Category: Year A

John 12:20-36 – Tuesday of Holy Week

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

cross of christ

Some Greeks who had come to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration paid a visit to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee. They said, “Sir, we want to meet Jesus.” Philip told Andrew about it, and they went together to ask Jesus.

Jesus replied, “Now the time has come for the Son of Man to enter his glory. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives. Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity. Anyone who wants to serve me must follow me, because my servants must be where I am. And the Father will honor anyone who serves me.

“Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But this is the very reason I came! Father, bring glory to your name.” 

Then a voice spoke from heaven, saying, “I have already brought glory to my name, and I will do so again.” When the crowd heard the voice, some thought it was thunder, while others declared an angel had spoken to him.

Then Jesus told them, “The voice was for your benefit, not mine. The time for judging this world has come, when Satan, the ruler of this world, will be cast out. And when I am lifted-up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” He said this to indicate how he was going to die.

The crowd responded, “We understood from Scripture that the Messiah would live forever. How can you say the Son of Man will die? Just who is this Son of Man, anyway?”

Jesus replied, “My light will shine for you just a little longer. Walk in the light while you can, so the darkness will not overtake you. Those who walk in the darkness cannot see where they are going. Put your trust in the light while there is still time; then you will become children of the light.”

After saying these things, Jesus went away and was hidden from them. (NLT)

We are taking another step in our journey together with Jesus.  That path leads to a cruel cross.  For the past six weeks the Christian has been on a Lenten walk.  To keep the long sojourn going, believers focus on spiritual discipline, prayer, and repentance.  Along the way we come face-to-face with the shadow parts of ourselves.  We discover that within us there is the pull to hold-on to unhealthy rhythms and habits of life, as well as a push to arrange our lives with the fragmentation of disordered love.

Perhaps our reflexive response to things we do not like about ourselves is to either use sheer willpower to change or try and somehow manage our brokenness, as if we could boss our spiritual selves out of darkness.  The problem and the solution are much more radical than we often would like to admit.

The answer as we journey with Jesus is to die to ourselves.  Yes, this is the teaching of our Lord.  Sin cannot be managed or willed away – it must be eradicated and completely cut out, like the cancer it is.  Transformation and new life can only occur through death.  Jesus uses the familiar example of a seed to communicate his point.  A tiny little seed can grow, break the ground, and develop into something which provides sustenance for others.  It does no good to remain a seed in the ground.

dying to self

Jesus did not tell others to do what he himself does not do.  Christ is the ultimate example of the one who died to himself and literally died for us.  Only through suffering and death did he secure deliverance and freedom from sin, death, and hell.  Through his wounds we are healed.  Through his tortuous death a resurrection became possible – and we must always remember that there must be a death if there is to be a resurrection.  Death always comes before there is life.  There must be suffering before there is glory.

Through dying to self and following Jesus, a wonderful growth and transformation can happen.  It is a change, when it matures and produces a crop, which brings the kind of spiritual sustenance the world so desperately needs.  Following Jesus, leaving all to walk with him, is true repentance and authentic discipleship.

Perhaps you think I’m being too forceful, too insistent about this Jesus stuff.  Yes, you have perceived well.  I am being quite single-minded about the need to die to self and live for Christ.  Somehow, within many corners of Christianity, a wrongheaded notion that suffering is not God’s will has wormed its way into many churches.  Jesus, however, is insistent that dying to self is necessary.  And it hurts like hell.  It’s a hard teaching to absorb when you so desperately want things to be rainbows and unicorns.  Yet, the Epistle to the Hebrews makes explicit the way of Christ:

