You may recognize the title today as a Beatles hit of the 60's. It was a song of duality: “You say yes, I say no; you say stop and I say go, go, go...I say high and you say low...you say goodbye and I say hello”. I believe we have the duality of a goodbye and a hello in our two New Testament readings. Jesus is saying goodbye in John's gospel reading; the Holy Spirit is saying hello in our reading from Acts. I want to look at these two events; their historical framework and their meaning for us today.
Ezekiel 37: 1-14; Acts 2: 1-21; John 15: 26-27; 16: 4b-15 May 20th
You may recognize the title today as a Beatles hit of the 60's. It was a song of duality: “You say yes, I say no; you say stop and I say go, go, go...I say high and you say low...you say goodbye and I say hello”. I believe we have the duality of a goodbye and a hello in our two New Testament readings. Jesus is saying goodbye in John's gospel reading; the Holy Spirit is saying hello in our reading from Acts. I want to look at these two events; their historical framework and their meaning for us today.
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Psalm 1; 1 John 5: 9-13; John 17: 6-19 May 13, 2018 Today is Mother's Day. Scriptures don't say a lot about how God's love is like a Mother's love as God is mostly depicted as our Father. But Isaiah quotes God: in Isaiah 66:13, “As a mother comforts her son, so will I comfort you.” I'm sure we all have idealized pictures of a mother comforting her son. Julie has a sign in our house with some of her words of “comfort.” quote them. I enjoy a good joke, or not so good ones. But the point I want to take from Mother's Day is that there is a certain, assumed assurance of love from a mother. Now we can all point to exceptions, but as a rule, a mother's love can be counted on. And in our reading from John this morning, he builds his case for believing all the things we've studied since Easter...particularly God love for us. “If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts”
Psalm 98, 1 John 5: 1-7; John 15: 9-17
May 6, 2018 We have been focusing on the epistles readings from 1 John since the Sunday after Easter. They are very focused on love of God and love of others. Today's reading is not much different. I am going to look at just the first and the last verses from today's reading and we will go in a little different direction. Verse 1, Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. In fact, I'm going to divide this in two. One of the more famous verses in the bible comes from John's gospel when Jesus is meeting with Nicodemus, the Pharisee. Jesus tells Nicodemus, 3: 3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” When we assert our belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we are born again, born of God, born into the family of God. Now for the the second half, everyone who loves the parent loves the child. I'm afraid I have my doubts about that. I hope I'm not the only one that has wonderful friends whom we love dearly and whose children are brats. Some time ago I saw a wonderfully politically correct way to refer to these brats. We call it a medical condition, Behavioral Regressive Attitude Trauma; BRAT. Okay, that's my nastiness for today. |
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