Wednesday, April 24, 2024

“But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God.  I will always trust in God’s unfailing love.” (Psalm 52:8, New Living Translation)

               Last week, the City came along and chopped down our ash tree on the front lawn. We didn’t receive any notice that they were planning to do so. It was not a healthy tree. It was the last to leaf in the Spring and the first to drop its leaves in the Fall.  They had been treating it for ash borers over the last few years.  But, every year, more and more of its branches did not leaf and it was a sorry sight.

                It was a good-sized tree but it took the workers less than a half hour to fell it, chop it up in the wood chipper and be gone, leaving little trace of its existence, but for the stump and some sawdust. Susan commented on how long it takes to grow a tree and yet how quickly it is chopped down and gone. It was situated right beside the front sidewalk and was a very popular tree for dogs to leave their pee-mails. I’m sure they will miss it, too.

                We’re hoping that the City will plant a new tree or two to replace it.

                In the Creation stories of Genesis, God takes great delight in planting trees. “The Lord God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground—trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit.” (Genesis 2:9) Throughout scriptures, trees are a symbol of prosperity, abundance, health, vitality. “But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.” (Psalm 1: 2 -3) Trees are a place of refuge and safety. “The birds nest beside the streams and sing among the branches of the trees.” (Psalm 104:12) They can be symbols of longevity, strength, hope, renewal and blessing. “I will plant trees in the barren desert— cedar, acacia, myrtle, olive, cypress, fir, and pine.” (Isaiah 41:19)

                Yet a unhealthy tree is a wasted and forlorn thing, good only for the woodpile. “The people are like the dead branches of a tree, broken off and used for kindling beneath the cooking pots. Israel is a foolish and stupid nation, for its people have turned away from God. Therefore, the one who made them will show them no pity or mercy.” (Isiah 27:11)

                Jesus said, “A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire.  Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.” (Matthew 7: 17 -20) In a puzzling but prophetic action, he once cursed a fig tree for its lack of fruitfulness. He told a parable about a barren fig tree which owner wanted to chop down until the gardener persuaded him to allow the tree to be fertilized and nurtured.

                Fruitfulness is Jesus’ expectation of us all. What does that look like? “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Ephesians 5: 22 -23) Good works, good deeds, good words, good actions – all are part of a hale and healthy faith. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.

                We are nurtured by the life of Jesus Christ so that we may indeed be fruitful. “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15: 4 -5)

                Perhaps we all can’t be mighty oaks or majestic pine trees or fruitful apple trees. But we can be straight and tall like a maple tree or well-rooted and offer our shade like a chestnut tree. “But the godly will flourish like palm trees and grow strong like the cedars of Lebanon.” (Psalm 92:12)

Dale

Wednesday, April 17, 2024

“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other.” (John 15: 13 -17, New Living Translation)

                 With my deepest apologies to Joseph Scriven…
                        What friends we have in Facebook, All our moods and cares we share.
                        What a privilege to carry every thought everywhere.

                Every week, I get many, many requests to add someone to my Friends’ list on Facebook. It’s not that I am all that popular but this blog has a wide audience which I deeply appreciate. I also deeply appreciate the requests. Each person would like a response. They seem like nice people. But I don’t often “accept” them, mainly because I could never keep up with the conversations which they so richly and understandably deserve. I am also a private person and feel uncomfortable sharing personal information with strangers which is itself a sad statement about this day and age of identity theft and the like. Once, one of the people, whom I did accept, relentlessly tried to sell my bit coins. I also have a few people whom I do know but whose accounts have been hi-jacked by AI or something and they too, under the phony guise of friendship, try to sell me stuff.

So, apologies to all of you, I seldom go too deep into the Facebook catalogue of Friends. But thank you for asking! It is great to hear from you! Blessings on you all!

Jesus was into choosing friends long before Facebook. In our text from John’s Gospel, Jesus describes his friendship with the disciples. He has confided in them the plan of God to save the world. He has shared with them the Good News of God’s Love and Mercy. He has broken bread with them, washed their feet, and given them the keys to the Kingdom. His friendship has embraced them even in their worst moments as disciples, offering second chances and complete forgiveness.

All friendships are two-way relationships. Just as there is certain responsibility if I accept someone on Facebook as a friend, Jesus seeks the disciples’ reciprocity in their relationship with them. Jesus asks them to do as he has taught and commanded them under the most important of commandments: Love each other. But more than just that (and that alone would be amazing), Jesus’ disciples are to go out into the world and bear fruit. They are to show that they are friends with Jesus through their compassionate deeds, good works and sharing of the Good News.

