Longing for God – A Journey of the Soul
Have you ever felt a quiet ache in your heart—a longing for something beyond the material world? That’s the soul’s yearning for God. We explore ways to understand and nurture your spiritual desire for divine connection. More details…. https://spiritualkhazaana.com/web-stories/longing-for-god-a-journey-of-the-soul
#longingforGod #spiritualawakening #howtoconnectwithGod #devotionalpractices #soulconnection #spiritualmotivation #divinelove #self-realization #mindfulnessandspirituality #prayerandmeditation
#DivineLove
Faith’s Descent into Truth
Psalm 8:1,4-5a. Abba God our Governor, how exalted is your Name in all the world! When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses, what is humanity that you should be mindful of them?
Introduction
Human beings love things that are familiar and known, predictable. At the root of this love is our nervous systems: they crave comfort and nothing brings it more comfort than what is known and familiar, safe. Knowing (roughly) what the day will bring, allows us to breathe that sigh of relief even if that daily routine is a bit banal. Getting up, coffee, eating breakfast, getting ready, going to work, coming home, making dinner, watching TV, and then going to bed with a good book, is comforting even if it’s also the reason for midlife crises.
Humans love the familiar, the predictable, the known, so much that we will persist in doing things that hinder our thriving, surviving, and living; and we’ll vehemently reject anything new that threatens our security. There’s a quote about this, “The nervous system prefers a familiar hell to an unknown heaven.” We love the familiar so much, we’ll risk relationships to maintain it, we’ll stake our livelihood on it; we’d even choose death to keep safe.
There’s a problem for Christians here. We don’t worship a God who’s “safe,” “easy to figure out”, and completely “knowable and known.” We don’t worship a God who is static and still (characteristics of death); we worship a God who is dynamic and, on the move—a God who is living! In Genesis 1, we encounter God who is actively pulling things apart to reveal God’s dynamic, life-giving, liberating love: the heavens from themselves, the waters from themselves, the land from the waters, and human beings from one to two. In the gospels we see God willing to become human so God can identify with the human plight, to live and die as one of us and then render death to its own death in Jesus. And in Pentecost, we see God, set out to pursue every last beloved in the coming and sealing divine Holy Spirit. To quote Mr. Beaver from CS Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, “‘Safe?’ said Mr. Beaver. ‘Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.’”
So, to follow this God through faith in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit is to go into the unknown, the “unsafe,” the unfamiliar; it is to be sent forward, the path backward forever sealed off. As John records in his gospel,
John 16:12-15
I still have man things to say to you, said Jesus to his disciples, but you all are not able to endure/to carry [them] right now. But as soon as the Spirit of Truth comes, [the Spirit of Truth] will guide/teach you all into all truth… (vv 12-13b). Our gospel passage is part of the “Farewell Discourses” in the gospel of John. Chapter 16 participates in two different aspects of these “Farewell Discourses”: 1. The disciples’ future in relation to the world; and 2. The disciples’ future in relation to God.[1] Our portion of scripture is in the later of the two aspects mentioned: the disciples’ future in the relation to the world. Jesus is, in 16:12-15, preparing his disciples for the future in respect/relation to God.[2] Jesus tells his disciples know that he is not telling them everything; there is more truth to endure and carry. The knee jerk reaction is to think that Jesus is not disclosing all the pain and suffering these disciples of his will have; that’s not it. He’s already addressed what they will face as they proceed into the world with out him. Here he’s talking about the divine self-disclosure of the truth of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The disciples are not ready to hear what this truth of God is that Jesus knows and the Holy Spirit will proclaim to them. It’s not a psychological unreadiness; it’s an earthly unreadiness; because of where they are, who they are, when they are, how they are, these disciples are not ready to endure any more of the truth than that which they have at that moment.[3] The dynamic truth—the gospel of love, life, and liberation—must not be given before they are ready, otherwise it will fall flat or it will flatten those too weak to bear it. In other words, the disciples need to grow (more!) and as they do grow, by the presence of the Spirit and by faith in Christ, the same Spirit will be the vehicle of more divine self-disclosure.[4]
John’s Jesus continues, for [the Spirit of Truth] will not speak from themself, but [the Spirit of Truth] will speak what they will hear, and that which comes [the Spirit of Truth] will announce/bring back to you (v. 13c-e). Jesus puts some qualifiers on this further divine disclosure the disciples are being prepared for. Whatever truth is to be revealed by the Spirit of Truth will not diverge from God’s mission in the world or depart from the essence of Jesus Christ’s witness to God and his participation in the divine mission. There is something to encounter in the darkness of the future sitting just outside of the material bodies of the disciples, something they cannot prepare for now physically, but can mature toward by faith (trust in God). It is the Spirit of Truth who will illuminate the truth cloaked in the darkness of the future once the disciples are there, and it will also be the voice that summons the disciples into that darkness.[5] Faith will step into the darkness knowing the warm, comforting voice of God, trusting that divine voice, and following the call into more divine disclosure.[6]
And, according to John, That one [the Spirit of Truth] will render me glorious, because [the Spirit of Truth] will receive from me and will announce/bring back word to you all. All things whatever the father has, it is mine; on account of this I spoke that what [the Spirit of Truth] receives from me they will bring back word/announce to you (v 14-15). Whatever truth there is to be revealed in the future, it’s source will be God the Creator and God the Reconciler and announced by God the Sustainer. (Here’s why this is our gospel for Trinity Sunday!). The Spirit of Truth is not going to deliver some brand-new revelation or reveal some new mystery that contradicts God’s self-disclosure in Christ.[7] Concurrently, this truth that is to come that they cannot bear now will not be fabricated by the kingdom of humanity; it will be of and from and conform to the core and essence of the reign of God.[8] The Spirit of Truth will make God’s self-disclosure in Christ real for all those who are to believe; the Spirit of Truth will reveal God’s truth to the community of disciples, and this truth will adhere to the essence of the divine mission of love, life, and liberation in the world…wherever and whenever they are.[9] It will not be an old word, or a word that has ceased to illuminate the future or will it be a summons backward. The word of truth that the Spirit of Truth will hear and bring back to the disciples will be lamp unto their feet, a map forward, a guide through unchartered territory, it will be an otherworldly voice summoning them forward into the new.[10] And this word of truth will be at the center of the community’s proclamation and praxis: the community, ushered into this divine truth will bring Jesus, thus God,[11] close to the oppressed and disenfranchised, those who are forced to live at the boarders and in the badlands of society, hidden away, fearing for their lives, just as Christ did all those many years before them.[12]
Conclusion
While there is a historical and concrete audience for John’s gospel, there is, also, not one. This is my favorite thing about the John’s Gospel: as soon as we take up the text, Jesus’s prayers for and exhortations to the disciples become ours. Thus, as the disciples were summoned into the darkness of the future to behold what the Spirit of Truth will receive and bring back to them, so, too, are we. By the power, love, strength of our Triune God, we are summoned into that which we cannot predict, do not know, and cannot understand (at first). It is our faith in Christ, our union with God, and our empowerment by the Holy Spirit that will be our firm foundation as we proceed into that darkness of the future, it will be our comfort, it will be our warmth, it will be our light. We need not fear what comes, because Jesus has told us that by the Spirit of Truth God and Jesus himself will be there to receive us.
We love going backwards because going backwards is safe, and known, and predictable. We love our routines because they, too, are safe, known, and predictable. We like things to stay the same no matter how much that fixed state means our death. But, as mentioned in the beginning, we worship a Triune God of life—manifold, rich, robust, incredible, indelible, irreplaceable life. And in worshiping this God we get no choice but to embrace the darkness of the unknown, the unsafe, and the unpredictable and fall into the warm lap of Abba God, embraced by our brother Jesus, and enfolded in the heavy blanket of the Holy Spirit.
So today, hear the summons to go forward—as scared as you may be, as angry as you may be, as stubborn as you probably are—and embrace the divine truth being disclosed to you and that participates in God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation in the world on behalf of all God’s beloved.
[1] Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. GR Beasley-Murray, Gen Ed, RWN Hoare and JK Riches (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), TOC. Originally published as, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966).
[2] Bultmann, John, 573. “The discourse starts again and the first words show that the subject is not, as it was before, the content of the future—the task and destiny of the disciples—but the future as such. The intention behind the prophecy of the continuance of the revelation, contained in vv. 13-15, is to bring about a state of readiness for the future, and v. 12 prepares the way for this.”
[3] Bultmann, John, 573. “Jesus still has much to say, but the disciples are not yet able to bear it. The words should not be understood psychologically; rather they indicate the essential nature of the case. Readiness for the future is not only demanded by that particular hour, but it describes the very existence of the disciple. The believer has not been taken away from the world…he has a future in it, and must withstand whatever it brings and demands.”
[4] Bultmann, John, 573. “What [the believer] has to go through, however, cannot be anticipated in words, which he could not even put together; the believer can only measure the significance and claims of what he has to undergo when he actually meets it. He anticipates the future in faith, not in foreknowledge. And thus the apparent contradiction between v. 12 and 15.15 is comprehensible: Jesus cannot state all that the future will bring, and yet he has said it all, everything, that is, that makes the believer free and ready for it.”
[5] Bultmann, John, 574. “If the Spirit is at work in the word that is proclaimed in the community, then this word gives faith the power to step out into the darkness of the future, because the future is always illumined afresh by the word.”
[6] Bultmann, John, 574. “Faith will see the ‘truth’ in each case, i.e., it will always be certain of the God who is manifest in the word, precisely because it understands the present in the light of this word. The promise is no different from that in 8.31f.”
[7] Bultmann, John, 575. “It is irrelevant from whom the Spirit hears the word, whether from Jesus or from God; for as v. 15a reminds us, they are one and the same. This means that the Spirit’s word is not something new, to be contrasted with what Jesus said, but that the Spirit only states the latter afresh.”
[8] Bultmann, John, 575. “The statement affirms that the word that is at work in the community really is the word of revelation and not human discourse; i.e. it is like the word that Jesus spoke, which did not come from himself.” And, “The Spirit will not bring new illumination, or disclose new mysteries; on the contrary, in the proclamation effected by him, the word that Jesus spoke continues to be efficacious.”
[9] Bultmann, John, 575. “Rather the meaning of this: the future will not be unveiled in a knowledge imparted before it happens, but it will be illuminated again and again by the word that is at work in the community.”
[10] Bultmann, John, 576. “The word of Jesus is not a collection of doctrines that is in need of supplementation, nor is it a developing principle that will only be unfolded in the history of ideas; as the Spirit’s proclamation it always remains the word spoken into the world from beyond.”
[11] Bultmann, John, 576. “…that the Spirit continues the proclamation of the word of Jesus means that it is the word of God, i.e. revelation.”
[12] Bultmann, John, 576. v. 14 “This is an express statement that the Spirit’s word does not displace or surpass the word of Jesus, as if it were something new. Rather it is the word of Jesus that will be alive in the community’s proclamation; the Spirit will ‘call it to mind’ (14.26). and herein is to be found the completion of Jesus’ glorification.”
#Beloved #Darkness #DivineLove #Faith #Future #HolySpirit #Jesus #Liberation #Life #Love #RudolfBultmann #SpiritOfTruth #TheGospelOfJohn #TrinitySunday
Quote of the day, 11 June: St. Teresa of the Andes
J.M.J.T.
June 11, 1919
My dear Luís:
May the love of Jesus take possession of your soul.
I don’t think you’ll blame me for not answering your two little letters immediately, since my time is not my own. I gave away everything I had—even my own will! I must do everything Our Lord asks of me moment by moment, so that it’s only now that I’ve read your last letter. What a joy!
How happy I find myself in sacrificing everything for God! It’s all nothing in comparison with the way Our Savior sacrificed Himself from the cradle to the Cross and from the Cross to the point of annihilating Himself under the form of bread till the end of time. Oh, how great is this infinite love—a love unknown, a love not returned by most of humanity.
Luís dear, throughout these days I have kept you here with me in this retreat…. How I’d like to share with you what I feel, little brother of my soul. How I’d love to show you the lovely infinite, the horizon beyond creation that I experience and contemplate.
I love God now a thousand times more than I did before, because I hadn’t known Him. He reveals and makes Himself known to souls that really seek to know and love Him. Everything on earth, Luís, seems to shrink, to lose value before the Divinity which, like an infinite Sun, continues to shine upon my miserable soul with its rays.
Oh, if you could go to the depths of my soul even for an instant, you’d see me captivated by that Beauty, by that incomprehensible Goodness. How I’d love to bind the hearts of creatures and surrender them to divine Love!
You’ve never known the heaven that I, through God’s mercy, possess in my heart. Yes. I have a heaven in my soul, because God is there, and God is heaven.
Saint Teresa of Jesus of the Andes
Letter 107 to her brother Luis (excerpt)
11 June 1919
Griffin, M D & Teresa of the Andes, S 2023, The Letters of Saint Teresa of Jesus of the Andes, ICS Publications, Washington DC.
Featured image: The Andes mountains are always a stunning view in Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. The Cuernos del Paine are one of the features that await tourists to the nation’s Southern Patagonia region. Image credit: Adobe Stock (Stock photo)
⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
When has God helped you recognize that He is living within you, creating a heaven in your soul?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.
Explore Jesus's profound message of love on Maundy Thursday! Discover how to 'Love One Another' and show compassion to the world. Learn from our struggles and embrace a relationship with Jesus to spread love. Witness the power of divine love in action! #LoveOneAnother #MaundyThursday #Jesus #DivineLove #Christianity #Faith #Compassion #Inspiration #ReligiousTeachings #SpreadLove
The Unity of Blood and Water
Psalm 97:11-12 Light has sprung up for the righteous, and joyful gladness for those who are truehearted. Rejoice in Abba God, you righteous, and give thanks to Abba God’s holy Name.
Introduction
Unity. This is a word that’s thrown around a lot, but we never quite grasp it. We’re definitionally caught between polarized ideas like total and complete acceptance and the bare minimum of tolerance, caught in a torturous, cosmic game of monkey in the middle. The issues here are two-fold, respectively: 1. if unity is about total and complete agreement in all things, then when there is disagreement or friction of some sort, the other person/place/entity becomes “toxic”, and 2. If it’s about the bare minimum of putting up with someone, then this will breed animosity rather than unity because tolerance never demands tangible understanding or the need to change oneself (not to mention that the demand for tolerance often creates a situation by which the victim is yoked to her victimizer, the hated with their enemy). If this is all we have to define unity… well, aren’t we up a creek without a paddle.
