The View from the West Mesa

Jonah, the guy with the big fish. Or the guy with the scorching heat and the shade problem. The guy directed to Nineveh by his God. The guy who does everything he can not to do what his God wants him to do. If we have read the story and paid attention, we know that it ends with God’s rhetorical question about caring for people - a stark contrast drawn between a God follower and his God. Standard insights and details that most of us glean from this story. But.... Have you noticed these details: Once Jonah gets on the boat, in the middle of the storm we find the Pagans entreating their gods for safety and deliverance.  Once they learn from Jonah that they’re going to have to throw Jonah overboard, these Pagans entreat Jonah’s God not to hate them for throwing him overboard. Once we get Jonah to Nineveh and he delivers his speech, the Ninevites almost immediately – at the direction of their king – repent in “sackcloth and ashes.” Jonah goes up on the hill ...

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.....