As Jesus followers we are called into the Kingdom Life. This blog will help us converse and learn what that means. It will contain thoughts on Scripture, Sermon Reflection, Leadership Training and interesting reads. -Pastor Jeff

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Gospel Reading Plan - Day 4

Day 4 Readings - Daily Thought
Matthew 4
Luke 4
John 4

Growing up, the pictures I remembered seeing of Jesus in the churches I had passed through were always very sweet, serene, calm, and sentimental  Hands folded neatly in front of him, He calmly gazed up into the sky, praying to the Father.  For years, this was the picture I had of Jesus.  Jesus was the sweet Jewish guy/God that wanted to save my soul.  I had a Hallmark version of Jesus that appeared to be the currency of the day.

Then I read the Gospels!

I hope that as you are making your way through the stories of Matthew, Luke, and John so far, a different picture of Jesus is beginning to emerge.  Today especially, you will begin to recognize that perhaps Jesus isn't the sweet, sentimental, picturesque framed figure hanging in the lobbies of dying churches.  Instead, Jesus is the One who has come to turn the world upside-down and inside-out.  Jesus has come to inaugurate a Kingdom Revolution.

In Matthew, after battling the enemy in the desert, He begins his ministry with the announcement "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near."  (Matthew 4:17)  This is an announcement of displacement and should mess with us a bit.  He is announcing that the way you once understood the world has come undone, all the idols of power, control, domination, and fear have been usurped by the power of a Kingdom that is born in the heart of God's love and plays out through the person of Jesus who lives to deconstruct the status quo and in its place build a Kingdom that rightly orients people back to God's life-giving intent.  This is no sweet, sentimental, Hallmark card dealing Jesus.  This is a Divine usurper, a rabble-rouser, a revolutionary encouraging a coup de tat.

In Luke's gospel, Jesus builds on this announcement with a vision of God's Spirit breaking into the dark, dreary, desolate places of life and bringing hope.  He says, I have come to "preach good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, and release the captives."  Anyone hearing Hallmark in this?  The vision of God through Jesus is to make a splash.  It is to infiltrate the places where darkness seems to reign, where despair appears to have the final word, where bondage seems as though it can't be broken and unleash God's restorative, liberating, healing, justice-making power!  The intent of Jesus may not simply have been to save my soul but also to change the world.  Sounds like a revolution to me.

And finally for today, revolutionaries recruit.  Today's passages speak about the types of recruits that Jesus calls.  They are left-outs, forgotten ones, and those that are forced to the margins of society.  He calls fishermen, broken people and women.  Yes, I said women.  This is not the sweet Jesus.  This is the rule-breaking Jesus.  In Jesus patriarchal (chauvinistic) society, women were marginal figures who weren't granted many of the rights and dignities of a real person.  In John 4, Jesus breaks all sorts of social norms, offering dignity and hope to someone who has regularly had that denied.

Let the Jesus revolution happen!!

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