Author: Bryan Richardson

RE Verse reading–Mark 5:22-43 (day three)
High school students commonly receive assignments to work out given scenarios that involve two life-threatening events competing for attention: Saving one person’s life seemingly means not saving another person’s life. These exercises are meant to highlight questions of ethics and promote critical thinking. Jesus faced a real situation that bore similarities to the high school scenarios: Saving the life of a widow seemingly meant leaving no time to save the life of a young girl. But Jesus, though living within the realities of time, did not surrender to the common perceptions of time. For him, the question was not, “How can I get as much done as I can in the time allotted?” Rather, it was “How can I do all the work God desires me to do?” So he saved the lives of both people, even when time ran out.

RE Verse reading–Mark 5:1-20 (day three)
“No one could bind him anymore.” Leaks always get bigger, tears always get wider, and corrosion always goes deeper. When our machinery or equipment fails, the breakdown is simply the outcome of neglecting to address breaches, rips, or rust. You can’t patch forever. There comes a time when you must repair. In our society, greed becomes more insistent, lust becomes more insatiable, and anger becomes more destructive. We patch these things with money or serial marriages or blaming others, but the day comes when people break. And society breaks. And no one can bind it anymore. In a society that is well, no one lives among the tombs. But healing from the Savior will come with the burden of submitting our will to his. This is what the people of the Gerasenes were afraid of. So they decided to keep on patching.

RE Verse reading–Mark 2:13-17 (Day Three)
“…for there were many who followed him.” The “many” in this case refers to tax collectors. The entire culture in which Jesus was raised steeped him in ethnic and nationalistic separateness and exclusivity. There were plenty of reasons for Jesus and Roman loyalists to keep their distance from each other. And yet, “there were many…” These fraternizers with the Empire would not have been many if they did not believe Jesus wanted to be around them. For Jesus not only to eat with socially shunned people, but actually to enjoy their company, was a slap in the face to those who longed to be free of Caesar’s dominion. And yet, a refusal to love people is a slap in the face to God. At the end of the day, Jesus knew whose kingdom mattered most.

RE Verse reading–Mark 19-20; 3:13-17; 10:35-45 (Day Three)
“Whoever wants to become great among you must become your servant…”  Does Jesus redefine the path to greatness?  No.  He redefines greatness.  Servanthood is greatness.  That’s not some Orwellian oxymoron.  Jesus well knew that serving people means you must get close enough to them to do unto them what you would have others do unto you.  Such a way of life trains your heart to love people.  Jesus has in mind building a community of disciples pursuing such greatness.  That’s the only kind of community—and the only kind of greatness—that will last for eternity.  In order to love, serve someone.  In order to serve someone, learn what Jesus means when he speaks of greatness.

RE Verse reading–Mark 1:16-18; 8:27-33; 14:26-31, 66-72; 16:5-7 (Day Three)
“At once they left their nets and followed him.”  What do you think you can’t live without?  For Peter and the other fishermen who followed Jesus, it was the tools of their trade.  But they left them behind when they actually began to pay attention to what Jesus was saying.  When they paid attention to Jesus, they could hear God calling to them. Their jobs did not prevent, per se, their devotion to the Lord.  But the way they gave themselves to their work certainly did.  Paying attention to Jesus ended up requiring that they make major shifts in the way they structured their days in order to hear him more intently and more clearly.  So they rearranged their lives.  They learned what they could live without—and what they could not.

RE Verse reading–Mark 1:1-11 (Day Three)  “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”  John came baptizing, and for good reason.  Baptism signifies a beginning—in our Christian tradition, of course, a new birth into life under the reign of Christ—and for the people in John’s day, a beginning of a new action of God in history.  You can’t begin the day until you wake up.  You can’t pick the vegetables until you sow the seed.  You can’t run the race until you’ve forced your body to begin the training program.  And you can’t listen to the Lord until you’ve braced your whole being to receive what he says.  Baptism in 30 A.D. meant that people were ready to listen—really ready.  If you want to hear God, John says, then prepare to do so.  What’s the evidence that you’re poised for God’s words to you?