Tag: Genesis

Mark 14.18-19
While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me.”
They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, “Surely you don’t mean me?”

Reflection: In the Face of Betrayal
By John Tillman

Jesus was familiar with the entire spectrum of betrayal. 

He was betrayed on a national level.
Jesus was the rightful king. The Messiah. But he was never accepted by those in power. He was the rejected king, the rejected cornerstone. In some ways, he was never truly allowed to return from exile in Egypt, being forced to live his entire life in obscurity. Even at the height of his popularity he stayed in out of the way places to avoid those who wanted to kill him. He only returned to Jerusalem at the end of his ministry for the purpose of being rejected and killed.

He was betrayed on a broad, societal level.
Jesus experienced Twitter-storm levels of betrayal. The religious leaders, just a few days prior, wanted to arrest and kill Jesus but refrained for fear of the great crowd that supported him. In a matter of hours, the crowd that was his protection, became the engine that drove the wheels of government to crush him.

He was betrayed on an intimate and personal level.
Even though Jesus knew betrayal by Judas was coming, the intimacy of it—the sign of the kiss—still shocked him. And Peter’s betrayal, cursing and denying Christ after so boldly claiming that all could fall away and he would still not, is one of the most heart-wrenching moments of the New Testament. The account in Luke contains the cinematic detail of Christ, in the midst of being beaten and accused, hearing the cock crow and turning to catch Peter’s eye just after what Peter had done.

Pause right now and film this scene in your own mind. Imagine Christ’s face looking at Peter in that moment.

Imagine his face looking at Judas.
Imagine his face looking at Jerusalem.
Imagine his face looking at the crowds berating him and calling for his death.

The look you imagine on Christ’s face in these moments says a lot about what you believe about who Jesus is and what his character is like.

Imagine his face looking at you.

Our sins are an intimate betrayal. Yet still Jesus looks at us with longing. He weeps for our mistakes and sins, but longs for our repentance and return.

Look full in his wonderful face this week. Do not despair over your betrayal as Judas did. Weep over it as Peter did. And wait. Jesus will lovingly come to you.

Prayer: The Morning Psalm
Answer me, O Lord, for your love is kind; in your great compassion, turn to me. — Psalm 69.18

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Prayers from The Divine Hours available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Genesis 41 (Listen – 4:38) 
Mark 14 (Listen – 8:37)

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Read more about Recognizing our True Position
Stone and King Rejected
Rejected stone.
Rejected king.
In our sins, alone,
Exile stings.

Read more about The Abandoned Savior
God, we abandoned you. Eternal unity broken by our sin. Truly we would have been counted among your disciples that night.

Mark 8.17-18
Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? 

Reflection: For Those Yet Unseeing :: Worldwide Prayer
By John Tillman

Often people of faith express the wish to be able to stand among the disciples, seeing and touching, and experiencing Jesus first hand. There’s nothing wrong with such a fanciful wish as long as it is simply a wish to stand in his presence. (We know in faith that we will stand in his presence, and bow down.) 

But often, this wish comes with assumptions. 
We assume that faith comes easily when we witness miracles. 
We assume that the disciples were ancient simpletons and that our quick modern minds would easily decipher Christ’s pedagogy of parables. (We ignore that science tells us that our species’ intelligence has been identical for eons.)

But we are wrong on both those counts. 
Those who witnessed the miracles of the Bible still struggled to have faith. 
And modern “scholarship” has not brought us greater understanding of Christ, but indeed, has muddied the waters with doubt, conjecture, and fringe theology presented as “faith” accompli—as if it has always belonged to the mainstream. 

It is ironic that some who reject junk science that is rejected by an overwhelming percentage of scientists are willing to accept junk theology that is rejected by an overwhelming percentage of theologians. It is equally ironic that some who reject junk theology are quick to accept junk science. Both groups are blind, deaf, mute, and immobile.

When we pray this prayer of intercession for the blind, deaf, mute, and immobile in our culture, may we not forget to include ourselves.

A Prayer of Intercession from Great Britain

Thank you, God, for the Church,
Help us to share fully in the church family.

