Meaning of the Ascension :: Throwback Thursday

  • May 10, 2018
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  • John Tillman

Scripture: Luke 24.51
While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.

Reflection: Meaning of the Ascension :: Throwback Thursday
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)

Jesus will come again. Our Lord is doing the best thing for his kingdom in going away. It is clear that he has not quit the fight, nor deserted the field of battle. It was in the highest degree expedient that he should go, and that we should each one receive the Spirit. He has not taken his heart from us, nor his care from us, nor his interest from us: he is bound up heart and soul with his people.

The scriptures tell us—and this is a reason why we should get to our work—that he is coming in the same manner as he departed: “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” [What does this mean?]

Do not let anybody spiritualize away all this from you. Jesus is coming as a matter of fact, therefore go down to your sphere of service. Give of your wealth and don’t talk about it. Consecrate your daily life to the glory of God. Live wholly for your Redeemer.

Jesus is not coming in a sort of mythical, misty, hazy way, he is literally and actually coming, and he will literally and actually call upon you to give an account of your stewardship. Therefore, now, today, literally not symbolically, personally and not by proxy, go out through that portion of the world which you can reach, and preach the gospel to every creature according as you have opportunity.

Be ready to meet your coming Lord. What is the way to be ready to meet Jesus? If it is the same Jesus that went away from us who is coming, then let us be doing what he was doing before he went away.

Don’t stand gazing up into heaven, but wait upon the Lord in prayer, and you will receive the Spirit of God, and you will proclaim, “Believe and live.” Then when he comes he will say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Lord.” So may his grace enable us to do. Amen.

*Abridged and language updated from Spurgeon’s sermon The Ascension and the Second Advent Practically Considered.

Today, across the world, millions of believers celebrate Ascension Day, on the Thursday, 40 days after Easter. Easter season continues, until Pentecost. 

Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
And they will say, “Surely, there is a reward for the righteous; surely, there is a God who rules in the earth.” — Psalm 58.11

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

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 8.1-9.7 (Listen – 7:02)
James 2 (Listen – 3:32)

Prayer of Confession and Praise from the USA :: Worldwide Prayer

  • May 9, 2018
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  • John Tillman

Scripture: James 1.27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Reflection: Prayer of Confession and Praise from the USA :: Worldwide Prayer

Gracious God, we have gathered for worship,
Seeing worship not as a function of place and hour,
But an attribute and attitude of life.
May our worship at every moment reflect
the focus and the commitment of this hour.

Sometimes that is difficult to do.
We are consumed with the sins and successes of yesterday.
Guilt and pride conceal our true identity.
Consumed by remorse or celebration we find it
difficult to praise and glorify you, O God.
We are often caught between the conflicting beliefs
That we either are so sinful you would have
Nothing to do with us, or we are so good
We have not need of you.
For our lack of faith, forgive us.

Some days we are caught in tomorrow.
We overlook today in order to see what lies ahead.
We look to the future, believing what is most important is yet to come.
We live in expectation of events and experiences,
Trusting that what will be
Is somehow more important that what has been
Or what is;. We wonder where the time has gone,
Only to discover that it slipped through our hands
While we waited. Forgive us, O God,
When we have failed to live in your present and presence.

We have come to worship.
We give glory to you, O God, for your majestic love
that awes us, and for your magnificent grace
that covers our multitude of sins.
With all of our heart, soul, and mind we offer ourselves to you.
Help us receive again your transforming gifts
of grace and love that encourage us to sense
your presence and share your love in every moment.

*Prayer from Hallowed be Your Name: A collection of prayers from around the world, Dr. Tony Cupit, Editor.

Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
For one day in your courts is better than a thousand in my own room, and to stand at the threshold of the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked. — Psalm 84.9

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

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 7 (Listen – 3:51)
James 1 (Listen – 3:26)

Sacrifice of Self

  • May 8, 2018
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  • Jon Polk

Scripture: Hebrews 13:15-16
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

Reflection: Sacrifice of Self
By Jon Polk

After weaving a rich theological tapestry, the letter to the Hebrews concludes in the same manner as many other New Testament epistles, with the author including a closing postscript of seemingly disconnected behavioral exhortations.

