Not Just Sin

The first thing Adam and Eve did after eating the apple was cover their nakedness – shame was part and parcel with sin.  As Kevin DeYoung pointed out in a 2011 sermon from the book of Mark, God’s redemption plan through Jesus Christ takes away our shame as well as our sin.  When Jesus is hung on the cross in Mark 15, there is no description of the nasty, painful, bloody process; it just says they crucified him.  But the passage is replete with ways that friends, leaders, soldiers, thieves and even those passing by heap shame on the Son of God. 

 It started the night before when one disciple betrayed him, the lead disciple denied him, none of the disciples could stay awake to pray with him, and they all ran away when Jesus was arrested.  At the trial, witnesses lied about him and the high priest called the Son of God a blasphemer. Soldiers dressed him up, sarcastically saluted and bowed to him along with spitting and whipping with a reed used as a fake scepter. Someone else carried his cross because he was too weak to do it himself.  After their gruesome work was done the soldiers turned their back on him to gamble for his clothes.  The derision of the sign, “King of the Jews” was echoed by the priests and scribes who taunted, “come on down, King of Israel, so that we may see and believe.” The two criminals crucified beside him railed at him.

 Why this emphasis on shaming acts? So that we know that along with our sin-filled disobedience and law-breaking before God, Jesus’ redemptive act will remove from our minds and hearts all the times we have been disgraced or shamed, whether we deserved it or not.  Heaven promises no more mourning, nor crying, nor pain – for the former things will have passed away. Bonus.

 

David Repents

Psalm 51 is a classic poem of repentance, where David pleads with the LORD for forgiveness.  He asks in numerous different ways to be pardoned:

– Blot out my transgressions

– Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity

– Cleanse me from my sin

– Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean

– Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow

– Hide your face from my sins

– Blot out all my iniquities

– Create in me a clean heart

– Renew a right spirit within me

– Cast me not away from your presence

– Take not your Holy Spirit from me

– Restore to me the joy of your salvation

– Uphold me with a willing spirit

– Deliver me from bloodguiltiness

Notice that God is the one who must do all the actions, not David.  The requests move from personal pardon to restoration of the relationship with God.

After all these requests, David summarizes the nature of true repentance, which is one reason he is called a man after God’s own heart: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

 

See the June 26 post (Gospel Message category) for more information on the history behind this psalm.

 

Wedding Wariness

Once upon a time, an engaged couple went out to a Karaoke club.  Some guy gets up and sings the greatest cover of “Stairway to Heaven” they had ever heard. 

So after he was done they asked him if he ever sang weddings.  Turns out he’d just recorded an album of his own love songs, and he was a justice of the peace, so he could marry them.  Unfortunately, his songs were so bad, he ruined the couple’s reception. 

The moral of the story:  Don’t book a judge by his cover. 

 

Found in the comics section – “Get Fuzzy”

 

 

Psalm 119 RESH

Verses 153-160 of Psalm 119 all start with the Hebrew character RESH. This stanza is like all the others in the psalm in that the Law of the LORD is embraced and extolled. 

Look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law.

Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to your promise!

Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek your statutes.

Great is your mercy, O Lord; give me life according to your rules.

Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, but I do not swerve from your testimonies.

I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands.

Consider how I love your precepts! Give me life according to your steadfast love.

The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.

 Read the psalm aloud, each person taking a verse in turn.

If your devotion time includes Bible study, you could use questions like

– What is the mood of the psalmist?

– What is the psalmist’s view of God?

– How does the writer communicate his appreciation for the Law of the Lord?

– The phrase “give me life” occurs three times.  What is the scope of “according to… your promise, your rules, your steadfast love.”

For Prayer, call attention to

– Requests the psalmist makes: for help and redemption

– Praise the psalmist offers: God’s mercy, psalmist’s love for the law

– The three uses of “give me life”, according to your promise, your rules, you steadfast love.

 

Jesse Marries Amber Today

Jesse Clark Knapp is marrying Amber Laneé Cross today.  He has come a long way since he arrived on October 29, 1982.  Today he is 11,201 days old.  It seems good to review the events at the beginning.

His older sister Linnea was delivered so quickly that we did not make it to the hospital, so there were many friends who advised us to “set up a tent on the hospital grounds” or something similar.

On the night of October 27, contractions started in earnest.  We were all packed and ready, but the contractions stopped.  Our thinking went something like “Linnea is asleep and we don’t want to alarm the sitters too soon.  Let’s just lay down for a minute and we’ll get over to the hospital when the contractions start up again.”  Well, we woke up the next morning, still in our bed, still in our travel-to-the-hospital clothes, but with an extra sweater on our teeth. 

The next night, the same contractions, except this time they kept going into the early morning.  We dropped  Linnea off with Warren and Marcy, called the doctor service and headed to the hospital.  We had plenty of time to get checked in and settled.  The obstetrician arrived, and everything seemed to be going well.  At two o’clock in the morning there had been no progress for a half hour or so.  The doctor asked for history, “How long was it from the time the water broke until Linnea was born?”  About half an hour, we replied.  “Well, let’s speed things up a bit,” he said and proceeded to burst the water sac.  Diane grabbed my hand VERY tightly and said, “Don’t you go anywhere! This child is coming!”

The staff was quite helpful but way too relaxed as they moved us calmly from the “birthing” room to the “delivery” room.  Diane IS ready; she knows things are moving fast.  The doctor was taking his time with washing his hands and getting gloved up when the nurse interrupts him with, “Doctor, would you please turn around and catch this baby?”  Two or three pushes and Jesse arrives.  This seemed normal to us, but the delivery people were amazed at how fast this kiddo showed up.

