On the Way to Wonder

Tomorrow the reading from Psalms is Psalm 51.  Perhaps you have memorized it.  King David wrote the psalm after being confronted by his prophet Nathan and his, King David’s, sin of adultery with Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite.  David, with wives and a harem, saw Bathsheba and wanted her and invited her into his chambers. I doubt turning down a king’s request was socially not common at the time.  But not only did David sleep with Bathsheba, she became pregnant and David orchestrated the death of her husband and then married Bathsheba.  The story illustrates the domino affect of those “little sins” that change the course of our lives.

Tomorrow the Greeks comes to Jerusalem and are looking for Jesus.  They go to the disciples with their request, “We want to see Jesus.”  We do not know their question.  But like them, King David has lost sight of God and pleads in Psalm 51 for forgiveness and a return to relationship.  His cry, “Create in me a clean heart!”  

Please enjoy this simple melodic tune of one of the key verses in Psalm 51.

Create in Me (Psalm 51:10)

 “Then he began to speak to them in parables. ‘A man planted a vineyard,  “.  (Mark 12: 1)

Mark now chooses to focus in on a series of parables Jesus tells during that last week in Jerusalem.  Parables are symbolic stories that give form to the unknown, in this case how the future might unfold.  These parables do not seem to be helping us discover the nature of our God as much as foreshadowing what is about to happen.

• A man plants a vineyard
• He digs a pit for a winepress
• He builds a watchtower
• He rents it to farmers
• He leaves
• Then he sends servants to collect his share of the harvest
• He sends his son

The farmers refused to acknowledge the man’s ownership and hence his fair share and they eliminate the servants and kill the son thinking that then the vineyard will be theirs.  Jesus ends with a question, “What will the man do?”

It might be interesting to ask ourselves today some questions 

• What vineyard, what project are we trying to build in our lives?
• What is the product we are hoping will grow in the vineyard?
• How to we try and protect it?
• Who are the people helping us to care for our vineyard?
• What do we think is our fair share of the returns?
• How do we meet resistance?

Jesus speaks to the day of accounting that must come at the harvest time of any project.  He is again predicting his death and God’s judgment.  We can think of the IRS and April 15th coming up.  We can think of box office revues and the fair share that goes to the actors.  We can think of our investment in our families and the respect and honor we pray will result when they grow up.  The chief priests and religious leaders know the parable is pointed at them as caretakers of the church.

Perhaps today we might ponder what we have been entrusted with from God and how we are caring for these “projects.”  Let me note that Jesus is not just talking to individuals but to farmer-s. It seems we are all “caregivers.”   Let us pray about how we can be more trustworthy caregivers on the teams for the projects in our lives that God has given us.

Mark 11:27-33

‘By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them?

We are reflecting on the last week of Jesus’ life before the crucifixion.  He is going to and from Jerusalem teaching.  We have just read that upon entering the Temple and seeing how it had become a “marketplace” taking advantage of people who had to exchange money to buy sacrifices and then the sellers who sold those sacrifices, Jesus becomes irate and created a scene, overturning tables.  The religious leaders are furious and plot to kill him.  But the next day when he returns, they do not accuse him of breaking the law.  He was too popular.  Instead they publicly confront him about his authority.

Authority is actually of various kinds.  There is the authority of the author who is the creator of the narrative, the parent of the child, or perhaps the genius behind an invention.  That is a kind of authority from being the creator.  But there is also the authority vested in someone by popular vote.  Our government has authority because our vote gives voice to our desire for them to hold power.

Jesus does not answer the question but flips it back on the chief priests and religious leaders by asking them a question.  “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”  Did John the Baptist speak for the creator God or was he just a popular person?

We might ask ourselves today how we respond to the authority of God’s Word.  Perhaps we follow the rules because we agree with them and they are norms ingrained in our culture.  Other times we “shine God on” for things like forgiveness, sharing, gossiping or gluttony and jealousy.  We treat God like a marketplace where we can pick and choose how to engage with our faith.  Hmmmm.  That’s not a pretty thought.

Let us spend a moment asking the Holy Spirit to raise to our consciousness any way that we are duplicitous in following God’s authority.