Yet, Jesus expects the community of believers, his disciples, to live in unity not only with God and Jesus (by the power of the coming Spirit) but also with each other (here and also by the power of the coming Spirit). And the goal of this unity (real, tangible, material unity) will be the means by which the world (out there) will not only know the disciples are followers of Christ by their love, but that Christ is God’s child, sent into the world to love the world and make it thoroughly human.[1] This level of unity is oneness and is more than niceness and politeness and tolerating or agreeing all the time on all things. It’s something otherworldly; it’s the very heart of our triune God.
John 17:20-26
John writes, Now, not on behalf of these only [here with me right now] I pray, but also on behalf of the ones who believe in me through their word, (v. 20). The subject of this prayer by Jesus is “the unity of the community.”[2] The community is both the community of believers existing immediately in that history and all the ones to come who believe through the proclamation of the gospel from these disciples into the world.[3] We—you and me—are addressed in Jesus’s prayer because it extends through time.[4] What’s really fascinating to me is that we are being directly addressed and are now the ones being immediately prayed for so that future people may hear the word of God in the proclamation of Christ and believe. In other words, we are—right now—the gathered community to whom Jesus is currently speaking and is yoking to an unknown group of Christians who will believe because of our witness (in word and deed and by our unity).[5]
Knowing about whom Jesus is praying, we come to the content of the prayer: the “essential unity” of the community, their “oneness.”[6] John’s Jesus says, … so that all [who believe from here on out] may be one just as you, Abba, are in me and I in you (v.21a). According to John, the oneness Jesus is expecting among the community of believers is of the same essence that is the oneness between God the Creator and God the Reconciler (between Abba God and Jesus the child). By doing theological math, if the Creator and the reconciler are one through the mutuality of Love, then the community, too, will be one through love (ἀγάπη). Concurrently, this love between Jesus and Abba God didn’t remain between Jesus and God but contained in it and extended from it the love of the cosmos, according to John (3:16). Thus, the community—formed and informed by the love of God made known in Christ—will be about and participate in this containing and extending the love of God for the cosmos because Jesus’s love of Abba God was also his love for those whom God loves.[7] This love and mutuality is the foundation of the community’s oneness and unity.
Here we get to the essence of the unity: the mutuality of responsibility and dependence. The community’s mutual responsibility and dependence reflects the mutual responsibility and dependence existing between Jesus and God. Jesus does not do Jesus’s own will but what Jesus sees Abba God do, thus to encounter to Jesus is to encounter God which then verifies that God sent Jesus (Jesus is dependent on God and is responsible for representing God to humanity through his words and deeds). This type of mutuality of dependence and responsibility is to be reflected in the community’s representative role in the world so that their unity—which is of the same essence of God and Jesus’s unity[8]—is manifested in such a way that others are brought into an encounter with God through their witness, which witnesses to Christ in their unity, as John writes, so that also they may be in us so that the cosmos may believe that you, you sent me (v.21b). It is through the community’s mutual dependence on and responsibility for the other (in the community and, we could argue, those outside of the community) that will be the thing that emphasizes the divine origin of Jesus.[9]
In other words, the unity of the community will be based on faith, love, and solidarity and not on things like doctrine, dogma, ritual, and traditionalism. The unity of the community is built on and from the unity of God and Jesus and thus is not something that is built with wood and stone, but through blood and water[10]. The community’s unity is a reality of the reign of God[11] and supersedes, transcends, and challenges the unity that is of the kingdom of humanity built on principals reflecting adherence to a specific ideology and a status quo. The unity of the community that is of the reign of God always and forever moves forward and defies and denies the ability to solidify it in a code or a static algorithm. It can happen again and again and again[12] and in new and different ways that always keeps God and God’s beloved in view. This is why the unity of the community becomes the task of the community, so that it can remain participant in the way Christ is proclaimed into the world[13] and brings others into an encounter with God by the event of faith.[14] As John writes, And the glory which you have given me I, I have given to them, so that they may be one just as we [are] one, I in them and you in me, so that they may be brought to an end as one, so that the cosmos may know that you, you sent me and loved them just as you loved me (vv. 22-23).
Thus, the goal and completion of the community is its unity which is its representation of Christ in the world. The glory that is communicated from Abba God to Jesus (and vice-versa) is the same glory communicated from Jesus to the community (and vice-versa) that finds it’s unity in its Christocentric mutual dependence on and responsibility for the other. Glory is brought to God when the community –united by faith in and founded on the love of Christ—gives the world reasons to glorify God through their word (Christ) and their deeds (unity and love).[15] The unity of the community is a result of Christ’s presence with the community; as Christ is present with the community—united by faith and works and speaks in love and deeds—those outside the community not only see but experience the love of God in Christ via the community.[16] This isn’t a social club or a lunch bunch; these are things of the kingdom of humanity mimicking what the disciples of Christ should be. Rather, this community is built on deep identification with each other, an acknowledgement and celebration of difference, and a solidarity that unites stronger than genetic material; this is an “otherworldly” level of community, a divine yoke transcending all human made lines that divide.[17]
Conclusion
Unity isn’t something we manufacture; it’s something that happens through us when we take another person seriously. Our unity as this church isn’t because we all think the same, act the same, or speak the same. Our unity as this community is built on the invisibility of the unconditional, never stopping, always and forever love of God made known to us in the proclamation of Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our unity as this community is built on our faith in Christ and our mutual assertion that because of Christ, God is truthful and trustworthy. And it doesn’t stop there. Because of our faith in Christ and our union with God through Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are caused to see our neighbor as ourselves and to build deep and mutual dependence on and responsibility for our neighbor, especially those sitting here in the pews alongside us. But this faith and love that is the foundation and essence of this community is not to be contained only within the walls of this community because Jesus’s mission—which is now ours by the power of the Spirit in and among us—was to go into the world bringing God’s mission of the divine revolution of love life and liberation to the beloved. Our love for each other, our union and solidarity together, is the foundation of our task in the world; from this unity and oneness, God’s name will be hallowed and God’s will done on earth as in heaven.
[1] Paul Lehmann, Ethics in a Christian Context, “keeping human life human”
[2] Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. GR Beasley-Murray, Gen Ed, RWN Hoare and JK Riches (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971) 512. Originally published as, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966).
[3] Bultmann, John, 512. “And at this point (v. 20) we are told explicitly that Jesus’ intercession does not just relate to the historical situation, in which the Evangelist makes him speak it, but is made for all believers, now and in the future.”
[4] Bultmann, John, 512. “…the prayer for the community’s unity consciously embraces its extension through time.”
[5] Bultmann, John, 512.
[6] Bultmann, John, 512.
[7] Bultmann, John, 513. “The unity of his own is to be of the same kind as that between the Father and Son; i.e., therefore, just as the Son’s being is a being of the Father, and vice-versa, so the being of the individual believers must be a being for each other—in the bond of ἀγάπη…”
[8] Bultmann, John, 513. “Such unity has the Father and Son as its basis. Jesus is the Revealer by reason of this unity of Father and Son; and the oneness of the community is to be based on this fact. That means it is not founded on natural or purely historical data, nor can it be manufactured by organization, institutions or dogma; these can at best only bear witness to eh real unity, as on the other they can also give a false impression of unity.”
[9] Bultmann, John, 513. “And just as the Father is encountered in the Son, because the Son is nothing by himself individually, so within the community no one ought to see, or cherish, or criticize the individual character of his fellow believer, but ought to look on him only as a member of the community. It is not personal sympathies, or common aims that constitute the unity, but the word that is alive in them all and that gives the community its foundation; and each member represents the demand and gift of the word over against his fellow believer, in that he is for him.”
[10] Bultmann, John, 514. “…the community is united, in that it no longer belongs to the world but is totally orientated on the revelation event that takes place in Jesus and is an eschatological phenomenon.”
[11] Bultmann, John, 513-514. “Because the authenticity of the proclamation cannot be controlled by institutions or dogmas, and because the faith that answers the word is invisible, it is also true that the authentic unity of the community is invisible—even if it should testify to itself …in the ἀλλήλους ἀγαπᾶν. It is invisible because it is not a worldly phenomenon at all; this the meaning of the second ἵνα-clause, which picks up the first…”
[12] Bultmann, John, 514. “Christendom is not a dimension withing world-history…Rather, this unity takes place again and again in the proclamation of faith.”
[13] Bultmann, John, 514-515. “Vv.22f provide fresh motivation for the prayer for the unity of the community; once again on the part of the world is stated to be its ultimate goal (v.23b), but in addition to that the unity is described as the purpose and fulfilment of Jesus’ work of revelation.”
[14] Bultmann, John, 514. “If there is such an eschatological community in the cosmos, in history, then there is always the possibility of faith for the world. The community is of course always a cause of irritations for the world, and can inflame its anger…But this means that the possibility of deciding for the Revealer is also always given to it, and this was and always will be the means of overcoming the offence….and that is why the prayer for the community is at the same time an intercession for the world, in which…the community has been set its task.”
[15] Bultmann, John, 516. “In fact one can say: that he has given them his δόξα means that after his departure they are to represent him in the world. It means that the ‘history of Jesus will not become an episode in the past, but will remain continually present in the world as the eschatological event in the eschatological community.”
[16] Bultmann, John, 516. “…that he is present in the community as the Revealer, is to find its crowning glory in the oneness of the community…”
[17] Bultmann, John, 517. “Without doubt…the community’s oneness expresses the fact that it is the eschatological community, in which the world is annulled, and in which the differences of human individuality, that are typical of any human association and in fact help to make it up, are simply excluded. This unity stands for the radical other0worldly orientation of the community, that binds all individual believers and every empirical association of faith into a supra-worldly unity, across and beyond all differences of a natural, human kind.”
#Beloved #ChristianCommunity #Community #CommunityInUnity #DivineLiberation #DivineLife #DivineLove #GatheredCommunity #Jesus #JesusSFarewellPrayer #Liberation #Life #Love #MutualDependenceAndResponsibility #Proclamation #Representation #RudolfBultmann #TheGospelOfJohn #Witness
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Pure Love from Above: A Gospel Song of Light #gospelmusic, #divineLove, ... https://youtube.com/watch?v=uQIBXaJCnAs&si=OcxGll_FmQ5P-ZJB
Discover how God's love transcends past mistakes, offering hope and a path to redemption through Jesus. We explore the boundless nature of divine forgiveness and presence. #GodsLove #Jesus #Redemption #Forgiveness #Faith #Hope #Christianity #Inspiration #Religion #DivineLove
For the Love and Glory of God
Psalm 148:1-2 1 Hallelujah! Praise Abba God from the heavens; praise God in the heights. Praise Abba God, all you angels; praise God, all his host. [May these words praise God!]
Introduction
In 1984, Tina Turner asked, “What’s love got to do with it?” And looking around our local and national environment, I think that’s probably the question we should be asking. But just hollering into that caustic and vitriolic sinkhole, “Just love one another!”, is adding more fuel to the fire because we often don’t know what we mean when we say it. The reason for that? Most people, on either side of the divide, truly think they are acting in loving ways. So, hollering, “We just need to love one another!” is met with blank stares in response because, well “I AM!”
We truly believe that love will solve our problems, sooth our tensions, eliminate our divisions; and I agree with this. But the thing is, we must get real about what it means to love…We must start at the beginning and notice how God loves the cosmos and how God in Jesus Christ loved the neighbor. We must embrace that to love doesn’t always make one comfortable and cozy—either the beloved or the lover. We must be willing to take our love beyond good feeling and allow Love (capital “L”) be the force that guides our actions in the world causing us to prioritize the well-being of the neighbor o according to what they need and not what I think they need. So, I’m glad John is here to walk us (back) through what it means to love…
John 13:31-35
Our passage falls near the end of Jesus teaching his disciples about love in the upper room before his crucifixion. Essentially, we are—for all intents and purposes—back at Maundy Thursday. The chapter opens with Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. At the conclusion of this event, Jesus gives a teaching on what it means to be a disciple of Christ: to serve each other and not to be served. Then Jesus tells of his betrayal. Here Judas is just flat called out and dismissed from the table to do what he is going to do. Then we come to our passage for today where Jesus explains what is happening and then gives his disciples a new commandment (to love). Chapter 13 closes with Jesus promising Peter that he will not be able to go where Jesus is going, but that Peter will deny Jesus three times. In this chapter, love has a lot of work to do.
John writes, Therefore when [Judas] went out, Jesus said, “Now the son of humanity was glorified, and God was glorified in him. If God was glorified in him, then God will glorify him in God, and God will glorify him immediately” (vv. 31-32). Jesus isn’t speaking abstractly here; he’s speaking very literally. His death comes as Judas goes out; the present moment is binding together what was with what will be.[1] The “now” there is doing a lot of work and emphasis should be placed on it. In this moment, among the disciples, there is a collision of time: what was is becoming what will be right then (now!). Jesus has glorified God in his active love in the world and this glorifying of God will become Jesus’s future glorification in the resurrection from the death that is coming now (because Judas left and all that is coming by his betrayal is as good as done). In other words, the Cross and the Resurrection are going to be the full culmination of what was colliding with what will be and creates an entirely new now for the disciples of Christ.[2] It is this new now that the disciples are ushered into by faith (and which is only accessible through faith).[3]
Jesus then addresses the disciples personally, Dear little children, I am still with you a little bit [longer]. You will search for me, and just as I said to the Children of Israel, “Where I, I go my way you, you are not able to come,” and to you I say [this] just now. After a pronouncement of God being glorified (both past and future) in and through himself, Jesus informs the disciples that the way he is going is his way alone and they are not able to come. Jesus’ presence with them is coming to an end; the disciples will no longer be able to walk (literally) with him and they will learn that it is necessary for them to be abandoned by Jesus (in his death and also in his future ascension). What he did with them will have to be enough…for now; the disciples will be stripped of their teacher, left to their own devising.[4] Or so they think…
Then Jesus speaks into their burgeoning doubt and threatening despair and promises that even as he leaves, he is with them. How so? Through a new commandment that has to do with the disciples loving each other as Christ loved them. Jesus exhorts, A new command I give to you: you love one another. Just as I loved you, you, you also love one another. In this way, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among you. As Jesus’s time with the disciples wanes, he gives them a commandment that will transcend any epoch and era and any country and continent. In a swift motion, Jesus redirects their attention away from themselves and toward something in the future; to this command they can cling because it is not clinging to a stone tablet but a real person by faith; in it resides the entirety of Jesus with them, and if Jesus then God, too.[5] In loving one another like Christ loved them, they are never abandoned and are always with Christ and also with God. This is not a cold command to love as if it was of one’s own power; this is a command that is founded on and in and by the love of Christ for them, which is the love of God for them. [6] If the disciples love in the way of and like Christ loved them, then their discipleship status will be noticed by all people because in this love Christ will be proclaimed.[7]
The new command doesn’t replace Jesus, this would then make Jesus and faith in Jesus superfluous. Rather, the new command becomes the “essential nature” [8] of the burgeoning new community that follows this new way of Christ in a world that will find this all very strange.[9] (And, according to John, this love does start first among the new community. [10]) This new command of love is not feeling loving emotions toward someone; that is not how Jesus loved the disciples. Jesus loved the disciples (and others!) through acts and deeds of service that brought love, life, and liberation to them in both material and spiritual ways.[11] Thus, the disciples’ activity in accordance with this new command reinforces that the disciples are never far from Christ because this liberative love is the very love of Christ. And it is distinct and new because it is not the love of the kingdom of humanity but of the reign of God bringing life where there is death, Easter where Good Friday refuses to leave.[12]And if the disciples are never far from Christ in this liberative love, then it will be easy for all people to know they are HIS disciples.