Love each other. Show hospitality. Remember the suffering. Honor marriage. Be content. Imitate your leaders.

The list is followed by one of the many commonly quoted verses from Hebrews, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

There is a thread of continuity in these instructions that connects with Christ’s eternally consistent character.

One final time, the author recalls the high priest imagery that has permeated the book. A reference to the Old Testament sin offerings serves as a reminder that Jesus himself functions both as our high priest and a sacrifice for our sins.

Jesus’ self-sacrifice on the cross is not merely an event that happened to Jesus, it is one of his important character traits. Jesus’ selflessness, demonstrated by his willingness to give up his very life for us, is the same yesterday and today and forever.

So what do all these final charges have in common? Selflessness.

Loving one another in the community of faith involves treating one another as we would members of our own families. There is a reason we refer to each other as sisters and brothers.

Not only should we love those in our community, but we are challenged to love those outside our community as well. Loving the stranger, the “other,” often involves personal risk.

One step even further is serving the outcasts, not simply strangers but those shunned from the community, in prison, mistreated, suffering. Ministry to the outcast involves a sacrifice of our time and resources.

Any married person could tell you that a truly successful marriage is founded on a commitment to serve one another selflessly.

Being content with what we have and guarding our hearts from the love of money may require reevaluation of career goals or personal ambitions. Trusting in God to meet our needs means releasing our selfish desire to control our destiny.

Remembering that God has provided faithful leaders to guide and instruct us is yet another way we practice selfless humility.

Ultimately we have been called to imitate our self-sacrificing savior, Jesus, by giving of ourselves to do good for the benefit of others. George Herbert, 17th century British priest, poet and theologian, wrote, “For there is no greater sign of holiness than the procuring and rejoicing in another’s good.”

Prayer: The Request for Presence
May God be merciful to us and bless us, show us the light of his countenance and come to us. Let your ways be known upon earth, your saving health among all nations. — Psalm 67.1-2

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

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 6 (Listen – 2:24)
Hebrews 13 (Listen – 3:31)

Joy Through Surrender

  • May 7, 2018
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  • John Tillman

Scripture: Hebrews 12:2
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Reflection: Joy Through Surrender
By Matt Tullos

Joy—The vocation of unquenchable, serene satisfaction in God.

Jesus teaches us courageous surrender. We see Him running headlong into His own demise for the sake of a greater eternal intention and destiny.

Jesus embraced the pain for joy.
He climbed the tall mount of suffering for bliss.
He met every hostile foe for love.
He challenged every lie for truth
The first warrior of grace…
He approached the unapproachable.
And it was for joy.

The first Artist of redemption endured the pinnacle of human suffering, alienation and shame. Amidst meaningless chaos, He hewed purpose out of the hard soil of humanity. Jesus’ hands were true to the task as He demonstrated the law of mercy.

In the presence of enemies, rebels, in the pretext of religiosity, God’s Son stepped out of the far reaches of glory, set His eye on the bride and it was for the joy.

“It is grace at the beginning, and grace at the end. So that when you and I come to lie upon our deathbeds, the one thing that should comfort and help and strengthen us there is the thing that helped us in the beginning. Not what we have been, not what we have done, but the Grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.”
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Strangely, surrender is the most fulfilling thing you can ever do. Satisfaction and bliss will never be achieved unless you succumb to the sweetness of a divine relinquishment.

When this surrender overrides your fear, your pride in the self-made life, and the anger you have because of old wounds, joy abounds. You enter into a surrender which leads to death. This is the bliss of a purposeful holy death of your own petty kingdom.

The Cross became the cure.
It was for joy.
It was for love.
It was for us.
How could I hold tightly to my life and miss the joy of reckless worship?
I kneel at the cross and live in joy. I am free to live
the life today that I’ve always wanted to live.
Delivered
Accepted
Released
Chosen
Loved
Free!