                Real friendships are not as easy as a click on Facebook. They are not casual. They are not flippant. When we unfriend someone for real, it is hurtful and harmful. Sadly, I have done that. Real friendships should be able to accept the ugly along with the good with our friends. Jesus knew these twelve men were far from perfect. Their friendship didn’t carry them through to the Cross. They betrayed him; they denied him; they abandoned him. Yet, they were among the first to experience the Resurrection and to encounter him in deeply personal ways. He prepares a breakfast for them and once again, creates new bonds of friendship and fellowship. All is forgiven! Amazing grace, indeed!

                Let’s be careful here, though. Jesus isn’t our pal, our buddy, our BFF (well, maybe he is our BFF but not in some frivolous way). But Jesus is a friend who understands us and accepts us as we often are, who encourages us to better than we often are, and speaks honestly to us when we are less than what we should be.

I have found Jesus to be a great conversationalist at times, but he expects me to listen and pay attention. He speaks his mind, shares his expectations, holds me accountable, demands my best, seeks my welfare, knows my heart, mind and soul. I can talk to him about anything and everything. “So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.” (Romans 5:11)

            So, thank you, Joseph Scriven for these words:   

                What a friend I have in Jesus,
                All our sins and griefs to bear.
                What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.
                O what peace we often forfeit.
                O what needless pain we bear.
                All because we do not carry
                Everything to God in prayer.

Dale

Wednesday, April 10, 2024

He asked them, “What are you discussing so intently as you walk along?” They stopped short, sadness written across their faces. Then one of them, Cleopas, replied, “You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about all the things that have happened there the last few days.” “What things?” Jesus asked. “The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth,” they said. “He was a prophet who did powerful miracles, and he was a mighty teacher in the eyes of God and all the people.  But our leading priests and other religious leaders handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. This all happened three days ago. (Luke 24: 17 21, New Living Bible)

                “Ain't no sunshine when she's gone/It's not warm when she's away/Ain't no sunshine when she's gone/And she's always gone too long/Anytime she's goes away” (Bill Withers)

                How was your eclipse watching?  I was interested in this unique phenomenon, but not absorbed as some. I didn’t purchase any appropriate eyewear. But at the peak time here in our city, I did venture out into the backyard into the eerie, radically reduced daylight. Being the philistine that I am, I didn’t have any spiritual experiences or epiphanies as some have claimed. Nevertheless, it was a cool interaction with the cosmos. I can’t wait for the next one in 2044!

                Only Luke tells the story of the two friends walking back to the town of Emmaus from Jerusalem. We don’t know their names but the sadness was written across their face.  There is no sunshine for these two, no warmth – Jesus is gone away. His tomb is empty but there is no comfort in that fact. They are hurting, confused, forlorn, shocked, their hopes dashed. What happened threes days ago was a total eclipse of the heart (as the Bonnie Tyler song goes).

                “Ain't no sunshine when she's gone/Only darkness every day/Ain't no sunshine when she's gone/And this house just ain't no home/Anytime she goes away.”

                Sadness was written across their faces. The stranger who came along side them could sense their broken hearts. The Message Bible tells us, “They just stood there, long-faced, like they had lost their best friend.”

                We can totally identify with these two men. We all have gone through eclipses in our lives where the shadows and eerie light have blocked the sunlight of love, hope, security, peace and harmony. We can become lost in the dark. Jesus said, “But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness.” (Matthew 6:23) In other words, when hopelessness, despair, unending anxiety, paralyzing fear threaten to take over our lives, we are lost to the darkness, we are lost in the darkness.

                But wait, at the very beginning of the Greatest Story Ever Told, we were promised, “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. And for those who lived in the land where death casts its shadow, a light has shined.” (Matthew 4:16) That Light boldly came forth out of a cold, dark tomb as the Risen Saviour. He is the One who declared, “I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the dark.” (John 12:46)

                The two men did not recognize Jesus. He would be the last person on earth whom they would have expected ever to see again. We’re told that their eyes were kept from recognizing him. Their grief and disillusionment eclipsed the presence of Jesus. But Jesus doesn’t give up on them  or go to find more amenable company. He stays on the path with them, engages them in conversation, interprets for them the significance of what is happening. The critical moment came in the breaking of bread with the stranger – a simple, normal, familiar custom. Now we’re told that their eyes which had been blinded to his true identity were suddenly opened and they recognized him. “Didn’t our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” (v.32)