In this way God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation continues in the world as Jesus goes his way and the disciples remain behind. The mission doesn’t end with Jesus; it is just the beginning of the advent and incarnation of the reign of God overhauling the kingdom of humanity, bit by bit, moment by moment, in this era and that era. [13] And, as this new community of disciples loving each other as Christ loved them goes into and through the history of the world, God is glorified in them because Christ is the glory of God and where this community is and loves as Jesus loved them, Christ is there and brings God glory.[14]
Conclusion
So, “What’s love got to do with it?” Well, according to John, everything. This command was not just for the disciples there with Jesus at the table but is timeless and knows not a static captivity to the past. The new commandment transcends time and space, it goes and is wherever there are those who gather in the name of Christ and love as Christ loved. This new command is for us today: it guides us, teaches us, corrects us, forms and reforms us, and it is still the way all people will know we are the disciples of Christ. They will know us by our love because our love will be liberative and life giving, it will be more than “thoughts and prayers,” more than some sort of comfortable message, even more than abstract Christian colloquialism that never hit the rock bottom we hit. This love will not bring death, indifference, and captivity; it will not hold up legalism, traditionalism, and dogmatism over the well-being of anyone (those here and out there) [15]. It will cause us to relinquish our excess to meet the needs of others and to abandon our self-imposed isolation to find deep community with others. It will be the source of our unrestrainable hope that will radiate out from here infecting others as it streams through the world to its farthest recesses. It will bind us to God, thus bind us to that and to those whom God loves: creation and our neighbor. Dorothee Sölle writes in her book, To Work and To Love, “The God who created the universe, including our planet, and who delivered us from slavery is the same God who raises the dead to new life, so that we who were dead and without hope might become resisters and lovers of life. ‘Lover of the living’ is an old name for God (Wis. of Sol. 11:26). So shall it be our name for evermore.”[16]
[1] Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. GR Beasley-Murray, Gen Ed, RWN Hoare and JK Riches (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 523. Originally published as, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966). “It is that νῦν, in which past and future are bound together, stressed particularly at this point by the paradoxical juxtaposition of ἐδοξάσθη (v. 31) and δοξάσει (v. 32).”
[2] Bultmann, John, 523-524. “The subject is that δόξα which is at the same time the Son’s and the Father’s: καὶ ὁ θεὸς ἐδοξάσθη ἐν αὐτῷ. What has already happened sub specie aeterni unfolds itself in the temporal future; and because this is so, the word δοξάσει (as if this future were at a distance from the νῦν) can be picked up again in καὶ εὐθὺς δοξάσει αὐτόν, which is a reference to the immediately imminent passion. It draws our attention again to that paradox inherent in the concept of δόξα, viz. that the δόξα becomes apparent precisely in the cross; and it also indicates a rejection of the naive primitive Christian eschatology, for there the revelation of Jesus’ δόξα was expected only at his coming Parousia (mk. 8.38).”
[3] Bultmann, John, 524. “The period of his personal presence has come to an end…His own will miss him; they will not realise the full significance of that νῦν immediately. Their faith has to stand the test.”
[4] Bultmann, John, 524. “…to some extent the believers are in the same position as the men of the κόσμος. Of course the situation does not contain for them, as it does for the latter, that element of the ‘too late’; but both look back in the same way on a ‘no longer’, and the beginnings of despair are there for the disciples too. They have to learn that the Revealer has not come to be at their disposal through their faith. What now lies in the past does not guarantee the future, but is called into question by it. Jesus, in whom they believed, disappears from them, and they are left with no security.”
[5] Bultmann, John, 525. “Then how can their relationship with him be retained in the face of this isolation?…The future is subjected to an imperative! Their anxiety was centred on their own actual existence, but now they are directed towards an existence that has the character of an ‘ought.’ The illusion that they possess him in such a way that he is at their disposal is confronted by another kind of possession: one which consists in fulfilling a command. Their despairing gaze into the past that is no more is redirected to the future, which comes and lay sits obligation upon them. An unreal future, which would only be a persistence in the past, is made into the real future which demands faith. And in so far as the content of the ἐντολή is ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους, the care for oneself is changed into a care for one’s neighbour.”
[6] Bultmann, John, 525. “But since it is precisely this becoming free from the past and from oneself that is subjected to the imperative, the future that is grasped as command coincides with the future that is promised for loyalty of faith; for it was freedom from the past and form oneself that was promised to the believer. Thus the imperative is itself a gift, and this it can be because it receives its significance and its possibility of realization from the past, experienced as the love of the Revealer.”
[7] Bultmann, John, 528. “…all loving becomes the proclamation of Jesus—which means that it can always become an offence too, not just in the individual case, but especially because the association formed by this kind of love cuts across the associations of the world in a special way.”
[8] Bultmann, John, 527. “But Jesus’ command of love is ‘new,’ even when it has been long-known, because it is the law of the eschatological community, for which the attribute ‘new’ denotes not an historical characteristic but its essential nature. The command of love, which is grounded in the love of the Revealer received by the disciples, is ‘new’ in so far as it is a phenomenon of the new world which Jesus has brought into being; and indeed 1 John 2.8 describes this newness as that of the eschatological event.”
[9] Bultmann, John, 527. “V. 35 states that the new world becomes reality in the community: reciprocal love within the community is the criterion of the discipleship of Jesus for those outside. The fact that the command of love is fulfilled there demonstrates the strangeness of the community within the world, and results in the world calling those who love the disciples of Jesus. Not just because there is a community in which love is both an injunction and an actual practice. Much rather because love itself there takes on a form that is strange to the world.”
[10] Bultmann, John, 528. “It is no general love of mankind, or love of one’s neighbour or enemy that is demanded, but love within the circle of disciples. Naturally this does not mean that the all-embracing love of one’s neighbour is to be invalidated; but here it is a question of the very existence of the circle of disciples. How does the departing Revealer remain present for his own? By the vitality of the gift of his love in their love of each other, and by their representation within the world of the new world, which became reality through him.”
[11] Bultmann, John, 526. “Jesus’ love is not a personal emotion, but is the service that liberates; and the response to it is not a mystical or pietistic intimacy with Christ, but the ἀλλήλους ἀγαπᾶν.”
[12] Bultmann, John, 526. “The significance of the past lies in the fact that the encounter with Jesus was experienced as his service which made the believer free; thus the significance of the future can only be that in it this freedom is brought to fruition. And this take s place int eh fulfillment of the command of love. Because this command and its fulfillment are grounded in the Revealer’s love which has actually been experienced, the believer always remains bound to the Revealer’s service and is never centered on himself. And to put it the other way round, the faith which has accepted that service can only continue to come to fruition in the attitude of service, i.e. of love.”
[13] Bultmann, John, 529. “But the community itself fulfills its commission to the world…only if the ἀγαπᾶν remains the response to the love of Jesus, and so long as it does note exchange it for an ἔργον of the world, or for efficacy within world-history. It is not the effect it has on world history that legitimates the Christian faith, but its strangeness within the world; and the strangeness is the bearing of those whose love for each other is grounded in the divine love.”
[14] Bultmann, John, 526. “Only if they are themselves loving do they who belong to him remain in the experience of his love; in the same way they can, and do love, only on the basis of this experience. Thus the believers’ past and future are bound to each other like the former and the future δόξα of the Revealer himself: the future receives its meaning form the past, and the past becomes significant in the future. But that means that in the future, despite their separation from him, they remain united to him. In their action, his act is present.”
[15] Bultmann, John, 528. v. 35 disciples “…a definition of their essential nature. The association with Jesus, therefore, is not realized by possessing articles of knowledge or dogmas, nor in institutions or experiences of individual piety, but in pupil-hood,’ in obedience to the command of love.”
[16] Sölle, To Work and Love, 165.
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Explore the profound meaning of Maundy Thursday. We remember Jesus's call to love one another and his humble act of washing the disciples' feet, even Judas's. Discover how our are called to embody this divine love in our lives. #MaundyThursday #HolyWeek #JesusLove #LoveOneAnother #Humility #Disciples #Faith #Christianity #SpiritualJourney #DivineLove
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Like Paul and Peter
Psalm 23:3-4 Abba God revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for their Name’s sake. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Introduction
My favorite thing about the book of Acts, is the way the narrative camera focuses on the human beings left behind to participate in God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation without Jesus by their side. As human as the Gospels can be, they still feel—to me—just outside of my experience in the world. As far as I know, I’ve not been—literally—summoned by Jesus to come follow him and leave my—literal—net behind. I’ve not witnessed with my own eyes the healing miracles and the awesome casting out of demons. I did not run and hide with fear on Good Friday, nor feel the warmth burn in my heart as Jesus taught me on the way in his resurrected state. I didn’t witness the ascension or suddenly speak in a foreign language (no matter how much my charismatic evangelical background wants to think I have). I am just an audience member from 2025, listening to these ancient stories mixed up with a healthy amount of faith and doubt, skeptical and hungry.
So, this is why I love acts. Watching Paul get knocked off his donkey and onto his donkey through the proclamation of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit—having his misdirection redirected—brings the story home. I too have needed to be knocked down a peg or two, put in my place, reminded of my creaturely status before the Creator. I have thought myself to be so right and on point that I was completely misdirected toward what God was doing and celebrated the tendency of the kingdom of humanity to perform acts of violence and needed to be redirected. Witnessing Peter’s rapid exposure to the new movements and actions of God made known first in Christ and made real in Peter’s heart through the power of the Holy Spirit, is something I can confess to, too. I, too, have been graciously, generously, and patiently reinstructed that all are in and none are out, relearned God’s merciful divine activity that extends beyond skin, sex, and superficial boundaries, (re)experienced (manifold times) the pathos of God for the Beloved, and have stumbled about while desperately trying to walk in this new way, talk with new words, love with a new heart, think with a new mind, and see through new lenses all crafted and created by a God who so loves the cosmos that God won’t spare Gods self to save it.
I read something somewhere that said the best way to explain the book of acts is to see it as the movement and activity of the Holy Spirit rather than of the disciples. Are they central to this story building in the book of Acts? Yes, they are. But they are not the only performers on the stage. The Holy Spirit takes up their role and whisks and moves these human forms, destroying notions of autonomy and free-will, taking them hither and tither, bringing them into contact with those whom they would never ever be in contact with, reducing them through exposure, and building them up through love and liberation into new life defined by the reign of God. Last week we received the story of Saul and his “conversion”; this week, we are exposed to Peter walking in the way of Jesus, doing the initial things that will become some of the hallmarks of what it means not only to be Christian, but also Church.
Acts 9:36-43
We jump quite a bit forward in Acts 9. We move from Paul’s conversion to the beginning of Peter’s radical exposure to the law of God which is the law of love for all God’s beloved, transcending national and religious boundaries rather than creating them. Starting a bit earlier in the chapter than our lectionary suggests, we find Peter in Lydda, having been brought there by the Holy Spirit to the those who are called “living saints”.[1] By using the word “Saints” Luke highlights that the divide between the secular and the sacred is diminishing; every day regular people are indwelled with divine holiness, a holiness that will not fade away and creates a new way of being in the world as God’s vessels bringing divine life, love and liberation to others like themselves.[2] (This is very good news for regular people like you and me!) So, Peter is with these everyday saints, and he is there to heal a man who was paralyzed for 8 years. Through Peter, the Holy Spirit heals this man, and the story of his healing becomes a source for those in Lydda and the surrounding area (Sharon) to praise God and turn to Christ in faith (vv. 32-35).[3] In Lydda, Peter is doing as Jesus did: healing and liberating the oppressed and bringing glory to God.[4]
While Peter is in Lydda, over in Joppa there was a certain disciple by [the] name Tabitha, which [in Greek] is translated as Dorcas, she was full of good works, and she was doing acts of mercy. But it happened in those days she [became] sick and died; when she died, they washed her body, writes Luke, and they placed her body in an upper room (vv. 36-37). The saints of Joppa are grieved over this loss. Rightly so. Tabitha was a woman and a representative of Christ[5] in spaces too often neglected by both human and divine presence (read the prophets!). Not only is Luke elevating the role of women in the work of the gospel and in his narrative about the movement of the Holy Spirit (which should expose us in our own context),[6] he is also highlighting that losing this one who brings well-being to her neighbors and glory to God, leaves a massive gap in bringing God’s presence to those who need God’s presence the most: the widows…whom God cares about very much! So, the disciples having heard that Peter was in Lydda, and Lydda being close to Joppa, they sent two men [to Joppa] beseeching Peter, “Do not hesitate and pass through [and] come to us immediately!” (v. 38).