“In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.  Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” (Hebrews 5:7-9, NRSV)

silhouette image of person praying
Photo by Rodolfo Clix on Pexels.com

We are not above our Master.  Even Christ’s life on this earth, before his death and resurrection, was marked with suffering.  Even Jesus learned obedience through struggle and adversity.  Our Lord himself did what he is now asking us to do.  He gave himself up to do the Father’s will.  Jesus offered loud cries and tears and submitted to what the Father wanted.  We must do no less.  We don’t get to choose which parts of Christ’s life and teaching we will adhere to and which ones we don’t need to, as if Jesus were some spiritual buffet line.  All who live for Jesus will follow him into the path of suffering, of death to self, and of new life through the power of his resurrection.  In Christ’s own words from our Gospel reading today: “Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”  We must…

Surrender

We have hundreds, maybe thousands of small decisions every day with the use of our time, our money, our energy, and our relationships.  If we have tried to fix what is broken inside of us, we will likely just try to hastily fix the problems and the people in our lives and move on with getting things done on our to-do list.  Instead, we have the invitation to surrender.  We have opportunity to create sacred space for solitude and silence, prayer and repentance.  Take the time to (virtually!) sit with a person in pain and listen.  Reflect on how to use your money in a way which mirrors kingdom values.  Begin to see your life as a holy rhythm of hearing God and responding to what he says.  It takes intentional surrender to do that.

Sacrifice

Holding-on to our stuff and time is the opposite of sacrifice.  In fact, it’s avarice.  Yes, I understand that you and I are not Jesus – our sacrifice and suffering are not efficacious, that is, it doesn’t deliver other people from sin.  Only Christ’s death does that.  Yet, we are still called to sacrifice.  This was the Apostle Paul’s understanding:

“I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh, I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” (Colossians 1:24, NRSV)

I’m just going to let you wrestle with that incredible verse and mull it over.  Pleasure is not the summum bonum of life.  Our lives are not meant to be lived solely for minimizing pain and maximizing comfort. Jesus has extended a call to view our workplaces, communities, neighborhoods, and families as our mission field of grace to a world in need of basic human attention.  This takes sacrificial love on our part.

Christianity is not really a religion that’s for people who have put together neat theological answers and tidy packaged certainties to all of life’s questions.  Rather, Christianity is a dynamic religion of learning to follow Jesus, discovering how to die to self, and struggling to put Christ’s teaching and example into practice.  It is a path often characterized by a three-steps-forward, two-steps-backward, and three-steps-forward again kind of reality.  The road is zig-zaggy with plenty of potholes.  Those who don’t struggle are in big trouble.  However, those who go through the pain of dying to themselves for the sake of their Lord, find that the harvest they produce leads to eternal life.

May you struggle well, my friend.

Almighty God, your dear Son did not ascend to joy until he first suffered pain and did not enter glory before he was crucified.  Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it as the true way of life and peace, through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.  Amen.

Click Lead Me to the Cross by Hillsong United to continue contemplating the way of Christ.

Psalm 118 – “A Spiritual Pilgrimage”

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

Welcome, friends!  On this Palm Sunday, let us give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.  Click on the video below to join in the joyful procession….

The following links are for your use and enjoyment:

If you are having any difficulty with the video on this site, you can click TimEhrhardtYouTube to view and listen.

To learn more about the Labyrinth, click How to Walk a Labyrinth for a short guided tour.

Click Give Thanks and allow Filipino singer Janella Salvador to lead you in song.

May we walk and feel the ground of the coming week, that is Holy Week, for it is on this sacred soil that we live and run, work and play, praise and lament.

Psalm 31:9-16 – Lord, Have Mercy

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
woman sitting on wooden planks
Photo by Keenan Constance on Pexels.com

Lord, have mercy, because I am in misery.
    My eyes are weak from so much crying,
    and my whole being is tired from grief.
My life is ending in sadness,
    and my years are spent in crying.
My troubles are using up my strength,
    and my bones are getting weaker.
Because of all my troubles, my enemies hate me,
    and even my neighbors look down on me.
When my friends see me,
    they are afraid and run.
I am like a piece of a broken pot.
    I am forgotten as if I were dead.
I have heard many insults.
    Terror is all around me.
They make plans against me
    and want to kill me. 