Linnea had set the bar pretty high for interesting birth stories, but Jesse’s arrival tugged just as much at his parents’ heart strings.  I was pondering the significance of October 29.  Linnea had been born on Dot’s birthday (Dot is Diane’s mom), so symmetry was rooting for October 15, my mom’s birthday.  Or he could have waited another week for my birthday. 29 is a good prime number.  Late in the month is good, as Jesse discovered while celebrating his “golden” birthday in 2011 (age equals day of month).

It turned out that October 29, 1982 was the one year anniversary of the day that Guillain-Barré Syndrome  symptoms first appeared in my hands and feet.  Guillain-Barré is a neurological disorder that causes paralysis;  I was in the hospital a month and a half and off work for six months.  Exactly one year later, a son arrived as a sign of healing. God had brought us all a long way in that one year.

 

Psalm 119 in Small Groups

This prayer activity works very well with larger groups that can split into subgroups.

Psalm 119 has 22 stanzas, each with an eight-pack of verses.  In Hebrew, each verse in a stanza begins with the same letter.  The whole psalm celebrates the Law of the Lord.  Each subgroup will be assigned specific stanzas to read aloud and then pray through.  The verses lend themselves readily to thanksgiving, praise, and supplication. 

Start by allocating stanzas to groups of three or four people.  You could say, “Group One, work with Aleph through Gimel.”  Since most people probably will not have the Hebrew alphabet memorized, you probably want to assign “the first three stanzas.”  For clarity, you also want to give verse numbers for each group.

You may want to bring everyone back into a large group and ask for brief sharing of findings from the scripture or from the prayer time.  If so, let everyone know at the beginning.  Let the small groups know how much time they have together and then how much time you will spend in the larger group.  With a one-hour prayer time at consistory, we would expect small groups to pray forty minutes, the large group sharing to last ten minutes, and ten minutes would be taken up with instructions and movement.

Postal Disaster

Two men, one from Czechoslovakia and one from Hungary, went hunting in Romania.  When they did not return for several days, the townspeople went looking for them. 

They came across signs of a struggle and two bears, which had obviously just eaten.  They killed the female and found the Hungarian in its belly. “Oh, dear,” one said, “I bet the Czech’s in the male.”

David and Saul

Saul, the first King of Israel, was succeeded by David.  Both were chosen by God and anointed by the prophet Samuel.  Both had notable success and horrible failures as kings; both made God very angry.  Saul was rejected as king, but David was consistently called “a man after God’s own heart.”  What was the difference?

 Part of it was the way they handled reprimands.  In 1 Samuel 15 Saul was told by God, through Samuel, to completely destroy the city of Amalek, and ‘put to the sword’ all men, women, children, oxen, fattened calves, lambs, geckos, unicorns, and anything else that moved.  The Amalekites deserved it for their evil ways, and they had opposed the Israelites when they journeyed out of Egypt.  It was a test of obedience that Saul failed, as he kept the good sheep and cattle alive and spared the king of Amalek.  Samuel confronted Saul; Saul claimed he had done what he was supposed to, prompting Samuel to utter the classic sarcastic line, “then what is this bleating of sheep in my ears? “  Saul blamed it on everybody else and argued they were just keeping the good animals to offer to God.  Bottom line – Saul was disobedient, avoided responsibility, and the kingship was taken away from him.

 After David became King, in 2 Samuel 11 he had sex with beautiful Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.  When she conceived, David schemed, manipulated and finally had the woman’s husband killed.  Nathan the prophet brought a story to David about a rich man who was entertaining friends and grilled a poor man’s only lamb rather than one from his large herd. When David responded that the rich man should be punished severely, Nathan cried out, “You are the man!  You took Bathsheba from Uriah and had him killed.  What were you thinking?”  David immediately confessed, “I have sinned against the Lord.”  Psalm 51 is his classic confession.  David was punished severely but remained as king.  Bottom line – David was disobedient but acknowledged his error, repented, and remained as king.

 A big part of the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ is acting just like David did – admitting and turning away from one’s misdeeds and asking for forgiveness.  David, an ancestor of Jesus, believed God’s promise that his descendents would sit on the throne, but he did not know that Jesus’ death on the cross makes forgiveness possible for us.

Things the LORD Hates

Proverbs 6.16-19 lists “six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him.  The ESV study bible indicates that this is a literary device intended to draw attention to the last – seventh – item.  The first six are easy to spot, but the last one needs wisdom. The unholy list:

–          Haughty eyes

–          Lying tongue

–          Hands that shed innocent blood

–          Heart that devises evil plans

–          Feet that make haste to run to evil

–          False witness who breathes out lies

–          One who sows discord among brothers

The first six items are all tied to body parts as tools of wickedness; the last one creates strife within the community body.  What are we talking about with “sows discord?” 

The practical warnings just before these verses talk about several scenarios for avoiding discord: the need to repair relationships with your neighbor when money disputes arise; the need to be a productive member of society (an ant, not a sluggard); avoid “inside” jokes; stop gossiping. 

The section just after these verses are warnings against a relationship destroyer – adultery.  You are fortunate if you have not seen the resulting wounds, anger, jealousy, and dishonor caused by pursuing or succumbing to sexual temptation with another person’s spouse. 

This section of Proverbs concentrates on wisdom. The fear of the LORD – abiding with Him – leads to the wisdom needed to spot and stop discord-sowing.