Ah... Pasta in the Fall...

You gotta love the change of seasons. Its not so much the calendar date, but there are always those days when you first "feel it". It starts to feel like the new season. This week feels like fall to me. Maybe it was the HUNDREDS of buckeyes we picked up in our back yard the other day.

We are off and running on our study of Luke and I wanted to post a quick recap for those who could not be there on Sunday and jot down a few notes about some things that we did not discuss.

One thought that I want to emphasize here is the approach we take to the study. We all look up to certain people and would like to be like them. I don't know how it is with you, but I don't find myself really thinking, "I want to have more of the qualities that Jesus showed when he was on earth." Maybe it is an over-reaction to the whole WWJD movement from a while back. And when I do think about it I am not as specific as I need to be. I might think, "Gee, I need to be more like Jesus..." But what I really need to do is participate in a little self-evaluation and think, "you know, I really need to work on this specific quality..." And then I need to look hard at what the scripture has to help me in a specific area.

On Sunday I mentioned the passage in Mark 5 when the woman affected with bleeding made her way through the crowd to touch Jesus because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." (Mk 5:28 NIV) This happened at a time when Jesus was in a large crowd and was being pressed on all sides by many people. When the woman touched him, Jesus stopped and asked "Who touched me?" The reaction of the disciples was the same as mine would have been- "You're kidding, right? You are in the middle of a crowd, and yet you ask, "who touched me?? Everybody is touching you!!!"

But the touch of the woman was different than the touch of the rest of the crowd. The rest of the crowd was with Jesus and they were following Jesus, but the contact was casual and incidental. The woman, however, made contact that was born in faith- her contact was intentional, her contact was hopeful, her contact could even be called desperate, (the passage tells us that she had already suffered for 12 years under the care of many doctors and she was getting worse). The touch of the woman was completely different than the touch of the crowd and Jesus knew it.

I see this passage as a metaphor for our lives, and as a metaphor for our study of scripture. As we approach this study of Luke, we can decide what kind of encounter it will be for us. Each one can make their own decision. Will this be casual contact? A "brush up" against Jesus? Or will this be an intentional, hopeful, desperate effort on our part to "touch his clothes and be healed"?

I know that I need to be intentional about this. I need for this to be an intimate encounter and not just a routine glance at another book of the bible.

In the first 38 verses of Chapter 1 we hear the story of the angel's announcement to Elizabeth and Zechariah concerning the birth of John the Baptist, and we hear the announcement to Mary of the coming birth of Jesus. There are some similarities in the announcements (and some differences) and there are some real differences in the reactions of the people involved.

When the angel announced to Zechariah that he and Elizabeth would have a son, Zechariah could hardly believe it. Not that I blame him. He and Elizabeth had prayed and waited and I am sure had resigned themselves to the fact that they would not have children. Now, remember here that Zechariah and Elizabeth were upright, God-fearing people who upheld the laws of the Lord. They would have been familiar with the scriptures we now call the Old Testament, and they would have known about a few miraculous births (Abraham and Sarah come to mind). But still, Zechariah found it hard to believe. An because of his "unbelief" he was struck dumb. Still, I can't be too hard on him, I would have had a hard time grabbing onto that with my brain too.

Mary received an even more astounding announcement, but her reaction was a great deal different. Zechariah asked for a sign so that he would know that this announcement was true. Mary asked for clarification , ("How will this be... since I am a virgin?"), but she did not question that it would be done. In fact, her response was "May it be to me as you have said."

Interesting to note how God is getting His work done here. Not new, just interesting. Zechariah and Elizabeth were old with no children- a quick ticket to low social status in their day. Historians tell us that they lived outside the city as well- another "low status" marker. These are people who, by any social measure of the day, were nothing.

Mary was, um, a woman. Don't have to go much farther than that. Women did not hold high social status then. It was just part of the culture. And now she finds that she is going to be pregnant and not married? Strike two. Again, socially, she was pretty much nothing.

By all human measures at that time in history, Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Mary just did not count for much. But God chose them to play extremely significant roles in His plan. Now that sounds just like Him!

Kind of gives you hope that we might count for something after all, doesn't it? Not because of who we are, but because of who He is.

Just Keep Swimming...

Jon