In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul writes about how “agape,” or mutual love and regard, is to be the foundation, the very goal for the Christian life. It is the foundation that requires ongoing character formation, and a virtue that is both given to us by the Holy Spirit and learned in a community. It is a gift that needs to be both cultivated and received together.        
 
It is why agape requires patience: agape doesn’t come down from the cross and say, “I am out of here,” but endures for the sake of forgiving others. It does not adopt secular tactics to keep score or tally votes, but learns over time the virtue of forbearance and calls forth maturity.
 
In short, agape means that there needs to be a sense of humility: it means that we don’t know all things, and we can’t see the whole picture, for, in truth, we only see in a mirror dimly (1 Cor. 13:12). We cannot see all that is happening, or all that is going to happen. No one can! If we did, we would sound like a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. 
 
No, love as agape means we act with humility: we see with humble eyes through the cross. We see through another angle of vision. Because, truth be told, right now, our vision is blurry, or should I say, due to our own imperfections, we cannot quite make out what we see all the time, especially when we look in the mirror. 
 
In other words, when I look in the mirror, is it someone I know? Is it really me? Or is it someone who thinks he has it all together? Or is it someone Whose own face I am trying to see, but never quite clear as to Who it is? Is it Jesus’ face, or someone else’s?
 
Humble eyes remind us that someday we all will see, but that right now, only dimly, partially. Humble eyes remind us that the things we thought were most important in this life are really like child’s play in comparison to what is to come, and that the things we may have wondered about in terms of faith, hope, and love truly do matter, especially with respect to agape, which is the greatest gift of all, giving us the eyes to see and the vision to be the body of Christ.
 
Pastor Andy Kinsey

How do you know what you know?  How do you know what you see is true?  It takes spiritual vision. Spiritual vision is the ability to see the way Jesus sees - through the lenses of grace, love, mercy, and hope while wearing glasses of justice, compassion, humility, and wisdom. 

If there was a man who did NOT have clear spiritual vision, it was a man by the name of Saul of Tarsus. He thought he knew all things Jewish.  He was a Greek speaking Jewish pharisee. He knew the Hebrew Bible. He did not agree with Jesus’ teachings or that Jesus was the messiah and felt those who followed him should be punished.    He thought he saw things perfectly clear. The rules. The interpretations. The history. Saul built quite a reputation going from synagogue to synagogue arresting believers and either astricizing them or having them flogged. Believers did everything they could to avoid him. 

In Acts 9:1-19 Jesus had Saul’s attention in a dramatic and powerful way.  A blaze of light. Blindness. Yes, Jesus had his attention and told him to go into Damascus and wait for further instruction.  At the same time Jesus also spoke to his servant, Ananias who was not at all thrilled to be the one commanded to go to Saul and welcome him to the family of faith. In fact the text tells us Ananaias protests Jesus’ request to go and help Saul and tries to convince Jesus of the kind of man Saul is.  (As if he didn’t know) Ananias was a respected and honored leader in the Jewish community and among followers of Jesus. He was confident and thought he saw things clearly. He thought he knew what was expected. He thought he could see clearly what Jesus was doing.     

It seems both men were having trouble seeing with the 20/20 vision of Christ.  Both men were dazed and confused upon encountering Jesus and what was happening or being asked of them.  Both needed to adjust, clear or open their eyes in order to focus on what truly mattered. 

It is easy to imagine both Saul and Ananias experienced some  level of fear, anxiety, and utter bewilderment at what was going on.  Saul for obvious reasons. Here was a devout Jew, a religious authority who had significant connections, contacts and power brought to his knees and depending on his official escorts to get him to the place he had intended to flex that authority and power.  Ananias had some of the same. Here was also a devout man, believer in Jesus, also a religious leader with significant connections and authority in his own right and community. He too was brought to his knees and dependent on the very faith he professed. Both had eyes but could not see beyond their own position and circumstance. 

Church, are we not much the same?  Do we not find ourselves in the same position?  So often we as followers of Jesus have eyes to see yet fail to take in the greater vision of Jesus Christ.  So often we have eyes to see yet we let our own agendas, ideas, perceptions, and even beliefs get in the way of seeing what God has in store.  We bulldoze into situations wanting things our way, Or we dig in our heels, refuse to see other viewpoints, or possibilities that Jesus might be presenting to us.  

