The Woman at the Well

Recently, our pastor preached a service on water. 

We've been focusing on water as a community for a while now.  The sermon was on the Samaritan woman at the well.

We examined the dichotomy in the conversation, how the woman was talking about water, and Jesus was talking about something else entirely, yet they had this whole conversation about it.  The woman was talking about water, and Jesus was talking about spiritual life, spiritual water.

Sunday Quote 42510

Found over on Chris Brauns' blog, A Brick in the Valley:

Imagine being asked to stand before a grand gathering of the good and the wise and being asked to make a speech about goodness, beauty, the meaning of life, the point of history, the nature of Almighty God, or some such high subject and having no material at your disposal but an account of a humiliating, bloody execution at a garbage dump outside a rebellious city in the Middle East. It is your task to argue that this story is the key to everything in life and to all that we know about God. This was precisely the position of Paul in Corinth. Before the populace of this cosmopolitan, sophisticated city of the empire, Paul had to proclaim that this whipped, blood, scorned, and derided Jew from Nazareth was God With Us.

 Will Willimon, Proclamation and Theology, page 66.


And we think it's hard to tell the people we work with that we go to church.


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Weight

My job at the airport is taking care of the ground servicing for the fleet of aircraft which my company owns and manages.  One of the largest parts of my job is preparing the aircraft for their departures, so I spend a large part of my work day fueling airplanes.

Jet fuel weighs right around seven pounds per gallon, and it's not uncommon for me to pump up to five hundred gallons of jet fuel into one aircraft.  We have one aircraft that's larger, and that one may take as much as 1,500 gallons.  That's over ten thousand pounds!

Sunday Quote 41810

From Doctrine, by Mark Driscoll and Gary Breshears:

When the clouds of trial, pain, loss, hardship, hurt, and tears roll in, we must never forget that our Lord Jesus Christ imaged God well even when suffering. When Jesus was hurting the most, as he hung on the cross for our sins, he reflected the mercy and justice of God perfectly. Jesus invites us to not waste the worst moments and seasons of our life but rather consider them treasures to be invested purposefully in glorifying God by imaging the character of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is Jesus’ point when he says, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’ Thankfully, unlike so many half-true theologies that speak only of the victories of Christian life and how to image God when we are winning, Jesus shows us that if our aim is to image God, then when we win and lose and as we live and die, every moment is a sacred opportunity to be captured for his glory, our joy, and others’ good.

Doctrine, Driscoll & Breshears, pp 142


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Sunday Quote 41110

From the upcoming book by Tullian Tchividjian, entitled Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels:

Most Christians assume that the gospel is something non-Christians must believe in order to be saved, but after we believe it, we advance to deeper theological waters. The truth is, however, that once God rescues sinners, his plan isn’t to steer them beyond the gospel but to move them more deeply into it. After all, the only antidote to sin is the gospel—and since Christians remain sinners even after they’re converted, the gospel must be the medicine a Christian takes every day.

The Gospel message is one that we need to live in, and live through.  Only then will it have the impact it was meant to have for the hurting, broken Creation.  Every day I remind myself that Jesus is the fulfillment of this Gospel, and I remind myself that God is present in the here and now, as close as our next breath.


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Fourth Day

Jesus changed everything.

And the fourth day was the first day in that change.

When I was in high school, and then later in college, I was a part of a ministry geared towards youths.  This ministry put on events that would last one weekend.  I volunteered for several of them, and always had awesome experiences.

Easter Sunday

HE IS RISEN!
HE IS RISEN INDEED!


The Lamb without defect was sacrificed for our sins.  He has conquered death!

No more are we doomed to remain seperated from God!

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"



So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)
Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.


They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"


"They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.


"Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"


Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."


Jesus said to her, "Mary."


She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).


Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "


Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.


John 20 1-18

Holy Saturday

I am laid low in the dust;
preserve my life according to your word.
I recounted my ways and you answered me;
teach me your decrees.


Let me understand the teaching of your precepts;
then I will meditate on your wonders.
My soul is weary with sorrow;
strengthen me according to your word.


Keep me from deceitful ways;
be gracious to me through your law.
I have chosen the way of truth;
I have set my heart on your laws.


I hold fast to your statutes, O LORD;
do not let me be put to shame.
I run in the path of your commands,
for you have set my heart free.


Teach me, O LORD, to follow your decrees;
then I will keep them to the end.
Give me understanding, and I will keep your law
and obey it with all my heart.


Direct me in the path of your commands,
for there I find delight.
Turn my heart toward your statutes
and not toward selfish gain.


Turn my eyes away from worthless things;
preserve my life according to your word.
Fulfill your promise to your servant,
so that you may be feared.

Take away the disgrace I dread,
for your laws are good.
How I long for your precepts!
Preserve my life in your righteousness.

Psalm 119, 25-40
 
 
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Good Friday

The season of Lent is coming to a close.

There is a strange tension that we feel during this time of year.  All around us, winter is breaking apart, and spring is breaking through.  But Lent is about death.

The massive snow piles that have dominated my ramp at work for the past few months are gone, replaced with mud, and my airplanes are no longer coming back with sticky slick puddles of de-ice fluid dripping from them.