Tag: holy spirit

The Lamb of God (John 1:29-34)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Stained glass of the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God), Chamonix, France

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”

Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.” (New International Version)

The Gospel of John is all about finding and seeing Jesus – and then believing. Jesus is seen from various angles, namely because, as the embodiment of God, he requires a multi-perspectival look. In today’s lesson, we see John the Baptist exhorting everyone to take a look at Jesus as the Lamb of God.

Throughout the Apostle John’s Gospel, we see the gradual unfolding of belief amongst people, including the faith of John the Baptist. The Baptist’s initial understanding was that he was in the presence of someone of much greater worth than himself. Only by means of God’s Spirit is John able to gain increased insight concerning Jesus.

It’s important to point out that faith is never a static sort of thing. Rather, faith is always moving in a direction; it’s dynamic. Faith is more than a gift that’s put in a box and given and received. There is continual discovery to faith. It’s as if we’ve been given the gift of a Russian doll, and there are ever-increasing gifts within the gift. There are multiple levels of belief to explore and discover.

Spiritual insight is an initial gift of faith. There is, however, more. With insight there follows the ability to distinguish between material and immaterial realities. This is one reason why the Gospel of John can be difficult to understand – because within one verse, statement, or story, there are double, even triple, meanings to it.

John often invites us to see the spiritual reality that is there underneath the physical. It will take eyes of faith to see, because sheer physical sight will not see the entire reality. And at the end of faith is Jesus, to confess and believe that he is indeed the very Son of God.

The Holy Spirit in today’s lesson actually serves as the divine witness to John the Baptist’s burgeoning development of faith in Christ; John sees Jesus not only as coming from God, but as God.

The confirming voice of the Spirit at the baptism of Jesus lets everyone know that this Lamb of God, Jesus, the Son of God, will take away the sin of the world in his eventual Passover death.

Stained glass of the Agnus Dei, El Cajon, California

To take away sin means to remove it and purify the person from it. John’s increased understanding discerns that his words and his baptism with water don’t bring this removal and purification; but they do point to Jesus. Christ as the one who is able to immerse people in the cleansing bath of grace.

Jesus Christ is qualified and able to call, gather, and cleanse not only Israel, but also the world and all the scattered children of God. Thus, John the Baptist’s ministry is to reveal Jesus to Israel; it’s directed to the entire world and to the taking away of the world’s great sin, once and for all.

The reference to Jesus as the “Lamb of God” is a familiar one to Christians. Lambs are common throughout the Bible. A lamb, however, that takes away sin is somewhat novel (although a scapegoat symbolically takes aways Israel’s sin into the desert, Leviticus 16:8-10). Passover lambs, lambs offered twice daily and in several offerings and acts of worship, were a part of many guilt and purification rituals in the Old Testament. (Leviticus 9:1-13; 14:1-13)

It seems to me that the Apostle John understood Jesus as the Lamb which removes sin by being the representative and once for all sacrifice to end all sacrifices. There is no longer any need to keep offering these various lambs day after day, festival after festival, year after year; Jesus is the efficacious one who ends it all and finally purifies and atones with potent deliverance from sin.

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest [Jesus] had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. (Hebrews 10:11-14, NIV)

And what is more, it’s this same Lamb of God who will again show up – even though slain, and yet lives – to gather together all the nations of the earth, lead them as the singular Good Shepherd, vanquish all the enemies who oppose goodness, and establish divine light in a sort of eternally lit menorah that blesses the world. (Revelation 5:6-12; 6:1; 7:17; 14:1: 1714; 21:22-23)

The baptism with water of Jesus by John the Baptist, therefore, confirmed and anticipated the baptizing (purifying) work of the Holy Spirit that only Jesus would accomplish. For John baptized with water, but Jesus baptizes with both water and Spirit – demonstrating his singular ability as Savior and Lord.

In this Christian season of Epiphany, Jesus – the Lamb of God who takes away sin and purifies with the Spirit – is Christianity’s eternal light and life.

The bright star still compels people to come and see, as well as leads the little Christs called “Christians” to take their light and let it shine wherever they go. It is a light of mercy and mystery, grace and goodness, wonder and wisdom. It is, I believe wholeheartedly, the light the world needs in order to bring an end to division and connect one another in peace and goodwill.