Lord, I trust you.
    I have said, “You are my God.”
My life is in your hands.
    Save me from my enemies
    and from those who are chasing me.
Show your kindness to me, your servant.
    Save me because of your love. (NCV) 

None of us signed-up for suffering.  Yet, not a one of us can avoid it.  Pain comes in all kinds of forms – and perhaps the worst kind of wound is the one inflicted from others looking down at you when you’re already experiencing trouble and damaged emotions.  Whether it is a group of people, such as Asians facing ridicule and anger because of COVID-19, or COVID-19 patients themselves who sometimes become a pariah, the physical effects of pain can oftentimes be secondary to the primary hurt experienced within the spirit. 

David of old knew first-hand about suffering through hard circumstances.  There were times when he felt completely overwhelmed by wicked people trying to take his life.  If we could put ourselves in David’s sandals, we can understand why he was worn-out to the point of not sleeping, not eating well, even with a hint of paranoia.  David entrusted himself to God, and truly believed he was in the Lord’s hands – and that fact was his go-to truth. 

Jesus uttered his last words on the cruel cross from this very psalm: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46).  The cross was obviously a place of extreme bodily pain.  That pain, however, was dwarfed by the great spiritual pain of holding the entire world’s hurts, their curse of separation.  The stress of both body and soul must have been crushing for Jesus.  Yet, there was a strength of assurance smack in the middle of that pain – the confidence of knowing he was in good hands, just like David’s confidence a millennium before. 

There are times when we all struggle with why afflictions happen to us, whatever form they might take in us.  It is in such times of being forgotten by others that we are most remembered by God; it is in the situations of trouble that God is the expert in deliverance; it is when people revile us, say terrible things about us, and talk behind our backs that God comes alongside and whispers his grace and steadfast love to us.  It is when life is downright hard that we see a soft-hearted God standing to help us and hold us. 

While we are feeling our suffering, God is carefully crafting within us resilience through the rejection, empathy in our loneliness, purpose because of the trauma, forgiveness out of the shame, courage from having been failed, and self-awareness in the wake of emotional devastation. 

The biblical psalms are the consummate place to run to when we are most in need.  They provide the means to lift heartfelt prayers when our own words fail us.  The psalms give us structure and meaning when the world around us makes no sense.  The psalms do not always give us answers to our most vexing questions; they do, however, point us to the God who is attentive to the least, the lost, and the lonely.   

Lord, have mercy. Christ have mercy.  Lord, have mercy on us and grant us your peace.  Amen. 

Click It Is Well with My Soul sung by Anthem Lights and be reminded that we neither bear our sufferings alone, nor needlessly.

Matthew 22:23-33 – The God of Life

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year A1 Comment

sunrays

That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. “Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?”

Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”

When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching. (NIV)

The first century Sadducees learned the hard way.  Trying to discredit Jesus in public is a bad idea. Somehow, probably in a back room and drinking too much wine, they came up with a story that was designed to show once and for all that Jesus was nothing but some hayseed yokel from the bumpkin village of Nazareth who believed in a crazy notion like resurrection.  They wanted a once-for-all public showdown that Jesus was a backward hick, not worth the time of day.  So they concocted a bizarre hypothetical story meant to discredit the supernatural.  They went to the Old Testament to point out the law that if a man dies without having children, the brother must marry the widow and so keep the legacy and land of the dead man in his family.  By conjecturing that if this were to happen seven times over, whose wife would she be among all the brothers at this supposed resurrection? As they were snickering to themselves believing that they had demonstrated the absurdity of resurrection, Jesus turned the tables on the Sadducees.

Jesus bluntly stated that the Sadducees were the ones with an absurd story.  Their whole notion of what the resurrection is and what’s important about it was lost on them.  Jesus said they were biblically illiterate – they don’t know the Scriptures.  And, furthermore, since they don’t really know the Law, they really know nothing of God’s power.  This was a major dig on a group of people who prided themselves on being an educated elite.