                The Living Lord is with us every step of the way whether we know it or not. We may find him on the roads of life or in the simple moments of fellowship and friendship when we realize we are never alone, never abandoned. “Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me.” (Psalm 23: 4)

                I can see clearly now the rain is gone
                I can see all obstacles in my way
                Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
                It's gonna be a bright (bright)
                Bright (bright) sunshiny day. (Johnny Nash)

Dale

Wednesday, April 3, 2024 – Easter: Jesus asks! Tough Questions for a Resurrection Faith

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” (John 20: 15, New Revised standard Version)

               It had been a very long, hard, trying, upsetting, mournful weekend for people like Mary, those who had followed Jesus, right up his crucifixion. Nothing much else could go wrong.  Yet now, to Mary’s dismay, the tomb is empty, Jesus’ body not there, no clue as to what had transpired. For Mary, it is the last straw to a miserable experience.  She is already broken-hearted and now she cannot even pay her last respects to her friend and teacher. She does what many of us might do in the face of great sorrow – she breaks into tears. Under the circumstances, it is understandable, reasonable, necessary, unsurprising.

                Then a voice from behind her speaks to her and asks, “Why are you weeping?”

                What causes us to cry out in hurt, sorrow, loss, bereavement?  Do we weep in the face of war, brutality, children’s deaths, crimes against humanity itself?  Do we weep for lost opportunities, broken relationships, personal failures, moral failures, or broken promises? Do we weep because of illnesses and diseases, infirmities, frailties of mind, body and spirit? Do we weep for those we have lost but can never forget? Why are you weeping?

                Some might ask, in light of what we see and read on the news, why are you not weeping?

                Like Mary, in the face of grief and sorrow, disappointment and disillusionment, we look for the logical reasons, the simple explanations, the obvious choices to justify our tears. The voice belongs to a mere gardener, Mary assumes, and he has taken the body away. “Let the dead bury their own dead,” Jesus once said. Mary is dead in spirit and she wishes to deal with Jesus’ death in her own way. As some say, no one has ever seen a dead person come to life. Mary had no illusions that this time was any thing different.

                But it was different. Radically different. Transformatively different. “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’” (20:16)

                He called her by name and her world was turned inside out and upside down. Previously, Jesus had made the commitment, “So you have pain now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” (John 16:22) Mary was the first to experience the total reversal of loss and sorrow which the Resurrection brings to us. “Your pain will turn to joy.” (16:20)

                Because Jesus knows each of us, by name, then he also knows what makes us weep, what makes us sad, what causes our griefs. But because he knows each of us by name, he interacts with our lives and lifts - raises us - out of our despair and despondency. The Risen Lord offers us an alternative to sorrow. The Risen Jesus offers us a life-line tethered to hope and God’s compassionate, comforting Love. The Risen Christ reveals himself as One wo conquers even death on a cross and thereby frees us all from deadly sorrow and suffering.

                Jesus gives us a foretaste of the future in which there will be no more weeping, no more tears.

                “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?...  No, in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8: 35 -39)

             I come to the garden alone,
            While the dew is still on the roses;
            And the voice I hear, falling on my ear,
            The Son of God discloses.

            And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
            And He tells me I am His own,
            And the joy we share as we tarry there,
            None other has ever known. (C. Austin Miles)

 Dale

Wednesday, March 27, 2024 – Holy Week: Jesus Asks! Tough questions for a Lenten Faith

At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15; 34, New Revised Standard Version)

            Here it is – the culmination of the Lenten season, ending in the most human of agonized cries in the most extreme form of terrible human suffering, “Why God have you abandoned me?”

Where is God when our world is falling apart? Where is God when our loved ones are dying from cancer and diseases?  Where is God when there are children dying in wars? Where is God when we can’t get out of our deep anxieties and despair? Where is God when we are caught in some spiral of self-destruction? Where is God when others abuse us, hurt us, use us, shame us?

 Why, O Lord, won’t you do something? You are omnipotent; so, fix it, change it, remove it, transform it. Where did you go? Where are you hiding? Why are you ignoring us? Why have you forsaken us?

“O Lord, how long will this go on?  Will you hide yourself forever?”  (Psalm 89: 46, New Living Translation)

Jesus speaks for all humanity from the cross. He identifies with our deepest pains, sorrows, sufferings, failures, dying and despair. From the cross, Jesus also looks for answers, relief, some divine response that might make sense of it all. “Since he himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested.” (Hebrews 2: 18) Yet, like Job of the Old Testament, we are still left with questions about the relationship between God and ourselves when we are suffering.