“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”?

    But you have made it a den of robbers.’

Mark 11:17

Yesterday we returned to Jerusalem with Jesus.  It is Holy Week, the time between Palm Sunday and Good Friday.  Yesterday the group walked past the withered fig tree and got a lesson on prayer.  When they got to Jerusalem they went to the Temple and Jesus entered the outer courts.  They had become a marketplace, exchanging the money of the foreigners and selling the sacrificial animals needed.  We suddenly see a side of Jesus we have not seen before.  He upsets tables.  He is angry.  The Temple is not to be a place of sacrificial relationship but place of prayer and communication.

 It is possible today to find most anything in churches — enlightening education, entertaining programs for youth, bookstores, coffee shops, and gyms.  All are designed to serve good goals of drawing us closer to the God we worship.  I don’t think the problem is the program but the condition of the heart.  When we take advantage of the vulnerable, use our gifts for self glorification, or just send kids to be babysat for free, we may have overstepped.

Today let us ask the Holy Spirit to shine his flashlight on our hearts and show us if there is any duplicity and selfishness in our hearts when we go to church.  May our churches be a house of prayer for all nations.

In yesterday’s reading, Jesus was warmly welcomed into Jerusalem with people pulling palm branches off trees and shouting “Hosanna.”  It was late in the day so Jesus returned to Bethany for the evening and the next morning as he and crew head back to Jerusalem, he is hungry and sees a fig tree with leaves but without fruit because it is not fruit season.  Jesus curses the tree to never bare fruit.  Mark reports that the followers saw this whole scene.  At the end of the day the group leaves for the night and on returning the next morning see that the fig tree has withered.  This certainly is a counter intuitive teaching moment as Jesus shares with the followers.  What’s going on?

The prophets in the Old Testament often compare the fig tree to Israel as does Jesus in the New Testament.  Jesus even tells a parable about the fig tree that does not bear fruit and the gardener asks for another years to work with it, fertilize and prune it.  That tree was given more time but the one today was not. It does not make sense that Jesus is cursing Israel, his own people.   Perhaps Jesus saw leaves and no buds meaning the tree was deeply diseased and not healthy for people to eat.  The text does not indicate disease but we do believe that Jesus could see beyond the obvious.

Jesus uses this tree, though, to point to the power of prayer as he challenges the followers when he is questioned:

 ‘Have faith in God. ²³ Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea”, and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. ²⁴ So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.                Mark 11:22-24

Faith looks at seemingly impossible scenarios that appear beyond help and continues to pray and intercede for God’s help.  I think of wayward children that parents plead for.  I think of impossible financial challenges and then a check suddenly appears in the mail.  I once promised to go to a conference with the committee promising to pay half if I would find the other half of the cost.  I walked from the phone to the mail box and found a check for the exact amount from an anonymous source given for me to the church.  The check arrived right at that moment.  Not all our wants and needs are answered like that.  It is easy to think God is playing favorites or not listening.  On the surface this text seems to promise anything we want but I suspect there is a time clause and a need to recognize our wants are not always the best.  It is a challenging passage.  We are free to ask and approach the God of the universe and we must trust that he will work it out in the proper time.

Let’s pray for one of those situations that seems impossible in our lives.  Wars, famine, human trafficking, elections, refugees are all in need of more than one prayer.  Blessings.

We are in Mark 11.  Jesus sent two followers from Bethany where he was staying outside of Jerusalem.  They were to go to the next village and find a colt of a donkey that had never been ridden and bring it back.  The crowd put their cloaks on the back of the colt and Jesus rode into Jerusalem to the cheers of the crowd.  We will celebrate this next Sunday.  Palm branches were laid on the road before the donkey and so we call next Sunday “Palm Sunday.”

The people chanted:

Hosanna!

    Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

¹⁰ 

    Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!

Hosanna in the highest heaven!’

Mark 11: 9-10

I was surprised when I looked up “hosanna” on the Internet to read

“Hosanna is a liturgical word in Judaism and Christianity. In Judaism it refers to a cry expressing an appeal for divine help. In Christianity it is used as a cry of praise.”

