Easter

Jan 27 2025

Scripture Study for

The story of the early church takes another dramatic turn with the baptism of Cornelius and other Gentiles. Cornelius was a Roman centurion who is described as “devout and God-fearing,” or a “God-fearer,” a term that describes a non-Jew who accepted Jewish monotheism and even attended synagogue. Before the scene in today’s reading, Cornelius had received a vision in which he was told to send men for Peter. Before they arrive, Peter has had a vision in which he comes to understand that it is God’s will that the Christian proclamation extend to the Gentiles. The Lectionary reading omits Peter’s brief summary of the Christian kerygma, during which the Holy Spirit falls upon the Gentile listeners (see the first reading from Easter Sunday). The charismatic gifts of speaking in tongues and glorifying God give proof to Peter that God has indeed called Gentiles into the Christian fold.

The emphasis in the reading from First John is on the priority of God’s love for us, the foundation of everything. This love has been made most clearly manifest in the person of Jesus, whose very presence in the world, and whose salvific death, give incontrovertible proof of God’s love. Those who are “of the world” (4:5) do not recognize this gift of the Son and therefore do not know God’s love. And if they do not know God’s love, they do not know God, who is love. As John has said many times already, those who truly know and love God are “begotten by God,” and as such are (imperfect) images of God who, like God, love others.

This week’s Gospel is a continuation of last week’s, in which Jesus referred to himself as the true vine and exhorted his disciples to “remain in me.” Jesus develops this theme now by explaining that to remain in him is to love him, and to love him is to obey his commandment. Once again, the relationship between Jesus and his disciples reflects the relationship between the Father and the Son. To love Jesus is not just to obey him, but to imitate him, specifically his sacrificial love. Those who truly remain in Jesus cannot help but become like him, which means those who remain in Jesus will be his image in the world.

Jan 27 2025

Rescuer, Redeemer, Savior

The trucker swung down the exit ramp and braked at the stop sign. The interchange was empty—no gas station, no house lights, nothing but darkness. My hitchhiker’s instincts kicked in. This was not good.

“Where are you going?” I glared at him from the passenger seat. He hungrily eyed me, an eighteen-year-old female. Then he grunted “You got a knife?”

I didn’t. But I growled as gruffly as I could, “Yeah, you bet.” “Get out then!”

I jumped down to the gravel into the bitter winter. By the time I had hiked halfway up the ramp toward the interstate, he had turned his semi around and roared past me, back onto the highway. He hadn’t been going anywhere but after me. I shook from much more than the cold.

I held out my thumb by the side of the interstate, in a silent plea for a ride. Nobody stopped. The wind blew through my thin jacket. The tear ducts in my eyes began to freeze. My mind grew muddled on that dark plain of North Dakota in the middle of January. I stopped shaking and thought, “I’ll just lie down here.” The only other thing in my head was, “Oh, Someone . . . help.”

An ancient Oldsmobile pulled over. The back door opened. A grandma slid a three-year-old onto her lap to make space for me. “¡Hace frío!” she exclaimed. She held up a piece of her blanket and covered my legs with its warmth. “Sorry, heater no work,” the dad said as he shifted into gear. As we drove, I began to thaw with the five warm bodies huddled together in the back seat.

“Where you going?” the dad asked. “Michigan,” I said. He shook his head. They were going to Fargo. “I take you to bus. No more hitchhike,” he said. I couldn’t have agreed more.

Consider/Discuss

Dozens of warm cars and trucks had no space for me that night many years ago. But if you are one of the (now grown up) members of that Mexican family who squeezed together in the back seat of your unheated car to make room for me, I have always wanted to thank you. You saved my life. And in the warmth of your family for those many miles, you surrounded me with what love looks like. For those of you who are not a member of that family, is there someone who has rescued you in a moment of need whom you too have always wanted to thank?
Whether it is by our own foolishness or from the malice of another, sometimes life drops us by the side of the road. Yet there is one who knows our predicament and picks us up. In this season of the warmth of the Resurrection, we believe that Jesus is our Rescuer, our Redeemer, and our Savior. How has God lifted the blanket to make space for us, to let us in, even when we have been headed for ruin?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, you ask us to love as you love, giving ourselves for others. Love is not a warm mushy feeling, but a willingness to work for the good of the other. Thank you for those who have laid down their lives for us. Thank you for the fruit they have borne, fruit that has transformed us. Your compassion sometimes works through unlikely people, unseen people, big-hearted people who give without counting the cost. Bless all of your friends who imitate you. Grant them great joy in their lives of generosity.

Jan 27 2025

Flowing with Abundant Life

The eastern white pine is one of my favorite trees. I have vibrant memories of wind-swept foliage against the bright blue sky of Isle Royale in Michigan. I recall the exhilaration of cross-country skiing through radiant white snow with white pines soaring overhead. The white pine is a majestic tree.

So I am a little sad about the large white pine tree next to our house. Bark beetles have bred within the inner bark. Sometimes a tree can fight off that infestation, but last summer’s drought weakened it. Once the inner bark is chewed all around the tree, the tree is girdled, and no sap can flow. Water cannot travel upward through the xylem to the leaves. Food from the leaves cannot move downward to the roots. This past month, all the needles have turned brown. We will have to cut it down.

Jesus knew about sap in living things. He talks about remaining in him. That word “remains” (or abide or dwell) is a mystical term that connotes a deeply intimate and constant communion. The sap of the vine continually flows into the branches and keeps them healthy. When there is a vigorous transfer of nutrients, the plant flourishes with abundant good fruit.

