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He is Risen!
Trust
Morning
Psalm 97
1 Cor. 15:30-41
Evening
Psalm 15
Exodus 12:40-51
Hymn
Prayer
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his
disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith,
that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives
and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God,
now and for ever. Amen.
Devotional: Psalm 97
From Rev. Martin Antoon:
I have three memories that stand out as my earliest of my life. The first was an incredibly unremarkable day one morning in three-year-old preschool. I don’t know why I remember it. The second was cutting a chunk out of my hair when I was four. Maybe slightly more significant, but still not that noteworthy in the grand scheme of things. But I also have another memory from my four-year-old days. For whatever reason, I decided to stick a paper clip in an electrical socket. You could blame me for my lack of knowledge of simple electrical currents, or you could blame the apparent lack of oversight from whatever teacher was supposed to be watching. But I remember a loud buzzing noise, which was followed by a teacher walking over to me, not saying a single word, picking me up, and promptly setting me down somewhere else. And the question I remember thinking to myself was this: “Why did she do that?”
As the virus continues its global course, something is becoming clear. The reason we are collectively so unsettled is not just because we worry for our safety. After all, we do things all the time that, in theory, jeopardize our well-being. The fear of the virus lies in the fact that we truly have no idea what the next months, or maybe even year, could hold. It’s scary. We want to know that somebody is in control.
What does the Psalmist mean when He says “The Lord reigns?” We use that language a lot. Simply put, it means two things are true. Nothing happens outside of God’s control, and God works all things together for good for those who love Him. It might, at times, leave us asking the question “Why did He do that?” We might truly suffer in the midst of everything going on, but we can take comfort in one thing: though we may not have the answers, God does. He invites us to ask the question knowing that it will ultimately strengthen our dependence on Him. The answer to my four-year-old-self’s question is painfully obvious now. I just didn’t have the understanding required to see it at the time. Thankfully, the person in charge did. We don’t have the wisdom to understand God’s master plan, but thankfully we can trust that He does.
Finding Joy in the News
Texts:
Morning
Psalm 103
1 Cor. 15:12-28
Evening
Psalm 111
Exodus 12:28-39
Hymn
Prayer
O God, who by the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus
Christ destroyed death and brought life and immortality to
light: Grant that we, who have been raised with him, may
abide in his presence and rejoice in the hope of eternal glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the
Holy Spirit, be dominion and praise for ever and ever. Amen.
Devotional: Psalm 103
There is a lot of bad news on the news. Obviously. Stories are full of sickness, incompetence, governments fighting with one another, and with themselves. There are lies, counter-lies, narratives and counter-narratives, statistics floating everywhere. Reading it all is seriously disheartening. And if you are as addicted to the news as most of us are (news which flows into us through our phones, which we need so desperately to maintain a connection to the outside world in an age of social distancing), the news shapes our emotional experience of our day-to-day lives. What if that fight we had with our spouses or roommates was really about the stress we are carrying from the news?
The Psalmist offers us a better way. He offers us an emotional experience full of joy and praises to God. God has forgiven him, healed him, redeemd him, loves him, gives him good things, and is righteous (v. 1-6). Does the Psalmist just live in a perfect, privileged world? Is that why the writer expresses joy? Some of us feel too guilty to express joy right now, because the news has told us that we have what others don't...
The Psalmist's life and his joy isn't based on his circumstances. The opposite in fact- he knows he is going to die, and his days are limited (v. 15-16). But the joy remains, because it's based on the news he is reading. It's based on his knowledge of God, which he has gained as a result of reviewing the things that God has done in the world- saving his people, redeeming them, and making Himself known to them. You are going to die, you will be forgotten by mankind- a hard truth. But nothing in comparison to the joy which comes from knowing that you have not been forgotten by God!
Reflections
1. Which news shapes your emotional experience in the day-to-day: CNN, or the good news of the gospel?
2. Is it time to unplug for awhile?
3. When reading todays news, it feels like you only have two options: to be a sheep who goes along with authority, or a jerk who thumbs his/her nose at authority. How might taking the gospel as our formative news subvert both of those options? Are you a sheep or a jerk? How does the gospel of God's acts in history free you?
The Question of the Resurrection
The Question of the Resurrection
Texts:
Morning
Psalm 93
Mark 16:1-8
Evening
Psalm 66
1 Cor. 15:1-11
Hymn
Prayer
Grant, Almighty God, that we who we celebrate with awe the Resurrection of your Son may be found worthy to attain to everlasting joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen.
Devotional: Mark 16:1-8
Easter Sunday is over, and as I look out my office window it is raining. The confidence and assurance that we felt at the pronouncement of the Good News ("the battle's done and the victory is won, the Lamb has overcome," from the hymn above) wavers. Was it ever there at all?
