Month: March 2023

Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 11:1-45

In 2011, I went with my son, Joshua, as a chaperone for his senior class trip. We went to London. While there we decided to attend William Shakespeare’s play, As You Like It, at the Globe Theater. It was magnificent! My favorite part was hearing Jacque utter his famous line, “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.”

His point is that people have parts they play throughout their lives like actors do in a play. For many of us, we put on a mask that looks like the person we want the world to believe we are. We create a public persona that keeps people from seeing the doubts and struggles and challenges we really face.

Through the years, many call our façade our false self. Underneath, sometimes well hidden, is our true self, the self we’re afraid to let anyone see because we just aren’t sure it measures up.

Lent, with all its reflection and prayer, is often a season in which God strips away our false self to allow our true self to emerge more fully. It sometimes feels like death – the death of that which is false in order for something truer to come to life.

One of the great paradoxes of faith is that in order for us to truly live, we must die.  Before we reign with Jesus in his glory, we must share in his sufferings. In order to become a new creation in Christ, the old self must be crucified with Christ that he might live in us. Before resurrection, there must be death. Before the crown, there is a cross.

The good news is that the only thing we stand to lose is the false self, which is a façade and not real anyway. It’s a mask. The thing that passes away was never really useful to begin with!

In Ezekiel’s passage this morning, God takes the prophet to a valley full of bones. They were very dry. God asks Ezekiel, “Son of man, can these bones live?” Ezekiel answers, “O Lord God, you know.”

As Ezekiel obeys the Lord and prophecies as instructed, the bones come together. Then there were sinews. To those God added flesh. Over those he laid skin. And finally, Ezekiel called on the four winds and the bones were filled with breath. They lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

Thomas Keating suggests the spiritual journey is a series of small humiliations of the false self that make room inside us for the Holy Spirit to come and heal. The things that prevent us from coming to God and experiencing transformation are slowly taken away. It is often suffering that God uses to do this, but even Jesus learned obedience through the things he suffered (Hebrews 5:8).

During Lent, we practice dying in small ways so that when the bigger deaths come, we will know how to let go of that which we really never needed. It is a time to learn, as Jesus did, obedience through the things we suffer. It is a time to experience what it is like to have our false self, our mask, wasting away as our inner person is renewed day by day.

All the world may be a stage, however, our audience is not the world, but our creator and sustainer – the one who makes our dry bones dance and breathe and sing. When we die to self and live for Christ, God uses our suffering and trials to strip us of our masks and to teach us to truly live.

For reflection:

• What needs to die in me in order for the will of God to come forth in my life?
• What new thing is God doing in my life that requires some of the old things to pass away?
• Where do I sense God wanting to teach me obedience through the things I’m suffering?

Read this week:

March 27: 1 Kings 17:17-24; Acts 20:7-12

March 28: 2 Kings 4:18-37; Ephesians 2:1-10

March 29: Jeremiah 32:1-9; 36-41; Matthew 22:23-33

March 30: 1 Samuel 16:11-13; Philippians 1:1-11

March 31: Job 13:13-19; Philippians 1:21-30

April 1: Lamentations 3:55-66; Mark 10:32-34

April 2: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Matthew 21:1-11

Read: 1 Samuel 16:1-13; John 9:1-41

At first reading, this morning’s passages may not seem to have any connection. Samuel is sent to anoint David. He sees seven of Jesse’s sons pass before him. Beginning with Eliab, he sees them and thinks each one will be the next king. God rejects each. Finally David is brought and he is the one God chooses.

In verse 7, we read the lesson in God’s choice. He tells Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

In John 9, Jesus passes by a man born blind and his disciples ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus is quick to tell them neither. Like Samuel looking at the physical appearance of Jesse’s sons was a mistake, we should not look at a person’s challenges as the measure of their spirituality.

One of the reasons we read Scripture over and over is because as we grow and mature in our faith, we grow and mature in our understanding. The simple faith we have when we are new believers faces challenges and temptations. What we thought was black and white seems to have a myriad of shades of gray. Each experience, each challenge or hardship, tests us and refines us and matures our faith.

The man healed of his blindness goes through something similar (though in a very short time!). First his neighbors debate whether he is the man born blind or just looks like him. They go back and forth until the blind man insists, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” I am him!

The neighbors take the man to the Pharisees. He answers their questions and a debate erupts among them. ¹⁶ Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them. They turn to the man and ask him: “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He answers: “He is a prophet.”

After talking to the man’s parents, we read in verse 24, For the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” 

The Pharisees are angry. They want to discredit Jesus. They want to show everyone how bad he is. And though they silenced the formerly blind man’s parents with the threat of being expelled from the synagogue, no one will tell them what they want!