Resurrection, Jesus said, isn’t anything like they described.  Resurrection isn’t a restoration of the same life we have here and now; it’s a different life altogether – a new life!  To prove what he said, Jesus had a simple yet profound statement:  I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.  Not “I was” but “I am.”  God is God of living people, of life, not of corpses and cadavers, not even of zombies.

The whole point of resurrection is new life – not a resuscitated life, not a reconstituted life, but a new life altogether.  The terms ‘death’ and ‘life’ in Scripture are relational terms.  Death is separation from others; life is a connection with people.  Life, in the Bible, literally means ‘to step into,’ and death means ‘to step away from.’  So, then, in order to be a fully alive human being we step into God by loving him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and, by loving my neighbor as myself.  Life means meaningful and loving connections with both God and other people.

toddler in white hoodie during daytime
Photo by Negative Space on Pexels.com

God is not just the God of the past (he saved me) or the future (I’m going to heaven); he is the God of the present, of this moment.  He exists now and is with us.  And what he wants from us is to choose life, that is, to step into relationships, to lean into others, and not choose death by stepping away and withdrawing out of guilt, shame, or fear.

When we distance ourselves from God and others, it is a way of death.  We then become in need of a new life.  Everyone experiences conflict and/or anxiety in relationships at various times.  The person who goes the way of death withdraws emotionally from God and other people and may even eventually just cut themselves off from others completely.  I’m not referring to a literal physical hermit who’s in the woods by himself with only a grizzly bear for a friend.  I’m talking about someone who is out of touch with others by through superficial talk and never dealing with anything unpleasant or uncomfortable.  Entire groups of people can act this way, as well, by dealing with their anxiety by refusing to interact on a meaningful level.  Such persons or groups tend to practice avoiding others through being emotionally distant; their prayer requests seldom go beyond skin deep and rarely, if ever, traffic in feelings.

Another way of separation, of death, is the practice of under-functioning and over-functioning in relationships.  Individuals who under-function refuse to take responsibility for their own emotions and behavior – they keep looking for someone else to blame their problems on and/or for someone to fix their situation.  Under-functioning people believe someone else will give, others will serve, and better people than them will do the world a service.  Into this situation enters the over-functioning person.  They are all too glad to accept responsibility for other people’s emotions and shortcomings.  When there’s a job to be done, everyone loves the over-functioning person.  Over-functioning individuals believe they know the right way to do things and they get results.  They talk more than listen, give advice freely, and take responsibility for the feelings and choices of others.  In a family, the under-functioning person relies on triangle relationships (that is, dealing indirectly with someone through another person) in which the over-functioning person handles all the heavy relational work.  Both under-functioning and over-functioning are ways of death because it is a stepping away from what is really going on inside of us; it is avoiding the shadows of my own heart and focusing on someone else’s heart.

We all need life.  We are hard-wired for community, family, and relationships.  We need a God who raises the dead and gives new life.  Stepping into relationships and choosing life means we courageously talk about what we truly think and feel and clearly communicate our limits and boundaries with each other.  Stepping into relationships and having life means we take responsibility for our own ideas and decisions and don’t coerce or manipulate others into doing the hard work of relationship for us.  It means we make decisions based on what is best for everyone, and not what simply is my personal preference.

Jesus
“I AM the resurrection and the life.”

God is the God of life.  Resurrection is both real and necessary.  Jesus said in John 11:25 – “I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”  Experiencing the power of God in our lives means to eschew the path of the Sadducees in the way they dealt with Jesus.  Instead, we have the privilege and the opportunity to step into a real, life-giving relationship with Jesus through reading and discovering our bibles and talking about what we find in it.  We pray, not because we are supposed to, but because it is the means of a living relationship and vital connection with God.

In such a time as this, we all need life – relationships that support one another and buoy each other’s values and spirituality.  Life is meant to be lived together in a sense of solidarity and camaraderie – with love as the glue which binds us as humanity.  Collective hardship becomes a sacred opportunity to experience life.  Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)

May your experience of God be abundant and satisfying.  Amen.