We have so many questions about the resurrection. They are good questions. They need to be asked. That sort of thing doesn't happen, does it? Wasn't it just propaganda, drawn up by the early church to legitimate its claim to power? Maybe everybody was just confused? Hallucinating? Weren't ancient people more superstitious? Ask the questions. Look for answers. Start here, and don't stop until you get some.
The Gospel of Mark is interested in a different question though. Mark is interested in the questions, not that we ask of the Resurrection, but that the Resurrection asks of us. In fact, most scholars agree that Mark ends at chapter 16 verse 8. Not with a bodily appearance of Jesus, but with an empty tomb, and the women who loved him there, shocked and afraid. It is as if the author is asking US, "just what do you think happened here?" Answer the question. Ask for help. Start here, and don't stop until you know.
If the resurrection didn't happen, then you are left with a rainy Monday in quarantine, 2020. If the resurrection did happen, then Jesus is Lord. Easter is still on, for the next three weeks of the Christian calendar, but really all year round. Anything can happen. Joy is possible. Redemption is possible. Hope is possible, in this life and the next. What do you say?
Reflection
1. Did it happen?
2. How does the truth of the Resurrection shape my joy and hope today?
3. What does it look like to live, not by optimism or by pessimism, but by faith?
Easter Sunday
Easter Sunday
Join us for worship at 5 pm this Sunday by clicking this link. Download and print out our order of worship here.
He is Risen!
Good Friday: Beloved Failures
Texts:
Morning
Psalm 22
John 13:36-38
Evening
Psalm 40:1-14
John 19:38-42
Hymn
Christ the Lord is Risen Today, in anticipation of Easter
Prayer
Our Gracious God and Heavenly Father, You have loved us, even when we were dead in our sins. Your grace made us alive together with Christ. You have called us out of darkness and into your light. We confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. Forgive us, O God, and bless us by your Spirit, that we might have the courage to walk in the good works to which you have called us, to the praise of your glorious name, Amen.
Devotional: John 13:36-38
Rev. Martin Antoon:
I’ve been a Miami Dolphins fan ever since I was six years old. If I could have it over, it’s possible I might pick a different team to save myself what would become over two decades of incessant heartbreak, but it’s far too late for that now. Among the countless games over the years, one particular game stands out in my mind. The year was 1999, and the Dolphins had one of their best teams in a long time. They were so good that they did a very un-Dolphins thing and made the playoffs. After a good win against the Seahawks in the first round, they faced the Jacksonville Jaguars in the next round. The Dolphins were supposed to be strong contenders. Dan Marino was wrapping up a legendary career at Quarterback. They had a strong group of receivers, and the star-studded defense was one of the best in the league.
To say that the Dolphins lost the game would be putting it mildly. To this day, it still stands as the worst playoff loss in NFL history over the past 80 years. All the expectations pointed to a strong team that could deliver when needed, but the results were disastrous.
Peter’s final moments in the Upper Room with Jesus ring oddly similarly to the 1999 Miami Dolphins. Peter is confident that in the closing hours of Jesus’s life, as the authorities close in to unjustly arrest Him, he will remain strong beside Jesus. “I will lay down my life for you,” says Peter. But Jesus tells Peter another story about how things will end. Instead of laying down his life, he is told that out of fear and cowardice, he will deny the same friend he has just promised to defend. Not only will he deny Jesus, but he will do it three times. Not surprisingly, this is exactly what happens. Peter’s expectations of heroism and strength were replaced by shame and failure as Jesus goes on trial and Peter seeks only his own safety. He sends Jesus to the cross alone.
I suspect most of us had ambitions entering this era of quarantine where we were going to change for the better. We were going to kick our spiritual lives into overdrive. We were going to spend quality time with our families. We were going to pick up a hobby. We were going to read more. We were going to serve and love others. We were going to be strong when the circumstances tempted us to be weak. And while we possibly did improve some areas of our lives, you probably found that you were far weaker than you had aspired. And maybe you feel like a failure.
The Dolphins may not have won a playoff game in the last 20 years, but I still love them. Peter may have failed, but Jesus still loves him and draws near to him with unconditional mercy. It’s not because of our strength that God loves us, it’s in spite of our weakness. God offers grace to failures. The beautiful final scene with Jesus and Peter after the Resurrection is not one of shame and anger as Jesus confronts his betrayer. It’s a scene of forgiveness and breakfast as Jesus welcomes him back. Jesus doesn’t want your record of accomplishments, He wants you.
