On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb and she sees that the stone had been rolled away (John 20:1). She cannot figure out what has happened and so she runs and tells Peter and the other disciples, but no one seems to comprehend what has taken place (John 20:2).

Sure, Jesus said things about being raised on the third day, but no one really understood him at the time. After all, talking about resurrection at the end of history is one thing, but resurrection actually happening now? That’s a whole other ball game. 

Indeed, the whole point of the resurrection is that Jesus is no longer there; the line wrappings are, but the body is gone (John 20:6-7). And it is a difficult event to digest.

Even on that first Easter morning, there are three different responses to Jesus’ resurrection: first, there is the response of Peter, who runs to the cave and looks in, only then to go back home, as if nothing had happened (John 20:10); and then, there is the Beloved Disciple who also runs to the cave; but unlike Peter, he doesn’t go in, but he does see and that’s enough for him to believe (John 20:8); and lastly, there is Mary who stands by the tomb distraught, weeping; she doesn’t know what to do (John 20:11).

But it is also Mary who, after the other disciples had left, begins a conversation with two angels and with One she thinks is the gardener (John 20:12-14). In time, she realizes that it is Jesus who is before her (John 20:18).  

Talk about a surprise! Talk about something mind-boggling! Jesus is shattering the old ways of seeing the world and Mary is caught up in new life!

How is Christ calling us to live in a new world of hope? How is Christ calling us out of the closed tombs of our self-centeredness and into the kingdom of light? What is the good news of new life to you on Easter?
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Pastor Andy Kinsey

Prayer: May the God who has walked a mile in all our shoes, who showed us the way through the life of Jesus, continue to show us how to live and serve together. Amen.

I agree with the brilliant theologian and philosopher Forrest Gump when he said, “You can learn a lot from other people’s shoes. Where they been, what they do…” and then remember, he points to the shoes of the woman sitting next to him on the bench and says, “Those look like comfortable shoes.  I wish I had a pair of shoes like them. I bet you could walk all day in shoes like that.” To which the woman replies, “my feet hurt” (opening monologue from Forrest Gump”.

Feet do hurt don’t they.  Especially when you have been walking or standing all day.  Experts tell us that there are 26 bones, 33 joints, and more than 100 tendons, muscles, and ligaments in the human foot.  No wonder foot pain can create pain in the legs, hips, and back. What’s more, there are more than 250,000 sweat glands on the foot.  And I believe it. Especially during summer marching band practice and wrestling season.

Today we have shoes for everything and every occasion imaginable.  Sunday shoes, business casual shoes, dress shoes, prom shoes, dance shoes, wrestling shoes, basketball shoes, band shoes, concert choir shoes, rain boots, snow boots, horse riding boots...You name it and there is probably a shoe that fits.

If you were to look in Jesus’ closet however, you wouldn’t find much but a pair of simple leather sandals.  In Jesus’ day shoes were a matter of functionality and practicality. A simple sole and a plain leather strap. The roads were dusty, rocky, and in the dry season, there could be 2-3 inches of sand and dirt on the roads.  In the rainy season those 2-3 inches of dry dirt swelled into wet sticky mud.

For this reason, it was common for households to have large pitchers of water and a basin at the door of their homes explicitly for visitors, guests, family, and friends to have their feet washed.  Notice I didn’t say for them to wash their own feet. It wasn’t like at my mom’s house where you get to the door and she hollers, wipe your feet and come on in. In Jesus’ day, it was the task of the lowest ranking house servant to wash the feet of those who entered.  It was one of the most demeaning and filthy tasks in their culture.

It doesn’t get much more clear than Jesus doing the most basic, intimate, humbling act of washing feet to show the importance of what it means to serve.  It’s not like we did as kids in the summer rinsing our feet with the garden hose. This is an act of humility. To kneel, take the foot of another person, pour water over them, and proceed to wash between the toes, around the heel, and making sure its all rinsed off and patted dry.  It’s an intimate act of service.

