e-vo for week of March 18

Dearest e-votees-

Please forgive the tardiness of this week's e-vo.

This week we have two of the three stories regarding the bronze snake that prefigured Christ's death on the cross and the healing it would work in Numbers 21:4-9 and John 3:14-21. The third story of the snake-on-a-stick trilogy can be found in 2 Kings 18:1-5 which gives the name and tells of the demise of Nehushtan.

For our time together, however, we will hone in on the epistle lesson from the 2nd chapter of Ephesians.

I pray your day would be blessed. And that in turn you would be a blessing to others.

Peace,
Karl

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You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved-and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God-not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Ephesians 2:1-10, NRSV

There is a rhythm of life in the natural world that is predictable and sure--you live and then you die. People and animals and plants are born or hatched or germinated. They live their cycle of life. After that they die (and in some form perhaps get recycled to help something else come to life but we aren't going to lean too hard on that imagery that is way overdone in "And When I Die" by Blood, Sweat and Tears). Bottom line--in the natural world things live and then they die--end of story.

In the spiritual world the rhythm is often exactly inverted. There is a death that precedes a life:

• Baptism is a drowning of the old Adam or the old Eve before the rising out of the waters of the new Adam or the new Eve
• Nets must be dropped before the new call can be embraced
• Jesus' death leads to the life found in communion
• The temple must be destroyed before the new worship can fully take hold
• Good Friday leads to Easter
• Our reliance on our own good works must die before God's grace can fully take hold in our lives

Once the death of our ways and our natural inclinations and our understandings takes place then God can work new ways and new inclinations and new understandings in our lives.

We then are freed to live better lives and do good works. But these are in response to God's love and grace not means to earn them.

The blessing comes and then the opportunity to be a blessing to others.


God, work your death in us that the life that surely follows may take hold. Amen.