The Right Man with the Right Message--by Linden Malki

Jesus' followers knew Him well; possibly too well. They had been through ups and downs with Him; seen impossible things happen, and they had seen how desperately those who should have recognized the Power of God refuse to believe that God was up to something that was both new and the culmination of their long history. The message He brought was that the Law could only bring them one step toward God; they could not get where God wanted them without going beyond the Law to a relationship of faith and forgiveness. The religious establishment not only rejected Him; they had Him killed.

This was only the beginning.  He had raised the dead on more than one occasion, but nobody was prepared for what happened next. Those who had feared Him the most were more worried about what might happen next, but even armed guards as His tomb couldn't prevent what did happen: He came back, more alive than before. Jesus Himself was taken back to the presence of God, but His enemies kept up the pressure: they killed a young follower named Stephen and persecuted others. One of the most zealous of the persecutors was a young Pharisee named Saul, of Tarsus.

Jesus' follows were spreading the story of Jesus beyond Jerusalem. Saul was travelling to Damascus with instructions to arrest any of Jesus' followers there, when Jesus Himself appeared to Saul and changed his life. The hunter became the hunted--Saul preached the Good News of Jesus there in Damascus; was smuggled out of the city in a basket over the wall, and became a powerful voice with a powerful message  to the Greek-speaking Eastern Mediterranean provinces. Jesus had reached beyond the Jews with His teaching; and Saul (now known as Paul, in Greek) spread the news that Jesus had come to bring them into a relationship with Him and overcome their sins through His power and grace.  Paul had the education in both Hebrew and Greek to speak and write to Jews and the wider Greek/Roman world, and the faith and relationship with Jesus and His Father through the Holy Spirit to change his world.
 Paul, with the power of God, has spoken powerfully to literally millions of people over almost two thousand years. It is amazing that we have the records we have virtually unchanged for so many years, and the writings of not only Paul but many others with messages that tell the same story through different eyes and inspirations, but it is the same message that has spoken to many different people, places and languages. 

Are we Safe, or are we Good?--by Linden Malki

"Safe? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."  Aslan the Lion in C.S. Lewis' book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a "Christ figure" who understands that there are times that we are not called to be "safe," but we are always called to be Good. 

Jesus was not "safe" when He drove the moneychangers out of the Temple.  He was not "safe" when He healed and forgave people in front of those who did not understand who He was and where His power came from. He was not "safe" when He talked with a Samaritan woman and a Phoenician mother. He was not "safe" when He dealt with a Gerasene who was possessed, and a stranger's pigs went off the cliff. He wasn't "safe" when He hung out with tax collectors and other outcasts under the nose of the Establishment types.

 He was not "safe" when He resurrected Lazarus, entered Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey, and found Himself in front of a hostile Sanhedrin, a Roman governor, and hanging on a cross.

Three days later, He was safe--but His followers were not; 10 of the disciples, as well as Stephen and Paul and many more died painfully. Over the centuries, the world has killed millions of His followers.

We are not always called to be martyrs, but there are other times we should not be "safe." Jesus said that whoever harms a child is not "safe". Even today, there are times, places and situations that are not "safe" for those who stand up for those who are in danger.

This weekend we are reminded of those who have endured unsafe places so that others might be safe.  May we understand that as long as there is Evil in the world, "O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand. Between their loved home and the war's desolation!"  Are we thankful for those who have put others' safety ahead of their own?                                             

The Source--by Linden Malki

The last few weeks we've been talking and thinking about being "safe" people, who can deal effectively with conflicts in the various relationships we are part of in our familties and the communities. These conflicts and crises aare nothing new; we find them all through Scripture as well as in our contemporary lives. As I have been researching these stories, I have noticed that especially in the Old Testament, there are many mentions of situations that are often dealt with through the intervention of God Himself. We see God dealing with Abraham and his family situations, and more crises moving down through Isaac and Jacob, and on down through the history of God's dealing with these tribes of people He is attempting to teach His lessons to. Obviously, if they had all listened, a fair number of disasters could have been avoided. But there was an additional thread running through this history. We see the familiar thing--God telling people, through His servants and prophets, the same things that we've been taught through Scripture, and through the teachers He has sent to us.  We have no excuse for not knowing what He wants of us.

