John Tillman - The Park Forum

December 31, 2021December 29, 2021

New Year, New Adam, New Creation

Scripture Focus: Revelation 22.3, 17
No longer will there be any curse….The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

Reflection: New Year, New Adam, New Creation
By John Tillman

In recent times, many have cursed outgoing years for their sufferings. 2019 was blamed for much. 2020 was blamed for more. 2021 will get its share of curses and blame.

Traditionally, a new year inspires hope. This doesn’t seem as true anymore. When our traumatized culture looks to the new year, anticipation is often tainted with trepidation. It’s easy to see why. When one has been burned so often, warm feelings about the future are fleeting.

Traditional images of New Year celebrations include the old year, personified by an old man, (Sometimes called “Father Time”) and the new year, by a baby. The baby brings the incoming blessings of the new year and the old man carries the old year’s curses to the grave.

Baby New Year represents hope for the future. However, just like 2020 and 2021 failed to prove much better than 2019, a new generation is unlikely to prove much better than the last. We tend to get stuck in the sins of our forefathers rather than free ourselves from them. Short of a miracle, one year, or one generation can’t reverse the mistakes of the past.

Christians do, however, hope in a miraculous child. Better than a baby new year, Jesus is a new Adam. All creation will be renewed in him. In Jesus, we find a baby who is able to redeem his forefathers, a child who is able to lead reborn children of God, and a king who is able to overturn the wrongs of prior kingdoms.

The old years don’t really deserve cursing but our old selves do. The years weren’t the problem. We were—and are. We have carried out our own curse since Eden, however, God stands ready to reverse it. Neither the year nor those who lived through it are cursed if we are in Christ.

Christ takes our curse in himself and births in us a new self that owes no debt to sin and no death to the grave. The new Adam makes us new creations. Our “old man” is not killed and replaced so much as renewed and reinvigorated with living water that gives life forevermore.

As we enter the new year, rather than curse the past, let us bless the future. Let us drink freely of, and offer to the world “the free gift of the water of life.”

Image: Father Time and Baby New Year from Postcard, 1909 (Public Domain)

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Be pleased, O God, to deliver me; O Lord, make haste to help me. — Psalm 70.1

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.Today’s Readings
2 Chronicles 36 (Listen – 4:26)
Revelation 22 (Listen – 3:59)

From John: In this new year, we are tweaking our reading plan. We will still read all of the same books as are typically in our “even year” plan. However, we will read them in a roughly chronological order. We will not jump around from book to book (many books are written in overlapping times) but we will read them in an order that is as close to chronological order without breaking the books up. Readers have expressed interest in this and we are looking forward to seeing scriptures fall at new times of the year and becoming more familiar with how the writers of scripture depended on one another and finding new connections as we read in this manner. We will work on a graphic of the new reading plans over the next couple of months and will provide it when it is available. Thank you for your readership and for your prayer and financial support! Happy New Year!

This Weekend’s Readings
Job 1 (Listen – 3:38) Psalm 1-2 (Listen – 2:05)
Job 2 (Listen – 2:11) Psalm 3-4 (Listen – 1:56)

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In the curse of Eden, God commits himself to a course of intervention on our behalf. The curse is made to be broken.

The Curse Reversed—Readers’ Choice

December 30, 2021December 28, 2021

Ache for Renewal

Scripture Focus: Revelation 21.5, 6
“I am making everything new!…It is done.”

From John: Little did we know how much we would need renewal from Christ at the end of 2019… This re-edited devotional is a vital reminder that spiritual renewal is powered by Christ and our surrender to him, not our own willpower and work.

Reflection: Ache for Renewal
By John Tillman

We have a constant, longing ache for renewal right down in our souls where we sense Eden’s loss. In Epiphany, we can find the blossoming, the revealing, the renewal that we long for.

This ache is magnified during the days surrounding New Year celebrations. Despite the depth of the ache in our souls, the renewals that we focus on are typically shallow and self-improvement-driven.

We want to change our diets.
We want to change our jobs. (or maybe just our boss…)
We want to lose weight.
We want to gain knowledge or skills.
We want to stop a bad habit.
We want to start a good habit.

It is good for us to work better, live better, grow in knowledge, grow in health, take a new career direction, or upgrade the food we eat. Even these surface-level changes typically improve not just ourselves, but the world around us.

We may smile more. We may feel better. We may be better able to live as loving revelations of Christ. But there is also a danger of merely enacting a secular (and selfish) ritual of self-improvement.

In Christ’s description of exorcism, the ousted demon finds the person he just left clean and empty with plenty of room for even worse spiritual corruption. If we do not deal with the demons at the root of our discontent, then we will only sweep out of our homes last years’ messes, to make room for new and worse in the coming year. The last state of our souls is worse than the first. (Matthew 12.43-45; Luke 11.24-26)

Christ declared to John, “I am making all things new,” then later, “It is done.” It is Christ, who is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12.2). Christ declared his suffering finished on the cross (John 19.30), and he will eventually declare his renewal of the Earth finished.

