Simon the...

Since it is Wednesday I am thinking about the events of the Wednesday in Holy week. (For a full account of the events of this day, see Matthew 26:6–16, Mark 14:3–11, Luke 22:3–6.) After a period of tension Jesus largely lays low on Wednesday. He visits the house of a friend, Simon the Leper. I was struck reading this again that Simon is named by his disease, or more importantly societally, the thing that made him a pariah. Yet here is Jesus, a day before his arrest, two days before his crucifixion, sharing a meal with “the leper”.

Jesus being at Simon’s house says something about Jesus to be sure. It says that instead of hanging with the establishment or those known by their strengths, he came to seek and to save the lost. He invites the weary to come find rest in him. This is the Jesus we meet in Holy Week. This is the Jesus who goes to the cross and empties himself in order that we might be filled. It says something about Simon too. He saw something in Jesus. Perhaps something deeper, more pure than in the religious establishment; something that he longed for. The truth of his disease was no longer something to hide from nor was it the most important thing in his life. What was most important was to be near Jesus! Simon opened his home, and his heart to Jesus.

As we make our way through the week we are presented with the same options that presented themselves in the first Holy Week. Who do we perceive Jesus to be? A threat to our way of life? Or one to trust for the promise of life? How will we act on our choice? Will we align ourselves with those who move to kill the troublemaker? Will we passively stand by while he expires? Or will we eschew the crowds, acknowledge our disease and invite him into our hearts and homes?

We will be filling our hearts tonight with our Maundy Thursday service. Come sit with Jesus on his road to the cross. For who desire to go deeper this weekend you can join me at Seventh Reformed Church on Friday from noon to three to meditate on the words of Jesus as he hung from the cross during those hours so long ago. (You can also catch the broadcast on WFUR 102.9 FM) Then Sunday, Resurrection breaks upon us with a greet-the-morning Sunrise Service. Followed by our full Easter services at 8:30 and 11:15.

To him who is able …

Andrew (the often callous narcissist being shaped by a loving Savior).

A Never Ending Supply

What if you had a never ending supply of money, energy, entertainment, friends, or whatever you might need?! What kind of confidence would you have as you engage life? What kind of perseverance would you be able to employ?

Isaiah 58:11 promises just this sort of never ending supply for God’s people: "And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail." Did you hear those claims? Continually; a spring of water, whose waters do not fail! These bold, audacious claims are promises that our living God makes to his people. What is even more striking is the placement of these promises in the broader context of Isaiah 58. These promises are given in response to the call to "pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted" (v.10), which itself is part of the broader call to "loose the bonds of wickedness" (v. 6). The picture that is painted for us is that of a vessel being upended and poured out, but the waters don’t end, they keep flowing!

I need to sink my roots deep into these promises! Family, work, health, world events, my own sin patterns, etc… all these conspire to leave me empty. Only by resting in the finished work of Christ do I realize that He has created in me a spring whose waters will never fail. "On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’'” (John 7:37–38).

This week we welcome Karl and Debbie Dortzbach to Christ Church as part of our Missions focus. Karl and Debbie have a deep love for the Lord and have served faithfully in service of the Kingdom for many years now. It is a privilege to host them and to glean from the unique perspective that God has afforded them.

This Sunday also is tinged with sadness as we say goodbye to Ruthy Rodriguez in terms of her role as community outreach coordinator for Gracehill. Ruthy has served faithfully and has been mightily used by the Lord for the past 18 months, but has come to see that her heart’s desire for serving the Lord will be best met in different arenas. We are deeply grateful for the way she has helped Gracehill in these beginning stages and are also grateful that Ruthy will continue to be involved in the Gracehill and Christ Church community.

A Whole New World

I, for one, am happy it is Friday. Sickness has made its way to the VM household this week and it is just time to turn the page on another week! I am also excited to begin our week long focus on missions this Sunday as we make our way to the cross!

What do you think when you think missions? Mark Noll, writing in The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith (IVP Academic, 2009),* comments that, "A few short decades ago, Christian believers were concentrated in the global north and west, but now a rapidly swelling majority lives in the global south and east.” He goes on to posit that if you were a Christian Rip Van Winkle and you were to wipe "a half-century of sleep from your eyes [after awaking this past week] and tried to locate your fellow Christian believers, you would find them in surprising places, expressing their faith in surprising ways, under surprising conditions, with surprising relationships to culture and politics, and raising surprising theological questions that would not have seemed possible when you fell asleep.”

And this my friends is good news! As our hearts sang with Psalm 72 last week and with the prayer that the whole earth would be filled with His glory, we find that the Lord is indeed building his Kingdom. Noll goes on to cite encouraging facts including this one: “More than half of all Christian adherents in the whole history of the church have been alive in the last one hundred years." Imagine that. In the last 100 years the entire, throughout-history, Christian population has doubled!

I punctuate with an exclamation point because we need to recite this stupendous encouragement in our conversations and shout this loudly in our living rooms. So often it seems that we are morose and downtrodden watching our nation’s news cycle. I sometimes feel like I am presiding over the funeral of Christendom with some of the conversations I have with believers. But, our God is on the MOVE! We just fail to see it because we are not looking in the right places. Again to quote Noll, "This past Sunday it is possible that more Christian believers attended church in China than in all of so-called 'Christian Europe'. Yet in 1970 there were no legally functioning churches in all of China…”

So, this Sunday let us expand our hearts and minds as we come to worship this God of the cosmos. Let us pray and sing and join our voices in longing for our God to be known. May we be encouraged to see ways that God is on the move and may we be freshly energized to join the throng exulting Him before the nations. As part of our missions focus we welcome this Sunday Serge missionaries to London, Chris and Josephine Hatch, who will be joining us in the adult institute hour to talk about world religions. From the pulpit, we will be looking at Psalm 63 and the soul’s longing for God; a longing that invites mission.

* here's a more complete synopsis of Noll’s book