I am not saying we give up what we believe.  I am not saying we accept everything blindly that comes along.  I am saying, spiritual vision is about seeing that God’s power and presence of love is far bigger than our limited vision.  God does have requirements of us (Micah 6:8 love mercy, do justice and walk humbly with God) and to love and follow Jesus does have expectations, AND both are rooted first and foremost in a love that sees beyond shaming people, marginalizing people, or hurting people.  

We are not the ones with a greater plan, nor are we the ones who can see the grander vision.  God is. Jesus is. This is a lesson both Saul and Ananais had to come to realize and my gosh, look at who they were!  One is considered one of the greatest apostles to live and the other is called the unsung or forgotten hero of the New Testament.  Who are we to think we can travel our journey of faith and not have to let the scales fall from our eyes. 

We must be the ones to be dazed and confused and come out the other side truly transformed.  We must be the ones in prayer and obedience seeking the way of Jesus. We must be the ones to develop and regain 20/20 vision in a world that desperately needs a bigger vision of love, forgiveness, and hope. 

​Pastor Jenothy Irvine

Have you ever looked at someone and thought you saw them clearly? Saw what made them who they are, what they thought, and the things they cared about?  Have you ever looked at something and believed you understood it? What it was made of., how it worked, or who would use it. Have you ever looked at someone or something and thought you saw clearly the truth?

Mark 8:22-26 is a fascinating, little known, easy to miss, only found in the gospel of Mark, yet significant text illustrating the process of seeing clearly.  Seeing things clearly is not always a one and done kind of thing, not really. Today’s text will show that. It is a story of a blind man healed but also a metaphor for the difference in what the followers of Jesus think they see and what really is.

As much as today’s text is about the healing of a blind man, it is about the healing of the disciples spiritual blindness.  It is a commentary on Jesus’ relationship with the disciples and the struggle they have to see clearly who Jesus truly is; his power, authority, teachings, ministry, and the expectations of those who believe in and follow him.  Like the blind man is limited in his physical sight, the disciples are limited in their spiritual sight...limited in seeing clearly the purpose, example, teachings and call of Jesus. It is like a blurry photograph to them.  

They think they know.  They think they see things clearly. 

But what they see is like what the blind man saw when he opened his eyes the first time and things were blurry.  He thought he saw people walking toward him but “they looked like trees.” Maybe that’s why Mark records this story of a two-stage healing.  Jesus lays hands on this man twice. There’s been great debate over why it took Jesus a second laying on of hands. Did he get it wrong the first time?  Did something go wrong? Did he need more dirt and spit? Was it to show Jesus could heal even a person born blind, not just blind from injury or disease?  
Or was it something else?  Was there a lesson that had nothing to do with the blind man but everything to do with spiritual blindness?    Was it more about the disciples and their vision than the blind man?  The disciples thought they saw Jesus, but did they? Do we? 
Maybe seeing clearly isn’t as easy as we think.  Maybe seeing things or people or issues today isn’t any easier for us than it was for those first followers.  Regardless of how advanced, educated or enlightened we think we are. Maybe we don’t always see clearly right away.  Maybe it is a process. Maybe what we see changes. Maybe we have to struggle a bit with what we think we see before what or who we are looking at comes into focus.  

This text challenges readers to reflect on their spiritual vision.  Asking them to consider what it takes to have or to develop 20/20 vision when it comes to understanding God.  The kind of understanding that ultimately informs your faith and behavior. 

For all that we don’t know about this text, we do know that without focusing on Jesus, without trusting Jesus with what we think we know and what we think we see, truth remains blurry.  Without turning our eyes toward Jesus, constantly, we will never see clearly. Amen. 

Pastor Jenothy Irvine

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God provides us with a mission, but we learn this mission by learning from Jesus himself, by paying attention to what he did.

In book of Isaiah, we learn about this mission: that long before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Isaiah had foretold of the mission of God’s Servant-Messiah. In Isaiah 42, we read how God calls this Servant “my chosen one in whom my soul delights” (42:1), and we go on to read how God’s own Spirit will be upon this Servant: He will bring forth justice to the nations (42:1a). God will bless this Servant and, in turn, will bless the world (cf., Genesis 12). 