Peter’s response? Now, after rising Peter went to them (v.39a). Peter doesn’t waste a moment to help these saints over in Joppa who lost a beloved representative of Christ. Luke tells us more, After he arrived, they brought him up into the upper-room, and the widows stood by him weeping and showing [him] tunics and many cloaks Dorcas was making being with them (v.39b-c). These poor and too often neglected widows lose the one who cares for them, the one who made them feel seen and heard and loved; this is what Peter enters when he arrives.[7] But it’s more than comfort Peter is bringing. For Luke (and Peter) in this moment a massive (divinely inspired) statement is occuring: women matter, their works matter, their bodies matter.[8] Luke tells us, Now, after Peter cast everyone out [of the room], he also placed [his] knees [on the ground] and prayed, and turning to the body, he said, “Tabitha, rise!” And she does. Now her eyes opened, and after seeing Peter she sat up. Peter acts like Christ and commands the dead woman to rise. Those held captive to death (both Tabitha and the widows) are not held captive anymore; they’re liberated, by this regular person through the power of the Holy Spirit who works in them and through them to overturne the kingdom of humanity and establish the reign of God.[9] Just as the women were the first to hear of the resurrection of Christ from death, so too did a woman first experience the life out of death that is characteristic of the reign of God wrought by the Holy Spirit moving through regions bringing God glory![10] Luke tells us, Now, after giving her his hand he raised her, and after calling out [to] the saints and the widows, he presented her [to them] living. Now it became known throughout all of Joppa, and the many believed in the Lord. And the Holy Spirit is not only moving through acceptable regions but is breaking down false boundaries[11] originally demarcating clean and unclean: the glory of God and God’s divine mission to liberate the captives know no walls and barriers. Luke concludes, Now it happened [Peter] stayed a sufficient number of days in Joppa with a certain Simon the Tanner. Just like Paul, Peter is in the clutches of a God on the move, caught up in the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation.[12]
Conclusion
Peter and Paul present to us the two best examples of regular, human beings—like you and me—who are caught up in the transcending and unyielding resurrection life that starts with Christ and continues with his disciples by the power of the Holy Spirit. I think Peter and Paul are intimidating to us. I think it’s easier to ask WWJD rather than WWPD because their recorded actions bring the divine pathos down to our level. It’s safe when Jesus does something because we can kind of dismiss it: well…he’s like the Son of God…so… But when it’s the former know-it-all and the former fisherman, the flames of those actions burn close to our skin. Because, as it turns out, like Paul and Peter, we have skin in this game and this game participates in the divine passion for the cosmos. Peter, a regular guy, calls Tabitha into (new) life from death and liberates Aeneas from the captivity of being paralyzed; this puts us on the hook as we begin (again) to walk in the way of the ascended Jesus and the Spirit that is to come. Both Peter and Paul ask us to think about what it means to be Christian and to do Church. Beloved, like Peter and Paul, we, too, by and in Christ, get to bring love where there is indifference, liberation where there is captivity, and life where there is death.
[1] Willie James Jennings, Acts, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2017), 99. “He is on the road and comes to Lydda to be among the living saints.”
[2] Jennings, Acts, 99. “Jesus is God drawing the everyday into holiness, into God’s own life. Everyday people are made holy in Christ. Everyday people are made holy by Christ, and this is a holiness that will last, not be episodic, and constitute a new space for living life and knowing ourselves.”
[3] Jennings, Acts, 99-100. “Once again a marvelous act, a touchable miracle, will turn people to the Lord (v. 35). This is repetition that illumines the inexhaustible riches of Gods love for the fragile creature and Gods desire to constantly touch us, hold us, and announce the victory over death. There is yet more for Peter in this journey as he is approached by two disciples form another city (Joppa) for the sake of one disciple who has died.”
[4] Jennings, Acts,99. “Peter returns to center stage and engages in a bit of wayfaring life, echoing again his history of following Jesus and doing as his savior had done.”
[5] Jennings, Acts, 100. “Tabitha’s life even in the fragments we gain in this story, hangs together beautifully as someone devoted to helping people, especially widows.”
[6] Jennings, Acts, 100. “Tabitha, the disciples of Jesus—Luke opens her story inside of Peter’s journey and in so doing makes a point more powerful for us in our time than probably for him in his time. Tabitha, a woman, is a disciple of Jesus. Whether this vignette is evidence of Luke’s positive view of women or not he has certainly gives us a plateau from which to view a new future in which men and women in Christ have a different way of seeing themselves—as disciples.”
[7] Jennings, Acts, 100. “Widows, that group of people vulnerable in ancient and current time, made vulnerable by death’s sting, have always been a special concern for God and here for Tabitha as well. …So the widows weep. They weep for her and maybe for themselves. We do not know if Tabitha was in fact one of them, but we do know that they claimed her as one of whare for them. Here glory joins strong grief because to lose someone who cares for the weak and vulnerable, whose life is turned toward making a difference in the world and who is making a difference, is a bitter loss. The widows have lost Tabitha and a disciple is gone. This is what Peter steps into in Joppa.”
[8] Jennings, Acts, 100. “Peter’s presence declares an unmistakable truth: women matter. This woman matters, and the works she does for widows matters to God. It matters so much that God will not allow death the last word. Others had been raised form the dead in the Gospels and in Luke’s Gospel…but this is different. This not a little girl or the brother of a friend of Jesus; this is a disciple raised from the dead. Tabitha is not finished in life or service.”
[9] Jennings, Acts, 100-101. “‘Tabitha, get up.’ Peter repeats Jesus. Tabitha is an activist who lives again in resurrection power. Her body has been quickened by the Spirit, and her eyes are opened again to see a new day. She has work to do and joy to give to the widows: you have not been abandoned, dear widows, God has heard your weeping and returned her to you.”
[10] Jennings, Acts, 101. “It is not accident that the first disciple to have this little tase of the resurrection isa woman, because it was a woman who gave birth to the resurrection. And Peter is there once again to see a miraculous sign point to faith’s direction—many who found out about this believe in the Lord (v. 42).”
[11] Jennings, Acts, 101. “The story, however, does not end there with Tabitha, because Peter stays in Joppa, and who he stays with points to an earth-shattering future.”
[12] Jennings, Acts, 101. “He stays with Simon, a tanner. Tanners worked with death flesh—the skin of animals and tanners were, theologically speaking, unclean. Few if any pious Jews would normally or easily stay with a tanner, but here was Peter with Somin the tanner. Peter is indeed moving from saints to saints, and soon he will find out just how far the generosity and mercy of a holy God reaches. Soon he will see just how far God will extend holy place and holy people. Peter is with a man who touches the unclean, and soon he will see God do the same.”
#Beloved #DeathToLife #DivineLove #Encounter #Jesus #Liberation #Life #Love #NewCreation #Paul #Peter #PeterAndPaul #Tabitha #TheBookOfActs #TheHolySpirit #WillieJamesJennings #WWJD #WWPD
The Divine Love: How Allah’s Affection Transforms Dua
The story begins… There was a woman Unknown. Unseen. Just a maid in a wealthy home But in the heavens… she was known Because when the world slept, she worshipped Her Dua embodied what Allah says: “He loves them, and they love Him.” (Qur’an – 5:54) Have you noticed the order? His love comes first… Before your sujood. Before your pain Before your repentance. Before you even turned His way Before you ever whispered, “Ya Rabb…” You’re not chasing Him… You’re responding to the One who already called you Now read her Dua… and watch this truth come alive…
One night, she rose for tahajjud In the stillness, she fell into sujood and her Dua echoed through the quiet house: “O Allah… I ask You by Your love for me… honour me, grant me health, have mercy on me” Note her words: “Your love for me” Her voice trembled. Her words were raw But someone was listening… The head of the household (her employer) overheard her Dua… He thought to himself: “How arrogant. How inappropriate.” Then he said aloud: “Who told you that Allah loves you? Say: O Allah, I ask You by my love for You. Not by His love for you. That’s not proper!” But her response… will shift your entire view of Dua.
She looked at him softly… and replied: “If it weren’t for His love for me… Would He have woken me at this hour? Let me stand before Him? Placed these words on my tongue?” He was left speechless. A humble maid… teaching the master the secrets of divine love. The master was left speechless… But the story didn’t end there. Shaykh Bouti )رحمه الله( heard this story & said: “This is how a believer should speak to Allah” Then he paused… And began to weep “If Allah didn’t love me… He wouldn’t have honored me with Islam. He wouldn’t have made me aware of Him. He wouldn’t have placed longing for Him in my chest. He wouldn’t have brought us here today… together
“If Allah didn’t love you… He wouldn’t have guided your heart to say “La ilaha illAllah” This is the Divine gift… “You didn’t rise because you worked harder… You rose because He loved you first” Shaykh Bouti )رحمه الله( said: “This is the Divine gift that does not require studying, debate or discussion… It is the power of love, the love that first originates from Allah towards His servant before any love from any servants to His Lord ever existed” Shaykh Bouti )رحمه الله( message: Your heartbreak, Your insomnia, Your sudden urge to pray… That wasn’t you “And it is He who has chosen you…” (Qur’an 22:78) He wakes you. He guides you. He speaks to your heart. You didn’t break. You were being summoned This is not coincidence. This is love.
Every time you felt like giving up… and something held you back. Every time you cried alone… and the pain somehow passed. Every time you drifted… and still found your way back to Him. That wasn’t your strength. That wasn’t a coincidence. That was Love. His Love. Quiet. Constant. Undeniable. “My servant draws near to Me… and when he comes to Me walking, I go to him at speed.” (Hadith Qudsi – Bukhari) If He didn’t love you, you wouldn’t still be here, reading this.
[Note: The story has been extracted from a social post of @loversofhabaib just for knowledge purpose. Posts of other sources are separated by category name ; Other source]
#bible #DivineLove #faith #god #jesus #LoveOfAllah #SincereLoveOfAllah
The Woman Who Found Redemption: My Journey from Darkness to Light
6,560 words, 35 minutes read time
I stand before you now, no longer the woman I once was. You may have heard stories about me—whispers in the wind, murmurs in the temple, or perhaps you know me from what has been written about me in the Scriptures. Mary Magdalene, the one from whom Jesus cast out seven demons. But there’s so much more to my story than just that. You might hear this and think you know what happened, but trust me, you don’t. I was not the woman you think I was, nor was I the woman I wanted to be. And, honestly, I’m not sure I ever knew who I truly was, until that moment.
Before the darkness consumed me, before the whispers turned to screams within my mind, I was simply Mary, a woman of Magdala. Our town, nestled on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, was a vibrant hub. The clatter of commerce filled the air – fishermen mending their nets, merchants haggling over prices of dried fish and grains, the exotic scents of spices brought by traders from distant lands. My family, though not of the highest standing, was comfortable. My father, a respected fisherman, taught me the rhythms of the lake, the way the light danced on its surface, the signs of an approaching storm. My mother, a woman of quiet strength, instilled in me the traditions of our faith, the comforting cadence of the Psalms.
We lived in a modest but sturdy home, the whitewashed walls reflecting the relentless Galilean sun. I remember the scent of baking bread that often wafted from our small kitchen, the rough feel of the fishing nets I sometimes helped mend, the warmth of the Sabbath candles casting long shadows on the walls as my family gathered for prayer. I had dreams, as young women do. Dreams of a loving marriage, of a family of my own, of contributing to the life of our community. I was headstrong, perhaps too much so, with a restless spirit that often chafed against the expected roles for women. I yearned for something more, though I couldn’t articulate what that “more” truly was. Perhaps it was a deeper understanding of the world, a sense of purpose beyond the daily routines.
Then, slowly, insidiously, the darkness began to creep in. It wasn’t a sudden invasion, but a gradual erosion of my inner peace. At first, it was just unsettling thoughts, whispers at the edges of my awareness that I couldn’t quite grasp. They were like shadows flickering in my peripheral vision, always just out of reach when I tried to focus on them. But these whispers grew louder, more insistent, morphing into voices that were not my own. They mocked, they accused, they filled my mind with chaos and confusion.
It felt as though something alien had taken root within me, twisting my thoughts, turning my desires into something ugly and uncontrollable. My own will seemed to weaken, replaced by an inner turmoil that dictated my actions. I would lash out in anger at those I loved, say cruel things I didn’t mean, driven by a force I couldn’t comprehend. My moods swung wildly, from moments of hollow gaiety to deep, crushing despair. I was a prisoner within my own mind, a puppet dancing to the strings of these unseen tormentors.
The societal stigma was a heavy burden. In our close-knit community, whispers spread like wildfire. I became the subject of hushed conversations, pointed fingers, and averted gazes. People spoke of curses, of divine punishment, of a soul tainted by sin. The women in the marketplace would draw their children away as I passed. The men would offer pitying glances mixed with fear. I was an outcast, labeled as “unclean,” someone to be avoided. The isolation was agonizing, a constant reminder of my brokenness. Even within my own family, though they tried to be supportive, I could see the fear and the strain in their eyes. They didn’t understand what was happening to me, and their helplessness only amplified my own despair.
Desperate for relief, I sought out every avenue I could find. I visited the local healers, their remedies of herbs and poultices offering no solace. I consulted the village elders, their prayers and pronouncements feeling hollow and empty. I even turned to those rumored to practice magic, clutching at amulets and chanting incantations, but the darkness within remained unmoved. My wealth, inherited from my father, became a tool in this desperate search, but it bought me nothing but false hope and fleeting promises. The more I sought a cure, the more entrenched the torment seemed to become. It was a vicious cycle, my desperation only feeding the power of the darkness that held me captive.
Looking back, I can see the threads of my own making in this tapestry of suffering. My ambition, that yearning for something more, had at times led me down paths that were not wholesome. I had sought validation in fleeting pleasures, in the approval of those whose values were shallow. There was a pride within me, a belief that I could navigate life on my own terms, without truly seeking the guidance of God or the wisdom of those who walked in His light. This self-reliance, this desire to control my own destiny, had perhaps created an opening for the darkness to enter. It wasn’t just the external forces; it was the internal vulnerabilities, the unacknowledged emptiness that the demons seemed to exploit.
Then, He came. Jesus. The memory of that first encounter is etched into my soul. He walked into Magdala, not with the pomp and circumstance of a visiting dignitary, but with a quiet authority that drew the eye and stilled the restless energy of the town. There was a light about Him, an aura of peace and compassion that was unlike anything I had ever witnessed. His eyes, when they met mine, held no judgment, only a profound understanding. It was as if He saw past the broken exterior, past the torment that twisted my features, and saw the wounded soul within.
I don’t know how He knew the depths of my affliction, but He did. Perhaps it was the way I flinched from the touch of others, the frantic energy that radiated from me, or the haunted look in my eyes. But He looked at me, truly looked at me, and in that gaze, I felt a flicker of something I hadn’t experienced in years – a moment of stillness, a break in the relentless storm within.