I have always associated “hosanna” with praise.  The crowds were quoting from Psalm 118:25-26.  When I read the whole psalm, it started with thanksgiving for God’s help in the past, but then at verse 25 it changed to a plead, ‘Lord, save us! Lord, grant us success!”  Perhaps the crowd on Psalm Sunday was welcoming Jesus whom they anticipated as the coming Messiah to rid them of the Roman oppression.  “Hosanna” is a word that bridges the reality of our present oppression with the faith that God will save us and deliver us.  AND often as with Psalm Sunday, the deliverance does not materialize as we expect.  Somehow those Romans, those things that irritate us, do not just disappear.

Perhaps the cry of your heart is for being saved from a situation that has become a quagmire for you or perhaps you are feeling praise for deliverance from a burdensome situation.  Let us use the word “Hosanna” as an acrostic for the prayer of your heart today.  H is for ______, O is for _____, S is for ______, A is for _____, N is for _____, or N could be for _____ and A is for _______.  Thank you LOrd for I know you are working.

First Reading: Numbers 21:4-9

⁴From Mount Hor [the Israelites] set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. ⁵The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” ⁶Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. ⁷The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. ⁸And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” ⁹So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

Psalm: Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

You deliver your people from their distress. (Ps. 107:19)

 ¹Give thanks to the Lord, for the Lord is good,

  for God’s mercy endures forever.

 ²Let the redeemed of the Lord proclaim

  that God redeemed them from the hand of the foe,

 ³gathering them in from the lands;

  from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.

 ¹⁷Some were fools and took rebellious paths;

  through their sins they were afflicted.

 ¹⁸They loathed all manner of food

  and drew near to death’s door.

 ¹⁹Then in their trouble they cried to the Lord

  and you delivered them from their distress. 

 ²⁰You sent forth your word and healed them

  and rescued them from the grave.

 ²¹Let them give thanks to you, Lord, for your steadfast love

  and your wonderful works for all people.

 ²²Let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving

  and tell of your deeds with shouts of joy. 

Second Reading: Ephesians 2:1-10

¹You were dead through the trespasses and sins ²in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. ³All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. ⁴But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us ⁵even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—⁶and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—⁹not the result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Gospel: John 3:14-21

[Jesus said:] ¹⁴“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

 ¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

 ¹⁷“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that’s their deeds may not be exposed. ²¹But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  John Wooden, coach of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team was famous to those of us in the LA basin.  His most famous quote is said to be, “Success is never final; failure is never fatal, it’s courage that counts.”.   

The story I was raised with, though, was that when Wooden was asked what his secret was for training a winning basketball team, he replied, “I teach them to put on their socks.”  You can’t win a basketball game if your socks are giving you blisters.  Start with the basics.  

What word of advice would you give to a student headed to college?  Share with your neighbor.

Let us pray.  Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.

SERMON

Todays readings are so full of favorite Bible quotes that it is hard to know where to start.  John 3:16 from our Gospel reading is “For God so loved the world….” We all have heard it. It has been called “the Gospel in a nutshell.”  Our second reading shared Ephesians 2:8,9 “By grace we are saved….” That is foundational to the Reformation and our belief in salvation by grace and not by works.  The familiar and elementary are so comfortable that often we loose the depth and intensity of their meaning. It’s kinda like putting our socks on right so we don’t get blisters. These texts contain some basic pearls of wisdom we can visit today.  Let’s set the context of our passage.

 First, it is Lent.  We are traveling from the Mount of Transfiguration to the cross on Good Friday.  We heard “the Voice” speak from heaven and tell Peter and us, “Listen to my Son.”  During Epiphany we looked at who our God is as revealed in Jesus in the Incarnation but during Lent we are listening to the lessons Jesus is imparting to his followers before the crucifixion.  What do we need to know to face life as Jesus followers?  

Today’s text is not only informing us through the eyes of Lent but it also is being spoken to Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a member of the Jewish ruling council who has come to Jesus by night to ask questions. Perhaps you have come to church today with questions you ask God in the dark of the night when doubt pounds on your door.  Nicodemus acknowledges that Jesus obviously is special, coming from God doing miracles.  Today we might easily agree that Jesus was a great prophet. We might get a bit tongue-tied , though, trying to explain the mystery of the Trinity and just how faith becomes real in our lives.  Jesus is addressing this “leap of faith”, the decision to trust in Jesus, that  we talk about.

