Bryan Richardson

World

Re:Verse passage – Acts 1:8 (day three)

“…to the remotest part of the earth.”
The Spirit that will empower a worldwide revelation has been drawing close to the world since the beginning. “Now the earth was formless and empty…and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” As the accretion disk spun around the sun, as molten rock coalesced into a rocky sphere, as icy comets plunged into the young sky delivering water that gathered into seas, was the hovering Spirit contemplating that future time when the humans God made would see a new light and turn back to their Creator? The Spirit has been at this work a long, long time. He who moved across those ancient oceans will not stop until the earth “be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Criteria

Re:Verse passage – John 1:29-34 (day three)

“I did not recognize Him.”

What’s the difference between John’s lack of recognition and the lack of recognition among the religious establishment? It’s this: John was watching for evidence of God’s activity, regardless of whether that activity contradicted his own criteria for how a Messiah ought to present. In fact, John’s inner conflict between his closely held messianic benchmarks on the one hand and the evidence of Holy Spirit activity on the other hand prompted a later crisis of faith in John. Does what you identify as God’s activity just happen to follow the standards that you already hold dear? The witness of the Bible seems to be that the Holy Spirit’s movement will offend and even upend your sensibilities. That which those most qualified to know claimed could not possibly be of God was in fact exactly the opposite.

Angry

Re:Verse passage – Mark 11:11-19 (day three)

“He said to [the fig tree], ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again!’”

In an agrarian society, it was not remarkable for everyone to know it wasn’t fig season. So why did Jesus look for them anyway? Because he saw a tree in leaf – not in bud – and from a distance it looked like an unexpected find. Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus was hungry. A false fig signal enticed him and then disappointed him. We might even describe his mood as “hangry.” While he was still stewing over the hollow promise made by a leafy tree, he walked into the temple and in a moment of cosmic déjà vu, realized that just as the tree had falsely promised figs, the temple falsely invited people into an encounter with God. God takes seriously the promises we make to people.

Begin

Re:Verse passage – Mark 1:1-8 (day three)

“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Turns out that salvation, long the exclusive focus of evangelistic fervor, isn’t an end in itself. It’s crucial, but inaugural. The coming One will immerse all willing souls in God himself, active in the world. Immersion in a language – speaking it, singing it, writing it, conversing in it – will develop in you the habits of thinking which correspond to that language. When you live with God – speak to him, sing of him, think about him, develop a life with his people – you’ll develop the habits of being that emulate “God active in the world” – which is one way to think about the Holy Spirit. That baptism will lead you to an eternity of reigning with God – having say over resources and activity and initiatives that will lead to a continually flourishing life for humanity.

Live

Re:Verse passage – Daniel 12:1-13 (day three)

“Go your way, Daniel.”

How do you respond to a wrenching vision of the advance of a culture-shattering sweep of geopolitical occurrences that will involve the suffering of untold billions of souls and usher in the climactic end of history as we know it? You respond by…going about your business? That’s not the same thing as acting as if coming events don’t matter. To the contrary, the nature of such a vision has everything to do with how one lives now. There are two ways of life from which to choose. One way involves believing that you are at the mercy of world-historical events. That way of life requires you to take or be taken, rule or be ruled, kill or be killed. The other involves understanding that someone other than you clothes the lilies, feeds the sparrows, and cares for you.

Enough

Re:Verse passage – Daniel 11:1-45 (day three)

“He will go forth with great wrath to destroy and annihilate many.”

It wasn’t for nothing that Daniel’s contemporary Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” One will always – always – seek to bend the world to one’s own ends. If you have a little power, you’ll do so in little ways: You’ll surround yourself with people who will not resist you. If you have vast power, you’ll do so in bigger ways: You’ll destroy people who resist you. All while issuing denials. History can expect a succession of ever more tyrannical overlords who will refine and hone despotism to unimaginable potency. It’s what we do; it’s how we treat each other. And there would be no end of it were it not for God, mighty to save. To the oppressor he will finally say, “No more.”

With

Re:Verse passage – Daniel 10:1-21 (day three)

“O man of high esteem, do not be afraid. Peace be with you; take courage and be courageous!”

Anybody know how many times the Bible addresses the human tendency toward fear? Gotta be a pretty high number. Anyway, it’s instructive that the scriptures don’t tell us merely to buck up. That’s the way we often dispense advice about courage, you know. We say things like: “Don’t worry.” “Think about something else.” “It’s not that bad.” I don’t know. Sometimes it really is that bad. The Bible will never pretend that you can shut fear off like a light switch. Therefore, with every admonition to put an end to fear you will find – explicitly or by strong implication – a declaration that the Lord himself has drawn near. The words “Take courage” are an announcement that God has come to you.

Toward

Re:Verse passage – Daniel 9:23-27 (day three)

“…to bring in everlasting righteousness…”

Does an assured eventual eternal era of peace and goodness make current and future painful events more bearable? Only in the sense that it makes those events more meaningful. It doesn’t lessen the agony, the difficulty, the deep distress. But without meaning, nothing is possible. “For the joy set before him he endured the cross.” The greatest act of love that could ever exist, Jesus’s laying down his life for his friends, did not happen absent his awareness of its meaning, or it could not have happened at all. And by the way, “meaning” doesn’t signify for us that we understand something in every detail, but rather that we are assured that the actions or events in question will culminate in good for all those who’ve thrown their lot in with the Savior. History is headed somewhere.

Word

Re:Verse passage – Daniel 9:1-23 (day three)

“I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet.”

Daniel: fount of wisdom to kings, interpreter of dreams, faith-filled sage, courageous advisor, trustworthy friend. That’s character. How about including this descriptor: Bible reader. Daniel’s character – his seemingly unfathomable depth of benevolent goodness and quiet confidence – grew in part from how the Bible shaped his inner life and informed the way he moved in the world. He didn’t call it “the Bible.” He called it “the word of the Lord to Jeremiah,” who was a contemporary of his. But as soon as Jeremiah spoke those prophecies, they were written down. And what we have come to know as the Bible is in fact the written-down word of God. That same word which shaped Daniel’s character will shape yours.

Sequence

Re:Verse passage – Daniel 8:1-27 (day three)

“Then I, Daniel, was exhausted and sick for days.”

Human beings have been designed by God to live within a framework of a sequential progression of events we call time. We can see the present, and we have experienced what is past, so we have some familiarity with both of those parts of reality. But reality isn’t merely a collection of stimuli and responses. It’s also full of meaning. Just because something is happening now or has already happened doesn’t guarantee we know what it means. Prophecy is God’s way of leading human beings to apprehend meaning by operating briefly outside their natural habitat of time. That experience interrupts a person’s perception of the flow of time, and it is disorienting, troublesome, and frightening. Revelation of the future isn’t for the faint of heart. God’s help will keep it from overwhelming us.