He spoke, His voice calm and resonant, cutting through the cacophony in my mind. He didn’t shout, didn’t recoil. He simply spoke words of authority, words that seemed to vibrate with a power that was not of this world. And as He spoke, I felt a wrenching within me, a violent shaking as the demons that had held me captive for so long began to resist. It was a terrifying and yet liberating sensation. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, I felt a glimmer of control returning.
One by one, He cast them out. I can’t describe the sensation fully – it was like a physical expulsion, a tearing away of something dark and clinging. With each departing spirit, a wave of relief washed over me, a lightening of the oppressive weight that had burdened me for so long. The voices that had tormented me fell silent. The chaos within began to subside, replaced by a fragile but growing sense of peace. By the time He was finished, I felt… empty, but in a way that was clean, pure. The darkness was gone, and in its place was a void that, for the first time, felt like it could be filled with something good.
Was I deserving of such grace? Absolutely not. In my darkest moments, I had felt utterly worthless, a vessel of corruption. Why would this man, this holy man, waste His time and power on someone as broken as me? It defied all logic, all societal expectations. But that was the essence of His being, wasn’t it? He didn’t come for the righteous, but for the sinners. He didn’t offer healing based on merit, but on boundless compassion. He saw not what I was, but what I could be. His grace was a gift freely given, a light shining into the deepest recesses of my despair.
When the healing was complete, a profound shift occurred within me. The emptiness that remained was not the void of torment, but a space yearning to be filled with the source of that healing. I knew I could not return to my former life. The allure of fleeting pleasures had vanished, replaced by a deep understanding of their emptiness. The hole in my heart, the one I had tried to fill with wealth and influence, now pointed towards Him. He was the answer, the missing piece I had unknowingly been searching for all along.
Without hesitation, I followed Him. There was no grand deliberation, no weighing of pros and cons. It was an instinctive pull, a recognition of the only true north in my suddenly clear sky. I didn’t question His path, His teachings. I simply went where He went, listened to His words, and absorbed the light that radiated from Him. He was the living water to my parched soul, the bread of life to my starving spirit.
For those who have never known the suffocating grip of inner darkness, it is impossible to convey the depth of my gratitude. It was as if He had reached into the abyss and pulled me back into the light. I wasn’t just freed from the demons; I was freed from the self I had become under their influence. I was given a second chance, a clean slate upon which to write a new story. And that story, I knew, would be His.
I became one of His devoted followers, traveling with Him and the others through the dusty roads and bustling towns of Galilee. I witnessed miracles that defied human understanding – the blind seeing, the lame walking, the lepers cleansed. I saw the compassion in His eyes as He healed the sick and the authority in His voice as He commanded evil spirits to depart. But more than the miracles, it was the way He treated people, the way He saw the unseen, the marginalized, the outcasts, that truly amazed me. He spoke to women with respect and dignity, something unheard of in those times. He ate with tax collectors and sinners, offering them a path to redemption. He saw the inherent worth in every soul, regardless of their past or their societal standing.
He allowed us, the women who followed Him, to be a part of His ministry in ways that were revolutionary. We provided for His needs and the needs of His disciples out of our own resources. We listened to His teachings, asked questions, and learned alongside the men. He never looked down on me because of my past. He never reminded me of the darkness that had once consumed me. He accepted me fully, loved me unconditionally, and trusted me to understand and share His message.
I remember the gentle wisdom of His parables – the sower scattering seeds, the lost sheep being found, the prodigal son returning home. These stories, seemingly simple, held profound truths about God’s love, His forgiveness, and the nature of His kingdom. They resonated deeply within me, a soul that had felt lost and now was found. He taught us to love our enemies, to forgive those who wronged us, to seek the kingdom of God above all else. These teachings were a balm to my wounded spirit, guiding me towards a way of living that was rooted in love and compassion.
My relationship with the other disciples and the women who followed Jesus was a tapestry woven with threads of shared experience and growing faith. With Peter, James, and John, there was a sense of awe and respect for their closeness to Jesus, their willingness to leave everything to follow Him. Sometimes, there were misunderstandings, moments when their earthly concerns clashed with Jesus’ spiritual focus, but there was always a core of devotion that bound them together.
The women – Joanna, Susanna, Salome, and others – became my sisters in faith. We shared a unique bond, having experienced the societal constraints placed upon us and finding liberation in Jesus’ presence. We supported each other, shared our burdens, and encouraged one another in our newfound faith. We often discussed His teachings amongst ourselves, trying to grasp the deeper meanings and how they applied to our lives. There was a quiet strength in our collective devotion, a silent understanding of the transformative power of His love. Mary, His mother, held a special place among us, her quiet dignity and unwavering faith a constant source of inspiration. I often sought her out, finding solace in her gentle wisdom and the shared experience of loving Jesus.
Then came the day the shadows gathered, the day He was betrayed. The memory of the soldiers’ torches cutting through the night, the harsh clang of their armor, still sends a shiver down my spine. The fear that gripped us was palpable, a suffocating blanket of dread. They took Him away, the one who had brought light into my darkness, the one who had given me a life worth living. I stood with the other women, a silent, horrified witness to His arrest. We wanted to intervene, to fight, to somehow protect Him, but we were powerless against the might of the Roman Empire and the fury of the Sanhedrin. All we could do was watch as they led Him away, our hearts heavy with foreboding.
The day they crucified Him was the day the world seemed to tilt on its axis. We followed, a small, heartbroken group, as He was forced to carry the heavy cross through the jeering crowds. We saw His face, bruised and bloodied, yet still bearing a trace of that familiar compassion. We stood at the foot of the cross, our tears mingling with the dust and the blood. We watched Him suffer, each nail driven into His flesh a fresh wound in our own hearts. The weight of our helplessness was crushing. We knew He was innocent, yet we could do nothing but bear witness to His agonizing death. It felt as though all the hope He had ignited within us was being extinguished with each labored breath He took.
The joy of the Passover meal we had shared with Him just days before, the sense of anticipation and fellowship, now seemed like a distant, almost dreamlike memory. The night of His arrest had shattered our understanding of everything. The men, the strong, bold disciples who had pledged their loyalty, scattered in fear. Peter, the rock, the one He had entrusted with the keys to the kingdom, denied even knowing Him, not once, but three times. I saw him later, his face etched with a grief that mirrored our own, the weight of his betrayal a visible burden. We were all afraid, huddled together in the upper room, the doors bolted against the unknown dangers that lurked outside. The one who had been our protector, our guide, was gone, and we feared we would be next.
In that fear, the world felt cold and empty. Words of comfort were hollow, prayers felt weak and unanswered. All I could do was weep, a deep, guttural sorrow that seemed to have no end. The days between His death and the dawn of the resurrection felt like an eternity, a bleak and desolate landscape of grief. How could He be gone? How could the one who had shown us the very essence of love and grace be taken away in such a brutal manner? The questions swirled in my mind, unanswered, fueling my despair. The hope He had planted within me felt like a fragile seedling buried under a mountain of sorrow.
His teachings, once so vibrant and life-giving, now echoed in my memory with a painful irony. “I am the resurrection and the life,” He had said. But how could that be true when death had so decisively claimed Him? Without His physical presence, we felt lost, adrift in a sea of uncertainty. All I could think of were His final moments, His pain, the injustice of it all. I didn’t know how we could possibly go on without Him. The future stretched before us, a vast and terrifying unknown.
The morning of His execution, the sky was a bruised and angry purple. I watched, with a horrified fascination, as they led Him to Golgotha, the place of the skull. The jeers of the crowd, the callous indifference of the Roman soldiers, the sheer brutality of the act – it was a scene that will forever be seared into my memory. They offered Him wine mixed with gall, a cruel mockery of comfort, which He refused. Then, the unthinkable happened. They nailed His hands and feet to the rough wood of the cross, the sickening thud of the hammer blows echoing in the stunned silence. I saw them lift Him up, His body suspended between heaven and earth, a testament to the cruelty of humanity and the depth of His sacrifice. My heart shattered into a million pieces. He was innocent, yet He suffered the most agonizing death imaginable. He was dying for us, bearing the weight of our sins, our darkness.
I stood at the foot of the cross, rooted to the spot by a grief so profound it felt physical. His suffering was unbearable to witness, yet I couldn’t tear my eyes away. And then, amidst His torment, He spoke His first words from the cross, a cry that tore through the heavy air: “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” His native Aramaic, spoken in such raw anguish, pierced the very heavens. In that moment, I felt a sliver of His abandonment, not by us, His followers, but by His Father. It was a depth of loneliness I could scarcely comprehend.
A stunned silence fell over the crowd as the sky began to darken, a premature twilight descending upon the land. The earth itself seemed to mourn, a low rumble vibrating beneath our feet. Then, His voice, though weak, still carried a note of divine authority: “I thirst.” It wasn’t just a physical thirst for water, I knew. It was a deeper longing for the completion of His mission, the fulfillment of the sacrifice He was making. He had taken upon Himself the sins of the world, and in that moment, He bore the full weight of that burden.
Then, with a final, deliberate act, He uttered the words that would forever echo in eternity: “Tetelestai – It is finished.” The work was done. The debt was paid. The barrier between God and humanity, erected by our sin, was broken. It was as though the universe itself held its breath, waiting for that moment to pass into the annals of time.
But even in those final pronouncements, His love and obedience shone through. With His last breath, He whispered, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” And then, He was gone. The light that had illuminated our world was extinguished. I couldn’t believe it. He was truly gone.
The earth convulsed beneath our feet, a violent tremor that shook the very foundations of our world. And then, a sight that defied understanding: the curtain of the temple, the massive veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the outer court, was torn in two, from top to bottom. It was a symbolic act, a divine tearing away of the barrier that had separated God from His people. His presence was no longer confined to a sacred space; His Spirit was now free to dwell among us.
And then, the graves opened, and the dead rose. It was a terrifying and awe-inspiring sight, a glimpse into the power of His death, a foreshadowing of the ultimate victory over the grave. But in the immediate aftermath, the finality of His death was overwhelming. He, who was life …itself, was gone.
Yet, even in the depths of my inconsolable grief, a tiny spark of hope flickered within me, fueled by His own words, His promises. “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies.” But in that moment, shrouded in darkness and despair, it felt impossible to grasp. How could the one who had given me life now be dead?
The morning of the third day dawned with a heavy, oppressive stillness. Driven by a desperate need to honor His body, to perform the last rites of burial, I made my way to the tomb. The other women, their faces pale and drawn with grief, accompanied me. As we walked through the silent streets, a new fear began to take root. The tomb was guarded. Roman soldiers, their expressions stern and unyielding, stood watch. Would they even allow us near? Would they desecrate His memory further? And the stone… the massive stone that sealed the entrance. How could we, a small group of grieving women, ever move it? These anxieties gnawed at my heart, but the need to be near Him, even in death, was stronger than any fear.
When we arrived, our breath caught in our throats. The stone was rolled away. It defied all logic, all expectation. My mind reeled, a cold wave of panic washing over me. Had someone stolen His body? Had they subjected it to further indignity? I stood there, paralyzed by a mixture of fear and confusion. I peered into the dark recess of the tomb, and it was empty. The linen cloths, neatly folded, lay where His body should have been. It was a sight that made no sense, deepening the mystery and the dread.
But then… I turned, and there He was. Standing just a short distance away, bathed in the soft light of the early morning sun. At first, I didn’t recognize Him fully. Perhaps it was the tears blurring my vision, or the shock that had numbed my senses. I thought He was the gardener, the one who tended the grounds around the tomb. My voice, thick with unshed tears, trembled as I asked, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him.” My only thought was to find His body, to give Him the respect He deserved.
And then, He spoke my name. Just one word, but it resonated through me like a lightning strike: “Mary.” It was His voice. The familiar cadence, the gentle inflection, the love that echoed in that single syllable. In that instant, the scales fell from my eyes. The gardener vanished, replaced by the radiant figure of my Lord. My heart leaped within me, a joy so profound it was almost unbearable. “Rabboni!” I cried out, my Aramaic bursting forth in a torrent of love and recognition. I reached out to Him, wanting to hold Him, to cling to the reality of His presence.
But He held back, a gentle sadness in His eyes. “Do not cling to Me,” He said softly, “for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to My brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.’” His words were both a gentle rebuke and a momentous commission. He was alive, but His time with us in this earthly form was not yet fully restored. He had a greater purpose, a return to the Father. And He entrusted me, the woman who had been healed from darkness, the one who had witnessed His death, to be the first messenger of His glorious resurrection.
I stood there, trembling with awe and disbelief, the weight of His words settling upon me. He was alive! Death had not held Him. The darkness had been conquered. The promise He had made had come true. The despair that had clung to me for days vanished, replaced by an unshakeable hope. The resurrection wasn’t just about Him returning to life; it was about the promise of new life for all who believed in Him.
I ran, my feet barely touching the ground, to find Peter and John, the other disciples who were closest to Him. “I have seen the Lord!” I exclaimed, my voice filled with a joy that could no longer be contained. “He is alive!” I poured out the story of my encounter, the empty tomb, the figure I had mistaken for the gardener, and the sound of His voice calling my name.
They were initially skeptical, their grief still a heavy shroud upon their hearts. Peter and John, driven by a mixture of disbelief and a flicker of hope, rushed to the tomb themselves. I followed, my heart pounding with anticipation. I watched as John, being the younger and swifter, reached the tomb first but hesitated at the entrance. Peter, ever impetuous, went straight inside. They found the linen cloths lying there, just as I had described, and the burial shroud folded neatly by itself. The sight stirred something within them, a dawning realization that this was no ordinary grave robbery.
Peter and John left soon after, still wrestling with the implications of what they had seen. But I couldn’t tear myself away from that sacred place. I stood outside the tomb, tears of joy and wonder streaming down my face. And then, He appeared again, His presence radiating peace.
“Woman, why are you weeping?” He asked gently.
Still caught in the wonder of it all, I replied, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him.”
Again, He spoke my name, “Mary.” And this time, there was no mistaking Him. It was truly Him, alive and whole.
“Rabboni!” I cried again, reaching out to embrace Him.
“Do not cling to Me,” He repeated, His voice filled with tenderness, “for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to My brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.’” He entrusted me, a woman, a former outcast, to be the primary witness to His resurrection, a testament to His radical love and the overturning of societal norms.
I went again to find the disciples, my heart overflowing with the incredible news. This time, my conviction was unwavering, my joy infectious. The despair that had clung to us in the days following His crucifixion was shattered by the glorious reality of His resurrection. It wasn’t just a miracle; it was the ultimate victory over death, a promise of eternal life for all who believed.
