A Daily Lent

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent Daily Reading : John 5:1 – 16 Focus Passage : One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?" "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." (Jn. 5:5 – 7) The challenges of being healthy of body, mind, emotion and soul sometimes outweigh the difficulties inherent in sickness and disability. Spiritual health does not happen by osmosis. It is not a matter of joining the right church or being a regular attender in worship or having parents who live with a growing faith. Spiritual health, like physical or mental health, happens with intentionality. We make decisions about how we intend to live, about the kind of persons we want to be. In the spir...

Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent Daily Reading : John 4:43 – 54 Focus Passage : "Unless you people see signs and wonders," Jesus told him, "you will never believe." The royal official said, "Sir, come down before my child dies." "Go," Jesus replied, "your son will live." The man took Jesus at his word and departed. (Jn. 4:49 – 50) The official with the sick son “took Jesus at his word.” What does it mean to “take Jesus at his word”? Some contemporary expressions of Christianity reduce faith to a system of assertions and propositions we are to believe intellectually. They suggest that we agree with certain statements about God and Jesus. If we agree with those statements, especially in public, we believe. Many Christians think that such belief in and of itself is the extent of Christian faith, reducing life with God to mental assent. I can speak about this mindset, because I’ve spent a good part...

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent John 5:2 – 9 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath. 38 years ago what were you doing? What was life like for you? Did anything life-altering happen for you? 38 years ago this spring I was a high school junior in Tulsa, Oklahoma....

John 7:40 - 43 On hearing his words, some of the people said, Surely this man is the Prophet. Others said, He is the Christ. Still others asked, How can the Christ come from Galilee? Does not the Scripture say that the Christ will come from David's family and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived? Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. There was a division among the people because of Jesus. I wonder why Christianity, from its beginnings, has been so beset by divisions, by splinterings? I imagine there are some folks who would say, in response, that Jesus was a polarizing figure. They might say that with Jesus, you are either in or you are out , that you are with him or against him, and that by his very nature, Jesus sets up this division. I know some of these mental impulses, some of these arguments. I've advocated for them at times in my past. The history of institutional Christianity has largely been about deciding what the boundaries are or fig...

John 5:2 - 7 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie — the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” I'm thinking about the man who had been disabled for 38 years, and who could not answer Jesus' question, "Do you want to get well?" Most all of us have stories we tell ourselves and tell others about ourselves, and many of them are stories that rob us of our personhood. They are stories that define us in certain ways, stories that tell only a partial truth about who ...

John 2:17 "Zeal for your house will consume me." Those who observed Jesus' actions in the Temple -- what we call the "cleansing of the Temple" -- used this verse from Psalm 69:9 to describe his motivation for upsetting the Temple (John 2:13 - 25, which is the entire lesson for today). They interpreted his actions as "zeal." "Zeal" and "consume" are the old words, used in the King James Version, and followed by most of the older translations. The more contemporary Bible translations use "love," "strong love," or "passion" instead of zeal, and they use the image of that love burning or being on fire instead of "consume". "My love for your house burns in me like a fire" (CEV). The cultural way to think about zeal and passion is that everyone needs a little bit, that if you're not at least a little passionate about something you're not really living. But we have such a b...

Luke 5:31 - 32 “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Before seeking a cure, you have to acknowledge sickness. Before you can be whole, you have to confess your brokenness. Before you can be rescued, you have to know that you're in peril. For people who are self-sufficient, self-nourished and self-reliant, the offers of Jesus are hollow. Jesus comes to make life whole, to put broken life together, to give coherence to what is fractured, and to bring union where there is division. If you think you already are whole ("I have it all!"), then Jesus has nothing for you, and you likely don't see any need of Jesus. This is why Jesus said it's hard for people with a lot of possessions and status to enter the kingdom of God . . . at a basic level, persons who possess a lot don't feel like there is anything they could have with God that they don't alread...

John 11:1 – 45 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. It is when people walk at night that they stumble, for they have no light.” After he had said this, he w...

John 5:1 – 16 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” But he replied, “The man who ...

John 5:1 – 16 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?" "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the l...