The View from the West Mesa

Some time after Jesus was born, the Magi from the East arrived to worship the Promised One. They had recognized the signs in the heavens and had travelled some distance to see this phenomenon. Having arrived in the general vicinity, they needed some help finding the right location, and so they stopped in to ask the local king. The king in turn, called the prophets and his own wise men and they told both the king and the Magi that Bethlehem was the prophesied location. Thanks all around, and the Magi travel to Bethlehem to marvel at and worship the Promise. The king though, seeing this as a threat to his own well-being, knowing now the location and the time of the appearing of the signs, ordered all the boys two years and younger killed. The intent? To eradicate this threat to his kingdom. In the church calendar, today remembers that slaughter, that attempt to manage and control one’s own destiny through our own might. The world has just remembered with most of Christendom,...

Christmas marks and reminds us of a day a couple millennia ago when the Creator God was born as a helpless human baby. The Creator as creature. He came as the object of promises made by that Creator God from hundreds and thousands of years before; the birth was the fulfillment of promises and mark the steadfast faithfulness of God. God had not forgotten His people, or the world. Birthed to live a life as the Life we are made to live. Birthed to live as an example for us; a life of love and acknowledgement of God. Having lived that life, He is destined to die not simply to effect our salvation, but as the ultimate expression of love for you and me; as the ultimate expression of submission to God as an expression of love. This child reminds us that the world is not foreign to us or to God, but a place to which He deigns to come because He has made it; because He loves it; because He loves you. Loves you and offers you Life with Him. Two thousand years ago,...

Matthew 1.18-25 (with some allusions to chapter 2) Advent is a season of preparing, of getting ready for the coming of our God.  Our text for this week is one of promise fulfilled but it is quickly followed by warning in chapter 2.  Our text tells us of Joseph’s resolution to put Mary away quietly. He could have chosen public humiliation or worse for this young girl but Joseph is a man of conviction, of righteous behavior.  All of us have heard of, or perhaps have acted in “righteous indignation” toward someone or something with which we have taken exception. Righteousness in the first century was roughly equitable with living by the Law, and in this case the Law was quite clear what Joseph’s options were. But Joseph gives us a glimpse of real righteousness, a righteousness that extends grace in the face of insult, of caring rather than condemning. Joseph himself is an image of God. We are reminded that there is anticipation of the coming of the Christ child, the...

Third Sunday of Advent Matthew 11.2-15 Advent is a season of preparing of getting ready for the coming of our God. John the Baptist was commissioned by God to prepare the way for Jesus. In response to that commission, John spent a lot of time in the “wilderness” dressed in camel hair and eating honey. He understood himself to be a prophet and he was seen as a prophet by Jesus. John’s message was encouragement to repentance in anticipation of the arrival of Messiah. John’s message of repentance had touched a nerve and he and his disciples were busy baptizing people who had heard his message and responded to it. One day, Jesus stands in the baptism queue. When Jesus gets to the head of the line, John is nonplussed. Instead of baptizing Jesus, John attempts to beg off, suggesting that Jesus should baptize him. Jesus insists though, and John baptizes him “to fulfill all righteousness.” Following the baptism, the Spirit comes upon Jesus and God’s voice is heard commending Jesus. Jo...

In this passage, much like the more famous chapter 53, Isaiah foretells the Lord’s Servant who will be exalted. This servant, who we are told will be exalted, is also described as suffering, of being beaten and disfigured beyond recognition even as human. These two verses don’t seem to fit together. How can someone who the Lord is going to exalt, suffer like this? Isaiah anticipates our conundrum with this seeming impossibility. But this is the divine secret, the basis of the mystery hidden before time, but now revealed. When the Servant comes, His glory, His exalting will be accomplished through this mystery, and as a result, peoples and kings will not be able to utter a word. They will be dumbfounded by the way this Servant will be exalted. Paul tells us in Philippians that His name has been exalted above all other names – Jesus, Messiah, the Christ has triumphed in death for us. In doing so, He has blessed and cleansed – or text says sprinkled – the entire world...

For those who might appreciate a primer on Advent, here you go.....

Matthew 3.1-12 Advent is a season of preparing, of getting ready for the coming of our God. John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin was a bit older than Jesus and John had been given a mission by God. John’s work was to tell the people of Messiah’s coming and encourage them to get ready for His appearing. Jesus refers to John as Elijah, the prophet who was to come before the coming of God. John in turn, always pointed to Jesus and referred to Him as someone whose sandals John was unworthy to untie. John knew he was a forerunner, going so far as to say that “I must decrease so that He might increase.” John spent his time preaching repentance and baptizing people in preparation of receiving and greeting the Lord when He arrived. He and his disciples were baptizing a number of Jews who would come and be baptized as evidence of their repentance and desire to be set right with God. Most of the time this would go without a hitch, but one day a bunch of Jewish leaders came out to be baptize...

