Dearest e-votees-
For the Wednesdays of Lent at Christ the Good Shepherd this year we have been using the epistle texts from the preceding Sunday in our midweek worship.
Blessings on your experience of the tail end of Lent this year and your experience of Holy Week.
This week's lesson comes from Paul's letter to the church at Rome, the 8th chapter.
Peace,
Karl
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For the Wednesdays of Lent at Christ the Good Shepherd this year we have been using the epistle texts from the preceding Sunday in our midweek worship.
Blessings on your experience of the tail end of Lent this year and your experience of Holy Week.
This week's lesson comes from Paul's letter to the church at Rome, the 8th chapter.
Peace,
Karl
----------
6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.
Romans 8:6-11, NRSV
There is a set of cross currents the flow throughout scripture:
God blows life and power into the dust.
Those who are blessed and equipped go their own way leading to death, disempowerment and returning to the dust.
In the garden God forms the first humans from dirt and blows the breath of God into them. Soon after the first couple chooses to go their own way, to seek the knowledge of good and evil, to seek to become like God. And in so doing they unleash mortality and a journey back towards the dust.
God chooses a people and makes promises to them. They are blessed with laws and prophets to guide them and to bring life and power into their community. But the people choose their own ways. They fashion idols out of their jewelry and demand a king like all of the surrounding communities. They find themselves literally and metaphorically dying. They return to piles of dusty bones.
So God take Ezekiel out into the desert and shows him a sampling of such bones. God sends breath into the refleshed bones and life returns. God promises that graves will be opened and that the people will be brought out. Yet the message doesn't seem to take so well. The people continue to choose dusty paths and deadly paths.
Jesus comes into the world breathing life and hope into the people. He teaches as one with authority and bears the Holy Spirit (God's breath) in a new and compelling way. Life and power are unleashed on a dusty people. Yet some cannot tolerate the gracious and life-giving ways of Jesus. And they kill him on a stake and seal him in a tomb. Now all is left to do is to wait for him to return to dust.
The disciples know they are done for and lurk behind locked doors awaiting their similar fate. Jesus comes into the dusty room through the walls and breathes into them the Holy Spirit. Sinful, dusty, dead and broken people tried their best to drag Jesus down with them but he would not stay dead. Jesus is alive and well and loose in the world. The Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us and all believers. God has sent the deciding gust in Pentecost. Our flesh, our Old Adam and Old Eve, may yet be of dust and heading towards the grave but our renewed flesh, our New Adam and New Eve, are surely part of the resurrection promise hinted at for all these years and decisively delivered in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of our Lord. Thanks be to God.
God, blow into us and through us. Amen.
9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.
God blows life and power into the dust.
Those who are blessed and equipped go their own way leading to death, disempowerment and returning to the dust.
In the garden God forms the first humans from dirt and blows the breath of God into them. Soon after the first couple chooses to go their own way, to seek the knowledge of good and evil, to seek to become like God. And in so doing they unleash mortality and a journey back towards the dust.
God chooses a people and makes promises to them. They are blessed with laws and prophets to guide them and to bring life and power into their community. But the people choose their own ways. They fashion idols out of their jewelry and demand a king like all of the surrounding communities. They find themselves literally and metaphorically dying. They return to piles of dusty bones.
So God take Ezekiel out into the desert and shows him a sampling of such bones. God sends breath into the refleshed bones and life returns. God promises that graves will be opened and that the people will be brought out. Yet the message doesn't seem to take so well. The people continue to choose dusty paths and deadly paths.
Jesus comes into the world breathing life and hope into the people. He teaches as one with authority and bears the Holy Spirit (God's breath) in a new and compelling way. Life and power are unleashed on a dusty people. Yet some cannot tolerate the gracious and life-giving ways of Jesus. And they kill him on a stake and seal him in a tomb. Now all is left to do is to wait for him to return to dust.
The disciples know they are done for and lurk behind locked doors awaiting their similar fate. Jesus comes into the dusty room through the walls and breathes into them the Holy Spirit. Sinful, dusty, dead and broken people tried their best to drag Jesus down with them but he would not stay dead. Jesus is alive and well and loose in the world. The Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us and all believers. God has sent the deciding gust in Pentecost. Our flesh, our Old Adam and Old Eve, may yet be of dust and heading towards the grave but our renewed flesh, our New Adam and New Eve, are surely part of the resurrection promise hinted at for all these years and decisively delivered in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of our Lord. Thanks be to God.
God, blow into us and through us. Amen.
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