But it's not enough to know the words. There's another thread I kept finding, especially in the Psalms. Almost half of the Psalms include something more: the writers are asking not only for the rules and the lessons, but for help. Opening my Bible to a random page of Psalms, I find this: "Keep me safe from the traps set by evildoers" (Psalm 141), and this "I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy." (Psalm 142) and "For your name's sake, Lord, preserve my life" (Psalm 143). These writers are not just asking for advice on what they should do; they are begging for active intervention in their situations. They know that they cannot do what needs to be done on their own strength.

There is another thread that runs through this as well: "I will exalt you, My God the King. I will praise your name for ever and ever." (Psalm 145) It's not enough to know the words! We need to ask for His strength, and then to praise His name for the result. Yes, it is important to have the instructions, but as His followers, we have a whole additional source of power: God Himself, His Son and His Spirit.

Risking It All in God's Hands--by Linden Malki

           
God is all-wise, but also willing to take the risk  of having made creatures who are free. If we recognize Him, and are willing to live this life on His principles, we will have rewards beyond our imagining. If we insist on living life on our own terms, we are responsible for the result. We are capable of great good, and also of great evils. We live in a world that is not safe, but we will be taken care of if we choose to follow Him. This doesn't mean than nothing bad will ever happen, but that we will be taken care of in ways we cannot understand ahead of time. Our lives, our jobs, our families are unpredictable, except that we know that living life in God's way is better than not. Yes, bad things can happen, but we are responsible for each other. Even disasters give us the choice of working together for each other, or giving up, or taking advantage of a situation for our own perceived benefit (which usually is not ultimately good for us or others). I recall my husband, facing a third round of cancer therapy after two  remissions, commenting that "God gives us choices, but this is not one of them." We were blessed in that he had had the joy of seeing our kids and grandkids grow up in those years, and were facing life with the best that we could do for them, knowing that they were in God's hands.


 God has given us the information and ability to take or avoid responsibilities for ourselves, our
families, and our communities. We can be realistic about our decisions and deal with the results, or we can blame others for what happens and try to avoid responsibilities--which usually means that we also avoid the opportunity to change the situation. We can try to shift the responsibilities to everybody else, but the only person we can actually change effectively is ourself,  with the power (if we accept it) of God, available to us if we are willing to honor it.  It's much easier to sound off and tell every body else what they should do, but there are a few things we need to remember: we don't know all the factors in the situation; we are limited in our power but unlimited in our greed if we let it have its own way; and we will be held accountable at some point, in this world and/or the next, for what we have done. We don't know all the ins and outs of everything that happens; are we willing to trust God, who does know, and do what He calls us to do--which may involve risk, but also offers the best answers if we trust His judgment over what we think is best in our limited understanding.

The Family of God-by Linden Malki

Being a member of "God's family" is a choice that we make. In one sense, all human beings are children of God, but we need to make the step to identify with His people. Back at the beginning of God's calling of His people, it was important to recognize the need to take a positive step to maintain ritual cleanliness in His eyes. We see this back in the earliest days of God's calling Aaron and his family to prepare for their offerings to God by being washed in a basin set apart for this purpose.  Also, as the Law developed, it included the command to wash to restore yourself after various

deliberate and inadvertent types of disobedience or uncleanliness. By the time of the New Testament, communities maintained ritual washing pools with access to clean running water; these pools have been found in many first-century communities, including the fortress at the top of Masada.  As the Jewish communities regrouped after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, the first thing they were commanded to provide was a "mikva", or ritual bath.  To this day, Jewish communities maintain the mikva for ceremonial washing,  and adopting converts into the communal family. 

When John the "Baptist" showed up at the Jordan River, preaching repentance to the people and offering this ritual bath of repentance and restoration, this was a familiar procedure to the Jews. When Jesus showed up, John was given recognition of Jesus as the Messiah, but this was the beginning of a new understanding of what this meant. Jesus' disciples continued to baptise those who wanted to follow, but it wasn't yet clear what was involved. At Pentecost, after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, Peter offered baptism as a new beginning and a new relationship with God, which was open not only to Jews but outsiders as well, and this was not recognized by some of Jesus' followers, who were still seeing this growing community as being for Jews or those willing to accept the full Jewish law only. As we read the story of this developing community, and stories of those who had been "outsiders" now welcome to this new identity as followers of Christ, we find God leading the way in welcoming the Samaritans, the Ethiopian official, the Roman centurion and his household, and all sorts of interesting people who had been outsiders until now, into His Family, symbolized by the ancient ceremony of baptism.

