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

Monday, June 15, 2015

Some Thoughts on Day 1


Day 1 Readings: Afternoon Thought

Matthew 1
Luke 1
John 1

I know, I know that wasn't very nice was it.  You got tossed into your gospel readings and the very first thing you encountered was Matthew giving you a long list about who was whose daddy.  Exciting stuff right?  Ummm...most of you are thinking "no."  Throughout each day, I'm going to give you some things to think about as you are reading these stories from the gospels.  I'm not going to tell you what each off them mean.  No, God will unfold the meaning of these stories for each of us through His faithful Spirit.  However, I am going to give you some food for thought.


Matthew 1:  Why all the names?

God's story of Jesus is rooted in the history of a particular people.  Through this list, we get to peer into the pages of  God's family album.  This lineage connects the story of Jesus to the history of God's faithful actions through ordinary people (just like us) over several generations.  Each had a part in the unfolding drama of God's redemptive plan for us.  One might say that, "family trees do matter."  This isn't a list of perfect people.  Some were liars and cheats (Abraham and Jacob), others were manipulators and adulterers (Tamar and David), and others were prideful and arrogant (Rehoboam and Uzziah).  Yet God was at work.  God is at work in the back story of our lives, even when we can't see it, even when our pasts are less than perfect.  The life of Jesus emerges not out of the pristine past of a people undaunted by failure and foul-ups but through the sinful and broken, the hurting and fragmented, the courageous and passionate, the imperfect and unfinished.  God was at work.  Sometimes God births the most beautiful things into this world from the most unseemly places...like our lives.

Luke 1:  A Story of Impossibility

God never makes things easy on Himself apparently, at least that appears to be the story that Luke is telling.  Throughout the story of God, God has chosen the most unlikely of situations to act.  Think about it, a group of nobody slaves in Egypt (Exodus), on top of a hill with a wet altar and 850 false prophets (1 Kings 18-19), in a fiery furnace (Daniel 3), and the list goes on.  God majors in impossible situations.  Luke starts the story of Jesus by pointing to a barren ole' lady who gets pregnant, a doubting priest who can't talk, and a young virgin that's about to have a baby.  Yeah, it doesn't get anymore impossible than that.  The story of Jesus is a story of a God that overcomes impossibility through the creative power of His love for us.  No impossible situation will deny God His desire to catch us up into His redemptive, healing, transformative work!  Or as the angel says to Mary, "For nothing is impossible with God." (Luke 1:37)

John 1:  Not that John, the other one

How about a little point of clarification.  The John that John talks about in John chapter 1 is not the John that writes the book of John.  Clear?  Good.  No wait, let me try that again.  In John's gospel, he mentions a guy named "John the Baptist."  In the gospels, he is one of the first Heralds of Good News.   The bible tells us that John the Baptist was sent to tell the people that God was up to something new and that they had better make way.  That something new was Jesus!!  John the Baptist had the unique roll of telling anyone that would listen that God had not given up, that God's great hope was coming soon, that there was time to return to God! (Maybe it wasn't so unique after all, kinda sounds like what we should do).  John was a messenger of good news - though you will find out later wasn't appreciated very much.  The "John" that writes the gospel of John was a different John altogether.  He was one of the first followers of Jesus who you will meet when we get to Luke Chapter 5.  

3 comments:

  1. Why was the genealogy important if it was josephs?

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  2. And why does Jesus rename Simon to Peter? I get the rock part but he is still like the wind he just always thinks he has it figured out.

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  3. Great question about the genealogy. It had been prophesied in the Old Testament that when the Messiah (the Savior, the Chosen One) arrived that he would come from the lineage of David. Joseph's heritage takes that lineage back to David. Though he's not born of Joseph naturally, he is born in the house of Joseph and will serve as his son.

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