Tag Archives: New Beginning

The Crescendo of a New Beginning

Posted on April 7, 2021 | Leave a comment
A reminder for myself today, originally Posted on March 30, 2016

John 19:28 Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” 29 A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. 30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Jesus’ words “It is finished” are an important reality of our life in Christ. I thought about their importance to the personal drama of my own “first” Easter with Jesus. It felt so big, so dramatic, so epic…and so complete…but it had just barely begun.

I wonder why it’s so easy to look at epic moments in our life of faith as finales when beginning right there on that cross, our hope lies in exactly the opposite being true. That’s the truth of Jesus words “It is finished.” Easter was not an epic finale but The Crescendo of a New Beginning.

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Posted in John, New Testament, Remember, Wednesday

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The Red Thread – That In-Between

Posted on November 15, 2017 | Leave a comment

Mark 9
• Alpha – Beginning
31…“The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.”
33…Arguing
35… “Ambition
37 Acceptance
39 Tolerance
42 – 48 Dire Warnings & Results
V48 “‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.’ [Isaiah 66:24]
• Omega – Finale
49 Everyone will be salted with fire. 50 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other. ”

Alpha (Α) and omega (Ω) are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, and a title of Christ and God in the Book of Revelation.

This red thread begins with Jesus telling his disciples once again of what’s in store for him…coming death and resurrection. V31 sounds like an ending, but Christ is the beginning of our journey to God and that’s how the Alpha and Omega came to my mind. ..but there’s that in-between.

We live today with the same life circumstances Jesus was cautioning them about in Mark 9. “Our” life in-between Alpha and Omega is packed with arguing, ambition, acceptance, tolerance and the reality of how critical our choices are. They’re so critical in fact some versions quote Isaiah three times in verses 44 and 46 and 48.

That in-between life is not just filler. It’s time the Alpha has given us for salt and fire to purify our choices and teach us how to be “salt among [ourselves], and be at peace with each other” while we look forward to the last word, the Omega, an eternity lived in the presence of God the Son, God the Spirit and God the Father.

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Posted in Mark, The Red Thread, Wednesday

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The Red Thread – A Timid Step

Posted on October 1, 2017 | Leave a comment

Mark 5:24 – 32. You surely know this story of one needy woman in a large crowd following Jesus. With one timid touch her life is changed forever after years of suffering being unclean because of bleeding that no amount of doctoring or money could cure. She was left unable to participate in any of the life affirming rituals of Jewish law. And Jesus says…

30b “Who touched my clothes?”
34b “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

There was a life and death principle to the Jewish purity laws. This woman wasn’t unclean because of anything she’d done. She was impure because her years of continual bleeding were viewed by law as the loss of potential life and kept her perpetually separated from the ritual practices that could connect her to God.

Her need was so great that she was willing to take one timid step to reach out and secretly touch Jesus’s clothes. She knew Jesus would be defiled by her touch and that act could be punishable by death. A timid step and a secret touch was enough for her new beginning!…but when Jesus stopped and turned around to ask who’d touched him she was terrified. Now what had been one secret touch became a far more public risk she had to take…confess. She “came and fell at his feet “and trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.” He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

We don’t subscribe to ritual purity anymore but this woman’s story is the story of faith today as well. Faith still begins by taking one timid step in belief Jesus has the power to respond to our need. It’s in confessing the whole truth of our need for that relationship with Jesus that we are freed to enjoy the potential of life God intends for us, without depending on ritual.

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Posted in Mark, Sunday, The Red Thread

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Likeness

Posted on November 30, 2016 | Leave a comment

branchribbons
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Genesis 1:26

“Let us…our image, in our likeness;” are phrases of the reality of Christ’s presence, not just at our Christmas or Advent celebrations but at the beginning of all life. He was there when the stage was set for mankind: water, light, sky, vegetation, stars, living creatures…and finally…Adam. He saw firsthand what a new creation looked like and it was good.

It was a perfect preparation for that future day when he would open his eyes in a very different place, a cradle, and a new beginning. Even though people might not recognize him, he would still see the likeness of their creator in them and in that image they bore the possibility of a new beginning…and it was good.

Those images we see of that divine baby during Advent remind us we are image bearers of our creator but that likeness always starts with a new beginning. While our eyes are focused on him, he sees that likeness in us and that is good!

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Posted in Advent, Genesis, Wednesday

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