First Sunday of Advent Jeremiah 23.1-8  Advent is a season of waiting, of anticipation of the coming of our God. Scripture is replete with people of faith waiting, longing for, and growing impatient with God’s perceived slowness. Israel’s history seems to be one crisis after another, followed by her crying in distress for her God to respond to her. People of faith have had to maintain their convictions in the face of others and perhaps even their own thoughts that looked at the amount of time that had passed and wondering or even proclaiming that God would not fulfill His promises. In the birth narratives of Jesus, we read of people who have been faithfully waiting for God to visit them through their entire adult lives, and we read in other passages that even angels and perhaps the entire creation have been waiting for the culmination of the ages.  The passage this week, Jeremiah 23.1-8 contains a promise of God’s restoring of things to their rightful order. In th...

Have you received a gift that was particularly special? Maybe it was something you had been wanting for a long time, or perhaps something you had been needing and for which you had been hoping, or maybe even something you did not expect but once you had it, it seemed the perfect gift. These sorts of gifts go beyond themselves and impact more areas of your life than what might seem at first blush their purpose. Perhaps it was someone offering you a job out of the blue that set you back on your feet. Maybe it was someone who came along beside you during one of your darkest moments and lifted you out of that space, empowering you to move forward. Or it could have been a note, written on a small card that arrived in the mail telling you that you hadn't been forgotten in the morass of life. None of those appear to the greater world as anything special. None will fuel an economy, end a war, or cure a disease. But to you they might have meant more than the world itself. B...

John 18.37: For this reason I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth. Jesus tells us more than once why He has come into the world. For instance, in Luke 4 He uses Isaiah to tell us that He has come to declare the “year of the Lord’s favor.” Earlier in John’s Gospel, John tells us that Jesus came to save and not condemn the world. In our text, Jesus tells us that He has come to bear witness to the truth. We find ourselves asking, like Pilate, “what is truth?” To what does Jesus witness?   Some commentators tell us that Jesus is king, that his kingdom exists, that the answer to Pilate’s question is “yes,” as in “Yes, I am the king.” I wonder though if this is everything Jesus meant; the only thing to which He bears witness is that He is king. The problem here is that this seems to put Jesus in playing a game with Pilate based on different meanings of king. Is this what Jesus was doing hours before He died – playing word games with the procurator? I ...

The familiar story of Naaman dipping in the Jordan is a story with more than a few twists. Let's review the story first. Naaman we are told had been used by YHWH to punish Israel and our story describes him as a man of valor in high regard by his boss, the King of Syria the current thorn in the side of Israel. It turns out though that Naaman suffers from some sort of leprosy.  On one of Syria's raids into Israel, the Syrians captured an Jewish girl who had found her way into Naaman's household as a servant for his wife. Knowing of Naaman's illness, she suggests to her matron that there is a prophet in Israel who could help him. This message gets transmitted to Naaman who takes it to his boss. The boss - the king of Syria, tells Naaman to travel to Israel and gives him a letter to Israel's king directing that Naaman be healed. Upon Naaman's arrival in Israel he gives the letter to Israel's king who reacts in a panic. He does not even consider finding t...

Pentecost is not the birthday of the church. It is the blow the doors off, hitch up the horses, invasion of the world by the Spirit of God. Hang on for the ride.

Cain and Abel: .....God and other people The Law: .....God and other people The prophets: .....God and other people Jesus: .....God and other people NT letters: .....God and other people Got the idea? It's not all that hard. Really.

isn't as hard as some people seem to think it is. It doesn't require crawling on your knees. It doesn't require some great show of "Godly sorrow." It doesn't require "walking the aisle" and dumping your baggage on the front row. It is simply deciding to live the Life offered by God. It is simply turning your focus toward the interests of others, just as God's interest is on others. It is simply living the Life God would live if He were you.

Really. He does want you to live the Life He made you to live. What He wants is you - to bless you by offering you real Life. He doesn't really care about how many sins you have, how long you've had them, or even what they are. He knows He made you human, and you're not going to get every detail right. All He wants is for you to live in His direction - a Life that is giving, outward focused, concerned for others. Like Him. Like the Image you are. No, you don't have to do it perfectly; He knows you're not going to. After you blow it, all you have to do is get back on track. That's it.

...and offers you life with Him. That's the Gospel. When you decide that you want to take Him up on His offer, He'll let you. This Life is the one you are made to live. It isn't foreign, but rather is the fullest expression of you as the image of God. It takes some getting used to, it takes some effort in remembering to put others before you, it does feel odd. But it isn't. You needn't be worried about whether you're one of the Elect, you needn't worry about having to get everything right, you needn't worry about having to keep a bunch of rules once you've returned to Him. You will need to want to live the Life He offers, even if you don't live it perfectly. Believe it or not, it gets easier and easier the more you experience the Life of God.