The last verse of our text admonishes us, “²¹But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”  Even if we have been a person of faith for years, it is good to review the basics.

“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,”

Jesus starts his response to Nicodemus with a known hero, a known story, and a known dilemma as he speaks into NIcodemus’ confusion.  To give a map on how to get from Point A to Point B, we must first agree on where we are and where we want to go.  Maybe I could tell you how I get to Tampa, FL, but for most that is not very helpful because you are in Indianapolis and you don’t know where I am. Jesus starts with Moses.  Moses was the leader that gave them the Law after talking with God on Mt. Sinai.  The incident with the snakes was a known cultural story occurring later on the journey after Sinai and Nicodemus for sure knew this event.

A quick review.  The people of Israel had left Egypt, received the Ten Commandments, and sent spies into the Promised Land.  The spies returned with scary reports.  The people paniced and saw themselves as grasshoppers in their own eyes. The Promised Land had giants.  The leap of faith was too big.  They murmured. That generation had to wander for 40 years while a generation died off and there was a transition in leadership.  Aaron, their first priest, had died.  Miriam, the song leader, had passed.  

But…“The people became impatient on the way.  The people spoke against God and Moses.”  Their discouragement led to a breakdown of faith. Their wants were bigger than their haves.  The Promised Land had not been reached … yet!  Their eyes shifted from the God who rescued them from Egypt, the God who helped them win battles, and the God who gave them daily manna. Their eyes had shifted from God and thankfulness to self and want.

How easily this can be our story.  The starting point of our faith journey is an honest acknowledgment that we are not living life as we want it to be, not living the life we want and we are frustrated with our world and ourselves. Our feet hurt because our socks are wadded up in our shoes. We are not enough.  We are dying from the snakes that poison our hearts with dissatisfaction, jealousy, envy, hate….sin.  For those of us raised in a Christianized life, that has a facade of “goodness,” it is sometimes hard to look at ourselves and realize we are sinners.  We rationalize that certainly we are not as bad as those other obvious sinners.  We have trouble admitting we are just not able to make life work the way we want and we need help.  

Moses made a bronze snake that was nailed to a cross and the people dying had to turn to that cross to be saved.  Humbling ourselves and admitting our GPS is broken is very hard.  We call it repentance.  The answer is outside ourselves and we start our faith journey by crying, “Help.”

it is possible, even probable, to become impatient on our journey.   When we focus on the dreams of winning the basketball tournament, we loose sight of the basic skills that need to be practiced daily to get there.  We stop focusing on our socks, the basics. When we are impatient, our focus shifts from God’s wants to our wants.  But also our focus shifts from the big picture to the “now.”  Impatience is not thinking long term but is very present focused and has lost sight of the victories of the past and the promises for the future. The people whine, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.”  I suspect the Pharisees and the followers of Jesus are focused on those ever present Romans that complicate their lives and the Jews do not understand the implications of being God’s chosen people.   How easily we forget and become numb to the big picture.  We want to charge forward before we are ready.  I can hear myself saying, “Once this is over, then I”ll….”  fill in the blank. Perhaps you have a way you convince yourself that your wants will happen in the future.

Impatience also leads to tunnel vision.  We are so focused on the now and ourselves that we forget the context we are living in.  Poverty, justice, discrimination become central to our lives, here in the present and we lose track of the progress of history and our global context.  That does not make poverty right, it only means we are not looking in context and forgetting our resources.  I worked on a suicide prevention phone service.  People called all night in despair.  As we listened, talked and became a caring presence – we evaluated really how serious the person was about suicide – and we tried to help the person identify resources available to them.  The people of Israel were tired of free food provided daily, were tired of being led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  They were tired of having clothes and shoes that did not wear out.  They wanted to go shopping.  They were tired and impatient.  When we become tired and impatient with our plight in life, we are probably looking at our wants that have become needs, we are thinking in the present and we have lost sight of our resources.  We have become impatient and self-centered. We are sinners.