His resurrection had not only restored my Lord to life; it had restored my soul. The darkness that had defined me was gone, replaced by the radiant light of His love and the unshakeable hope of eternal life. I didn’t just follow Him because I had been healed. I followed Him because I had witnessed the impossible, because I had seen death itself defeated. I had seen love and mercy triumph over the greatest evil, and I knew then that my life would forever be dedicated to sharing this truth.
I wasn’t just a witness to His resurrection; I was reborn through it. The old Mary, the tormented and lost woman of Magdala, had died with Him on that cross. The Mary who stood before the empty tomb, who heard His voice call her name, was a new creation, filled with purpose and an unyielding faith. Jesus had pulled me from the deepest darkness, and in His victory over death, He showed me that no sin was too great, no burden too heavy for His love to conquer.
The miracle of His resurrection was not just a singular event; it held a profound and universal meaning. He had shown us that death was not the end, that there was hope beyond the grave. His victory was not only for Himself but for all of humanity, for the broken, the lost, the ones who had stumbled and fallen, just like me. In that moment, I knew that I would never be the same again. Neither would the world.
But even after His resurrection, my journey didn’t end. It wasn’t just about basking in the joy of that first encounter; it was about continuing to live in the light of what He had done for me. As the days passed, I remained among His followers, just as He had instructed us. We gathered together, sharing stories of His appearances, our hearts filled with a mixture of joy and anticipation. We waited, prayed, and hoped for the promise of the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus had told us before He ascended to the Father. There was a palpable sense of something divine about to happen, a new chapter unfolding that we could not yet fully comprehend.
And when Pentecost came, the promise was fulfilled in a way that exceeded all our expectations. We were gathered in the upper room, perhaps the same room where we had shared that last Passover meal with Him, when suddenly, there was a sound like a rushing wind, and tongues of fire appeared, resting on each of us. The Holy Spirit filled us in a way that was both overwhelming and transformative. It was as though a divine power surged through us, igniting a fire within our souls. We began to speak in other tongues, languages we had never learned, yet we could communicate the wonders of God.
Pentecost wasn’t just a moment of personal transformation; it was the birth of the Church, the beginning of a movement that would change the world forever. I could feel the Spirit’s presence in me and around me, urging us to go beyond the walls of our homes, to step out and preach the gospel to all who would listen. No longer would we be waiting in the shadows for Him to return; now, we were called to carry His message of love, redemption, and eternal life to every corner of the earth. I had experienced Jesus’ resurrection and His transformative power in my life, but now I experienced the full force of His Spirit, uniting us all in a shared purpose and mission. It was as if He had not left us alone at all; He had empowered us to do greater things than we could have ever imagined.
I traveled, often in the company of those who had been closest to Jesus—those who had shared the pain of His crucifixion and the joy of His resurrection. Alongside me was John, whom Jesus had called His beloved disciple, a man whose love for the Lord was as deep and unwavering as the sea. And Mary, His mother, her quiet strength and profound understanding a constant source of comfort and wisdom. It was a bond that transcended everything we had known before—an unspoken commitment to share the love of Jesus and to keep His message alive. Together, we had witnessed the greatest sorrow and the greatest joy, and now, we shared a common purpose. The grief of losing Him on the cross was still a scar upon our hearts, but in the radiant light of His resurrection, the hope He had given us now became our fuel, our driving force. We had been entrusted with a sacred mission—to spread His gospel, to heal the sick in His name, to preach salvation to the lost, and to teach others to live in His love.
We no longer just mourned the loss of the man we had loved; we celebrated His glorious victory over death. We knew that He had come to give us life, abundant and eternal life that could never be taken away, and through the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, we could now offer that same life-giving message to others. I could see the Spirit working in us and through us, giving us a courage and strength that was not our own, enabling us to face the challenges and opposition that inevitably arose. And though the road was often difficult, the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit was undeniable, a constant reminder that we were not alone.
The world around us had begun to change, slowly but surely, touched by the ripples of the resurrection and the power of the Holy Spirit. And we, His followers, were irrevocably changed. John, with his powerful words and unwavering faith, Mary, with her quiet strength and profound understanding, and I—we were all transformed by our encounter with Jesus and the indwelling Spirit. We were now part of something far greater than ourselves, a movement of love and redemption that was beginning to take root and spread throughout the land. We knew that what we were doing was not just about preserving a memory; it was about ushering in the Kingdom of God and sharing the life-altering message of Jesus Christ with a world desperately in need of hope.
Together, we faced many trials, enduring persecution and misunderstanding, but we also experienced countless moments of divine intervention, miraculous healings, and profound encounters with those whose lives were touched by the message we carried. And though it often felt humbling and even impossible to comprehend, every day, I felt myself becoming more like Him, reflecting His love and compassion in my own actions and words. Through the continuous work of the Holy Spirit within me, I was not only following Jesus but striving to embody His teachings in my heart, mind, and spirit. The words He had spoken to us before His death—about loving others as He had loved us, forgiving those who trespassed against us, and making disciples of all nations—took on a new and urgent meaning. With the Holy Spirit as our guide and empowerer, we knew we were fulfilling His command, one soul at a time.
But we understood that our journey wasn’t solely about proclaiming the message to the far corners of the earth. It was equally about cultivating the inner life, about becoming the people He had called us to be: loving, faithful, and unyielding in our conviction. The Holy Spirit had ignited a fire within us, a fervent desire to see His Kingdom come to fruition in our lifetimes, and we could no longer remain silent. We had personally experienced His boundless love, His transformative grace, and His glorious resurrection, and now we were compelled to share that life-changing truth with everyone we encountered.
I walked often in the company of John, his steadfast presence a constant source of strength. He was the disciple who had leaned on Jesus’ breast at the last supper, the one whom Jesus had entrusted with the care of His mother, Mary. John’s love for Jesus was a deep and abiding wellspring, a love that did not waver even in the face of the world’s harshest opposition. He continued to proclaim the truth of the gospel with unwavering boldness, even when it cost him dearly. And beside him, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a pillar of quiet strength and profound wisdom. She had already endured the unimaginable pain of watching her son suffer and die, but she had also experienced the unique and deeply personal joy of His resurrection. Together, we were united in our purpose, bound by our shared love for Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit to press onward in His name.
Now, our lives were not simply about following the memory of Jesus; they were about actively living out His teachings, embodying His love, and extending His grace to a world still shrouded in darkness. And though we missed His physical presence with an ache that never fully subsided, the Holy Spirit was with us in a way that we had never imagined, a constant companion and guide. It was as though He had never truly left us at all; His presence was more profound, more tangible in the Spirit than it had ever been in the flesh. And that was the moment everything truly shifted for me—when I realized that Jesus had not only saved me from my past but had also given us the greatest gift of all: His Spirit, which would empower us to do even greater things than He had done.
As for me, I never sought earthly recognition or accolades. My deepest desire was to be a faithful servant of Christ, a living testament to His transformative power. I knew that my story, the story of a woman rescued from darkness and brought into His marvelous light, had a purpose within His grand narrative, and that was more than enough. I had been healed by Him, loved by Him, and entrusted with the sacred task of sharing His message with the world. That was the only honor I ever needed.
Now, I stand before you, not as a woman lost and broken, defined by her past afflictions, but as a woman redeemed, transformed by the boundless grace of God. He took my darkness, my mistakes, my suffering, and through His death and resurrection, He turned it into a story of hope and healing. If you can hear my words today, I want you to know that you, too, can experience that same healing, that same liberation. You, too, can be freed from whatever binds you, whatever darkness consumes you, just as I was. Jesus didn’t come to save the perfect, the righteous. He came to seek and save the lost, the broken, the ones who know their desperate need for a Savior. And if you are willing to open your heart and accept Him into your life, He will change everything.
I may not be the woman I once was, the woman defined by seven demons and a shadowed past. But I am also not the woman I once thought I could be, striving for a fleeting sense of worth in a world that offered only emptiness. I am His. I am a child of God, redeemed by His grace, empowered by His Spirit, and called to share His love. And that, my friends, is the only identity that truly matters, the only identity that will last for eternity.
D. Bryan King
Sources
- Luke 8:2 – BibleGateway
- Mark 16:9 – BibleGateway
- John 20:11-18 – BibleGateway
- The Woman Who Was Healed of Demons – BibleStudyTools
- Who Was Mary Magdalene? – Christianity.com
- Mary Magdalene – History.com
- Mary Magdalene – Ligonier Ministries
- Mary Magdalene and the Interpretation of Scripture – JSTOR
- Mary Magdalene: The Follower of Jesus – The Gospel Coalition
- Mary Magdalene in the Gospels – The Gospel Coalition
- Mary Magdalene – Encyclopedia Britannica
- The Meaning and History of Mary Magdalene – Christianity Today
- Mary Magdalene: History and Legacy
- Mary Magdalene – Bible Odyssey
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the author. The information provided is based on personal research, experience, and understanding of the subject matter at the time of writing. Readers should consult relevant experts or authorities for specific guidance related to their unique situations.
Related Posts
- Devotion: The Life of Peter – A Journey of Faith, Failure, and Redemption Date February 8, 2025
- Mary Magdalene: A Testimony of Faith and Transformation Date December 12, 2024
- Through the Eyes of Eliazar Date January 23, 2025
#apostleToTheApostles #BibleStory #biblicalFigure #biblicalNarrative #biblicalWomen #ChristianFaith #ChristianHistory #Crucifixion #demons #disciples #divineIntervention #divineLove #earlyChurch #empoweredWomen #emptyTomb #encounterWithJesus #eternalLife #Faith #faithJourney #faithStory #firstWitness #forgiveness #Galilee #gospel #grace #healing #historicalAccount #HolySpirit #Hope #hopeAndHealing #innerPeace #inspirationalStory #Jesus #lifeTransformation #love #Magdala #MaryMagdalene #miracle #NewTestament #overcomingAdversity #overcomingDarkness #Pentecost #personalTestimony #powerOfFaith #Redemption #religiousHistory #religiousText #Resurrection #salvation #scripture #secondChance #spiritualAwakening #spiritualHealing #spiritualJourney #Testimony #Transformation #witness #womenInMinistry #womenOfTheBible
Radha is not just a name from mythology — she’s the heartbeat of divine love.
As the Bhakti Movement evolves, Radha’s emotional power is resonating across the globe. From art to spirituality, her presence is more alive than ever.
#Radha #BhaktiMovement #SpiritualFeminine #DivineLove #KrishnaRadha #B
https://todaynewsheadlines.com/why-radhas-fame-is-surging-a-deep-dive-into-the-bhakti-movement/
“Rescued from Danger…Sealed for Thy Courts”: The Path of Easter!
Psalm 118: 14-16a Abba God is my strength and my song and has become my salvation. There is a sound of exultation and victory in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of Abba God has triumphed!
Introduction
Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!!
This morning, our calcified hearts prone to wander from God find rest in divine sealing made known in the unsealed, empty tomb. We who are enticed and attracted to the shiny bobbles and fluffy lures of the kingdom of humanity are now ushered into something truly new, truly beaming, truly spectacular, truly built of the divine, eternal, never tarnishing substance that is the love of God for you, the Beloved. This morning, despite our wandering, we come face to face with God in Christ, the one who lives and doesn’t die.
Even when we decided to wander from God, to turn our backs, to forget the ancient and good story, to tread and tromp on everyone and everything, to estrange ourselves, to misjudge and prejudge others unto their condemnation, and even when we preferred acts of violence and death, God sought us and found us as we were wandering “from the fold of God”[1] and set us right. This morning, the exposure we felt on Friday becomes the warm light of the risen Son, bringing us into himself, into the lap of Abba God, and wrapping us up like newborn babes in the warm blanket of the Holy Spirit. Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING stands between God and God’s beloved, not even death.
Today we’re a people set back on course, eyes lifted, faces turned, fleshy hearts thumping with divine love, hands and feet eager to spread the liberation we have received, and voices ready to call forth life even when all that surrounds us in the world is death. Today we become a people who dares to believe this crazy, far-out story because today become a people brought to life by this good and ancient word of God.
Luke 24:1-12
Now after the women were made full of fear they bowed their faces to the earth; [the two men in clothing shining like lightening] said to the women, “Why are you seeking the one who lives among the dead?” (Luke 24:5)
At the end of chapter 23, Luke mentions that the women—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary mother of James, and some other women (24:10a)—saw, from a distance, where Joseph of Arimathea placed Jesus’s body (v.55).[2] It’s these women who now take center stage in the reception of the good news that Jesus is raised. As the men fled, the women held their ground initially in the distance and now the first ones on the scene in Luke’s resurrection story.[3]
Having seen where Joseph placed Jesus’s body (23:55), and it being the first day of the week and still in the depths of early morning, these women went to the tomb bearing the spices they prepared on Friday night (v.1 and 23:56). Keeping in mind that they prepared spices on Friday night, these women are not examples of blind faith despite the facts; for them, as well as for the men, Jesus was dead—very dead. They planned to anoint his body,[4] which wasn’t done in the rush getting his body down from the cross and into a tomb before the sunset and curses arrived (cf. Dt 21:23).
Now, when they arrived at the tomb, they found the stone having been [mysteriously[5]] rolled away from the tomb (v.2). Curious to see what happened, the women entered the tomb. And after entering the tomb they did not find the body of Jesus (v. 3). Luke then writes, while the women were perplexed/in doubt about what had happened, behold! two men approached the women [dressed] in clothing shining like lightening (v.4). The women were confused, and now they became full of fear; upon being approached by two men in dazzling clothing, Luke tells us, they bowed their faces to the earth (5a). In other words, they suddenly dropped to the ground because they were full of terror. While this is a natural and biblical response to angelic visitors, it’s also a human reaction. These women came to anoint Jesus’s body, and not only is it missing (stolen, maybe?) but now two men show up and approach them (Are we in trouble? Are they going to harm us?). Luke does a marvelous job wedding together the spiritual and temporal realities of this story growing in dramatic tension.