We pray for people who are blind:
Help them to see Jesus.

We pray for people who are deaf:
Help them to hear Jesus.

We pray for people who cannot use their legs:
Help them to walk with Jesus.

We pray for people who cannot speak clearly:
Help them to know that Jesus understands.

Please help us all to serve you.
Fill us with the fruit of the 
Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.


Prayer: The Greeting
To you I lift up my eyes, to you enthroned in the heavens. As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, and the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he shows us his mercy  —  Psalm 123.1-3

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

Prayers from The Divine Hours available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Genesis 38 (Listen – 4:24) 
Mark 8 (Listen – 4:29)

Read more about Struggling with the Word
We often approach the Bible as consumers, treating it as a store full of solutions to our problems. When we do this, we easily are overwhelmed by its shelves, confused by its organization, and frustrated by seemingly inexplicable products.

Read more about Forgiveness to Soften the Hardened :: Worldwide Prayer
There is no level of spiritual achievement or growth at which one is not susceptible to hardening of the heart and the spirit. Christ’s call echoes again. Calling us deeper into every discipline we pursue.

Genesis 37.8
His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.

Mark 7.8
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions. 

“Well, it’s right there in the Bible, so it must not be a sin. But it sure does seem like an awful dirty trick…” — Rich Mullins

Reflection: It’s in the Bible
By John Tillman

In the song quoted above, Rich Mullins is striking a chord of irony with his purposeful misreading of the meaning of scripture. Too often in our reading of the Bible we allow ourselves to imply God’s approval on the depicted actions of the heroes of faith.

The heroes of faith had moments to emulate. But the scripture does not exist for our emulation of humans. Merely emulating any great hero of faith, from the scriptures or from our lives, will lead to mere human striving not true spiritual development and transformation.

If we look carefully, we can see God actively disrupting cultural assumptions and human traditions that people in scripture accepted as normal and moral. The most obvious example of this is polygamy. 

Polygamy was never in the Bible because God approved of it. It was there because the culture approved of it. Polygamy came from male dominance, the consolidation of power, and the dehumanization of women. 

If we read carefully we can see God interfering in the cultural system, disrupting the societal beliefs that twisted his original design of family and community. 

God purposely disrupts the laws of heredity that were acceptable in the culture by choosing the younger brothers, by favoring weaker family members, and by miraculously upending the societal forces that kept down the weak.

When we see God working through the family squabbles of Jacob’s family, we aren’t seeing God’s stamp of approval, but his marked determination to fulfill his sovereign purpose despite the flaws and foibles of his children. 

God has equally difficult work ahead of him to fulfill his purpose in us. We are soaked in and blinded by our broken, post-truth world. We, like Jacob, have cultural blind spots and, like the Pharisees, believe more strongly in our culture’s list of offenses than God’s.

We need to read scripture with our eyes open to the failures of the patriarchs and the heroes of faith. It is in their failures we can most clearly recognize ourselves. And it is in God’s loving, continuous pursuit of them that we can see hope for such glorious sinners as ourselves.

We also need to read our culture—not just live in it— seeking guidance to understand what is considered acceptable to the world, but is not acceptable to God. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal your cultural blind spots where you do not see your own faulty thinking.

Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lesson
The fool has said in his heart, “there is no God.” All are corrupt and commit abominable acts; there is none who does any good.  —  Psalm 53.1

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

Prayers from The Divine Hours available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Genesis 37 (Listen – 4:56) 
Mark 7 (Listen – 4:28)

Read more about Cringing at Culture or at Christ?
It is healthy for us to remember that what we admire in biblical heroes and heroines came to them from God. We need not emulate the heroes so much as we need to allow the Holy Spirit to work in us, drawing out of us the shining vestiges of God’s image that are needed.

Read more about The Focus of Christ’s Anger
Is Jesus angry…with us?
In prayer we can seek the focus of Christ’s anger in our lives. Christ’s anger is a good anger. It is an anger that calls us to turn back. It is a healing anger that grieves at our selfishness and hard-heartedness.