This passage is about two things: 1. Jesus taking on the lowliest acts and becoming a servant king.  2. It is about you and me coming to learn what it means to serve by the example of Jesus.

I am not talking only about donations, great hospitality teams, or volunteering once a week.  That is certainly a part of it. Yet, this whole passage gives insight and instruction on how to be church and it has very little, if anything to do with denominational polity, governing bodies, or institutional religion.  It has everything to do with Jesus, the Son of God, King of Kings and Lord of lords, being the king we least expected - a servant king and calling us to take on the same kind of attitude.

His followers didn’t always have the best attitude. Just a few passages before this, the disciples were arguing who among them was the greatest.  They wanted to know who ranked where - what was the order of importance - and who fit what role. Knowing this, and knowing his time was limited, Jesus wanted to make sure he did everything he could to help them understand what was truly at stake and what was truly important - to love and to serve one another and to love and serve others.  
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I came across a story /  a legend of St. Francis of Assisi.  In his early days he was very wealthy; nothing but the best was good enough for him.  He was an aristocrat of the aristocrats. But he was ill at ease and there was no peace in his soul.  One day he was riding alone outside the city when he saw a leper, a mass of sores, a horrible sight. Ordinarily Francis would have recoiled in horror from this wreck of humanity.  But something moved within him and he dismounted from his horse and flung his arms around the leper. As he embraced him the leper turned into the figure of Jesus. The nearer we are to suffering humanity, the nearer we are to God  (Barclay 138). The more we understand what it means to serve, the more we are Jesus to each other, the more we are Jesus to each other, the more we show the world what love truly is.

May it be so believers, may it be so.
Pastor Jenothy Irvine

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How may we know the Voice of the One who speaks our name?

When Jesus says that he is the Good Shepherd, he is communicating something about a relationship, a relationship between the shepherd (him) and the sheep (us), a relationship that prompts us to pay attention.

But it is a relationship we may not always appreciate! That is, we may rebel against such a relationship between sheep and shepherd, for who among us really wants to admit we are sheep dependent on a Shepherd-God? Are we not more like cowboys, independent and self-assertive? 

 When it comes to the Old and New Testaments, there is the relationship between the people who continually see themselves as “sheep” and the God who seeks to protect the sheep. There is the understanding about the people who need guidance and the God who provides such guidance. 

Unlike the surrounding nations of that time that typically viewed themselves in terms of warrior-like qualities or fertility gods and cults, the Israelites proclaimed their dependence on a shepherd. Even King David, of all people, shares that the Lord was his shepherd. David’s desire was to be comforted and challenged (Psalm 23:1), reminding us that, if the greatest King in Israel needed comfort and challenge, then surely who among us can say that we don’t either? 

Again, the word is about depending on and knowing God, and not just any God, but the Shepherd-God who lays down his life for the sheep, for us (John 10:11). After all, it is the job of the shepherd to do what it takes to protect the sheep, to lead the sheep. It is the job of the shepherd, if necessary, to defend flock and not flee when danger comes. That’s what makes the shepherd good – laying down his life for the sheep, sacrificing himself for the welfare of the flock (John 10:11; 10:17-18). 

How may we know the Shepherd-God who wants to lead and guide us? How may we continue to depend on him and trust him? 

As we move into Holy Week may we continue to listen and follow his lead.
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Pastor Andy Kinsey

One of the reasons the religious folks of Jesus’ day had such a difficult time with Jesus performing a miracle on the Sabbath in John’s Gospel was because they couldn’t fathom or understand what God could do on the Sabbath, let alone when and where and to whom God could do it! It was simply unthinkable.  

In other words, healing a man on the Sabbath was a crime, as well as picking up a mat and moving it (John 5:10, John 5:17). Those were simply “no-no’s.” But, hey, what’s the saying? If that’s what the law says, then that’s what the law says. The law is the law and even God must follow the rules. After all, once we begin to make exceptions, then the whole “house of religion” begins to fall. True? False?