Luke then writes that the two gleaming men said to the women, “why are you seeking the one who lives with the dead? He is not here but was raised” (v.5b-6a).For one moment, suspend your judgment and how well you know this story. Stay here with the women hearing, for the first time, that Jesus—whom they saw crucified on Friday and sealed up in a tomb—is not dead but alive because he is risen! Instantaneously, your world is turned upside down…again! As they looked at each other (now more in astonishment and less in fear) they begin the journey of faith as it dawns on them (in their hearts and minds) that death itself has a mortal weakness: God…Is it possible? Is Jesus alive? Imagine the grief they carried giving birth to hope…hope daring to rise to life in the depths of a tomb meant for the hopelessness of death…
Then Luke tells us that the two men exhort them, remember what he spoke to you while he was still in galilee, saying it is necessary that the son of humanity be betrayed into the hands of sinful humanity and to be crucified and on the third day to be raised up.” And as the men remind them, these women remembered [Jesus’s] words and after returning from the tomb they announced[6] all these things to the twelve and to the all the remaining people (vv. 8-9). That which they hadn’t fully grasped they did as the celestial men spoke to them;[7] they heard,[8] they believed, and they went.[9] If there were ever three phrases that sum up good discipleship, these are they.[10] The women didn’t linger, tarry, hesitate, debate, and didn’t dismiss because this message didn’t align with their social, political, or religious status-quo. They ran home and immediately told the disciples what they heard. Good news arrives!
And then it’s dismissed. Luke informs us, [the women and their words] appeared before [the men] as if silly, idle nonsense; they were disbelieving the women (v.11). The good news the women brought falls flat at the feet of the men they told; [11] save one. Peter is the only who listened and is intrigued enough to run to the tomb, and after stooping to look he saw only the piece of fine linen and then he departed toward home marveling at what had happened (v.12). According to Luke, Peter not only denied Jesus but then didn’t tell the others that the women were correct; he just remained silent and amazed. [12] Here, Luke draws purposeful attention to the faithfulness of the women who proclaimed the good news even when it sounded ludicrous.[13] They didn’t linger among the dead; inspired by faith,[14] they ran straight into (new) life, spreading the good news of the one who is living, the risen Jesus the Christ. In this moment filled with swelling divine life, the women were resistant to wandering. They ran toward the risen Christ boldly entering a new reality and order where death succumbs to life.[15]
Conclusion
For us who are prone to wander because we forsake and forget the way of the reign of God, this morning we are given Christ himself—all of him—so that we never forget or forsake the way. For us who are addicted to treading on and tromping about the land and on others, we have received a new way to walk in the world demonstrated by the running feet of the women: swift and sensitive, eager to bring good news rather than pain! For us who find ourselves estranged by our own doing and having become strangers to God, to our neighbor, to creation, and to ourselves we are beckoned out of the oppressive col of self-imposed tombs of isolation and are given a community with God, with others, with creation, and with ourselves built on and by the love of Christ. For us who know the pain of being caught in the captivity of misjudging and prejudging others according to our own human standards, we are refused that plumbline and, instead, we are given divine love, life, and liberation as our new metrics of good and right. For us who are drunk with violence and death, we receive what we do not deserve this morning: peace and life eternal.
This morning we’re given something completely new, completely different, completely strange to the kingdom of humanity. We are given life, love, and liberation. And while we benefit from this, we are given these things specifically so we can participate in God’s divine mission of the revolution of love, life and liberation in the world for the God’s beloved. We are refused the option of living as if we’ve not heard, seen, felt, tasted, smelled the good news. We are charged to take up the way of Christ and live as if the Cross isn’t the end of the story but the beginning. The women who were encountered in the empty tomb were charged to stop looking for the living among the dead; their lives were never ever the same.[16] So it is with us: our call to be disciples taking up their cross and follow Jesus isn’t gone, it’s the only way we have because the path we learned from the kingdom of humanity is forever blocked off.[17] This morning, we’re not the same as we were yesterday morning; this morning, we’ve encountered an empty tomb and heard the announcement from the celestial realm: he is not here he is risen! How could we ever live in the old way? Everything is now new.
Today, our willful and chaotic wandering collides with the steady path of Christ that is dangerous and not careful, that is risky and not safe, that is radical and not status quo, that will afflict and not always comfort.[18] Today we live under the weight of the question, Why are you seeking the one who lives among the dead? (v. 5). Go, Beloved, and live radically and wildly in the name of God and for the well-being of your neighbor and do so in a way that brings God glory and might get you in a little bit of good trouble. You’ve been summoned into life not death, into love and not indifference, into liberation and not captivity.
[1] Fom the hymn “Come Thou Fount”
[2] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 272. “In 23:55 Luke directed our attention to the women who were present at the burial, and now he continues telling us about the activities of these women once the Sabbath rest had passed.”
[3] Gonzalez, Luke, 272. “It is interesting to note that here again Luke will tell parallel but different stories about the women disciples and the men…These women have been present, but have remained mostly in the background of the story, even since Luke introduced them in 8:2-3. In the narrative of the passion and burial, even while others deny Jesus or flee, these women stand firm, although at a distance. Now they come to the foreground as the first witnesses to the resurrection.”
[4] Gonzalez, Luke, 272-273. “They, no less than the rest, believe that in the cross all has come to an end. It is time to return home to their more traditional lives. But before they do that, they must perform one least act of love for their dead Master: they must anoint his body.”
[5] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 837. “How was the stone removed? Luke’s account neglects such detail, for he wants to move quickly to the pivotal discovery of an empty tomb.”
[6] Gren, Luke, 838-839. “‘Luke underscores the faithfulness of their testimony by noting that they announced ‘all these things’—that is, what they had observed, what they had been told, and the new significance they attributed to Jesus’ passion and the absence of his corpse.”
[7] Green, Luke, 837-838. “These women come looking for Jesus, but they want to minister to him, and as they quickly discover, because they lack understanding, they are looking in the wrong place. The angels first admonish them, employing language that is reminiscent of Jesus’ rejoinder to the Sadducees in 20:38: God is not the God of the dead but of the living! That is, in spite of their devout intentions in coming to anoint Jesus’ body, these women have failed to grasp Jesus’ message about the resurrection and, thus, have not taken with appropriate gravity the power of God.”
[8] Gren, Luke, 838. “The antidote for this miscalculation is remembrance. The women are addressed as person who had themselves received Jesus’ teaching in Galilee, and the angel’s message fuses Jesus’ predictions during the Galilean phase of his ministry…Thus they are reminded that the career of the Son of Man blends the two motifs of suffering and vindication, and that in doing so he fulfills the divine will.”
[9] Gonzalez, Luke, 273. “The women do not see the resurrected Jesus. The two figures at the tomb (presumably angels) simply tell them that he has risen just as he had foretold, and they believe. Luke does not even say, as do Matthew and Mark (Matt. 28:7; Mrk 16:7), that they are instructed to tell the rest of the disciples (an injunction they follow in Matthew, but not in Mark). They simply hear the witness of the two men at the tomb, and apparently on their own initiative go and tell the others.”
[10] Gren, Luke, 838. Seim qtd in. “Their reception of the resurrection message ‘confirms their discipleship and the instruction they have received as disciples.’”
[11] Green, Luke, 839-840. “The gap between male and female disciples widens, as the faithful account of the women falls on the cynical and unbelieving ears of the men. Nothing more than useless chatter—this is how their announcement is evaluated and discarded. This can be explained in at least to aways. First, the earlier situation of the women disciples is being repeated int eh case of their male counterpart; failing to grasp Jesus’ teaching regarding his suffering and resurrection, they cannot make sense of the news share d with them. At the same time, however, Luke’s ‘all this’ (v 8) cannot but include the message they had received form the angels, so that the men were given access to the significance of recent events. The dismissive response of the men is therefore better explained with reference to the fact that those doing the reporting are women in a world biased against the admissibility of women as witnesses.” Peter’s response is all the more positive.
[12] Green, Luke, 840. Amazement is not faith nor does it hint at the eventual genuine faith. “Unlike the women, [Peter] returns home with no new message to share.”
[13] Gonzalez, Luke, 273. “The contrast is such that one cannot avoid the conclusion that it is purposeful, and that Luke is stressing the faith of these women who have traveled with Jesus from Galilee, and who were the only ones who remained true throughout the entire story of the betrayal. Even though the later course of church history, with its expectation of entirely male leadership, would lead us to think otherwise, it is they who bring the message of the resurrection to the eleven, and not vice versa.”
[14] Green, Luke, 836. “The Evangelist has repeatedly noted the incapacity of the disciples to grasp this truth…but now he signals a breakthrough on the part of the women. If the male disciples continue in their obtuseness, and thus lack of faith, at least Peter response to the witness of the women by going to the tomb. His behavior portends at last the possibility of a more full understanding of Jesus’ message on their part.”
[15] Gonzalez, Luke, 274. “The resurrection is not the continuation of the story. Nor is it just its happy ending. It is the beginning of a new story, of a new age in history.”
[16] Gonzalez, Luke, 276. “But the truth is that the resurrection of Jesus, and the dawning of the new with him, poses a threat to any who would rather continue living as if the cross were the end of the story. The women on their way to the tomb were planning to perform one last act of love for Jesus, and then would probably just return home to their former lives. Peter and the rest would eventually return to their boats, their nets, and the various occupations. But now the empty tomb opens new possibilities. Now there is no way back to the former life in Galilee. Even though Luke tells us that Peter simply went home after seeing the empty tomb, we will soon learn that this was not the end of it: Peter himself would eventually die on his own cross.”
[17] Gonzalez, Luke, 276. “The resurrection is a joyous event; but it also means that Jesus’ call for his disciples to take up their cross and follow him is still valid. The road to the old ways in Galilee is now barred. The resurrection of Jesus impels them forward to their own crosses, and indeed, we know that several of the disciples suffered violent death as the result of their following and proclaiming the Risen One.”
[18] Gonzalez, Luke, 276. “The full message of Easter is both of joy and of challenge. It is. The announcement of unequaled and final victory, and the call to radical, dangerous, and even painful discipleship.”
#Beloved #Called #ComeThouFount #DeathToLife #Discipleship #DivineLiberation #DivineLife #DivineLove #DivineMission #Easter #EasterMorning #GoodNews #Gospel #Jesus #JesusAndWomen #JesusTheChrist #JoelGreen #JustoGonzalez #NewAge #NewCreation #NewLife #NewOrder #ProneToWander #Resurrection #Summoned #TheGospelOfLuke #WomenAndDisciples
“Prone to Wander”: Into the Tomb
Psalm 114:7-8 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of Abba God, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water.
Introduction
A day of silence. A day of eyes dampened with doubt, confusion, fear, anger, and even despair. It’s not just the women who cry; the men cry, too; no one is exempt from the overwhelming barrage of emotions that comes when hopes are dashed, expectations go up in flames, and faith feels shattered. The one whom they loved, the one whom they followed, the one whom they would die for—so they claimed—had been killed, and his body lay in a sealed tomb, guards flanking the massive stone. They didn’t even have time to prepare his body properly before the Sabbath moon rose gently in the sky reminding them that what was was no longer …
In the silence of that Sabbath, thoughts of what happened, how could this be, what was it all for, is this really it paraded about the minds of the disciples as they forced themselves to rest, no recourse to business of banal tasks to keep their minds occupied. They were stuck in this moment of death, like Jesus in that tomb. The extra layer for some (all?) is that they didn’t stick around, defend, follow Jesus all the way… They ran, denied, hid, betrayed. Their consciences were plagued with loss and confusion and burdened with the uncomforting, weighted-blanket of failure and guilt—heavier for some, lighter for others. These precious souls (no matter their guilt and failure, their denial and betrayal) had to endure the sun-down to sun-down plus a few more hours to receive the actual ending of the story. On this night, all those years ago, the disciples of Christ sighed, wiped away tears, and wondered what it was all about… Death, and all its children, held them hostage like Christ sealed in the tomb.
On this night, all those years ago, the disciples died with Christ. What they didn’t know was that the story wasn’t as over …
Romans 6:3-11[1]
In Romans 6, Paul anchors the silence of Saturday into the death of Good Friday and the life of Easter Sunday. For Paul, those who follow Christ follow him in the ways they speak and act and through deep identification with Christ even if it means going into the tomb with Christ on Good Friday. For Paul, this identification with Christ in Christ’s death is the key to the identification with Christ in his resurrected life. For Paul, this is how believers participate in the entirety of the Easter event, from beginning to end, from death into new life. In other words, our Romans passage is a clear distillation of what is happening as we transition from death to life through the silence of Saturday.
Paul begins with a question (v. 1) that he then (passionately) answers in v. 2: What therefore will we say? Should we persist in sin so that grace might superabound? Hell no! How can we who died to sin still live in it? In this portion, Paul addresses the new life believers have in Christ: this is absolutely not a continuation of what has gone before and is something completely new! There is a clean break between what was sealed up in the tomb with Christ on Good Friday, and the new life the believers step into on Easter Sunday Morning.
Because there is no continuation between what was by deeds of the flesh and what is now by faith in Christ, Paul feels compelled to ask the Romans, Or, do you not know that all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (v.3)Meaning, there’s a lie floating about that those who believe in Christ don’t suffer Christ’s fate, that we are exempted from that death. For Paul, while we weren’t nailed to the cross in literal terms, we do suffer a death like Christ’s, and this is actualized in our participation in the waters of baptism. (Being submerged under the water is to buried with Christ, to come up out of the water is to be raised with Christ.) For Paul, it is imperative that we take seriously the reality that we die like Christ; for Paul (and thus for us), THIS IS GOOD NEWS! Paul writes, Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of Abba God, in this way we, we might also walk in the newness of life (v.4). Through what God did in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, death that leads to life is the only path for believers. What is ruled out? Death that leads to death. Why? Because those who journey through a death like Christ’s receive resurrection into new life that cannot die like Christ cannot die (and this new life is both internal and external, spiritual and temporal!).[2] Thus why Paul can then write, For if we have become united together with him in a death like his death, we will also [be united with him in his] resurrection (v. 5). We live unafraid of another death because we live eternally in and with Christ.
