God is present in all the people around us Ceilon Aspensen, February 13, 2024February 13, 2024 The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is God is present in all the people around us. My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this: Exodus 37 & 38: Specifications for building the ark of the covenant, as well as the table for the loaves of the offering, the lamp-stand, the alter of incense and anointing oil, the alter of burnt offerings, and the court. Mark 16: God is present in all the people around us. Psalms 44: A prayer for help in a time of abandonment. Proverbs 13: “The teaching of the wise is a life-giving fountain for eluding the snares of death.” It may seem tedious to lay out all the details of every last thing that goes into the sanctuary, but the details are symbolic. Although these details were specific to the faith traditions of the Israelites 3200 years ago, we can still see them put into practice in our own churches. When I get to these chapters about architecture, building, and furnishings, I try to focus on what each of these things symbolically represents. However, it is not important to dwell on them too much. Religion that works is about changing ourselves from the inside out, not keeping to the letter of the law as it was laid down 3200 years ago. In Mark we see, once again, the women showing up to minister to Jesus. They go to his tomb to anoint him and are worried that they won’t be strong enough to roll away the stone so they can get to Jesus’ body and properly tend to it. However, the stone is already rolled away and it is empty except for “a young man in a white robe.” He tells them not to be afraid and that the person they are looking for is not there because he has risen from the dead. He also tells them to go tell the disciples, and Peter. In this account of the resurrection story, the women run from the tomb, terrified, and they don’t say anything to anyone. Jesus then begins appearing to his disciples; first to Mary of Magdala, who had been so terrified at the empty tomb. At that point she does go tell the disciples, but they don’t believe her. (Remember, she was just a woman, and women were of no consequence, so why should they listen to her?) Then he shows himself to two others “under another form.” When they tell other people what they have seen, no one believes them, either. Finally, he shows himself to all of the eleven disciples while they are having a meal. He scolds them for not believing those he revealed himself to when they tried to tell them he had risen. The part of Mark that stood out the most to me this morning was where “he showed himself under another form.” Back in the early 2000s, there was a wonderful TV show that only lasted two seasons called “Joan of Arcadia.” The theme song for the show was “One of Us,” written by Eric Brazilian and performed by Joan Osborne. In the show, Joan, a teenage girl, is constantly confronted by God taking the form of various people she comes into contact with during the course of her day: the bus driver, the cafeteria lunch lady at her school, etc. When she meets these people, they have important things to say to her, and usually some instructions. That’s what I envision when I read “he showed himself under another form.” I’m guessing the two people to whom “he showed himself under another form” are the two people on the road to Emmaus (a story in the last chapter of Luke), because those two didn’t recognize the traveler they met as Jesus until after he was gone. This chapter of Mark presents us with a bunch of people who had spent most of their time for the last three years living closely with Jesus, day in and day out. They knew him better than anyone else. Yet, when he presents himself to them after he has resurrected, none of them recognize him at all. It’s as though they had forgotten everything he had taught them about what was to come. This chapter always makes me wonder how often we do not recognize Jesus when he shows himself to us in the people around us, until after the moment has passed. How often do we not recognize him at all? Back in Matthew 25 Jesus said that whatever we do for “the least of these,” we are actually doing for him. He tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves–when we take care of the poor, the sick, the lonely, and the forsaken–we are loving God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. When we are presented with opportunities to love our neighbor, God is showing up in those people as well. Every person we meet every day presents us with an opportunity to encounter Jesus and demonstrate to them the love he first showed for us. Just a few chapters ago, Peter boldly pronounced that he would never deny Jesus, and then he did it three times within a very short span of time. Then Jesus appeared to his closest friends after his resurrection and they didn’t even recognize him. It almost seems as if his appearances were a test of what he had said in Matthew 25 (“what you do for the least of these…”. They all failed (except the women). How often do we also fail this test? In Psalms, once again we are presented with a desperate prayer for help in a time of abandonment. Juxtaposed against the reading in Mark, I can’t help but put the two together and realize that God intends for us to reach out to one another during those times, and in doing so we extend the hand of God to our neighbors, and they extend it back to us. Our relationship with God is not simply a vertical one. It is also horizontal. In loving our neighbor as ourselves we extend the love of God to one another and pull each other through dark times. Proverbs 13 is once again chock full of nuggets of wisdom for daily living. The verse that stood out the most for me, and seemed most relevant to the rest of the reading, was verse 14: “The teaching of the wise is a life-giving fountain for eluding the snares of death.” When we do find ourselves in dark, lonely times, we should reach for that life-giving fountain. That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today? To participate in a discussion about the posts, please join us in our private Facebook group that I set up specifically for sharing what we take-away from the readings each day. If you haven’t gotten the FREE “Read the Bible in a Year” worksheet yet, you can download it here. It is not necessary for you to start on January 1st–you can start from the beginning on whatever date you get the worksheet. Join us! Learn more about why I read the Bible all the way through every year, and feel free to share with anyone you think could benefit. 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