Jospeh, Guardian of Jesus

 Today, the Church remembers Joseph, Guardian of Jesus

The appointed Reading; Matt. 1:16, 18-21, 24a

In recent weeks, I’ve been preparing a study on what the Bible says about justice, so I seem to see it at some level running through many of the appointed readings, but maybe that shouldn’t be surprising. When we read about doing justice, not far removed we also tend to hear about righteousness, mercy, kindness, acts of healing, helping those in prison… Are you sensing a theme? And, so it is with the appointed reading for today. In this short account of Joseph, we come face-to-face with a man who is righteous, one who does justice. When Joseph found out Mary was pregnant., Matthew says this of him;

…being a righteous man…unwilling to expose her (Mary) to public disgrace planned to divorce her quietly. …But…he took her as his wife.

Joseph was unwilling to cause Mary embarrassment when he would have been within his rights to have publicly humiliated her. But, he went even further! He married her. When we consider our sins, it is easy to claim God’s grace for those specific acts we have done that hurt others, but how often do we also acknowledge our need for grace for failing to act justly, for failing to love, to show mercy, even if it is within our “rights” to act otherwise? Jospeh’s example shows us how life changing doing justice, loving kindness, showing mercy can be.

Gushing Like a River

 Gushing like a River!

Thoughts on one of the appointed readings for today, March 15, 2023

John 7:14-31, 37-39

I have been working on a study on justice and Micah 6:8 has been in the back of my brain, so what follows is somewhat guided by that.

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

From the reading:

(v 16-18) My teaching is not mine but his who sent me … Those who speak on their own seek their own glory.”

(v 37-38) Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and …one who believes in me drink. …’Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’

When Jesus starts talking about being specifically “sent”, being one with God, he often follows that with talk of changing those who follow him.  I think it’s at this point that people sometimes get a bit hesitant. Oh, we want a God-man who is a personal savior, changing us from lost sinner to saved saint, but Jesus seems to teach about a much more thorough change, a core change. 

I think that we prefer a bit of a distance between ourselves and God, a separation of our religious and secular selves. Jesus, as man, was the ultimate in God-interest and other -interest. We are drawn to the God-man when it comes to being forgiven-being personally saved. When he says “come and drink”, he follows it up with (then)” out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water. Jesus is life changing because he is core changing (out of the believer’s heart). I think that we want to be “saved”, but God, in Jesus , wants to do more than that. God wants to change us, our entire selves.

Think of the Old Testament accounts of God providing life-giving water to Israel in the desert. There were so many people that the water would have had to “gush” out to satisfy them all. Here, John uses the word “rivers”. Strong vibrant rivers don’t tend to trickle, they gush. The living water doesn’t merely satisfy me, it changes my core being to one who can’t help but gush God’s love to others

Lent is a time especially set aside in our church during which we intentionally pause to self-acknowledge how we each have failed to gush forth rivers of living water, how we have protected our self-interest by compartmentalizing God into religious life for our personal “salvation” and secular life for our personal power, prestige, pride, protection. Lent is a time to recognize that the waters of grace in the work of Jesus not only quench our thirst for personal salvation but can drown our compartmentalizing selves so that as saved people, we can gush rivers of living waters for others. And, the beauty of this is that when we fail, and we will, the grace of God in Jesus is present to fill us again and again so we are equipped to be living water for others, doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with our God. It makes me think of Dr. Luther’s thoughts on daily remembering our baptism. 

(baptism) indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God…