Maundy Thursday: The Daily Heroic
Texts:
Morning
Psalm 102
Mark 14:12-25
Evening
Psalm 142/143
Mark 14:12-25
Hymn
Christ the Lord is Risen Today, in anticipation of Easter
Prayer
Our Gracious God and Heavenly Father, You have loved us, even when we were dead in our sins. Your grace made us alive together with Christ. You have called us out of darkness and into your light. We confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. Forgive us, O God, and bless us by your Spirit, that we might have the courage to walk in the good works to which you have called us, to the praise of your glorious name, Amen.
Devotional: Mark 14:12-25
When I was 6 or 7 my family went to a ropes course in Western North Carolina. At the end of the course, I jumped off of the ropes and put my hands on the ground to steady myself. I remember the feeling of the leaves on my hands as I touched them- wet and soft. I remember the fear as the first yellow jacket flew out of the ground, followed by many. I remember the stinging pain as they swarmed me. And I remember the relief as my Father jumped down into the ditch and pulled me up. And I remember the welcome slap on my flesh, again and again, as he swatted the yellow jackets off. My deliverance was sensory. My Father's presence with me was sensory.
Its that sensual presence with us that we remember on Maundy Thursday. "Maundy," derived from the Latin "mandatum," means "mandate or commandment." In the passion week narrative, Jesus gives the disciples a new commandment: that they love one another. And he expresses and models that love in very sensible, tangible ways: washing his disciples feet- can you feel the cool water?- and feeding them his body- taste the bread?- and his blood- has the wine gotten buzzy in your head? Jesus' love is sensual, tangible, embodied. Our God is not a God of abstraction, far off and removed from daily life. He doesn't call us into secret mysteries. The knowledge of him isn't in the first place mystical; unless by mystical we mean the glory and mystery of simple things, alive. The glory of smell and taste and touch.
To keep the mandate ourselves is as tangible as it was on that first Thursday. We experience the presence of God when we get clean, when we eat together. And we mediate that presence to God, not just in formal religious worship (although that presence is most explicit and clear in those moments), but when we clean one another, feed one another, forgive one another, sustain one another. This presence is rarely spectacular in the way that we think of it: big and flashy. But it is spectacular in its quiet consistency, in its settled determination to bless one another and the world in tangible ways. To love God and to serve him, especially during this quarantine, is as Pope John Paul II said: "The heroic must become daily, and the daily must become heroic."
Reflections
1. Today: take a bath. A long one. Thank God for the water.
2. Today: eat a meal. Taste it. Have a glass of wine. Enjoy it. Praise God for it.
3. What are some small, daily, physical ways you can bless one another today?
Holy Wednesday: We Didn't Ask For This
Texts:
Morning
Psalm 55
Mark 12:1-11
Evening
Psalm 74
Mark 12:1-11
Hymn
Christ the Lord is Risen Today, in anticipation of Easter
Prayer
Our Gracious God and Heavenly Father, You have loved us, even when we were dead in our sins. Your grace made us alive together with Christ. You have called us out of darkness and into your light. We confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. Forgive us, O God, and bless us by your Spirit, that we might have the courage to walk in the good works to which you have called us, to the praise of your glorious name, Amen.
Devotional: Mark 11:27-33
Rev. Martin Antoon:
At this point, we’re starting to get pretty accustomed to suffering, aren’t we? For some of us, it looks like being cooped up in the house for hours and days on end, burdened by the absence of consistency. For others, it looks like lost jobs or the fear of their impending end. For some of us, our suffering comes in the form of loved ones who are in danger of getting infected, or worse, loved ones who are sick. The perpetual sense of suffering has started to color everything that we do and every thought that we have. “I didn’t ask for this,” we think to ourselves. The knowledge that we tried to keep ourselves at a distance seems to offer some consolation. If we ascribe our condition to some impersonal force, we can try to alleviate its sting.
Jesus was also familiar with suffering during His life. He brings our attention to Psalm 118 to reveal the depths of this suffering. He is the stone that the builders rejected. Considering the imagery creates a vivid scene. In the grand construction of this “kingdom” being built by others, this particular stone is to be cast aside in rejection. We have no use for it here. It’s worthless. So was Jesus considered to the world. Yet never for a moment did Jesus think to Himself, “I didn’t ask for this.” In fact, He volunteered Himself to be the stone that the builders rejected. Unlike our suffering, He willingly entered into His. And His suffering was personal. It was from those who He came to save, us included.
As we spend this week reflecting on Jesus’s final week of suffering, let’s use our present suffering to remind us of something important – Jesus’s hurt wasn’t some abstract idea of pain. It was as real, piercing, and tangible as the suffering that we have felt amidst the virus. And it was pain that we caused Him. And rather than saying “I didn’t ask for this,” Jesus presses on, knowing that the fate of the cross awaits Him. And He does it precisely so our present suffering would not be in vain. Jesus doesn’t just love you when it’s convenient, He loves you even when it’s hard for you to love Him back.