May it be so, to the glory of God. Amen.

Baptism of the Lord (Mark 1:4-11)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
The Baptism of Jesus, by Rosalind Hore

So John the Baptist showed up in the desert and told everyone, “Turn back to God and be baptized! Then your sins will be forgiven.”

From all Judea and Jerusalem crowds of people went to John. They told how sorry they were for their sins, and he baptized them in the Jordan River.

John wore clothes made of camel’s hair. He had a leather strap around his waist and ate grasshoppers and wild honey.

John also told the people, “Someone more powerful is going to come. And I am not good enough even to stoop down and untie his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit!”

About that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. As soon as Jesus came out of the water, he saw the sky open and the Holy Spirit coming down to him like a dove. A voice from heaven said, “You are my own dear Son, and I am pleased with you.” (Contemporary English Version)

Why is the baptism of Jesus important?    

The baptism of the Lord is a regular staple each year on the Christian Calendar, because Christ’s baptism is a theologically profound event that announces the fact of his divinity in a dramatic way. The story of his baptism helps us understand Christ’s identity, as well as his mission.

Because God the Father acknowledged Jesus as God the Son, we are encountering God’s will for us through the words and actions of Christ. Jesus is the hinge upon which all history turns. The centrality of Jesus for everything we say and do is confirmed and expected through the event of his baptism.

Baptism is a ritual that signals new life. Jesus came to be baptized by John in the Jordan River – not because he personally needed to repent of sin – but so that he might identify with us as humans and signal for us the true way of life for people.

Jesus’ Baptism, by Laura James

With the Father’s affirmation of Christ, the Lord Jesus is our authority. All authority on heaven and earth has been given to him. He is the author and finisher of our faith. So we must pay careful attention to Jesus.

Here we are, two millennia removed from the earthly ministry of Christ. For some, the name of Jesus might be so familiar that they end up ignoring him. Or, others might become so disappointed with Jesus that, over time, they simply slip away from him. That’s why the author of the book of Hebrews exhorted: 

We must give our full attention to what we were told, so we won’t drift away. The message spoken by angels proved to be true, and all who disobeyed or rejected it were punished as they deserved. So if we refuse this great way of being saved, how can we hope to escape? The Lord himself was the first to tell about it, and people who heard the message proved to us that it was true. (Hebrews 2:1-3, CEV)

By remembering our own baptisms, and the authoritative claim Christ has upon us, we are able to keep what is most important in front of us at all times.

Why is the descent of the Holy Spirit significant?

If God the Father established the authority of Jesus over all things, then the Holy Spirit coming upon Jesus empowered him to exercise that authority over everything, especially the demonic realm. Jesus was given the Spirit so that he would confront evil in the world.

Our own baptisms are a participation in the baptism of Christ. We receive the same power. We are called to the same practice of self-denial in order to confront evil in our lives and in the world. The descent of the Spirit in Christ’s baptism opens to us a road of carrying our cross daily, and losing our lives in order to save them.

In Christ, we died to guilt and shame. We were baptized into Christ, and were therefore baptized into his death.  That means Jesus has opened the way for us to live a new life and no longer be slaves to sin. It furthermore means that we have been given the Spirit to deal with the continuing presence of sin in this life. 

Through Jesus Christ the Spirit of life set us free from sin and death. Therefore, we have been given the power to resist the devil and set our minds on what the Spirit desires. 

Baptism of Christ, by He Qi

So, we have an obligation, and it’s not to the sinful nature. Our responsibility is to put to death the misdeeds of the body. We can do this because we have not been given a spirit that makes us slaves to fear, but have received the spirit of sonship. (Romans 8:1-17)

Thus, God is not only Father of Jesus, but our Father, as well. We can cry “Abba” and have all the help of heaven behind us in our quest to follow Jesus. This is all possible because of the descent of the Spirit in Christ’s baptism – a baptism that we participate in through our own baptisms.

How does heaven opening help me today?

Heaven was ripped and torn open, letting us know the striking reality that God does not remain far away, but has come near to us in the Son, the Lord Jesus.