It is not hard to conclude that such a mindset is still very much with us: we have a strong tendency to focus on what we can’t do rather than what Jesus is doing! For the issue is really not on the law, but on Jesus. It is about understanding that the work of God and the work of Jesus are the same (John 5:17). That’s the real kicker! 

Yes, breaking the Sabbath would have thrown all the religious folks in a tizzy, for if God cannot be trusted to keep the rules, then why bother? Like the invalid on the mat, God must also stay put (John 5:15)! 

But equating yourself with God? That will get you killed (5:16). That’s a deal-breaker!

And yet, if God is able to do far more than what we can possibly imagine, then why is it that we religious folks fear God and fear what God can do (Ephesians 3:20)? If, as Jesus says, all things are possible with God, then what is it in us that prompts us to pull back? What is it about the nature of sin to constrict us, to focus on the impossible rather than the possible?

How may we proceed during this season of Lent in trust, believing God is working for our good, taking God’s hand and walking with him? What do we need to do? 
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Pastor Andy Kinsey

With all the various definitions of love on order these days, it is important to understand the particular kind of love that is lifted up on a cross and that takes up residence among us, the kind of love which Jesus communicates to Nicodemus. Indeed, it is important to see how the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus sets the stage for God’s mission statement in John 3:16 and to see how words like “born from above,” “eternal life,” “Spirit,” “wind,” “born of the Spirit” lay the foundation for comprehending God’s love.

For what we have in this wonderful story is a dialogue between two teachers who speak past each other about what such words could possibly mean: one, Nicodemus, speaks on a biological level; the other, Jesus, on a theological level.

Nicodemus, of course, is a scholar and a Pharisee, a teacher of the law. Jesus is a Rabbi and preacher. Jesus, however, tells Nicodemus, in so many words, that he will never see God’s kingdom unless he is born again (John 3:3). Nicodemus does not understand. Nicodemus is thinking birth cannel and water breaking; he is thinking about being born biologically, with birth being one of the most stressful experiences any one of us has in our lives. We may be cozy in the womb for nine months, but getting out ain’t easy! It is small wonder that most of us come out screaming our heads off and wanting our money back. 

Perhaps this is why Nicodemus is gut-struck: his mind is captured by images of confined space, pain, darkness, uncertainty. That’s what Nicodemus sees as he hears Jesus say that we’ve got to do it all over again. And so, if you are Nicodemus, you might be thinking: “If that is the good news, then what is the bad news?”

Nicodemus, however, is not a person in touch with his feelings. His thinking about physics: “How does this work? Grownups are too big to fit back in.”

And Jesus is saying, “No, no, no. That’s not what we are talking about. This is about wholesale new creation and transformation – mind, body, spirit. This is going to make the first-birth look like a picnic.”

How may we understand the mystery and wonder of the new birth, of the Spirit blowing where it wills? How may we, like Nicodemus, step out of the dark into God’s marverlous light?
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Pastor Andy Kinsey

The prophet Jeremiah was a prophet during a hard time in Israel. All hell was fixing to break loose as the Babylonian Army loomed on the outskirts of Jerusalem, a sign of God’s coming judgment. Times were difficult.

Following King Josiah, there was a brief period of reform and good in the land. However, after King Jehoiakim assumed the throne, things went from good to bad to worse, as the people enjoyed more and more material pleasures, forgetting God’s laws and purposes.

And so, when Jeremiah says that the human heart is perverse, he is seeing firsthand what can go wrong when people are being unfaithful, or when a ruler goes bad.

Remember that in Jewish thought the human heart is the seat of reason. Emotion resides in the abdomen, or in what we call the “gut.” The cheating heart, therefore, is actually a corrupted or a deceitful mind, a way of not seeing clearly. Persons become deceived when they think they are better than others. There is a kind of thinking that wants to take credit for the good things and then blame others when the problems come. 

What the prophet Jeremiah wants us to do is wake up and live in a place close to God’s heart, making sure we have roots deep in the ground of God’s mercy (v. 8).

How may we stay close to God’s heart? What may we need to do to follow in Christ’s step and have a heart open to God’s Spirit?

Pastor Andy Kinsey