DAY 309 - For the Life of Lazarus

From John 11 (NIV) Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ³ So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” ⁴ When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” ¹⁷ On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. ²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. ²¹ “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” ²³ Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴ Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” ²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; ²⁶ and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” ²⁷ “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” ³⁸ Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ³⁹ “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” ⁴⁰ Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” ⁴¹ So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³ When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

The miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead raises many questions for us, but John does not answer most of them. This miracle is one of the seven signs that he gives. When we hug someone or give a gift to them, it is a sign that we care about them. It is a visible and tangible way of speaking the message. And when we are standing in the graveyard of reality, sentimental words about death or life after death can ring hollow. We want action. We want a sign. We want some visible evidence that tells us the truth, and this miracle is an action sign pointing us to the truth. The miracle of Lazarus is not a resurrection to life eternal. It is the resuscitation of a body to life here and now, but it also points to more. Resurrection and life are complimentary. It is as if the abundant life here and now is the focus of the picture. The resurrection to eternal life is the background. And both are necessary.

Belief is the way we read the sign and the way the message of the sign becomes real to us. The body has been in the tomb four days, Martha says. Decay has set in. There will be a terrible odor. Death is talked about in all its graphic and real details. Faith faces the obvious logic that death is the end of flowers, animals, and humans. And in the face of that reality, belief affirms confidence in Jesus Christ. So this confidence in Jesus Christ is a defiant faith. It holds on to the truth of Jesus Christ in the face of the reality of death. It is a defiant faith, but it is not a groundless faith. One of two things is always happening with us. Either there is slow erosion of our faith or an on-going nurturing of our faith. Faith is a confidence in Jesus Christ.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope March 24, 1996

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell (Broyles)

DAY 308 - Take It To The Light

From John 9 (NIV) ¹³ They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. ¹⁴ Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. ¹⁵ Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.” ¹⁶ Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” ¹⁷ Then they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” The man replied, “He is a prophet.” ¹⁸ They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. ¹⁹ “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?” ²⁰ “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. ²¹ But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. ²⁴ A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.” ²⁵ He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” ³⁵ Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” ³⁶ “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.” ³⁷ Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” ³⁸ Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. ³⁹ Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” ⁴⁰ Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” ⁴¹ Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

The meaning of this miracle is that Jesus gives sight to the blind in soul as well as the blind in sight. Jesus is light to the blind man, and notice that He is at work with a person who does not recognize who He is. The man born blind gradually comes to see who Jesus is, but his sight is not simply in believing the right thing about Jesus but in seeing his rightful responsibility to Jesus. Jesus is light to the confused disciples, and to the idealistic Pharisees who were serious about their religion. In their commitment to keeping the ideals of the law of Moses they were blinded to the truth of Jesus. Commitment to ideologies can blind us to the truth of Jesus Christ, whether that ideology is loyalty to the state, a commitment to justice, or even a belief that tolerance is our most important virtue. Ideology is a difficult blindness to deal with.

Jesus is light to all but not all respond in the same way. The sight that Jesus seeks to give is not so much making us right as making us righteous in the true sense of that word. The righteous are aware and responsive to the work and will of God. The blind man says, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” In comparison, the Pharisees see the miracle, but they reject the authority, the power, the care, and compassion and the truth of Jesus Christ.

Are we so committed to the ideals of tolerance, of having an open mind, even of caring and serving that we no longer listen to and ask for and acknowledge the authority and power of Jesus? Living with Christ as the center is not a narrow-minded life but a focused life. It is not based on an infallible hearing but on a faithful listening. It does not try to avoid everything that is tainted, but seeks to be full of grace and truth. I am light for the world. This is not merely a claim but a commitment. Jesus wants to give light for your life.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope March 17, 1996

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell (Broyles)

DAY 307 - Just Listen to Him

Matthew 17:1-5 (NASB) Six days later Jesus *took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and *led them up on a high mountain by themselves. ² And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. ³ And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. ⁴ Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” ⁵ While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!”

The Transfiguration is a moment with a message. It is a message about the truth and trustworthiness of Jesus Christ. It is a spiritual experience that assures us of the realness and reliability of God. The Transfiguration is an experience, a moment when something happens to us, when something speaks to us, when we suddenly become aware, when there bursts forth to our mind and hearts a moment when we know that God is real. It is a gift from God, not given to us because we go to church or because we are good or because we are really spiritual. It is simply a gift.