Long ago in many ways and at many times God’s prophets spoke his message to our ancestors. But now at last, God sent his Son to bring his message to us. God created the universe by his Son, and everything will someday belong to the Son. God’s Son has all the brightness of God’s own glory and is like him in every way. By his own mighty word, he holds the universe together. After the Son had washed away our sins, he sat down at the right side of the glorious God in heaven. (Hebrews 1:1-3, CEV)

Heaven was again ripped open at the death of Christ. The curtain of the temple that separated the inner sanctuary from everything else was torn in two from top to bottom – signifying that once and for all, God is near, and has become close to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

So whenever we are in need, we should come bravely before the throne of our merciful God. There we will be treated with undeserved grace, and we will find help. (Hebrews 4:16, CEV)

What is our appropriate response to the baptism of the Lord?

Since Jesus is the rightful ruler of the universe; the authority over all things; a faithful high priest always living to intercede for us; the power to transform and give new life; the Deliverer from sin, death, and hell; then our proper response is confession, repentance, and the expectation of change.

The Lord’s baptism exposes all the things we rely upon other than Jesus, such as our own ability to set goals and accomplish them through sheer willpower; ideas and ingenuity; hard work and experience.

Yet we can rely on Jesus, and have the sort of change that he can bring. Rather than expecting everyone else, and every circumstance to change, God calls us to change through the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit – the same Spirit given to Jesus.

We have the opportunity and the invitation to trust Jesus. Just as it took humility for Jesus to be baptized by John in the Jordan River, so it takes humility for us to come to Christ and admit our need for help and inner transformation.

Almighty ever-living God,
who, when Christ had been baptized in the River Jordan,
and as the Holy Spirit descended upon him,
solemnly declared him your beloved Son,
grant that your children by adoption,
reborn of water and the Holy Spirit,
may always be well pleasing to you. Amen.

You Have Found Favor with God (Luke 1:26-38)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
The Annunciation, by Liviu Dumitrescu

Six months after Elizabeth had become pregnant, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a city in Galilee. The angel went to a virgin promised in marriage to a descendant of David named Joseph. The virgin’s name was Mary.

When the angel entered her home, he greeted her and said, “You are favored by the Lord! The Lord is with you.”

She was startled by what the angel said and tried to figure out what this greeting meant.

The angel told her,

“Don’t be afraid, Mary. You have found favor  with God.

You will become pregnant, give birth to a son,
and name him Jesus.

He will be a great man
and will be called the Son of the Most High.
The Lord God will give him
the throne of his ancestor David.
Your son will be king of Jacob’s people forever,
and his kingdom will never end.”

Mary asked the angel, “How can this be? I’m a virgin.”

The angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come to you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the holy child developing inside you will be called the Son of God.

“Elizabeth, your relative, is six months pregnant with a son in her old age. People said she couldn’t have a child. But nothing is impossible for God.”

Mary answered, “I am the Lord’s servant. Let everything you’ve said happen to me.”

Then the angel left her. (God’s Word Translation)

The Annunciation, by Angel Zárraga

Most of life is lived in the mundane. For the most part, we go about our business and deal with the daily grind.  That’s because we are common ordinary people.

So, we can especially relate to Mary. She is rather plain. Mary is of junior high age. If she were living in our day and age, Mary would likely be wearing clothes from the local Goodwill. She cannot read, because girls of her day rarely did.

Mary’s parents make all the decisions that affect her life, including the one that she should be married to an older man named Joseph. We don’t know if she even liked him. She lives in a small town that most people can’t even point to on a map. 

One night, this young girl is visited by the brightly beaming divine messenger Gabriel, whose name means, “God has shown himself mighty.” Mary stands there in her flannel nightgown; her life very quickly moving from the ordinary to extraordinary. The juxtaposition could not be more pronounced:

  • a mighty angel and a plain teen-ager
  • a messenger of the Most High God and a girl barely past puberty
  • holy angelic light in a simple candlelit bedroom
  • awesome power and complete vulnerability

Mary, compared to Gabriel, is defenseless, fragile, and overwhelmed. She’s in over her head. And that’s why we can relate to her. We can get our human arms around Mary. She’s like us. She has faced life with little power to make it turn out the way she planned. Forces beyond her control have rearranged her life and altered it forever. Mary is the Matron Saint of the Ordinary. We can totally understand why she responds the way she does.

