A Year of Sundays: Week 17

Sunday 17: The Second Sunday of Lent

Fasting is one of those Christian traditions that are hard to swallow, pun intended. If food is good for our body, so why would God want us to go without it?

I can't answer that.  But I know that fasting was an early command to the believers, first mentioned in the Bible when Moses fasted in Exodus 34.  Jesus also fasted, as referenced in Matthew 4. And Jesus highlighted the importance of it as a spiritual discipline in Mark 9:29.

The church I work at encourages members to fast breakfast and lunch on Wednesdays during Lent.  This 24-hour fast is broken together at a worship service.  We sing, listen to God, and then break our fast with good wine (or Martinelli's) and fresh bread.  After the service we share a soup and salad dinner.

The first week, the fast was not difficult until late in the evening.  That week, I had class Wednesday night, so I didn't have dinner until about 9pm.  While the hunger pangs were undeniable, they mostly subsided when I drank water.

The second week, the fast was terrible.  Early in the day, I became hungry. By the afternoon, I felt a pain in my upper abdomen that would not go away. And by the time we came to communion, I leaned over to ask my husband if it would be acceptable for me to push people out of the way so I could eat first. "That's how bad I want Jesus," I joked to him.

As I awaited communion I realized, that IS how much I should want Jesus.

Like the burning in my belly, there should be an undeniable, inescapable desire to get to Jesus, to know Him, and to enjoy Him.

Maybe this is one of the reasons God wants us to fast. So we learn with our bodies what He wants our spirits to know.

FMF: Possible

"But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

“‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”

Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

(Mark 9:22b-24, NIV)

The man presented his sick child to the disciples, and at first his case seemed futile.  Even the disciples could not call out the spirit that caused the child to convulse, sometimes even fall in the fire.  Enter Jesus.  The situation was admittedly tense.  First, He rebukes His disciples, calling them an "unbelieving generation."  Ouch.  But, then, oh blessed moment, He calls for the child to be brought to Him.

The father cries out to Jesus.  He wants Jesus to take pity on His son if there's any way to heal him.

Jesus confirms, "If?"  Jesus clarifies: Jesus can't just do anything. He can do everything.  It's a matter of the father's faith.

The word faith in the original language is used both sacredly (God given faith) and secularly (convincing oneself).  Linguists look to the context to understand what kind of faith is intended?

I am certainly no linguist, but it seems like the father addresses both of these faiths.  His cry to Jesus is this: I have done everything in my power to believe, so help me to believe with the faith that only God can give.

If that is what is required, than perhaps I should pray less to be fixed and pray more to be faithed.

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This post is a prompt from Five Minute Friday

and was written in approximately five minutes.

For more information, visit fiveminutefriday.com.

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Costa Rica and The Broken Body

I couldn't let today pass without writing one more reflection on my trip to Costa Rica two years ago because I was supposed to be making the same trip again this week.  Today we would have been flying home, so I am thinking about our return last time.

We loved our customs photos.
My son looks like Clark Kent
about to change into Superman.

When we bought our tickets, we scheduled an early afternoon departure so that we would not have to wake up pre-sunrise as some of the other teams did.  There were a few problems with our plan.  First, we were literally the last team to leave the seminary.  Also, the bus drivers did not want to hang around, so we left a little early and spent several hours waiting at the airport. It turns out we were tired from our week even though we didn't have to wake up as early as some others.  The other major problem was that we arrived back in the States after midnight, and that made for a long day.

For most of my life I have struggled with severe motion sickness.  It is a frequent problem, but I know how to manage it most of the time.  This time, however, I made the bad decision of taking the maximum recommended dosage of my motion sickness medicine.  My body became so sluggish, that I only vaguely remember falling asleep on the plane.  When we finally landed, it was so difficult to walk off the plane, collect my luggage, go through customs, and then find my husband at the curb.  I remember him asking, "Couldn't you hear me calling your name?"

I felt a little like the disciples when we read about Jesus' encounter with them in the garden of Gethsemane (see Matthew 26:41 or Mark 14:38).  He had asked them to pray for Him, but He finds them sleeping instead.  He warns His disciples that "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."  I was certainly willing to go home with my husband, I even wanted to go home with my husband, but the quality of my body and the decisions I had made left me weak.

I wonder if we, as the flesh of Christ (the body, if you prefer), are like I was returning from Costa Rica in 2018.  We are tired.  We have made some bad decisions.  We are eager to go with God, but we can't hear Him calling our name.  Like the disciples, we must keep watching and praying because even though the flesh is weak, the Spirit is still willing.

My 100

The number 100 appears frequently in the Bible. Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born to him (Genesis 21). The courtyard of the temple was 100 cubits on the north/south side (Exodus 17). The Israelite army would be able to fight 100 men with only five if obedient to God (Leviticus 26). The penalty for slandering a woman after marrying her was 100 shekels and the inability to divorce her... #awkward (Deuteronomy 22). Jacob bought a burial property for 100 shekels, and Joseph was eventually buried there (Joshua 24). Saul requested a dowry of 100 foreskins from David, and was paid two hundred... #superawkward (1 Samuel). Obadiah hid 100 of God's prophets in caves to protect them (1 Kings 18). The unnamed man's offering feeds 100 people (2 Kings 4). There were 100 gold sprinkling bowls in the temple (2 Chronicles 4).

Jesus also used the number in His parables. Jesus says the Word is a like a seed that will produce a crop 100, sixty, or thirty fold (Mark 4). Jesus says that He, like a man who owns 100 sheep, would leave ninety-nine to fine one that is lost (Luke 15). Jesus compares human forgiveness to a servant whose master forgave his debt of ten thousand bags of gold but would not forgive his co-worker who owed him 100 silver coins (Matthew 18).

There's another 100 that doesn't get the same glory some of these other verses get. It's easy for me to read about Abraham receiving his blessing at 100 or even laugh about David's dowry payment, and I love to read Jesus' parables as both spiritual wisdom and well crafted literature. However, I don't often turn to Revelation when I open the Bible.

I took a New Testament class my second semester in college. As we approached Revelation, Professor Bob Smith told us that we would be reading the book in its entirety during class.  Instead of sitting at the desks of our basement level class, we would be lounging in the cafeteria to read it one sitting.  The other lectures all blur together; that one stands out.

In chapter sixteen, the seven bowls of God's wrath are poured out on earth. Terrible things happen, but the people refuse to repent and glorify God. It reminds me of the Egyptian plagues on steroids. If I'm being honest, I really struggle with this passage. I'm pretty stubborn, and I'm not sure that festering sores would make me worship God. I guess that's the problem: I don't allow difficulties to draw me to God the way they should.

The seven bowls are poured out, the kings meet together at Armageddon (after the sixth bowl, to be accurate), and a voice comes from the temple saying "It is done!" Don't get this confused with Christ's proclamation on the cross "It is finished!" This voice in Revelation is more like how we might say "well, that happened." Then come the lightning, thunder, an earthquake, and (are you ready for it?) 100 pound hailstones. Not a 100 pound hailstone - hailstones, plural. Not only did the people refuse to bless God because of these hailstones, they actually caused the people to curse Him.

I don't know if any of the difficult things going on in our lives are mini-bowls of wrath (shot glasses of wrath?). I don't know why things happen or why God operates the way He does. However, I know that every day is an opportunity to repent, to glorify God, and to seek His will in my life.

So on this, my 100th blog post, let me say: Don't wait for 100 pound hailstones.