Author: Megan Langan

Darkness

Re:Verse passage – Mark 4:21-25, 33-34 (day four)

Were you scared of the dark when you were a kid? If I’m being honest, I’ve even had moments as an adult where I found myself in the dark and felt afraid. Shadows take on a life of their own in the dark, and our minds tend to wander to the most frightening scenario. Have you ever experienced complete darkness? Without even light peaking through the crack under the door? It’s disorienting – you lose sense of where you are in space and don’t know the way forward.

But if you turn on one light, even light one candle, that fear goes away. You’re able to see the shadows for what they are and can see the way out. Light is powerful. A small amount of light can overcome the most extreme darkness. Jesus is truly the light of the world. He broke into a world filled with people stuck in total darkness – no way out and afraid of what slithered in the pitch-black unknown. What may have seemed like a singular small candle on the night of his birth in Bethlehem was revealed to be the brightest, most powerful light in the cosmos. Nothing is hidden from this light, and the darkness will not overcome it. We can live without fear, confident in the power of that light.

 

Narrative

Re:Verse passage – Mark 4:1-20 (day four)

David Brooks, the famous Christian journalist, once said, “Rather than asking someone what they believe, ask them how they came to believe the way that they do.” This causes the other person to speak about themselves in a narrative. They might tell you about their upbringing, or formative experiences they had. The conversation often goes better when we frame something in a narrative, because narratives are the primary way that we see and experience the world.

We may not have an audible voice narrating our life like in the movies, but we often view ourselves as characters in a story that’s playing out in real time. This isn’t just a quirk of the human imagination, it’s how God designed for us to think and experience the world. We are part of a larger cosmic story of God’s work in the universe, a story that is revealed to us in Scripture and one in which we are certainly not the main character.

Jesus reflects this cosmic narrative by speaking to his followers in narrative. As Bryan said, Jesus is the master storyteller. My hope is that we will place ourselves in the stories we read in Mark and respond to Christ accordingly. This week, we find ourselves as seed among soil. Where are you in relation to the sower? What kind of soil do you find yourself in? What must happen in your life for the seed to take root and bear fruit? How does your place in this story reflect your place in the larger story of God’s work in the world?

Kingdom

Re:Verse passage – Psalm 72:1-14 (day four)

Over the past six weeks, I hope you’ve been able to reflect on and celebrate the birth of our Savior. I hope you have found new ways to prepare him room in your hearts and experience the hope, peace, joy, and love that he came to offer. But as we continue toward the season of Epiphany, we’ll find that there is still much to learn about the child in the manger.

During Epiphany, we discover along with the shepherds that Jesus is more than the product of a miraculous birth. He is more than a good teacher, more than a kind person. He is more than an influential leader. He is the Son of God, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Alpha and Omega, and the center of heaven and earth. In this season, we examine the Biblical texts that reveal Jesus’ divinity. Psalm 72 does just that, as it describes the reign of the perfect king.

While it was written for Solomon’s coronation, we know that only Christ is worthy of this description. As David penned this psalm, he unknowingly prophesied of the one who would one day come through his family line to judge with righteousness and vindicate the afflicted. Only Christ’s kingdom will extend to the ends of the earth. Only he is worthy of the worship of all the nations. It is this glorious kingdom that we speak of when we say, “Your kingdom come.”

Glory

Re:Verse passage – Psalm 96 (day four)

Merry Christmas, church family! The presents may all be unwrapped and Christmas dinner is eaten, but the celebration continues! On the liturgical calendar, Christmas is a twelve-day season in which we say, “Hallelujah!” Our waiting in Advent is over and Christ has come!

Psalm 96 beautifully prophesies of the glory of Jesus. We who live on this side of the resurrection know it to be an accurate depiction of Christ. But pretend for a moment that you don’t know the rest of the story, and consider how Jesus came to earth. He came as an infant, to a poor family living under an oppressive government, born amongst animals because the world had not yet been taught to “prepare him room.” Nothing about this situation sounds glorious, yet Psalm 96 commands that we ascribe him glory.

The incarnation redefined reality. Jesus redefined glory. Glory no longer exists in gold and silver, crowns and palaces, but in goodness, mercy, humility, and justice. Glory has taken on a new form, which gives us every reason to keep the celebration going. We’ll examine Christ’s glory more in the coming days, but for now, celebrate and lift your hallelujah! God sent us the Messiah, just like he said he would.

Hesed

Re:Verse passage – Psalm 89 (day four)

In verse 1, the psalmist says, “I will sing of the lovingkindness of the Lord forever.” This word “lovingkindness” is almost always translated from the Hebrew word “hesed.”

Hesed is one of the most beautiful words in all of Scripture, but English doesn’t quite do it justice. It refers to the unidirectional, covenantal love and mercy that God has towards his people. It is a steadfast love, built entirely on the character of God, not on the worthiness of his people. It’s a love that we can put all our weight on, knowing that it is trustworthy and true. It is the love that is seen in God’s covenant with his people, which is described here in Psalm 89.

