restoration project begins in the Court of the Gentiles, an area where the local merchants were allowed to set up shop; selling the sacrifices that God demanded.
 
This area of the Temple was a dedicated place for non-Jewish people to worship or pray to God. But the animals and sellers have made it impossible for people not only to get in but to also find peace. Think about how we get distracted by Daisy barking! Now add hundreds of mooing cows, bleating sheep and squawking birds!
 
Jesus sees the barrier that the religious leaders have allowed to be put in place. And naturally he doesn’t like it. So naturally he begins to tear them down. Imagine that, God not liking walls.
 
Years ago I worked in a record store. As CD’s where becoming popular, my boss, Joe, knew the store needed to be remodel and reconfigured to make room for this new format. Now, we worked with this guy Billy Ropple, who was a big, hulking kid. When Joe asked Billy to take down the back wall, this 6’2” chunk of punk rock muscle and rage happily went to work. 
 
When demoing a wall, most people use crowbars, sledgehammers, drop cloths, and gloves. Not so with Billy. He just threw his body into the wall. With his physical strength alone, he smashed holes in the drywall and ripped out the wood studs like they were matchsticks.  
 
With zero regard to the mess he was making...Billy’s pent up rage exploded like a wrecking ball of aggression. To an outsider, it probably looked like a violent rampage, but for us it was truly exciting to watch.  By the end of the week the remodel was complete and we were ready to welcome and embrace the future.
 
Like Billy Roppel, Jesus’ aggressive action was not hostile or belligerent. It was assertive and energetic. Jesus’ action and reaction to what was going on was a restorative act of passion – the same passion he would use to restore and reclaim us as children of God.
 
To read Jesus’ actions as being an ungodly temper-tantrum we might miss the point of this story: God’s radical presence is among us; bringing about the changes needed for God’s Kingdom to be complete.  
 
Jesus saw that the Temple needed to be reclaimed for its intended purpose. How can you be a house of many nations, if you refuse people from coming in to worship God?
 
As far as those in power were concerned, the Temple was fulfilling its function as a place to honor God. I don’t believe they were intentionally disobeying or opposing God. They were only doing what they thought God wanted. I can understand that.
 
But a closer inspection of the place would reveal that there were many inside the temple who had forgotten its true purpose. Instead of being a “House of Many Nations” the Temple had become tainted with exclusivity and economic exploitation.
 
Like any lopsided structure, the whole thing was bound to collapse. Jesus’ passionate display of God’s justice was just the tipping point. When they confronted and questioned his authority, Jesus said, “Destroy this temple. And I will build it again in three days.” 
 
To most people it was laughable. But as John noted, it’s only as they look through the lens of his death and resurrection, do the disciples get what Jesus is saying.  I wonder if he knew that this statement would be use to justify his crucifixion?
 
Even as we have the privilege of hindsight, we continue to put up walls to keep people out; some are even decorated with stain-glass.

No matter how hard we try, we all get caught up in the human spaces we construct. Bigotry, jealousy, envy, power, greed invade our physical and spiritual structures gradually and subtly. If we are not careful, if we lose our focus on what God is calling us to do and be, we might find our sacred space full of cattle, sheep, turtledoves and moneychangers.
 
Lent is a time for us all to look at our spiritual structures and do the necessary repairs and renovations.  It’s a time to clean out what we don’t need so we can make room for what God is building in each one of us – a true spiritual Temple with Jesus as the cornerstone.
 
Lent is a time to look in all the nooks and crannies of your life, and ask God to help you to be more open and accepting of others; to be patient with yourself so you can be kind and gracious to those in need; to be forgiving knowing that you have already been forgiven; and to encourage others to love you by the way you love them.
 
As the Christ, Jesus replaced all earthly temples once and for all. Jesus has removed the barriers that divide us, and by his love he draws us all together. Through him, we become part of much more inclusive structure built with Divine intentions and specifications.
 
Yes, Jesus was human like us. But he was also divine. Through him we become a true house of many nations…where all people are welcomed to not only be like his humanity, but to also partake in his everlasting divinity. ​
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    Rev. Ian

    has been blogging under the name: Jesus not Jesús: Looking for Christ in the face of strangers. You can read his posts and browse his archives by clicking here.

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