Discouragement, impatience and tunnel vision are like snakes attacking our lives and killing us.  The solution was for the people to be brought to the snake nailed to the cross and gaze at it.  Jesus would be lifted up like that snake and the only requirement is to believe, faith.  The journey of faith starts with an acknowledgement of our needs and looking to Jesus.  The Holy Spirit like a gust of wind that we cannot see works the gift of faith.

 ¹⁶“For God so loved the world…”

Jesus now turns Nicodemus to a second problem.  When we see God as an angry judge who kills his son, we have a problem.  It is hard to take a leap of faith into angry arms and believe they will catch us.  Jesus gently turns Nicodemus’ heart from fulfilling the law of an angry God to the welcoming arms of a loving God, ready to catch him when he jumps. John 3:16 is one of those verses we all know but that is so hard to grasp in our lives.  Many of us have had parents who tried their hardest to raise us right and spanked us to make us repent of our wrongs because they loved us.  We wonder if God is going to spank us for our sins.  Perhaps we will spend years in suspended space.  Then we had friends with conditional love on our being in the right crowd and having the right look.  It was hard to believe someone duly tcared about us with all our warts and wrinkles.  Of course there were the boyfriends who promised love and wanted sex.  Broken marriage vows speak to love that grows cold or is one sided.  All the crooners that sang of love that lasts forever feel like star gazers in the face of death of a loved one.  Love is just a hard word to get our hearts around.

Jesus says that “God so loved the world.”  I know our individualistic American worldview suggests that if I were the only person alive then Jesus would still come to live and die for me.  I doubt it.  My friend last night said, her favorite part is that God loved the world so she believes there is enough love for even her distant father who abused her.  God’s love is personal and it is universal.  God’s love is for the good and the ugly.  God’s love is for sunny days and cloudy days.  One of the phrases that the kids remembered their father saying and they repeated at his funeral was that he talked about “the great big love of Jesus.”  God’s love is as big as the universe we know, and then some.

My sister pointed out that God so loved the world that he gave.  We like to think about what we get because God loves us but the verse points out that God’s love is an outward focused, giving, enabling, blessing love.  We don’t understand because the evil one whispers in our ear the big ‘IF.”  The Lie tries to convince us that suffering should not be allowed with love. The Lie says that love is not focused on my selfish wishes and making me happy.  God’s love though is providing the best for all people. 

God emptied himself and went to the cross that I might live.  The cross and resurrection show that nothing can separate us from God’s love.  Not my bad actions that deserve a spanking, not my inadequacies that cripple my life, and not language or sex or anything.  

All God asks is that we believe and take that leap into his arms.  Those who do not believe, we must leave in God’s hands to deal with. That is a chapter in the book of faith we don’t have the right to make judgment about.  Our text says that their stubborn refusal closes them off from God, not their ignorance, not their sin and not their intelligence or education.  It does not say God stops loving them.  They just cannot experience it.  We don’t have all the answers for how God will deal with “the other.”  We do know that he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes will not perish, face eternal death, but face eternal life.  Jesus did not come to condemn but to save.  When we believe, we are putting our socks on right so we can play our best possible game of life.

Light

²¹But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Jesus responds to Nicodemus who comes to him at night with his questions and doubts.  It is hard to take that leap of faith and believe in Jesus.  The evil one likes to whisper lies into our ears.  Being born again is like putting on our socks and realizing there is a lump that is irritating our feet and we can’t walk properly.  We must first admit our mistake, take off our socks and start over.  Be born again.  The people in the wilderness with Moses had to admit their need for salvation and turn to the snake nailed to the cross and they found life.  Fear will try to convince us that we are facing an angry God who wants to punish us but Jesus tells Nicodemus that “God so loved….the world….that he gave….his son…that we might believe and have eternal life.”  That is like walking in light and not like stumbling in the dark.  God wants to help us learn how to put our socks on right because he wants our team to win.  He will receive the glory not as John Wooden of the Lakers but as the God of the whole universe.  Whew.  May it be so.

Let the people of God say, “AMEN!” May it be so and help my unbelief.  