There are no easy, simple, black and white answers. “My heart is troubled and restless. Days of suffering torment me.” (Job30: 27) Like Jesus, Job refused to let God off the hook and so persisted in questioning God’s motives, God’s purposes, God’s fairness. I think we are encouraged to persist in our conversations or even arguments with God when we are most in need of God’s intervention and intercession. Remember the persistent widow who wouldn’t allow the arrogant judge to ignore her. Jesus sassed, “So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly!” (Luke 18: 7-8)

The crowd taunted Jesus that first Good Friday: “Well then, if you are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross!” (Matthew 27:40) But that wasn’t to be. This was not the way it would end, for now. The cross was Jesus’ destiny, his work, his sacrifice. It must have pained God greatly to see his beloved Son in such agony. Yet, he allowed it for our sakes. “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.” (Romans 5:6) He suffered for us, in our place, so that we would have hope in the midst of our own human losses and sufferings. “Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.” (Romans 8:18)

No one enjoys suffering of any kind. Not physical pain. Not mental anguish. Not grief. Not loss. Yet it is a part of our experience. No one gets through life unscathed. Wealth can’t protect us. Science can’t save us. Technology can’t help us. We are called upon to deal with suffering as best we can. For some, the existence of suffering becomes an argument that God doesn’t exist. But for us who believe, we hunger for God even in the midst of pain and suffering. We cling to God despite our questions or our fears and our confusion. We see Jesus in the moment of his agony and there, but with the grace of God, go you or I. But because of Jesus, even our crosses, our sufferings, our dying do not have the ultimate power to defeat us.

It is never easy to suffer. It will leave us with many questions and scars. Yet, hear Job who complains, out of the heart of all his anguish, when he needs help and no one answers; yet he fearlessly, boldly declares, “But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God! I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought!” (Job 19: 25 -27) Or Paul who echoes Job, “But I am not ashamed of it (suffering), for I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return. (2 Timothy 1:12)

Jesus Christ identifies with us from the cross. He is not silent. He is not resigned to his death. He is not simply meekly submissive even though he knows this death is his ministry for the world. He cries out for us all that God will hear and open the way to God’s Love and compassion.

“Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them.” (Psalm 10:17)

Dale

Wednesday, March 20, 2024 – Lent Six: Jesus asks! Tough Questions for a Lenten Faith

Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” (John 5: 1 -7, New Living Translation)

                Yikes! What a puzzling, terrifying and challenging question for Jesus to ask someone who had been suffering for 38 years. “Would you like to get well?” Jesus is usually so quick to heal, so generous with his love and mercy, so unjudgmental as to those whom he shows compassion, so limitless to give his time and energy.  I don’t know why Jesus chose this man out of the many who were there that day, all looking for healing, relief, remedy. Maybe he knew of the 38 years and that the man was overdue for some good news. But what a question to put to a long-suffering person!

                Let’s be clear about something. To some, the question may suggest that the man was at fault for his predicament or that he had some sort of choice in the matter. But I would argue that his suffering was very real. He was not faking it. It was not some figment of his imagination. He wasn’t trying to get sympathy or charity. He wasn’t some hypochondriac. His sickness, whatever it was, had kept him down on his mat for 38 years. There was nothing very “well” about this man, at all.

                If it was any of us, suffering many years of chronic pain or debilitating diseases or severe mental health issues or life-altering illnesses or tragic accidents leaving us deeply scarred or handicapped, we might take offence, understandably so, if we were asked such a question.  It just seems so unfeeling, so unjust, so callous, so cold…

                Jesus would have known all this and yet he still asks, “Would you like to get well?”

                Perhaps, it would do well to phrase the question somewhat differently. Can you imagine a life without all that pain? Or has it been so long that you are stuck in the suffering? Have you given up hope? Are you lost in the chaos of pain and suffering? Are you defeated, so overwhelmed that life has become one damnable thing after another? Debie Thomas wrote: “He sees a man whose hope has dwindled.  A man whose imagination has atrophied to such a point that he can’t even articulate what he wants for his body, his soul, or his future.” (Journey with Jesus)

                For a while, I facilitated a support group for those living with ALS and their primary care givers. Please note how I worded that, “living with ALS,” not dying from ALS or suffering from ALS. But living. Yes, there were plenty of tears and questions and no cures. But there was a vitality, a stubborn, pain-resistant joy that also brought much laughter, love and community. If you had asked any of them whether they would like to get well, of course, they would have answered yes, but they didn’t just give up; they lived as fully, and often defiantly, as they could. They taught me so much.