Paul continues to elaborate about this identification between the believer and Christ, Knowing that our old person was crucified together [with Christ] with the result that the body of sin is abolished, so that we are no longer a slave to sin, for the one who has died [with Christ] has been declared righteous from sin (vv. 6-7). Paul anchors the believer in the death of Christ so that their body of sin—not their existence as fleshy creatures, but their defective orientation resulting in sin thus death[3]—is put to death and this is liberation because it cannot weigh the believer down anymore. Another way to say this is that by virtue of identification with Christ in Christ’s death, sin and its consequence, death, are put to death.[4] What was ushered in by Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, has been put asunder by the death of death that is brought in and through Christ’s death and resurrection. And if this is the case, then with Paul we can say, And if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live together with him (v.8). Captivity itself is now held captive and the captives—the ones formerly held in captivity to sin and death—are liberated.[5]
Paul then writes, Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead no longer dies, death no longer rules over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God [always]. Thus you, you also consider yourselves to be dead to sin and only living to God in Christ Jesus. For those who follow Christ, to live is to live unbound by death, released from captivity, no longer controlled and threatened by sin. According to Paul, it’s not that believers now no longer sin; they do. Believers will miss the mark, they will shoot and not score, they will mean one thing and do another, they will harm, they will mar, they will wound. What Paul is getting at is that the believer—while still a sinner—is liberated from the effects of sin which is death. The believer—now declared righteous although a sinner still (simul iustus et peccator)—has died once and for all (like Christ) and never needs to die again to sin (though sin is going to happen).[6] In other words, the believer does not need to intentionally sin so that they can die again to sin and again be declared righteous. Doing so is unnecessary and declares the grace of God unnecessary (Hell no!), as if being made righteous can come by any other means apart from grace and faith in Christ.
Because Jesus died once for all, believers in union with Christ by faith will never really die (they will “fall asleep in Christ”) because death has met its own death, captivity its own captivity. [7],[8] Rather, like Christ, they will live by the grace of God and for the grace of God.[9] This is an eternal living because the believer—by faith and God’s grace—lives in Christ and Christ who is now the Lord of life is no longer subject to death and its lordship—thus, those who live in Christ have life eternal because Christ is now eternal even in his raised and ascended body.[10] Even when sin shows up in the believer’s life—and it will—this eternal living is not hindered or hampered. Rather—through easy access to forgiveness and absolution—the believer can get up, wipe the dust off, and try again to live the life that reflects their eternal life in Christ.[11] Here the spiritual can manifest in the temporal, the outer aligns with the inner, God’s will can be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Conclusion
For the disciples, the deathly silence of Saturday was palpable. For (about) 36 hours, waiting for the Sabbath to pass, waiting for the dawn of second full day after Christ’s death, they died, each one of them died with Christ—in grief, loss, shock, doubt, hopelessness, helplessness. They despaired of themselves, they released all that they thought was, and they came to the absolute ends of themselves. And here, in their ignorance to the divine movements, amid their darkest doubt, their deepest despair, surrounded by a void of sound or word, God was about to usher them into a brand-new conception of what it means to live in Christ, to live in love, to live liberated from all that was. As the host of heaven held its breath and as the disciples cried, God was on the move raising the greatest gift for the cosmos: the fulfilment of God’s glorious promise, Jesus the Christ raised holding death itself captive to death.
Tonight, we move from death to life. This service dives in deep to the silence of Saturday, the despair of a missing messiah, the stripping away of hope. At the beginning, we are all stuck in our sin, set on a path toward death eternal, forever held captive by its threat and presence, stealing from us any sense of peace—for how can anyone really have peace if they are always scrambling away from and fighting against death and its fruits? But in the blink of an eye, God moved, the heavenly host exhaled, and we find ourselves shrouded in the mystery of Christ being raised from the dead to be for us the source, sustenance, and sustainment of divine life, love, and liberation for all people, the entire cosmos, forever and always. As those who are prone to wander, God has come in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit to be our new life marked by remembering and not forgetting, walking and not tromping, gathered and not estranged, accepting and not judging, peaceful and lifegiving and not violent and death-dealing. Today we are new creatures with a new life and a new way to walk in the world for the wellbeing of our neighbors and to the glory of God.
Hallelujah! Christ is Risen!
[1] All translations from Romans are mine unless otherwise noted
[2] LW 25:309. “For having put on our mortal flesh and dying only in it and rising only in it, now only in it He joins these things together for us, for in this flesh He became a sacrament for the inner man and an example for the outward man.”
[3] LW 25:313. “The term ‘old man’ describes what kind of person is born of Adam, not according to his nature but according to the defect of his nature. For his nature is good, but the defect is evil.”
[4] LW 25:310. “Eternal death is also twofold. The one kind is good, very good. It is the death of sin and the death of death, by which the soul is released and separated form sin and the body is separated rom corruption and through grace and glory is joined to the living God. This is death in the most proper sense of the word, for in all other forms of death something remains that is mixed with life but not in this kind of death, where there is the purest life alone, because it is eternal life. For to this kind of death alone belong in an absolute and perfect way the conditions of death, and in this death alone whatever dies perishes totally and into eternal nothingness, and nothing will ever return from this death because it truly dies an eternal death. This is the way sin dies; and likewise the sinner, when he is justified, because sin will not return again for all eternity…”
[5] LW 25:310. “This is the principle theme in scripture. For God has arranged to remove through Christ whatever the devil brought in through Adam. And it as the devil who brought in sin and death. Therefore God brought about the death of death and the sin of sin, the poison of poison, the captivity of captivity.”
[6] LW 25:314. “The meaning is that we must undergo this spiritual death only once. For whoever dies thus lives for all eternity. Therefore we must not return to our sin in order to die to sin again.”
[7] LW 25:311. “Because for death to be killed means that death will not return, and ‘to take captivity captive’ means that captivity will never return, a concept which cannot be expressed through an affirmative assertion.”
[8] LW 25:311. “For the entering into life can, and necessarily must, become a departure from life, but the ‘escape form death’ means to enter into a life which is without death.”
[9] LW 25:313. “Nor can he be freed of his perversity except by the grace of God…This is said not only because of the stubbornness of perverse people but particularly because of the extremely deep infection of this inherited weakness and original poison, by which a man seeks his own advantage even in God himself because of his love of concupiscence.”
[10] LW 25:315. “For just as the ray of the sun is eternal because the sun is eternal, so the spiritual life is eternal because Christ is eternal; for He is our life, and through faith He flows into us and remains in us by the rays of His grace. Therefore, just as Christ is eternal, so also the grace which flows out of Him is from His eternal nature. Furthermore, just because a man sins again his spiritual life does not die, but he turns his back on this life and dies, while this life remains eternal in Christ.”
[11] LW 25:315. “He has Christ, who dies no more; therefore he himself dies no more, but rather he lives with Christ forever. Hence also we are baptized only once, by which we gain the life of Christ, even though we often fall and rise again. For the life of Christ can be recovered again and again, but a person can enter upon it only once, just as a man who has never been rich can begin to get rich only once, although he can again and again lose and regain his wealth.”
#DeathToLife #Despair #Disciples #DivineActivity #DivineLiberation #DivineLife #DivineLove #DivineSilence #Grief #Helplessness #HolySaturday #Hoplessness #Jesus #JesusTheChrist #Liberation #Life #Love #MartinLuther #NewCreation #NewLife #Romans #Sabbath #UnionWithGod
“Prone to Wander”: Human Judgment, Judged
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EElFHImhcw&authuser=0
Psalm 116: 1,10 I love Abba God, because Abba God has heard the voice of my supplication, because Abba God has inclined Abba God’s ear to me whenever I called upon Abba God. How shall I repay Abba God for all the good things Abba God has done for me?
Introduction
Our journey through Lent to Holy Week has brought us to the reality of our situation. We have seen that we’re prone to forsake and give up following the way of the reign of God; we have seen that we’re prone to tromp and tread on the land, on our neighbor, on God, and on ourselves; we have seen that we’re eager to estrange ourselves and become strangers to God, thus to our neighbor, thus to ourselves. While we would love for the exposure of Lent to be over, our exposure is, only now, getting personal.
Maundy Thursday isn’t really about “foot washing” or about finding ways to make yourselves smaller and more servant-like to your neighbor—even though such acts are exposing and can bring a certain (healthy) amount of humility. Rather, Maundy Thursday is about Peter being exposed for what he doesn’t understand about who Jesus is and what his mission on earth is all about. And, thus—if it’s about Peter being exposed—it’s about us being exposed for not really getting what Jesus is truly up to. While we claim all year to know what God’s mission is in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, we don’t really know and we often forget what it is once we’re told, and we conflate it and force it to conform with our own desires, and (then) walk away from it completely. Maundy Thursday is designed to drive some of those final and big nails into our coffin of exposure. As we gaze upon Christ in the gospel story, watch him remove his clothes and don only a wrap around his waist and begin to wash the feet of his disciples, we should feel the urge building up to blurt out, with Peter, “‘You will never wash my feet!’” A simple statement meant for respect yet exposing how much we really don’t understand what is happening or why Christ is here. On Maundy Thursday, our judgment is called to account for itself, and it will be found lacking.
We are prone to bad judgment because we are prone to wander from our God of love.
Exodus 12:1-14
Here in our First Testament passage from the book of Exodus, Moses and Aaron receive the instructions for the Passover event. The Passover marks the beginning of a new era for Israel. While the exodus event through the Sea of Reeds is the tangible component of Israel’s promised liberation, it is the meal that marks the beginning of the new era defined by redemption. [1] It is this Passover event that is, for Israel, the break in time and space between what was and what will be. Their liberation begins in believing God, trusting God’s word—faith manifesting in action; this is why the Passover event of liberation becomes the mark of a new year for Israel and will always be a mark of a new year: each new year will solicit a new faith to enter the dusk setting on yesterday and dawn rising on tomorrow.[2]
The response of Israel built on faith in God’s trustworthiness and truthfulness is to prepare, eat, and perform a meal in a specific way. God informs Moses and Aaron that on the tenth day of the month all of Israel is to take an unblemished, one year-old, male lamb (one per household or one per a couple of small households), and on the fourteenth day they must slaughter their lambs at twilight. The blood from this sacrifice is to be painted onto the doorposts and lintels of the households where the Passover lamb must be eaten. God then gives very specific instructions regarding the eating of the lamb and the Passover meal:
“They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly.” (Ex. 12:8-11)
This isn’t any other meal; it’s a meal that’s refusing enjoyment, merriment, and lingering. Every part of this meal must take place with intention and presence; it’s to be done in haste as if the threat of death looms on the boundary of the meal—because it does loom.[3] “The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt,” (v.13). They will eat this meal, putting all their faith in God and that God is faithful to God’s promises that those who follow what has been told to Aaron and Moses will be exempted from this final curse of the passing over of God and the execution of divine judgment on all the firstborns of the land.[4]
The Israelites must suspend their own judgment. They must step into the void from where God beckons them and faith lures them. They must not pause and consider what is common sense or what aligns with what they know to be good and right. In this moment, human judgment comes under attack by the unstated, whom do you love? The Israelites, individually and as a community had to give their answer. That night, as the angel of death swept over Egypt striking down all the firstborn of the land, divine judgment was executed; that night as families woke up human judgment received its verdict.
Conclusion
Would you? Put yourselves in Israel’s shoes. Would you kill the lamb, paint its blood on your door frames, and eat that meal in haste? Would you risk the life of your child, the life of your sibling, the your own life to appease what made the most sense to you? While we read this as a myth, it’s still a myth with a purpose to expose us. The question comes to us through these Ancient Israelites stuck in captivity and oppression. Would each of us, would we as a community, be able to see the depth at which God is doing a new thing in our lives to liberate us from captivity? Would we be able to trust that God is doing this thing and that God is truthful and trustworthy and will make good on God’s promises? Would we be able to suspend our judgment long enough to let God be God?
I’m neither advocating for “blind” and “uninformed” faith no affirming that voice in your head you think may God’s Spirit telling you to do something a bit uncharacteristic (always have those ideas checked by scripture and teaching!). What I am advocating for is this: are we able to suspend our human informed judgment long enough to see when God is doing something new in the world even when it contradicts our conception of what should be done in the world? Are we able to suspend what we think is right and good long enough to see when God is working a new thing for the wellbeing of our neighbor, which ends up being (ultimately) for our own wellbeing? Are we able to unplug our eyes and ears from what we have grown accustomed to seeing and hearing long enough to see and hear when God is calling us into liberation, into love, and into life and away from captivity, away from indifference, and away from death? Would we be able to learn something new about God’s divine mission in the world so to echo Peter’s eager and desperate response to Jesus, Wash not only my feet but my whole body, inside and out!? Would you be able to suspend your judgment long enough to let God be God?
The bad news is that we, as fleshy meat creatures prone to wander, will deliver our answer; the good news is that God knows this and comes to do something about it.
[1] Jeffrey H. Tigay, “Exodus,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 125. “Preparations for the exodus” “Israel is to prepare for the coming redemption with a sacrificial banquet while the final plague is occurring and is to commemorate the event in the future on its anniversary by eating unleavened bread for a week and reenacting the banquet. This banquet became the prototype of the postbiblical Seder, the festive meal at which the exodus story is retold and expounded each year to this day on the holiday of Pesah (Passover), as explained below.”
[2] Tigay, “Exodus,” 125. “Since the exodus will be commemorated on its anniversary every year…the preparatory instructions begin with the calendar. Henceforth the year will commence with the month of the exodus, and months will be referred to by ordinal numbers rather than names….Since the number will mean essentially ‘in the Xth month since we gained freedom,’ every reference to a month will commemorate the redemption.”
[3] Tigay, “Exodus,” 126. “The Israelites are to eat while prepared to leave on a moment’s notice.”
[4] Tigay, “Exodus,” 126. “In most European languages, it is also the name of Easter (as in French ‘Paques’). The translation ‘passover’ (and hence the English name of the holiday) is probably incorrect. The alternativity translation ‘protective offering’ is more likely…”
#DivineLiberation #DivineLife #DivineLove #Exodus #HolyWeek #JeffreyTigay #JPSStudyBible #Judgment #Liberation #Life #Love #MaundyThursday #Passover #Peter #ThePassover
This powerful parable reveals the depths of the Father’s love, patience, and forgiveness. Join us as we explore the story of two lost sons and the timeless message of divine grace through the eyes of Jesus. Let’s uncover profound truths together! #ParableOfTheLostSons #DivineLove #FatherlyForgiveness #JesusTeachings #BiblicalStories #FaithJourney #SpiritualGrowth #GodsPatience #ReligiousEducation #ParablesExplained
Experience the overwhelming embrace of a loving Father, offering hope and comfort in challenging times. We explore the joy of faith, gratitude, and the beautiful banquet awaiting those who believe in Jesus, reminding us that God’s love is our strength. #DivineLove #Salvation #FaithJourney #SpiritualComfort #HopeInGod #Isaiah #ChristianFaith #JesusChrist #EmotionalHealing #GodsPromise
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