jesus

John 9:1-41-"Clearing the Way for Christ: Seeing First with Fresh Eyes (COVID #1)"

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Synopsis:

Jesus heals a man born blind. His disciples assume he is born blind because of his parent’s sin, but Jesus tells them this is not so, spits in the mud, rubs it on his eyes, and sends him to wash in a pond. Immediately, everyone in town who knows this man start asking questions, and the religious authorities get involved. Because Jesus heals on the sabbath (using religious rules as a technicality rather than celebrating this man has been healed), the Pharisees are outraged and interrogate the man who is now seeing for the first time in his life with fresh, healed eyes. They want him to agree that Jesus is a sinner for healing him on the sabbath and that Jesus is a charlatan. With great humility and simplicity the man responds, “Look, all I know is I was blind, and now I see.” No matter our level of sight impairment, the trans-formative power of the Gospel illuminates our mind’s eye to imagine new possibilities beyond the situations into which we are born. We are invited to re-imagine our lives (through dreaming), our relationships (through reconciliation), our homes (through clearing), and our communities (through peacemaking and justice) with fresh eyes as if we were seeing the world for the first time.

John 3:1-17-"Clearing the Way for Christ: Seeing Others with Fresh Eyes"

Synopsis:

Jesus is visited at night by the respected rabbi Nicodemus. He visited at night because Nicodemus doesn’t want anyone to see him. In a world before streetlights and lampposts, night time was a dangerous place, but the danger of socializing with a radical rabbi like Jesus was a greater threat to popular Nicodemus. Jesus invitation to Nicodemus flips his world upside down when Jesus tells him that he has come because “God so loved the world,” not just the chosen, biological of Abraham descendants. The wind of Spirit, “blows where it chooses,” and those born again of the Spirit cannot be contained by restrictive, exclusionary religious systems. The Holy Spirit came down on Pentecost to not only set fire to our hearts but to open our eyes to see each other–of every race, place, and faith–as our God-given siblings. While we want to build walls between who is in an who is out, the Spirit keeps circling our hearts until the walls come tumbling down so we can look into our neighbor’s face with fresh eyes and see a fellow child of God.

Matthew 4:12-23- "The Light Has Changed: Arise Your Light is Come"

Synopsis:

As Jesus calls his first disciples, we are invited to continue to search for the calling God has on our lives. For each of us, no matter our age and station in life, there are those who need a word or deed of comfort, of compassion, and of Good News. As those first four disciples left behind their boats, they were called back into there own neighborhoods and hometowns to follow Jesus and share the Good News of God’s Reign of Love and Justice. To what is God calling you this day?

Keywords:

Calling, Jesus, mission, Good News, evangelism, justice, compassion, love

Luke 20:27-38- "The Hope of Heaven"

Synopsis: The Sadducees (who don’t believe in an afterlife) try to trip Jesus up with a scenario about marriage and remarriage. Jesus doesn’t bite the bait, and affirms the life hereafter, not on the grounds of some technicality about marriage and remarriage, but on their Sadducees own trust in Moses who spoke to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who all live and dwell in the fullness of the Living God. On the heels of All Saints when we remember those who have died in Christ, Jesus points to the heavenly hope that this life is not the end of their story or our story.

Keywords: Jesus, resurrection, heaven, afterlife, hope, saints, life after death, marriage, remarriage, Church Triumphant, All Saints

2 Timothy 1:1-14 - "World Communion: A Faith That Lived First"

Synopsis: Paul writes to Timothy encouraging him to keep the faith which was first passed on to him by his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. The faith which grants us a spirit not of cowardice but of power, love, and self-discipline, is the same faith passed down from Jesus to the Apostles, to Timothy’s grandmother, all the way to all 2 billion Christians around the world today. In this faith, we are all the family of God gathered around one global table of fellowship and community. The faith which strengthens us is a gift that lived first in the countless faithful people who have loved and lived for good and for God since Christ rose from the dead.

Keywords: Jesus, unity, Kingdom of God, communion, global church, family of God, inclusion, peace, community