It is an experience that also gives us a command. This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him! And yet I suppose we all know it is hard to listen. It is difficult. It is no accident that the Transfiguration happened when the disciples were on the road to Jerusalem when it would soon appear that Jesus had failed, that He was powerless against the opposition and the forces of death. The Transfiguration is given to us to support us in those times when we are looking into a murky future and are not sure what is going to happen, and when we are wondering what is best for us, for our families, for the job that we do.

Listening to Jesus becomes a part of our life-style. We chose a different center for our life than the way of noise and clatter and idle gossip. We value the cost of paying attention so we can hear the voice of God over, beyond, and in all the noise around us. We listen for the inner persuasions that draw us to particular tasks that are ours and turn us away from those that are not. Listening is a part of our life-style and we do it more effectively some days than others. But the value, the importance, the commitment to listening has been impressed upon us by the Transfiguration experiences of our life.

Listening is also a discipline. It is taking a moment to do nothing but listen, to take even a short time of silence and prayer and the reading of devotional material to listen to Him. The listening is nurturing. It sensitizes our soul.

Some of us may have had an experience when God was real for us. Did we also hear the command Listen to Him? Have we been faithful in doing what we have been told to do?

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope February 18, 1996

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell (Broyles)

DAY 306 - The View From Mount Perspective

Micah 6:8b (NIV) And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Matthew 5:1-11  (NIV) Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, ² and he began to teach them. He said: ³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ⁴ Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. ⁵ Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. ⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. ⁷ Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. ⁸ Blessed are the pure in heartfor they will see God. ⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. ¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹ “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

A good teacher knows that a lesson plan has one main point, and the Sermon on the Mount is no exception. The main point of the Sermon on the Mount is this: Blessed are the humble. Humility is the thread that holds the whole message together. The Sermon on the Mount spells out what humility looks like:

Blessed are the poor in spirit. The poor are those who have not or cannot make it on their own, and the poor in the spirit are those who know they cannot make it on their own without God. It is the heart’s acknowledgement of need.

Blessed are those who mourn. Jesus is not saying, “Happy are the sad.” To mourn is the opposite of being hardened and closed and guarded toward the pains of life. It is to experience life’s sadness as well as its joy. Those who allow themselves to feel some of life’s pain are the ones who make a difference in the pains of life.

Blessed are the meek. Meek might be called “strong gentleness.” We see real meekness in the compassionate power of Jesus, and we see what it means to be humble. Jesus is poor in Spirit. The Son of God lived out of His sense of need for God. Jesus mourned for the people. He wept over the city of Jerusalem. And He was meek. Before His accusers He was meekly silent, and His silence was eloquent.

Some translations substitute “happy” for “blessed,” but happiness comes from our word “happens.” Happiness depends on the happenings of life. We are happy when life goes well for us. We are unhappy when life does not go well. Blessedness is a gift and a more permanent gift. Problems may arise, but they do not have the power to take blessedness from us. “Blessed are the humble” summarizes the Sermon on the Mount. But there is something missing from that sermon that most of us are very accustomed to. There is no command. The Sermon on the Mount does not prescribe. It only describes. It puts on display the kind of life God is working for us to have. It holds out the promise of deep joy that goes with it. So, what do we do, if anything, about the Sermon on the Mount?

At this point, all that Jesus is asking is that we give in to the work of God. Give in to the work God is doing with you.  

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell (Broyles)

DAY 305 - Now You See Him

John 1:29-30, 35-39 (NRSV) ²⁹ The next day he *saw Jesus coming to him and *said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰ This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’ ³⁵ Again the next day John was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶ and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and *said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” ³⁷ The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. ³⁸ And Jesus turned and saw them following, and said to them, “What do you seek?” They said to Him, “Rabbi (which translated means Teacher), where are You staying?” ³⁹ He said to them, “Come, and you will see.”

Obviously, we do not ask for help with a problem we do not know we have. And sin is one of those problems. Being a sinner is, for many people, not a practical, daily way we think of ourselves. Being a sinner is often regarded as a religious way of feeling, or it has to do with some “sinful pleasure.” Sometimes we have a fuzzy awareness, like when we know we are spending money in a foolish way and then think we do not have enough, or nursing a resentment even though we know it only makes us miserable and not the other person, or worrying when we really want peace of mind. We may be able to fix one of these problems or even some of these problems. But that something that is wrong with us simply comes back on us in a new way, like a weed consuming our lawn and no poison seems powerful enough to stop it.

And now John has a more difficult thing for us to believe. Behold, the Lamb of God, this Jesus, this very common, unpretentious person that you see, He is the one who takes away the sin of the world. A lamb sacrificed for the sins of the people and slain to remove sin was familiar to the people of Israel, but is foreign to us, even a little bit “way out” to many of us. But most of us have some recognition of people who have sacrificed something for us – a parent, a wife, a husband, a friend, and sometimes our children.