The end of the Earth will be, rather than complete destruction, complete reconstruction. The world and everything in it, including us, will be renewed.

So rather than attempt to sweep our own house clean and empty, may we invite Jesus into our mess (Revelation 3.20), and let him do renewing, revealing work within and through us. He has work of renewal for us to join him in now. And he who begins a good work in us will see it through to completion (Philippians 1.6). When he is finished, we will have revealed Him to the world.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Bow down your ear, O Lord, and answer me…
Keep watch over my life, for I am faithful. — Psalm 86.1-2

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Chronicles 35 (Listen – 5:25)
Revelation 21 (Listen – 4:34)

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Visit the world again and again with awakenings by your Spirit that will sweep humanity into your Kingdom and bring greater justice and mercy into our homes, communities, and nations.

We Need Renewal :: Worldwide Prayer

December 28, 2021December 26, 2021

Come Out of Captivity

Scripture Focus: 2 Chronicles 33.10-13
10 The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention. 11 So the Lord brought against them the army commanders of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh prisoner, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon. 12 In his distress he sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. 13 And when he prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.

Reflection: Come Out of Captivity
By John Tillman

Christ’s kingdom of light exposes the darkness of our human kingdoms. We find this not only in Revelation, but throughout the scriptures.

Differences in Chronicles and Kings show the motives and goals of the writers. They are not in conflict as much as they are complementing each other’s messages by emphasizing or omitting specific things.

Kings is dour, and at times depressing, reading. It made the case to exiles in Babylon that they suffered justly for their sins and called them to repent. One king after another, God’s chosen leaders, turned away from God. Human kings were revealed as unworthy and unrighteous failures. None were righteous. No, not one. We need to believe this about ourselves and our kingdoms.

The Chronicler retold these events to those who returned from Babylon. Chronicles highlights moments that show that (when there is repentance) God’s mercy, redemption, and salvation are sure. God is revealed as being faithful to forgive. He is the righteous one. We also need to believe this.

In Kings, much of the blame for the Babylonian exile is hung on Manasseh’s neck. This is probably the reason Kings does not include the repentance story. The Chronicler, however, is speaking to people who need to know that God restores.

The Chronicler tells former captives of a king taken captive. He tells those restored to Judah, of a king who was restored. He tells those who were sinners and rebels of a king who repented and humbled himself. He tells those attempting to reestablish the worship of God of a king who deconstructed cultural idols and returned to true faith.

We can become obsessed and depressed when darkness and sin seem dominant in us and in our world. But even the weepiest of weeping prophets knew and proclaimed that light was coming and hope was warranted.

Manasseh’s story instills hope that repentance brings light. It tells us that there is no one beyond God’s judgment and wrath and no one beyond his grace and mercy.

Christ’s coming is a light of revelation. If we move toward Christ, revealing light becomes healing light and cleanses us of all unrighteousness.

We are not beyond hope. His arm is not too short to save. Come out of captivity to cultural idols and into the light.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Remember, Lord, how short life is, how frail you have made all flesh. — Psalm 89.47

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Chronicles 33 (Listen – 4:01)
Revelation 19 (Listen – 3:47)

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Read more about Why Chronicles?
Our history, our sins, our mistakes, cannot be deleted but our story going forward can be rewritten.

Why Chronicles?

December 27, 2021December 27, 2021

Come Out of Babylon

Scripture Focus: 2 Chronicles 32.31
31 But when envoys were sent by the rulers of Babylon to ask him about the miraculous sign that had occurred in the land, God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart.

Revelation 18.4-7
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven say:
         “ ‘Come out of her, my people,’
         so that you will not share in her sins,
         so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
      5 for her sins are piled up to heaven,
         and God has remembered her crimes.
      6 Give back to her as she has given;
         pay her back double for what she has done.
Pour her a double portion from her own cup.
      7 Give her as much torment and grief
         as the glory and luxury she gave herself.

Reflection: Come Out of Babylon
By John Tillman

During Christmastide, leading up to Epiphany, we consider the revelation of Jesus to the Gentile nations as the light of the world.

Part of the Revelation of Christ’s Kingdom is the revelation of the sinful darkness of the kingdoms we live in. Part of why Christ comes is to rescue. Wickedness will be stripped and torn down. But whoever is willing to be saved, can be pulled out, picked up, raptured from the clutching darkness of the world.

Babylon thought itself to be a light to the world and today’s empires think the same. Do we, as Christians from around the world, think of our own nations in this way?

Many of us seem to. Many Christians are more enthusiastic evangelists for political or economic systems than the gospel. For some Christians, political parties have become our true religion. Some think of our nation as “The Kingdom of God” instead of God’s worldwide church. This is what Babylon does. It replaces the worship of God with the worship of nation, tribe, and self.