Something More Than Good
Texts:
Morning
Psalm 12
Mark 11:27-33
Evening
Psalm 6
Mark 11:27-33
Hymn
Christ the Lord is Risen Today, in anticipation of Easter
Prayer
Our Gracious God and Heavenly Father, You have loved us, even when we were dead in our sins. Your grace made us alive together with Christ. You have called us out of darkness and into your light. We confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. Forgive us, O God, and bless us by your Spirit, that we might have the courage to walk in the good works to which you have called us, to the praise of your glorious name, Amen.
Devotional: Mark 11:27-33
We have all known people who were so nice, so sugary sweet, so over the top excessively "good" that we really just wanted to punch them in the mou... er... not be friends with them. The sugary sweet goodness that never puts a foot wrong is so perfect that it starts to feel like its a goodness that isn't for others, but for themselves. Few people would ever follow that person, except for authorities who are glad to have a rule follower that makes their lives easy.
That is not the sort of person that Jesus was, although we are often tempted to imagine him that way. We are told that Jesus was so good that people hated him; so gracious that legalists killed him, so nice and sweet that our evil world couldn't let him live. Question: who would want to follow a Jesus whose virtue was being a goody two-shoes?
Holy Week gives us a very different Jesus. Mark 11 shows a Jesus who isn't sucking up to power, but is actively confronting it. The powers that be had begun to despise him, not because he was good, but because he was authoritative. When he comes to Jerusalem to clean out the Temple, he is saying something about his authority- that he speaks for God as a prophet at least, calling people to live as God calls them to. And maybe he speaks as something more. Our passage today has Jesus confounding the Temple authorities with a question about his authority. He shrouds himself in mystery- just who exactly is this wandering Galilean? Certainly no goody two-shoes- he is confronting unjust powers, not kissing up to them. The tension of Holy Week increases. This sort of thing can't be allowed to happen, for the sake of public order...
Jesus wasn't killed because he was nice. He was killed because he was a threat. He was killed because he was the King. And that would have been that, except he was a different sort of King than anybody imagined.
For reflection:
1. How domesticated is our Jesus?
2. Reflect on this quote: "Safe? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you." - Mr. Beaver, CS Lewis' Narnia
3. What would it look like to let Jesus become your authority? What wild thing might he call you into?
Holy Monday: Figs, Frauds, and Faith
Announcements:
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Texts:
Morning
Psalm 51:1-18
Mark 11:12-25
Evening
Psalm 69:1-23
Mark 11:12-25
Hymn
Christ the Lord is Risen Today, in anticipation of Easter
Prayer
Our Gracious God and Heavenly Father, You have loved us, even when we were dead in our sins. Your grace made us alive together with Christ. You have called us out of darkness and into your light. We confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. Forgive us, O God, and bless us by your Spirit, that we might have the courage to walk in the good works to which you have called us, to the praise of your glorious name, Amen.
Devotional
"I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed." Was there ever a time when the intent of a statement differs more from how it is received? When a parent says this, they are trying to take the fear away from their child- "I'm not angry!" But they do it by disengaging, by distancing themselves. When a child hears this, they long for anger. "Love me enough to be angry, but please don't be disappointed!" The opposite of love isn't anger. The opposite of love is contempt.
Jesus loves us enough to be angry. On Holy Monday, Mark offers us up a strange story about a fig tree that hasn't borne fruit (Mark11:12-14), and a temple that is full of robbers (Mark 11:17), and a faith that can move mountains (Mark 11:22-25). It was time for the fig tree to bear fruit, but the tree hadn't done so. In the same way, it was time for the people of God, tasked with bringing the blessings of God to all the nations through their worship in the temple, who had actually used the temple to exploit the nations. Jesus' anger calls them to remember that if they had faith, they could accomplish anything- even the blessing of the world.
Jesus loves them, no, Jesus loves US, enough to be angry.
Is it possible that we have used the blessings God has provided us to be arrogant? To look on others with contempt? To hoard the profit of relationship with God for our own benefit? To believe that we have more value as humans, more worth, because we are Christians? Some of the examples of this in the church are all over the news today; but we know that all of us harbor some of this in our hearts. Jesus comes to destroy this part of us with his wrath, that another part of us- freer, more loving, more missional- might live. His anger is surgical, but intentional. Christian, your faith is not for you- your faith is for the world. There is no other kind of faith in the God of the Bible. It is time to stop hiding, time to stop running, time to stop our arrogance and love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
For reflection:
1. What are some of the ways that we have failed to bear fruit that blesses our neighbors?
2. Why are we tempted to use our faith as a sign of our superiority, instead of as an acknowledgement of our humility?
3. How does Jesus free you to acknowledge your humility and serve others?