                Jesus is asking the man whether he could see beyond the limits of his infirmity. Did he have the grit to hope?  Did he have the spirit to endure? Did he have the ability to let go and let God?

                Debie Thomas wrote that the question is about the man’s “heart, his identity, and his desires: ‘What do you want?’” She then asks: “Has Jesus ever asked you this question?  Do you want to be made well from all that stymies, hobbles, paralyzes, and diminishes you?  Do you want to stand up?  Do you want to walk?  Do you want to move?”

                “And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.”  (Romans 8: 23, NLT)

                No one is saying that such a faith in great adversity is easy. No one is saying that such a hope against hope is a rosy panacea. No one is saying that such Good News immediately fixes our problems and sufferings. But, when we finish this story, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”, we are given a whole, grace-filled, new perspective on what it means to live and have our being and take a different direction from where we have been.

                “Sing for joy, O heavens! Rejoice, O earth! Burst into song, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on them in their suffering.”  (Isaiah 49:12, NLT)

Dale

Wednesday, March 13, 2024 – Lent Five: Jesus asks! Tough questions for a Lenten Faith

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came over and spoke to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do us a favor.” “What is your request?” he asked. They replied, “When you sit on your glorious throne, we want to sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.” But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism of suffering I must be baptized with?” “Oh yes,” they replied, “we are able!” (Mark 10: 35 – 39, New Living Translation)

                Be careful what you wish for.

                Some people treat their faith like it is a wishing well. They are always wanting to be rewarded for their piety and good works. (Not you or me, of course.) Some folk entreat God or Jesus to bless them and prosper them because they have been such good Christians and are worthy of God’s recognition and special treatment. (Not you or me, of course.) Some people seek God’s recognition and praise for their religious devotion and religious practices. (Not you or me, of course.)

                Thus, "Teacher, we have something we want you to do for us…  Arrange it, so that we will be awarded the highest places of honor in your glory—one of us at your right, the other at your left.” (The Message Bible) It was not the first time that the disciples argued about their place and possible reward at Jesus’ side. Once, Jesus caught them arguing about who will be the greatest in the Kingdom when it happens. (Mark 9: 33 -37) It appears that there was a lot of jostling for Jesus’ approval and recognition, wanting special privileges and positions, leading to jealousy and friction.

                But again, I say, be careful what you wish for.

                “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism of suffering I must be baptized with?”

                The initial answer to Jesus’ question is that none of us has the capacity to suffer and die as Jesus did on the Cross. We are more apt, as did the disciples, to run away and hide in light of Jesus’ death. His sacrificial death is unique and one of a kind in terms of Jesus’ utter willingness to die to save us from our sins. This death is God’s work to redeem us and close the gap between God and ourselves. It is unrepeatable.

                Even so, there is more to it. We are called to sacrificial living or to sacrificial giving. We can’t duplicate what Jesus did on the Cross but we can replicate its service by putting ourselves on the front lines of compassion, service, love and good works, not for reward and glory but for sake of God’s Love in and through Jesus Christ. “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.” (Mark 8: 34 -35, NLT)

                As Jesus said, both James and John would die as martyrs for their faith. James was beheaded by King Agrippa and John died in exile. Now, of course, I am not saying that we should be prepared to die a martyr’s death but that self-sacrifice is the mark of a loving follower of Jesus. When the disciples were arguing about their greatness, Jesus rebuked them, “So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all.” (Mark 9: 35, TMB)

                There is a news story, today, about an 80-year-old man who died from his injuries after being hit by a car after pushing a woman out of the way of that same car. A terrible tragedy, yet a noble sacrifice. Look, we all can’t be heroes but we can be the kind of folk who get on our knees and wash the feet of others, thereby sacrificing our pride, our self-importance, our superiority complexes.

                So yes, be careful what you wish for. There are no red carpets laid out for us on our way to the Kingdom. We are not the toast of the town. We are not the privileged and the elite. We are not meant to be celebrities or superstars. We are the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, called to serve, called to help, called to give a helping hand, called to put others ahead of ourselves. “I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” (Matthew 25:40, NLT)

Dale