Young Mary’s initial reaction was to be greatly troubled. She was disturbed, and was shaking in her ratty old slippers. The angel confidently told Mary that she had found favor with God. In other words Mary was quite literally “graced” by God. 

The situation was not that Mary had some extreme spirituality; but rather that God simply chose her to be the mother of Jesus. 

And Mary needed to come to grips with what was happening to her. This was not what she was looking for.  Becoming pregnant with the Savior of the world was not an answer to prayer for Mary. This was not on her agenda. 

Mary immediately sensed the crazy disconnect between what was being told to her and who she was. After all, she was a plain ordinary girl from the hick town of Nazareth, and she was being told that she would raise a king.  Maybe somebody in heaven screwed up. It could very well be that Gabriel got the wrong girl. Perhaps the angel’s Google map popped up the wrong town to visit. 

Relating to Mary, we can totally understand that she would question how in the world all this was going to happen. Not only is Mary ordinary, and far from royalty, but she is also very much a virgin. None of this made any sense whatsoever.

But the angel lets Mary know that God specializes in the impossible. I understand why many English translators chose to phrase the original rendering as “for nothing is impossible with God.” But I rather like a more literal translation which is “for there is nothing outside of God’s power.” 

There is nowhere we can go, no place on earth, no situation whatsoever that is beyond God’s ability, reach, and power to effect the divine will.

We do not always get straightforward answers to our questions about God. Yet, Mary asked a question and got a straight answer. She really can be pregnant with Jesus because the Holy Spirit will come upon her and overshadow her with power. 

If the story were to end here it would be a great story.  But to me the most astonishing part of this narrative is Mary’s response to what was happening to her.

Mary believed the message and took Gabriel’s words at face value. And so, having believed, she then submitted herself completely to God’s will for her life. 

I think we might totally understand if Mary simply said in her ordinary way that she was not prepared for this.  We would completely “get it” if Mary pushed back on what the angel said to her.

We could relate if Mary just dismissed it all, like Scrooge in the Christmas Carol, with the angel and his message being all humbug as if it were just “an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.  There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

And yet, Mary not only believed, but she also humbly submitted herself to what was happening. And, to me, this is what we need to relate to most about Mary – not her being just a plain ordinary person in a non-descript village, but stepping up to the calling she received. 

We, too, have received a calling in our lives. We, too, have been given the power of the Holy Spirit. And we, too, are ordinary people who have been given a very extraordinary task. 

It seems to me that our response today can and ought to be the same as Mary: “I am the Lord’s servant; may it be to me as you have said.” 

The Church is pregnant with possibilities because of the Holy Spirit. We know the end of Mary’s story. She gave birth to Jesus. She raised him in her plain ordinary way. She watched him grow up. She saw him embark on his ministry to proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near. 

Mary did not always understand what Jesus said or what he was doing. And she experienced every mother’s nightmare: seeing her beloved son killed in a terribly gruesome manner right in front of her eyes. 

Yet, just as the Holy Spirit was with the birth of Jesus, so the Spirit was with Jesus at his resurrection from the dead. Jesus, like his earthly mother, lived an ordinary life in a very extraordinary way. And today Jesus invites us to do the same. 

Because Jesus accomplished his mission of saving people from their sins and establishing a kingdom that will never end, he has given us the same Holy Spirit to follow him forever and call other people to follow him, too. 

The Christian life may often be difficult; but it is really not complicated. It’s rather simple, just like Mary. 

Mary responded to God’s revelation with faith, choosing to fully participate in what God was doing. “I am the Lord’s servant” is to be our confession, as well. “May it be to me as you have said” is to be our cry, along with Mary. 

The message Christians proclaim is that Jesus saves – he delivers from sin and Satan and will restore all things.

May you know the presence and the power of God today and always, through knowing Christ Jesus the Lord of all. Amen.