We have seen this over the centuries; even when the church has tried to maintain control over this ancient practice, we have seen God calling people outside of the organized church to bring people into the family. The Reformation and its predecessors welcomed people outside of the formal church structure, and baptised people on their own commitment--which opened up their welcoming people beyond the church who claimed control over the community, and restored the practice of baptising believers on their profession of faith. We are called to welcome all who are touched by God's mercy into His Family, and baptising in His Name.

Jesus:Expect the Unexpected! by Linden Malki

It should have been obvious that Jesus had power over life and death; there are descriptions of almost 40 people that He healed from illness and disability in the Gospels, and three that were raised from the dead.  Most of the healings are recorded in Mathew, Mark and/or Luke, and three in John, which are not in the others.  The first one mentioned was in Galilee; an official who probably worked for the Romans who asked Jesus to heal his dying son; who was healed by a word of Jesus spoken to the father. We are told that the whole family believed,  but there was no apparent response from the Jewish establishment.   The other two were both on the Sabbath, both in the Jerusalem area, and both set off a firestorm with the Pharisees. (One was the man at the Pool of Bethsaida, and the other a blind man who was sent to wash his eyes in the Pool of Siloam.)

One of the resurrections from the dead is told in all three of the other Gospels; the raising of the daughter of Jairus, a leader of a synagogue in Galilee. Matthew says that the word spread, despite Jesus' word to not tell about it, but there is no mention of opposition. Another is mentioned only in Luke, early in Jesus' ministry, the raising of the son of a widow in Nain, which got a lot of talk but not opposition. So both Matthew and Luke indicate that these raisings of young men from the dead were widely known in the Galilee region but without the criticism of the Pharisees, which seems to have been primarily a Jerusalem area reaction.

It was, however, the raising of Lazarus in Bethany,  not far from Jerusalem, that blew the lid off. Jesus knew of Lazarus' illness, but deliberately waited four days after his death to make an appearance.  This allowed for the full burial rites to happen, and there was no possible chance that he wasn't actually dead. John, who seems to have had some connections within the Sanhedrin, describes their reaction: intolerable!! Time to get rid of this troublemaker! They should have been aware that Jesus had brought three people at least back from death; that He was going to be difficult to finish off. Matthew describes the efforts made to keep Him in the tomb; the others don't include the details but all mention a very large rock covering the entrance.  God's answer was a long way from the human expectation!

The Creator Breaks Through!--by Linden Malki

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1) How do we know? Because we are here. We have a place to live that fits us like it was designed for us; we look out every day at the sun and sky and every night at an incredible panorama of a universe. The more we learn about it, the more wonderful we realize that it is. 

And we exist. We are created to be able to make a free choice to have a relationship with the Creator. He gives promises of what He can do if we accept a relationship with Him, and He lets us know what the alternatives are.

God came to Noah, commended him for his obedience, and made a covenant with Noah  for his descendants.  God then appeared to Abram (who became Abraham) and said  “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. (Genesis 17:1) The Lord then appeared to Abraham's son Isaac, and his grandson Jacob,  and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac,  ... and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. (Genesis 28:13 )
 God also spoke to Moses and said to him: Say therefore to the Israelites, ‘I am the Lord, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.  I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has freed you from the burdens of the Egyptians.  I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’” (Exodus 6:2 -8)

And then God spoke all these words:  I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:1-3), followed up with the basic principles of this relationship. The calling for this group of people was the challenge to be an example to the rest of humanity: to demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of a relationship with the Creator.  Moses' final words of advice and warning: " See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. (Deuteronomy 30:15-16)

God gave these people 1500 years to work it out; but it became obvious that they couldn't do it on their own. So a time came that there was a cultural potential to reach beyond a single nation; that it was time to call Moses' people to a wider challenge, and also to provide a Way that would enable all of humanity to live in obedience and fellowship with God Himself. It cost 33 years of living in our midst as one of us, and to demonstrate total obedience and total fellowship--and to break out of the boundaries of the people God originally chose as His messengers and teachers.  In the past 2000 years, the Word has spread; often in fits and starts, and successes and failures, but the miracle of the Word is still alive, still spreading, still real in the real world.