But what about those little bugs? In the spiritual life, we don’t often pray, “Jesus, just go away.” We don’t deliberately cut ourselves off from the vine. Rather, little things begin to eat away at our relationship—having no time to pray, harboring resentment, getting so busy that God’s beauty passes by unnoticed, forgetting faith-filled friends, or ignoring our conscience. Difficult seasons can weaken us. Without meaning to, we can inadvertently allow the bugs of life to chew away at our connection to the Source of life and slowly start to wither. Jesus, help us to flourish and not be cut down!

Consider/Discuss

It is Easter! It is springtime in our northern hemisphere! It is not time to think about plants dying but growing! How can you allow the Holy Spirit to fertilize your spiritual life this week?
Jesus’ sap of love flows within us to help us to flourish. How can we open ourselves to the vigorous transfer of spiritual nutrients and not block that flow? How can we so abound with love that we bring abundant compassion to others?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, you ask over and over again to love each another. You know the bugs in our lives. You know that we do not dwell in your love as we ought. You know that we do not stay in communion with you as well as we could. Strengthen us to follow you more closely. As you did for the early church, build up the people of faith in this Easter season. We will praise you, O Lord, in the assembly of your people!

Jan 27 2025

Scripture Study for

The reading from Acts this week takes place after the baptism of Saul, who has begun to preach the gospel, to the astonishment of those who had known him as a persecutor of Christians and to the consternation of some of the Jews, who conspire to kill him (9:1–25). Given his past, it is understandable that when Saul arrives in Jerusalem the disciples are leery of him. Barnabas, whose reputation among them must have been good, vouches for him, and Saul gives further evidence of his sincerity by his “bold” proclamation of Jesus as the Son of God (9:20) and his debates with the Greek-speaking Jews. Now that Saul has stopped persecuting the church, it can enjoy a period of peace, consolidation, and growth.

John has continued to exhort his audience to love God and one another, even to the point of laying down their lives for each other in imitation of Jesus (1 John 3:16). Those in whom God’s love abides show that love through their actions; love expressed in words alone cannot be true love. When one acts in love, however, then one “belongs to the truth,” and may stand with confidence before God. This confidence in God’s good will toward those who belong to the truth is grounded in the knowledge that they are obedient to God, which itself is a sign that they “remain in him, and he in them,” a mutual indwelling that is attested by the Spirit.

Like that of the Good Shepherd, the image of Jesus as “the true vine” is drawn from the Old Testament. In Sirach 24:16–17, Wisdom says that “I spread out my branches . . . I bud forth delights like a vine.” And Isaiah 5:1–7 is just one of several passages that refer to Israel as the vineyard of the Lord. Jesus as the true vine is both tended by the Father (making him the embodiment of God’s people) and the source of life for Christians. Just as God tends the vineyard of Israel, so God “prunes” the church through the “word” of Christ, whose teachings and actions form God’s people. Just as Jesus remains in the Father and the Father remains in him, so it is for Jesus’ disciples, whose very lives are truly dependent on remaining in Jesus.

Jan 27 2025

How Much Are You Worth?

Think about this: somebody offers you a hundred dollars to watch over a dozen sheep for one night. Then a wolf slinks by. He intends to devour you. Would you keep that hundred dollars or would you abandon the cash and run away and not get eaten? Would you chance it for two hundred dollars? How about a thousand? How much are you worth? How much are those sheep worth to you?

I cooked two lamb chops for dinner. On the label, they cost $8.51. They had a lot of fat, which I gave to the dog. Heike doesn’t exactly look like a wolf, but he’s got the focused crouch of a border collie that says “Don’t mess with me” after I put meat in his dish. How much is my right hand worth?

In the midst of sautéing and determining the monetary value of sheep and feeding the dog, I wonder about the surprising turn in today’s Gospel. Jesus first describes the hired help who abandon the sheep. Then he suddenly switches to laying down his life. Where did that thought come from? Were there Jewish folk tales about the heroic love of the lone shepherd on the hillside who died defending his sheep from a pack of hungry wolves? If so, how much were those sheep worth?

The Gospel account seems to assume that we know those background stories, for Jesus presses on to talk about voluntarily laying down his own life for us, as that brave shepherd would lay down his life for his sheep. Why? He knows us. He looks at us as more than lamb chops. He cares for our welfare. Like the hero on the hillside, he is the Good Shepherd, willing to die—for us. If that is the case, then how much are we worth?

Consider/Discuss

Sometimes we place a monetary value on people: how much return on investment do you get from gaining a dozen more paying customers; what is the corporate value of an increased retention of employees; how can we alter the message to gain more voters . . . the list goes on. This monetization is needed to gauge effectiveness in each of those respective disciplines. But how can we avoid the temptation to look at people as numbers? What worth does God put on a human life?
The bond between sheep and shepherd can feel a little distant to those unfamiliar with herding. What if we altered the story to speak of one’s small children or little nieces and nephews? How much money could someone pay you to save their lives? Would you run away when they were in danger? How much are they worth?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, Good Shepherd, we think that we are worth something. We may even boast of our importance. But we have no idea of the inestimable value that you place on us. Our wildest imaginings of our own worth are only a drop of water compared to the ocean of what you see that we are worth. Can this be? Do we matter so much? Do we matter so much to you? Do we matter so much to you that you would die to defend us? All we can do, Lord, is fall to our knees in amazement. Thank you!