Good Morning Friends,
Sometimes in our lives we face events that change everything. Isaiah certainly wrote about this, and I wonder what he would think of the world in which we live today. It would seem otherworldly to him for sure. With this life changing reality staring us in the face today in today’s scriptures I would like to get my head around this idea of a new heaven and a new earth, and I figure it is something like a dream of God contemplating and anticipating and planning what is going to happen in our lives or in the alternative a nightmare of the Devil to upend it. We are more vulnerable than we would like. but the hope of an existence without sin is certainly intriguing. So, I am hoping that what we experience is a sign and wonder of God’s viral love preparing us to enjoy not only God’s marvelous creation but for the re-creation to follow. Friends, those moments that God creates are marvelous, but the re-creation must be even more so for that will change us in ways we cannot even comprehend. I believe it has been, is now and will be such a love that helps us to remember the things we need to remember and forget the things we need to forget. So, Can You Imagine The Lord Dreaming Beyond Time And Space Healing Us With Mind and Heart?
Scripture: When the two days were over, he went from that place to Galilee (for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in the prophet’s own country). When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival; for they too had gone to the festival. Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my little boy dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.” The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household. Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.
John 4:43-54 (NRSV)
For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
Isaiah 65:17-21 (NRSV)
O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit. Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name. For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.” By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed. To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication: “What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness? Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!” You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.
Psalm 30:2-13 (NRSV)
Message: Part of today’s Gospel text seems out of place even though each of the Gospels repeats a version of it. I am writing here about a prophet not being accepted in his own country. And the reality is that Jesus was not accepted in Nazareth and was ultimately rejected in Jerusalem and though it is interesting that this statement explains why people failed to believe, it does little to inspire me to believe more. Maybe it is there to help us understand what needs to change in us now is about giving up sin for something better. When combined with the instruction on intercessory prayer in John, the lesson is about our influence in being the change needed. The thing is that we need each other to overcome the obstacles of daily community life that tend to limit us. And it is such a reality that helps me to imagine being transformed by the mind and heart of Jesus supported by the prayers of God’s Body of Believers. You see, the activities that fill our daily lives become habits and traditions and spill over for apparent good or for bad. But what inspires me is that Jesus, if we love, uses them all for good. Friends, Jesus’ redemption is beyond the limits of countries and towns and jurisdictions. Jesus is beyond time and in this way with divine enthusiasm creates a change that has little to do with what we do, aside from accepting and affirming the offer, and everything to do with God inviting us to join a divine dream. I cannot explain it but somehow God gives us the courage through love to change so we can live a life abundant. Some will say we are deluding ourselves. But that is the position of the naysayers that did not accept Jesus in the first place. Thankfully, Jesus only asks us to have faith to let Him act with us in love. Anticipation of love here is important for it creates a change in us as the belief in us grows. No, we really cannot explain this love… this renewal of everything that manifests God’s immense joy of Jesus in us. It is so much like a waking dream that makes space for God’s love and for God’s power. It is not for the power of a person, but for the power of One who is in love with us and who wants to rejoice with us. This expansion of time and space filled with love is faith. This is believing. Here God changes us and others, and the world is changed too as we bear witness to Jesus and His expansive love.
And So, Jesus creates an alternative to the dualism of good and evil. Jesus substitutes a reality that God can and will reconcile us to the divine if we believe in the power of God’s love beyond the cycles of this world. Friends, if we want to change our lives, our futures, our families, our relationships, it is surely our daily habits that must change as a witness to the characteristics of true faith. It is here we must bear witness to the love of God in us. Here happiness in the form of spiritual joy consists in looking on other humans as worthy of the highest goodness of God and helping people to achieve that wonderful experience of existence. Isaiah calls this state being in the new heavens and new earth. John in Revelations uses the same language as Jesus’s goal for creation.
Pray we let the joy in us be a witness of a changed life instilled with the strength of the Lord. Pray that our hearts are made new. Pray that we are in the mind, in the heart of the Lord. Pray God rejoice over us. Pray that we believe. Pray we give God the space to change us…to transform us…to recreate us in the reality of a love that triumphs. Pray we believe that Jesus can heal us, feed us, and embrace us in a love that we are eager to share with all we know. Pray that we have the courage to witness the abiding love of God. Pray we rejoice for God is in love with us. Pray we see the signs and wonders of Jesus in the face of the people who help us to believe. Pray we rejoice for God is in love with us. Pray we appreciate Jesus’ perfect timing.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 