A New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

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

The Lord says, “The time is coming when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. Although I was like a husband to them, they did not keep that covenant. The new covenant that I will make with the people of Israel will be this:

I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. None of them will have to teach a neighbor to know the Lord, because all will know me, from the least to the greatest. I will forgive their sins and I will no longer remember their wrongs. I, the Lord, have spoken.” (Good News Translation)

It’s important to pass on the faith to future generations of believers. The key to embracing a life of faith is obeying God’s commands and decrees.

Yet, both within the Old Testament and within our own contemporary religious milieu, God’s people persist in going through significant times of unfaithfulness, infidelity, and disobedience.., Oftentimes, people cannot seem to keep their eyes off the glittering gods that surround them, as if they had some sort of spiritual A.D.H.D.

Also persistent is the God who possesses a faithful remnant of people devoted to observing the covenant and living into the divine promises given to them. Yet, the kingdom of Judah in the prophet Jeremiah’s day, floundered in their commitments and broke faith with the teaching provided for them.

Since God’s grace has the last word, the sins and shortcomings of backslidden people who failed to pass on the covenant teachings to their progeny will have a better ending than that of divine judgment. God’s answer to repeated human failings is to establish a new covenant, unprecedented in its audacious mercy.

Rather than rewriting commands on stone tablets (as with Moses on Mount Sinai) and having a remedial class on the divine covenant and promises for the people, God will instead do the extraordinary, by writing the law on human hearts. That way, people will know the Lord in a direct and immediate way.

And on top of that, it will be for everybody; it won’t only be for the remnant, nor for just the spiritual elite. From the least to the greatest, from young to old, even from Jew to Gentile, God will forgive sins and shortcoming, guilt and shame, once and for all with the new covenant.

If that’s not the most gracious act ever decreed, I’m not sure what is. This is a radical move of spiritual amnesty. It’s completely undeserved. And it’s definitely not something any other god from any other nation would ever do. It’s unthinkable – completely off everyone’s radar. Yet, that is exactly what grace does. Grace provides a way where there seems to be none.

From a New Testament (New Covenant) perspective, Jesus is the fulfillment of all God’s good covenant promises to the people. Furthermore, God’s Holy Spirit serves as the continuing presence of Jesus within us, teaching us and guiding us in the ways of God. 

Our only task, then, is to live into those promises – to know them, claim them, and bank on them. We are most obedient when we believe the promises of God and throw all our hope in them.

The implications of the divine decree of a new covenant are enormous. It means:

  • I cannot do a darn thing to earn God’s acceptance, because I already have it! (John 6:37; Colossians 1:21-22; Romans 8:33-39, 15:7-12)
  • I don’t need to be afraid of judgment because Jesus has already taken care of the sin issue, once for all! (Romans 6:5-10; Hebrews 7:27-28, 10:5-10; 1 John 4:17-18)
  • I lack nothing, because God has already given me everything I need for life and godliness in this present evil age! (Philippians 4:19; 2 Peter 1:3-4)
  • I can know God, right now, without jumping through spiritual hoops or over imposed hurdles, because Jesus leveled the way and made it clear! (John 14:6; Ephesians 2:8-9; Hebrews 2:9-18)
  • I can enjoy forgiveness and a clean heart because God has decreed it to be so! (Psalm 103:8-12; Ezekiel 36:25-27; Luke 22:20; Hebrews 8:7-13, 10:14-18)

If this were not enough, Jesus has sent the Spirit to be with us forever, to guide us and lead us into realizing the law written on our hearts. We are never alone. God is with us.

Jesus said, “The Companion, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father sends, will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I told you. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I give to you not as the world gives. Do not be troubled or afraid.” (John 14:26-27, CEB)

In this world of trepidation, fear, uncertainty, and unrest, there is peace, grace, and love because the Father, Son, and Spirit, the one true God, the Blessed Holy Trinity, the Divine Warrior who fights our battles, the Lord of Hosts, has our backs. Yes, this God, and no other god, has the chutzpah to make promises to us and the power to back them up.

Our Father in heaven,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right;
Do what’s best—as above, so below.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.
You’re in charge!
You can do anything you want!
You’re ablaze in beauty!
Yes! Yes! Amen!