Jesus’ birth was announced first to a 12 or 14 year old girl, who had been betrothed to Joseph. The angel didn’t make the announcement to Joseph first like Zacharias or Abram. No, this announcement of the arrival of Messiah was made to this girl. When His parents brought Jesus to the Temple, they met two people. The first was Simeon who upon seeing Him, praised God and said that now God could let His servant depart in peace. The other person was Anna, an 80-100 year old widow who spent most of her time in the Temple. Upon seeing the baby, Anna also praises God but then instead of bowing out of the picture, becomes the first evangelist of the Messiah’s arrival. This old widow became the first evangelist of the Messiah. A young girl receives the first announcement, and an old widow becomes the first evangelist of Messiah’s arrival. When Jesus and His disciples go to Samaria, the first non-Jewish interlocutor of Jesus is a woman with a questionable history. After sparing wit...

Seven Last Words “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” Finally, it really is over. After about three years of “setting His face toward Jerusalem,” of cycles of enthusiasm and abandonment, of insult, isolation, and abuse, and after hanging on this cross for six hours, it is mercifully time to let go. Jesus has lived the will of God His entire life and in fact this is what has brought Him to this point. He’s going to die today because of His absolute commitment to the leading of God. It isn’t just that He follows the will of God, but because He is God, His death in a few moments comes from His love for people; His love for you. This is the end of the road on which He set out on from the beginning. Having missed the family caravan back home, He brushed aside His parents’ remonstrances by reminding them that He had to be about His Father’s business. His practice of confounding and frustrating the Jewish religious leaders will last the rest of His life. It has on this day re...

Seven Last Words “It is finished.” We have come to the end—well right up to it anyway. After crying out that He thirsts, Jesus is given some sour wine and John says that he died. But John does not record our last two Words, one of which is this declaration.  What does Jesus mean by it is finished? Specifically, what is the “it?” Certainly it includes His life—His time on earth has come to an end. After thirty some odd years, with the most recent 18 or so hours of insult, abuse, desecration, and dehydration, His body is ready to die.  But we remember that this death is not just that of an itinerant rabbi who came afoul of the law. No, this is Messiah—one appointed as God’s messenger and representative—God Himself in this case. This then is the end to the planned-before-time-mission. Everything in His life; in fact everything in the history of the cosmos has been leading to this moment. He has been faithful even unto death. That death is now here to mark the comple...

Seven Last Words “I thirst.” The end is coming quickly now. His body has been beaten, desecrated, and now is quickly becoming dehydrated. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth they are so dry. If there was anything to swallow, it would be almost impossible to do so. Jesus’ humanity is coming to the end of life, a life that seemingly has been pulled from it; beaten from it. These words have meant many things to many people through history. Surely, Jesus suffers from physical thirst. How could he not? And so these words are our second verbal indicator of his human suffering and approaching death.  It is a bit ironic that he who suggested that the Spirit would be a living fountain of water in him who believed would now feel bereft of water. Ironic perhaps, but a clear indicator of what Jesus has given up so that we might live. Jesus has been on a mission directed by God. He probably also thirsts—longs for the completion of this mission. Following on the heels of his...

Seven Last Words “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” Jesus is coming to the end of His task. He has been on this cross for almost six hours. He has experienced repeated insult, injury, frustration, and even abandonment by both His disciples and the leaders of the People of God. From a human perspective, He has come almost to the end of His rope. Almost, but not quite. The end will come quickly now. Many smart people have pondered the meaning of these words, and have come to the conclusion that we simply don’t know their  full meaning. The conundrum arises from a central tenet of Christian theology—that God is One, and He cannot be split into parts. Given this understanding, it is simply impossible for God to have forsaken God; for there to have been a rift in the Trinity. And so He hasn't.  This utterance isn’t from Jesus’ divinity, but from His humanity. He is tired, and He has been doing what He came to do—all the suffering, all the not-answering-...

Seven Last Words “Woman, behold thy son.” Jesus spent his last evening washing feet, giving last-minute encouragement to his disciples, praying in the garden while the disciples slept, and then betrayed and standing a religious trial. At dawn, He had been taken to Pilate and experienced the leaders of His people yelling, “We have no God but Caesar!” After enduring an exchange of question and answer, He was finally turned over for crucifixion in return for a notorious insurrectionist. Beaten and insulted by the Roman soldiers, He now finds Himself hanging on a cross, being jeered yet again by those who should know better. Before He dies, there is one last detail He needs to handle. He has to make arrangements for mom. Jesus is her oldest son, and some believe her only son. In the culture of the day,   she will not have anyone to care for her when He’s dead. It is his responsibility to make sure she is   entrusted to someone. Looking down from the cross, he sees...

Seven Last Words “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Jesus is crucified between criminals. These folks are called thieves in Scripture, but the word used, lestes, might more accurately be translated as “robber.” A robber  doesn't  just take things surreptitiously like a thief might. A robber confronts his victims and may well use violence or even murder to take what they want. These two  weren't  second story men or petty thieves being crucified for taking someone’s VCR. These guys were violent men who may have been part of Barabbas’ group of insurrectionists. I review all that to shed some light on who these guys were. They would have fit in the list of people Paul has told us would “never enter the Kingdom of God.”  These were men who had committed considerable crimes. Unfortunately, they had been caught by on e of the most brutal regimes the world has known. Not only was life worth very little, but it could be taken seemingly at a whim b...