This is the covenant that Christ came to fulfill. This is what we celebrate at Christmas – that love came down. Hesed became known to us. Through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, we were brought into the covenant of love.

Joy!

Re:Verse passage – Psalm 98 (day four)

Reading this Psalm again caused The Isley Brothers’ song “Shout” to get stuck in my head. You just can’t read Psalm 98 without feeling energized. The Israelites felt this as they lifted this song of praise to the Lord. They had finally been delivered from exile, and they celebrated God’s faithfulness with a joy so palpable that all the earth was invited to join in.

The Lord is worthy of our joy. David danced with joy before the Ark of the Covenant. John the Baptist leaped for joy in Elizabeth’s womb when in the presence of the preborn Christ. And how much more reason do we, who live after the resurrection, have to shout for joy? The joy that springs up in us as a fruit of the Spirit is a steadfast joy. It is available to us even in our darkest days, precisely because of what we celebrate at Advent: Christ has come, and Christ will come again. Even if we have nothing else, there is reason to rejoice.

In Our Midst

Re:Verse passage – Psalm 85:1-3, 8-13 (day four)

It’s tempting to think we have to escape in order to find peace. We go on vacations, have personal retreats, or even tip-toe off to a quiet room away from holiday house guests in order to “find some peace.” To be sure, finding time away from the hustle of life is essential. I am constantly looking for little pockets of peace in my day, my week, and over the course of the year.

But the peace that Christ offers us isn’t something we have to escape in order to find. The Israelites in this psalm receive God’s promise of peace in the middle of their dire circumstances. This prophetic psalm is fulfilled when Christ takes on human form, entering straight into a dark world full of chaos, offering peace unlike what anyone had ever experienced. And when Jesus comes again in glory, he will break into the middle of our bleak, disordered world with lovingkindness, truth, righteousness, and peace in their fullest forms, once and for all.

Because Christ humbly took on human form and lived among us, the peace we reflect on at Advent is not far off on a mountaintop or on a remote beach somewhere. It’s in our midst now, constantly available to us through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Hope

Re:Verse passage – Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 (day four).

Happy Thanksgiving, church family! Alright, let’s be honest, who already has their Christmas tree up? Are you the type that says “the earlier, the better”? Or do you strictly wait until tomorrow? When you finish your turkey today, how do you prepare for Christmas?

On a more serious note, how are you entering this season of Advent that begins on Sunday? Are you feeling joyful and ready to celebrate? Are you entering this season with some heaviness in your heart, either over your own sin or the brokenness of the world? Have you felt distant from the Lord?

Advent is certainly a season of joy as we anticipate the birth of our Savior, but it’s also a time to examine our hearts, and bring the depth of our human emotions before the Lord. We acknowledge that though Jesus, the light of the world, has come and will come again, there is still darkness. In this season, we’re invited to lament alongside the ancient Israelites who cry out, “How long, O Lord?” as they do in this psalm. We’re invited to acknowledge our own sin and yearn for the return of our Savior.

But we who are of the Lord do not lament without hope. Even if you’re at the bottom of the deepest valley, as the Israelites were in Psalm 80, we know that Jesus is the only one in whom we find hope. However you come as we enter this season of Advent, come with hope. The Lord is worthy of it.

 

Pray

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 6:17-20 (day four)

Paul had a lot to say to the church in Ephesus and to us through this letter. We learned that though we were born as outsiders, we’ve been adopted as sons and daughters of God and made blameless through the sacrifice of Christ. We learned that Jesus – his life, death, and resurrection – was the Father’s plan from the beginning. Christ stands at the center of the cosmos, and all things are through him and for him. We also learned that he is the cornerstone of the church, making us part of God’s temple. In the second half of the letter, we learned what it means to be apart of God’s temple – how to live together in unity, purity, and gentleness. We even learned that there is far more to life than the physical reality in front of us – there are spiritual realities and battles that we are often blind to, but have been outfitted for nonetheless through the Spirit.

After all this that Paul has taught us, as if he knows that we might feel overwhelmed, he gives us one simple command  – to pray.

No time spent in prayer is wasted. There is no subject that is too big, too small, or mentioned too often when it comes to prayer. We are meant to pray at all times, through the power of the Spirit, so that we might experience the breadth, length, height, and depth of God’s love for us.

How has our study in Ephesians caused you to pray?

Warfare

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 6:10-17 (day four)

When we read verse 12, it’s easy to imagine the “authorities of the unseen world” and “evil spirits in heavenly places” like something out of a paranormal horror movie. To be sure, there are horribly dark and evil things that occur in this world. However, I think a lot of the spiritual warfare we experience is more subtle, and more insidious than that.

When we believe lies that parade around as truth, when we allow apathy to creep in, when we are blinded by pride, when we allow a sinful habit to take hold – these are also the realities of spiritual warfare. But before we are overcome by fear at how present these things seem, Paul reminds us – we’ve been given everything we need for life and godliness, we’ve been given the armor of God.

It is a powerful thing to pray the armor of God over yourself, your spouse, your friends, and your children. It is impenetrable, fashioned by the God of the universe, and stronger than anything we may face.