This past Sunday, we celebrated a baptism service as one of our newest members, Anthony Varesio, was baptized.  Many people come from traditions where infants are baptized, and then confirm their baptismal vows in their teenage years.  In our tradition, as we understand the Bible, we believe that baptism is a public expression of an inward reality, that an individual has died to his or her old self, been washed of his or her sins, and has been raised to new life in Christ.  Consider Romans 6:3-4 – “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”  Baptism is a way of identifying oneself with Jesus in His death and resurrection, and therefore something we believe should be experienced by those who can consciously make such a profession of faith.  Finally, it is also an act of obedience, keeping in mind that Jesus, who himself was baptized in Matthew 3:13-17, commanded us in his Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything He had commanded us.

My baptism holds a special significance in my life.  Read more »

They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.” Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him. Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!” (Mark 14:32-42)

As we approach Easter, I’ve been reading the passages describing the last days of Jesus’ life. This scene from Gethsemane is, for my money, the most moving of all the stories, and even as I sit down to type my thoughts on the passage, I feel like Jesus’ disciples in v. 40, where it reads “They did not know what to say to him.” The gut-wrenching magnitude of what is taking place here in Gethsemane is simply beyond words.

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Isaiah 53:5-6 – He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Whether or not a person believes that Jesus was God in the flesh, one thing should be apparent from reading the stories of his life – Jesus would have been impossible to make up.  Over and over we see Jesus saying things that do not seem to make sense and acting in ways that no man-made god or savior would be expected to act.  Jesus is above all else completely unpredictable, rarely behaving like the religious men of his time – which, of course, is just what we might expect from someone who is Holy, separate, different than us.

Case in point – check out Luke 23:26-31.  As we approach Easter, I’ve been reading some of the passages describing the last days of Jesus’ life.  In Luke 23, Jesus is carrying the cross towards Golgotha, where he will soon be crucified.  As Luke puts it: Read more »

“The Mississippi’s mighty but it starts in Minnesota at a place where you could walk across with five steps down.” (Indigo Girls, Ghost)

This past Sunday, I preached on one of the most stunning passages in the whole Bible, the story of how King David, the man after God’s own heart, slept with Bathsheba, the wife of one of his best friends, and then had his friend killed to cover it up.  That passage, in 2 Samuel 11, begins famously with these words:  “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army… But David remained in Jerusalem.”  As the narrator makes clear, if David were only where he should have been, none of this would have happened.  But instead, we find David arising from a late afternoon nap, wandering up to the roof of his palace, and seeing Bathsheba bathing naked nearby.  One thing leads to another, and soon David has broken almost half of the Ten Commandments in an incredibly thoughtless escapade.

As the aforementioned Indigo Girls’ lyrics put it, even a raging river begins as a little stream.
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Each month in 2010, I am challenging our church to memorize one verse of Scripture together, and to spend time that month meditating on that month’s theme.  In January, we focused on our new life in Christ, memorizing 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”  In February, the theme was spiritual warfare, with the key verse James 4:7, “Submit yourselves, then, to God.  Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”  In March, we will be focusing on the power of prayer, and the verse I am challenging you to memorize is John 15:7 – “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.”  This powerful promise is located in a passage where Jesus talks about himself as the vine and us as the branches, and exhorts us that we can do nothing unless we are connected to him.  I highly encourage you that when you memorize this or any verse, that you do your best to understand the context in which it is found so that you do not take it to mean something which it does not.

 As simple as prayer can be – at its heart, it is a conversation with God – it can also be hard to make sense of the different passages about making requests of God.  Read more »

Today’s guest blogger is Laura Motola.  As we focus on spiritual warfare with our memory verses for February, Laura will be sharing her reflections on spiritual warfare.

In 2 Kings 6:15-17, we read,

“When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. ‘Oh, my lord, what shall we do?’ the servant asked.  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ the prophet answered.  ‘Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’  And Elisha prayed, ’O LORD, open his eyes so he may see.’ Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

If only our eyes could be opened and we could see the spiritual battle going on around us!  We are at war!  The enemy of our souls wants to destroy us.  He wants our Christian lives to be ineffective and unproductive.  He wants us to feel unworthy and unloved.  He wants us to hold on to bitterness and resentment, and to feel anxious and afraid.  “But thanks be to God!  He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor.15:37).  One of the ways we can have victory is to put on the armor of God.
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