The same joy that was set before Christ is now before us. We can look to Him and remember what this life is about. It is a race toward a life surrendered totally to Him and His glory.

Does your sacrifice bring joy or is it an obligatory nod toward a distant God?
What lights the joy flame of your heart?

*From a series Matt Tullos wrote called 39 Words. A few of these posts are available in audio form via Soundcloud. — John

Prayer: The Request for Presence
Arise, O God, maintain your cause. — Psalm 74.21

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

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 5 (Listen – 4:48)
Hebrews 12 (Listen – 4:36)

Where Jesus Walked :: Weekend Reading List

  • July 1, 2016
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  • Park Forum

It is the “Fifth Gospel” Ernest Renan said of the Galilean landscape, “torn, but still legible.” The 19th-century explorer, philosopher, and theologian looked to archeology to give “form” and “solidity” to Scripture’s account of Jesus’ life and world.

In some ways the archeological account is “torn” because researchers have not found what we know to expect. In Unearthing the World of Jesus Ariel Sabar reports, “The Gospels say that Jesus taught and ‘proclaimed the good news’ in synagogues ‘throughout all Galilee.’ But despite decades of digging in the towns Jesus visited, no early first-century synagogue had ever been found.”

It wasn’t until 2009, along the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, that the historical account became more legible: an archaeologist’s pick jolted into a wall from a first-century synagogue. To be fair, unearthing a full synagogue that Jesus may have visited was the crescendo of decades of work. “There’s no denying it” Sabar wrote of the discovery:

They’d found a synagogue from the time of Jesus, in the hometown of Mary Magdalene. Though big enough for just 200 people, it was, for its time and place, opulent. It had a mosaic floor; frescoes in pleasing geometries of red, yellow and blue; separate chambers for public Torah readings, private study and storage of the scrolls; a bowl outside for the ritual washing of hands.

The first-century world is coming into greater focus through discoveries like these. Galilee-born archaeologist Rami Arav has been leading digs for the past 28 years—his finds are significant for the world of faith. Sabar summarizes some of what his team discovered:

[Arav] and his colleague have uncovered a fisherman’s house used in Jesus’s day, a winemaker’s quarters from a century earlier and a city gate from Old Testament times, …a full-blown residential district, a marketplace, a fishing harbor, four Jewish ritual baths, and unusual plastered basins where residents appear to have salt-cured fish for export.

What can we learn from this today? Frankly, that the world Jesus lived in was pluralistic. Though we read what spiritual people were supposed to do in Jesus’ time, archeology reveals what they actually did—and the pressures they faced on a daily basis. One of the buildings uncovered, not far from the synagogue, was likely used for pagan worship.

“It’s ultimate chutzpah,” quips Richard Freund of the University of Hartford. The presence of a pagan temple in a Jewish town would have redefined daily life—possibly even explain Jesus’ condemnation of the town. Freund reflects:

It cannot but affect your spiritual life to every day go out and do your fishing, come home and try to live as a Jew, eat your kosher food, pray inside your courtyard house and then at the same time you’re seeing these plumes of smoke rising from the temple of Julia, and you’re saying, “Who are we? Who are we?”

Christ did not inhabit a world with clean spiritual lines—he entered the messiness of life, responded with grace and extended hope. It was along these same dusty shores of Galilee that he extended his calling: follow me. Give up all the pursuits this world offers—they aren’t pathways to success—follow me.

As for the continuing archeological work to understand Jesus’ world, Sabar points out, “Each layer of dirt, or stratum, is like a new page, and with much of Galilee still un-excavated, many chapters of this Fifth Gospel remain unread.”

Weekend Reading List

Today’s Reading
Isaiah 63 (Listen – 3:25)
Matthew 11 (Listen – 4:06)

This Weekend’s Readings
Isaiah 64 (Listen – 2:01) Matthew 12 (Listen – 6:41)
Isaiah 65 (Listen – 5:00) Matthew 13 (Listen – 7:23)