The blind man answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

²⁶ They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 

²⁷ He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” This man’s faith is growing. He sees Jesus’ as a rabbi, a teacher. He is one worthy of being followed. He is Jesus’ disciple. Though he will be cast out of the synagogue and shunned by his people, he would rather follow Jesus the one who gave him sight.

Jesus seeks out the man who now sees. We read: ³⁵ Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” ³⁶ He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” ³⁷ Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.”

Do you believe in the Son of Man? It is he who is speaking to you. The man answers Jesus with confidence: “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. 

He believed in Jesus the man; Jesus the prophet; Jesus the rabbi; and Jesus the Son of God. His healing is complete.

During Lent, Jesus meets us at our personal point of darkness. He finds us in our mess. Will we humbly confess it? Will we repent? Jesus offers us the light of life. He offers us forgiveness and sight. He offers us his loving presence and his transforming power.

For reflection:

• Where am I in this story? Am I blind and need Jesus as my savior? Have I believed but still struggling with shadows and darkness in my life?
• Take time this week to sit with Jesus in solitude and ask him to show you any current or past situation in which there is unacknowledged sin. Ask him to show you any shadows or darkness that still remain in your heart.
• As he reveals areas that need attention, confess to God first and ask for wisdom and direction about whether you need to confess to someone else.
• Ask Jesus if there is anything you need to do to make the situation right.

Read this week:

March 20: Isaiah 59:9-19; Acts 9:1-20

March 21: Isaiah 42:14-21; Colossians 1:9-14

March 22: Isaiah 60:17-22; Matthew 9:27-34

March 23: Ezekiel 1:1-3, 2:8-3:3; Revelation 10:1-11

March 24: Ezekiel 33:10-16; Revelation 11:15-19

March 25: Ezekiel 36:8-15; Luke 24:44-53

March 26: Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 11:1-45

Read: Exodus 17:1-7; John 4:5-42

When I was a kid, every so often my parents would get tired of the mess in my room and instruct me to clean things up. I’d trudge up, muttering under my breath all the way, and proceed to “clean”. I say, “clean”, because I’d basically shove things into drawers and toss them in my closet. I’d wait long enough for it to seem I’d really done a good job and then have my Mom come up for inspection (praying she wouldn’t open the closet.) Usually, I’d pass. Occasionally she’d look in the closet!

During Lent, we are invited to enter more intentionally into times of prayer and self-examination that God might show us our messy, cluttered hearts that we would repent and experience his restoration and renewal. For many of us, it’s hard to admit our hearts are cluttered and messy. We’d rather toss it all in the proverbial closet so no one (especially God) would see it. And we hope and pray he won’t try to open the closet door.

I think that’s a bit like how the woman at the well felt. Here she was going out to get water at noon. It was the hottest time of the day and she was sure she wouldn’t have to interact with anyone. And yet, Jesus is waiting for her!

With each question he asks, she tries to divert his attention. It’s like she knows he wants to open the closet door, but maybe just maybe she can distract him…but no. He goes there and opens it.

And as all her junk – five husbands and not married to her current partner – come spilling out, she tries to divert Jesus one more time talking about the Messiah. ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” I can imagine the love and the compassion in Jesus’ eyes as he ²⁶ said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

This woman, who society had written off as a sinner, as unworthy, as less than, Jesus sees her and loves her and offers to clean up her mess and give her a new heart and a new start. And, whether we like it or not, Jesus opens our closet door too. He loves us too much to let us sit in our mess. His invitation is not that we clean our own mess up, we can’t do it, he wants to clean it for us. He wants us to sit in our messy house and honestly admit that we are a hot mess.

This is the first step in repentance. It’s taking time for self-examination. It’s reviewing our lives in God’s presence, asking him to bring to our awareness the places we are not like Him, we are caught in sin, and we are holding on to the wrong things. It may start as a vague sense that something is out of whack. It could be more obvious like an anger that we can’t control or an addiction we can’t overcome. Whatever our mess is, we stop rationalizing and defending ourselves and see and listen and acknowledge what Jesus shows us.

This can be a painful process, but it is evidence of God’s love and grace. He’s freeing us from the sin that holds us in bondage. He’s leading us to the freedom that is ours in Christ. As it comes to the surface and we repent and ask forgiveness, we also ask Jesus to show us the deeper reason inside us that caused our bad behavior in the first place. We ask him to root it out at the source.

When our messy lives are cleaned up, it allows us to be more the people we were created to be. It allows us to reflect the person of Christ more in our thoughts, words, and actions. It puts us in a position to recognize and respond to the Holy Spirit’s still, small voice and tiniest nudges. It fills us with a peace that surpasses understanding and a joy that is our strength.

For reflection:

• Set aside time this week to review your life in God’s presence – family, work, church, friendships, and your personal relationship with him.
• Ask God to show you places where you the messes – where you fall short of Christlikeness and need him to clean things up and to transform you.
• As he cleans up the mess, ask his forgiveness, thank him you have it in Christ, and invite him to show you the root cause that led you to this place.