Over and over, Babylon shows up as a test. God’s people fail and they fail and they fail. If we think we might fare differently, we are already too prideful.

Hezekiah was one of the greatest kings of Judah. His downfall began by pridefully entertaining powerful visitors from Babylon, even showing them the Temple and its decorations. All that he showed them, including his own children, would soon be stolen, destroyed, or enslaved by Babylon.

In Revelation, John records a call from Heaven for God’s people to “come out” of Babylon. This mirrors the call to Lot’s family to come out of Sodom. Even knowing that destruction was coming, Lot’s family clung with longing to the city they were a part of. They had to be taken, grasped, pulled by the hand to leave. Lot’s daughters had to leave behind their promised husbands, who laughed off Lot’s invitation to salvation. (Genesis 19.14-16)

“Come out of her,” Christ cries. “Don’t look back longingly,” warns the angel of the Lord…

Babylon is a test of the heart. We can become entangled in Babylon and engaged to Sodom. How wedded to Sodom and Babylon are we?

No nation should have a grip on our heart greater than the gracious kingdom of our Christ.
Come quickly, O Christ. Grasp our hands, Lord, and lead us out.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Be seated on your lofty throne, O Most High; O Lord, judge the nations. — Psalm 7.8

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Chronicles 32 (Listen – 5:58)
Revelation 18 (Listen – 4:48)

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May we leave sin and doubt in the desert, crossing the Jordan toward God’s calling to be his city on a hill.

Ready to Exit the Desert

December 17, 2021December 15, 2021

Justice Brings Joy — Joy of Advent

Scripture Focus: 2 Chronicles 19.4-7
4 Jehoshaphat lived in Jerusalem, and he went out again among the people from Beersheba to the hill country of Ephraim and turned them back to the LORD, the God of their ancestors. 5 He appointed judges in the land, in each of the fortified cities of Judah. 6 He told them, “Consider carefully what you do, because you are not judging for mere mortals but for the LORD, who is with you whenever you give a verdict. 7 Now let the fear of the LORD be on you. Judge carefully, for with the LORD our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery.”

Revelation 8.4-5
The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.

Reflection: Justice Brings Joy — Joy of Advent
By John Tillman

Part of the joy of Christ’s first Advent was the promise of justice and judgment on evil. (Luke 1.46-55) Christ’s second Advent holds the final fulfillment of this promise. Just a portion of Christ’s coming judgment is depicted by John as a censer full of burning coals from Heaven’s altar being hurled to the earth.

The anticipatory joy of Advent was always intended by the ancient church to remember the arrival of Jesus, the baby in the manger, and rehearse the arrival of Jesus, the conquering King of the Universe.

Eschatology is the “theology of last things” and deals with questions of final judgment of the earth and the final destiny of humanity. A Christian eschatology should be filled with hope and joy. However, it’s possible for eschatology to put so much hope in the future day of the Lord that it has no hope left for today. It is possible for eschatology to be joyless in the present because the only joy it acknowledges is the joy of the finally fulfilled future.

In 2019 we wrote this about Eschatology and Justice:

Some eschatology…forsakes our responsibility to work and be concerned for the Earth of today. This line of thought claims that there is no need to uphold environmental concerns and care for the Earth, for God will make a new one, and there is no need to work for justice on the Earth, for final justice at the end of time is all that matters and is up to God….

Such hopeless hope and joyless joy! We should not neglect wiping away the tears of our neighbors by quoting a scripture that God will wipe away tears in the future.

Would we leave a mess for our master to clean up on his return? Would we expect an earthly parent to be pleased with this kind of neglect? Would we bury the tasks of righteousness and justice in the ground and dig them up, undeveloped and unimproved, to hand back to Christ when he comes? (Matthew 25.14-30) Would we expect his approval if we did so?

Justice brings joy. There is joy to be found today in being God-empowered agents of his kingdom coming on the earth. (John 3.25-30) May we greet his coming joyfully as faithful forerunners who have prepared the way for him. Let him find us faithfully at work sowing the gospel, establishing righteousness, and distributing a harvest of justice.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
I will call upon God, and the Lord will deliver me.
In the evening, in the morning, and at noonday, I will complain and lament, and he will hear my voice.
He will bring me safely back… God, who is enthroned of old, will hear me. — Psalm 55.17

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Chronicles 19-20 (Listen – 8:09)
Revelation 8 (Listen – 2:15)

This Weekend’s Readings
2 Chronicles 21 (Listen – 3:25), Revelation 9 (Listen – 3:30)
2 Chronicles 22-23 (Listen – 6:51), Revelation 10 (Listen – 1:59)

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We are not being unfaithful to the gospel when we work for justice. We are embodying the gospel…

Joy and Justice :: Joy of Advent