We Give Thanks (Psalm 107) • Official Video

Tomorrow’s psalm reading is Psalm 107.  This week we looked at the giving of sight to Bartimaeus who sat by the side of the road listening to people chatter as they left Jericho to go to Jerusalem.  He could not see but he could listen, even as we listen to the truths of Scripture on Sundays.  I’m sure Bartimaeus was praising God after his healing and so this worship song that focuses on our psalm reading seems appropriate.  Please listen and enjoy.

Mark 11:1-3

 ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. ³ If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.”’

The followers of Jesus have gone from Jericho and the blind man of yesterday and we next hear they have reached Bethany, not that far from Jerusalem.  Jesus’ friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus live there and we suspect Bethany will become his headquarters til Passover.  Jesus sends two disciples into the next village to find a colt. Matthew and Luke include the same incident and tell it the same way.  Interestingly, Jesus anticipates that the two men will be questioned for taking the donkey’s colt and tells them to reply, “The Lord needs it.”

I wonder what  two people from church might ask for from me today, saying that “the Lord needs it.”  The most equivalent would be if they came to borrow my new car or my  new unridden motorcycle.  We could let our imagination run a bit and perhaps they might ask us to sing in an Easter program or work in the kitchen for the youth pancake breakfast.  And of course there are always financial needs or need for help around the church.

I find it more interesting to think on the word “need” today.  I don’t particularly think of the Lord as needing anything from me.  He wants my love and service but does he need me? It is usually me standing in the need of prayer … and help.

     The word “need” speaks to the relationship, the partnership that Christianity believes exists between the creator and the creation.  We do not see faith as a master/slave, top down arrangement.  It is easy to see my relationship as a power play by God but I think of the partnership as more collaborative.  Through prayer we are in constant give and take communication.  God shares with me the master plan through his Word.  Life is not a guessing game.  

     Let’s ponder in prayer today what God might need from you.  He may need you to be his arms hugging someone.  He might need your voice speaking truth to someone.  He may need your feet carrying help.  God not only wants relationship with you, he needs you.  Wow, that is worth praying over.

Mark 10: 46-52

⁴⁷ When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’

⁵⁰ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. ⁵¹ Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’ 

We are traveling to Jerusalem and the cross with Jesus and his followers. Our Lent challenge“ this year is “listening” as the “the Voice” of the Father at the Transfiguration commanded Peter.  As this group leaves Jericho that is north east of Jerusalem and resumes their journey, a blind man hears that Jesus of Nazareth is passing.  This man cannot see and like us, he too can only listen.

Jericho was where Joshua and the children of Israel entered the Promised Land after their journey in the Wilderness.  Jericho was the home of Rahab the Harlot who hid the spies sent to check out the city, and who hid her family in obedience, and who later married and became the mother of Boaz, and who thus became the great grandmother of King David.  Perhaps some of us sit at the edge of our own Jericho, wanting to enter the promised future, but still somehow blind and listening.

The blind man hears that Jesus of Nazareth is passing but he has also been listening to other people who have traveled past him.  Perhaps, like him, we have heard others talk about faith but somehow we still feel like beggars on the road to life.  The blind man puts two and two together and gets five.  He calls out to Jesus not as “Jesus of Nazareth” but as “Jesus, son of David!”  Our man appeals to Jesus as a potential inheritor of the thrown of David.  It might mean he somehow was joining the crowd looking for a Messiah.   We don’t know.  But we do know he upped the title.  He came to Jesus as a power greater than himself.

The blind man cried out for “mercy.”  He did not define his request until Jesus asked him what he wanted.  The blind man threw off his coat, possibly his only possession, possibly that upon which he sat while he begged and listened, and the people who had rebuked him for his disturbance now help him to go to Jesus.  Jesus rewards “his faith.”  His faith in what, Jesus as “Son of David” Messiah, Jesus as healer?  We don’t know.

As we sit today listening for the “voice” to speak into our blindness, let us ponder this man’s request for mercy.  What would God’s mercy look like in your life today?  What is my next step for going from Jericho to Jerusalem, from confession to growth in faith?  Let us continue to listen as we wait by the road of life.