People have sacrificed their time for us, sacrificed having something so we could have something. And this sacrifice is important, is influential on our life. There may be a crisis of how we respond: to let that sacrifice into our life, to let it shape our life … or do to refuse it and let it harden us instead of shaping us. In Jesus is someone who can do something about that “something that is wrong with us.”

What He will do and how He will do it is sometimes a blur for us. John simply points to Him again for us. Two disciples heard this and they followed. Jesus was still a fuzzy blur to them, but they did not go up and ask, “Are you the one to take away the sin of the world?” They only know to ask Rabbi, where are You staying?  And Jesus does not answer the question. Rather He says to the disciples then and to us now, come and see. However blurry He may seem to us, come and see.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope January 14, 1996

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell (Broyles)

DAY 304 - Wealthy Rich

Ecclesiastes 5:10a (NIV) ¹⁰ Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.

Luke 12:13-21 (NIV) ¹³ Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” ¹⁴ Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” ¹⁵ Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” ¹⁶ And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. ¹⁷ He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ ¹⁸ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. ¹⁹ And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ ²⁰ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ ²¹ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

One day a man came to Jesus with a pressing need. He thought he was seeking justice - tell my brother to divide the inheritance. But Jesus’ message was to tell the man to wake up and see the truth about his desires. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions. Many of us have heard the words before. But have they drifted past our ears instead of sinking into our souls? Indeed if we were asked what makes us happy, we would probably list some intangibles like love, relationship, family. But money means survival, and in the day to day doings of our lives it is often seen as the most real thing, and the most pressing need of our life. So rather than examining our hearts, maybe we should examine our lives.

And so Jesus tells of a man who was so dependent on his wealth that he was no longer attune with the reality of life. And Jesus called this man a fool. The word means someone without sense, without awareness of danger they are in or of the harm they are causing. But we are not a fool by accident, or because of the way we were raised, or because of what we have been deprived of in life. We are fools because we resist the wisdom all around us that says life does not consist in an abundance of possessions. So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves and are not rich toward God.

The wealthy rich are those who have a rich relationship to God, one of sharing, trust, a source of satisfaction, fun, interesting, and the fundamental value of their life. Jesus never opposed wealth. But He also knew that almost unconsciously we could grow to depend on riches in such a way that we deprive ourselves of a rich relationship to God. Money does not have to deprive us of that relationship. The appropriate use of money is grounded in our trust in God. There is a relief to our spirit, a glimmer of hope, and we begin to act on this hope in the way we are stewards, in the way we manage our money under God’s guidance.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope November 12, 1995

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell (Broyles)

DAY 303 - The Gift of Neediness

Deuteronomy 4:9-14 (NIV) ⁹ Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. ¹⁰ Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.” ¹¹ You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. ¹² Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice. ¹³ He declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he commanded you to follow and then wrote them on two stone tablets. ¹⁴ And the Lord directed me at that time to teach you the decrees and laws you are to follow in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.

Do you have the fear of God, or is this notion strange to you?  The fear of God is not something we can conjure up for ourselves. The fear of God comes as a response to the reality of God, coming to us in some sudden and subtle ways. It is our response to an encounter with God, to a personal meeting with God, to an event that happens. The fear of God is not just an idea we want to believe is true.

Have you ever been loved by someone and you felt so unworthy and so good? That is what the fear of God is like. Have you ever felt someone’s unreserved commitment to you, and felt so undeserving and so grateful? That is what the fear of God is like. But feelings don’t last, and the fear of God is kept active and alive by what we call discipline, habitual actions that nurture that event and help keep that event active in shaping our life.

And when the disciplines are done for the sake of our own spiritual survival and our of our own sense of need, those around us pick up on it and receive something of this value though we may not be aware of it at the time. Others, including our children, see the need we have. The need we have for God is our strength and is what undergirds all our other values. The need for God could be called humility, but that does not quite capture it. I believe the need for God is best described as the fear of God.

Among the Hebrew people, the fear of God was the definition of true religion. The fear of God was also proclaimed and practiced in the early church. The fear of the Lord describes a spirit of trembling adoration. It tells of a person who is very much conscious of God and sense a responsibility to God. And the fear of the God is the disposition of mind and heart that makes us teachable and opens the gate of our soul to receive the truth of God and the gifts of God.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope October 29, 1995

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell (Broyles)