The way God’s Servant will carry out this mission, however, will not be by commanding armies, but by suffering love: This Servant of God will accomplish his mission through gentleness and weakness, not by physical force (42:2-3). He will bring light and open the eyes of the blind, both physically and spiritually (42:6). He will liberate the oppressed and embody God’s new age of righteousness (42:9).

Such a mission is what Jesus will fulfill. In fact, one of Jesus’ first sermons was telling his home “church” in Nazareth that the Spirit of God was indeed upon him to preach good news to the poor and give sight to the blind (Luke 4:18-19). From the beginning, Jesus was going to live out this mission. He was going to call Israel back to God and God’s covenant and then suffer death on a cross and bring resurrection. 

Coming up out of the waters of the River Jordan in baptism, Jesus was going to fulfill this mission as God’s beloved Son and teach in the power of the Spirit. He would include others in this mission as well and call persons to him who would carry out this mission to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:20).

How is God calling us to fulfill our mission, to know our “Why”? How is God calling us to share and grow in how we follow Jesus?
​
Pastor Andy Kinsey

In Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, we hear Paul telling us what naked faith looks like as he describes the garments worn by a genuine community of Christians: garments like compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and, above all, love. These are the “style” or “fashion” marks of those who live “in Christ,” who have been blessed as “God’s chosen ones” (3:12). It is the kind of clothing that the newly converted are to wear, contrasted to the old clothing in the preceding verses that the newly converted are to take off, the kind of clothing that comprise moral and spiritual corruption, evil desire, lust, greed, rage, malice, slander, obscene language, lying (3:5-8).

Read carefully, this whole passage speaks of “taking off” and “putting on”: that’s the language of baptism. It’s also the language of conversion. It is the language of endings and new beginnings.

In fact, I am sure this week, when the clock strikes 12:00 o’clock on December 31st, when we all make our New Year’s Resolutions, we all will resolve to take off those things that we want to say “goodbye” to and put on those things we want to improve on: to cut out the carbs and spend more time in the gym, right? We all will resolve to take the stairs instead of the elevator and spend more time working on the waistline. We all will resolve to spend less time on social media and more time conversing with family and friends. We all will resolve, in short, to make a fresh start, to make good changes in our lives, to put on a fresh, new persona.

Now to be sure, I am all for making resolutions, and I hope we all can make resolutions. But I also hope that the resolutions we make are the kinds of resolutions that will make a difference: Be it resolved that the resolutions we make will make a difference!

What inner change needs to happen in our lives to make a difference? What kind of new clothing do we need to put to show the world who Christ is? 

Both inner change and outer clothing are necessary. How may we show forth the kind of changed clothing Christ brings?
​
Pastor Andy Kinsey 
 
 

When we turn to Scripture, we need to come to grips with hope: in Scripture, hope takes on a bit of a different form or tone, as hope becomes a confident expectation for the good to come. Grounded in who God is as a God of faithfulness, and grounded in how God acts on our behalf to redeem us – hope is the confidence that God will be faithful to what God has promised. It is what the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Carey, meant when he said once, “Expect great things from God.” It is in the very nature of God to bring about what God intends. God will be faithful to God’s purposes.

I believe that this is what the apostle Paul shares with respect to Abraham in Romans: Paul describes Abraham as the great example of faith: Abraham is reckoned as righteous because of faith in God to fulfill God’s promises in the future (Romans 4:21). “In hope,” Paul writes, “Abraham believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations” (Romans 4:18).

“Against hope” means that from a human point of view, there was no hope. After all, Abraham and Sarah were barren. And yet, with God and in God, the full assurance of hope was given to Abraham and Sarah (Hebrews 11:1). A whole new people was born: Israel. Despite all evidence to the contrary, God was able to create a new future, a whole new beginning.  

It is why, Paul continues, hope does not disappoint us: because of God’s grace, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, even things that work against hope only serve to strengthen it (Romans 5:3-5). Nothing is going to stop this hope!

How true! How may we trust God with this hope as we anticipate the coming of Jesus Christ? How may we place our hope in the One whose Birth will bring a new beginning for all? 
​
Pastor Andy Kinsey