Read this week:

March 13: Genesis 24:1-27; 2 John 1:1-13

March 14: Genesis 29:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-4

March 15: Jeremiah 2:4-13; John 7:14-31; 37-39

March 16: 1 Samuel 15:10-21; Ephesians 4:25-32

March 17: 1 Samuel 15:22-31; Ephesians 5:1-9

March 18: 1 Samuel 15:32-34; John 1:1-9

March 19: 1 Samuel 16:1-13; John 9:1-41

Read: Genesis 12:1-4a; John 3:1-17

Our dog Luna has FOMO. You know, the “Fear Of Missing Out”. Whatever we’re doing, she wants to be in the middle of it. When we go for walks, she wants to be last so she can keep an eye on all that’s going on and quickly run up to check out anything that looks interesting.

I find it tempting not to do anything special or different for Lent. Jesus has come. I’m forgiven. My spiritual life is ok. What’s the point?

At the same time, I don’t want to miss out either. What if God is just waiting to do an incredible work in my heart? What if he wants to strip me down with a Lenten “spring cleaning” and then fill my heart and life with a deeper connection to his Spirit and the ability to discern his voice in my newly renovated heart and soul? I don’t want to miss that!

John 2 ends with John telling us about many who believed in Jesus during the Passover Feast. But lest we get excited, he quickly lets us know that Jesus did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man (John 2:23-25). As chapter 3 begins, Nicodemus stops by to talk to Jesus. Nicodemus’ somewhat earthly questions provide Jesus an opportunity to teach him about heavenly things.

It’s a familiar story. Jesus tells Nicodemus that no one can see God’s kingdom unless he is born again. Nicodemus thinks he’s talking about a second natural birth. Jesus is talking about a spiritual rebirth.

Nicodemus isn’t sure he quite believes it. He wants to admit Jesus is a great teacher, but this whole “born again” thing seems too crazy. Doesn’t it? Jesus sort of teases him and says, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” Then he goes on to explain, ¹⁴ “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” He points to his death, his being “lifted up”, as the thing people must believe to have eternal life.

John sums it all up with verses 16 and 17: ¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. This is what Jesus is talking about. This is being born again. It’s believing in the one who came down from heaven and instead of dying, gains eternal life.

But, for a man like Nicodemus and for many of us, that seems too easy. We have to do something, right?. God can’t just give us eternity. We have to earn it. For Nicodemus, a Pharisee, he followed strict regimen to keep the law and avoid any of the no-no’s Jewish tradition forbade. For us, we struggle with issues of pride, of ego-drivenness. We can focus too much on work and human effort.

Lent isn’t about doing something to gain standing with God. It’s about denying ourselves good things that have taken too much control of us so we can receive the much better gifts God wants to give. Ruth Haley Barton suggests some ways we can do this:

• If we struggle with pride, we might abstain from activities that feed the ego and practice “hiddenness” – praying, giving, and serving in ways that don’t draw attention to us.
• If we struggle with our speech, we might take more time in silence and listen more to others.
• If we struggle with being tired because we’re doing too much, we might practice saying, “No,” to some activities to be more rested and take more time in God’s presence.
• If we struggle to use caffeine or some other stimulant to give us a boost or food or alcohol to numb our worry, we might give up caffeine, or alcohol, or a certain food and ask God to reveal the source of our tiredness or our anxiety.
• If we struggle with addictions to our technology, we might consider disconnecting from cell phones, computers, and tablets for certain portions of the week.

Whatever we choose, by denying ourselves things that are not bad in and of themselves, these disciplines open us for the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. When we cooperate with God to clear the clutter of compulsive behaviors from our hearts and remove the distractions from our lives, we grow more in tune with the presence of the Holy Spirit around us and experience the deep soul satisfaction that comes with it.

FOMO is not a great motivation for disciplines of fasting or abstinence. A deep desire to connect with God and not to miss the transformation he wants to do in my soul is. Join me in praying, “Father, lead me in the letting go of anything that distracts, numbs, keeps me from you. Guide me into uncluttered rooms and wide-open spaces where I can meet you. Amen.”

For reflection:

• What activities, behaviors, and relationships are most distracting to my spiritual life these days?
• Which ones keep me from seeking God with all my heart?
• During this Lenten season, what do I need to fast from in order to focus more fully on eternal things?

Readings this week:

March 6: Numbers 21:4-9; Hebrews 3:1-6

March 7: Isaiah 65:17-25; Romans 4:6-13

March 8: Ezekiel 36:22-32; John 7:53-8:11

March 9: Exodus 16:1-8; Colossians 1:15-23

March 10: Exodus 16:9-21; Ephesians 2:11-22

March 11: Exodus 16:27-35; John 4:1-6

March 12: Exodus 17:1-7; John 4:5-42