🦁 Easter 2-3

Readings: Psalm 133; Daniel 2:24-49; John 12:44-50. 

Reflection

Good morning. This is Tim. Trouble coming to you from Sacramento, California. Today's readings come to us from Psalm 133. Daniel Chapter two versus 24 to 49 and John chapter 12 verses 44 to 50. 

Our reading in Daniel today is a continuation of Daniel and King Nebuchadnezzar. So the king took, first of all, the Babylonian empire, enslave the Jews, took a bunch of the intelligent ones, the cream of the crop. If you will, brought them to Babylon. Daniel was among them, was some of his friends. They were educated in the Babylonian ways. And remember, in the previous readings, they did not eat the diet. They kept true to their Jewish diet. And now King Nebuchadnezzar had this dream, a nightmare, if you will, And he didn't understand it. And he called all the wise men and things from these his country and they're all and he told me, I need you to tell me what it is. And if you don't, you get it wrong and I kill you. Nothing like performance pressure, right? 

And they're sitting there going, no way out. No. But there is no one who can not only tell you what to drink, What the dream is that you had, but then turn around to tell you what it means. So they all balked at it, pissed Nebuchadnezzar off, so he ordered to have them all killed. Oh, Daniel. His friends were amongst that group. They weren't the ones that said they couldn't do it any and given a chance to speak yet. So when the chief executioner came. Daniel's like, Look, I can do this because God had come to him in a dream and had revealed to him the king's dream and what it meant. So the chief executioner brought him before the court, and they sat there and he said, okay, well, show me. Okay. 

And Daniel, in today's reading is the gave them not only what the dream was, which was the destruction of this great statue, but what it meant and what it meant is the interesting part of the statue was made of many different things. The head was gold and he had silver and he had bronze and he had iron and clay and all this. And the great stone was cut out and not by human hands and destroyed the entire statue. And that stone became this great mountain that covered the earth. You got that part right. Well, then, what does this mean? 

And Daniel tells them what it means and that this is a foretelling of the coming of the Kingdom of God and Nebuchadnezzar realizing, okay, we got this. He worship. Daniel gave them gifts and things, promoted him, put him in charge. Of course, he brought his friends with him and they went out in order to establish themselves in the ruling class of Babylon or reading the Gospel of John. That is Chapter 12, verses 44 to 50. So backing up a little bit in Chapter 12. So this is where Mary became Chapter 12 is where Mary anoints Jesus. Then there was the plot to kill Lazarus. Then we had Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem and we had the Greeks who came wanted to see Jesus. We've had that reading already. Jesus talks about his death. We have the unbelief of the people. And now this last section that we have today is called the summary of Jesus's teaching. And this is where Jesus is pointing out that he is not God. He's been sent by God. He is he has come as a light under the world so that everybody who believes in me should not remain in darkness. But he's not here to judge those who don't hear his word. He's here to save them. And the judgment is left to God. 

And it begins with the, you know, this commandment is eternal life. What I speak therefore, I speak just as the father has told me that Jesus is here again. He is not God. He is the son of God. Using the term Father in referencing God and what God told him to do. Just like you know, those of us who have had children, we tell our children what to do. And so we come along here and this is Jesus. What was all that? What was last three years about? What was he trying to accomplish? What was he doing? And this is where he comes is that, you know, I came is light. You believe in me, you believe in me. You you know, it's not in me, but in him who sent me. And he's come as a light in the world so that we should not remain in darkness. So we're using Jesus again as using metaphors to explain, you know, people want to be in the light. You don't want to be in the dark. They're used to that. There's all kinds of bad things that happen when it gets dark out. So again, they're coming through and trying to explain things in a way that people will understand and that Jesus is setting himself up and saying, you know, I am the son of God. This is at the end of his ministry there in Jerusalem. This has happened at some point in time during Holy week. Not exactly. I'm not exactly sure when I don't have all that information, but this is a big resource. And Jesus and in the gospel of John, who's the Gospel of Mary, it was very important to him that he needed to put in this summary of who Jesus was, that Jesus was the son of God, that He was sent here to save, not to judge. 

And we can move on from this and this is who we are. So we as followers of Christ, as those who have seen the light and accepted the light, we are not here to judge. This is Jesus. And he's not here to judge the judgment, his love for God. We are here to be a light in the darkness of the world. And again, you know, you keep hearing me say this and I will keep saying it is very much a core part of my belief as we are to look God. We are whole heart minds and soul and love our neighbors as ourselves. It's difficult. I don't always get it right when we tell you, but this is what is and this is Jesus. This is who Jesus was, the Son of God coming to bring the light, but not to judge those in the world, but to save them from the darkness. And that's what we are called to do as followers of Christ. We're not here to judge people. We're not here to tell people they're wrong, they're bad. Whatever. We are here to through the example of our lives and how we conduct ourselves on a day to day basis so that we're different. And we are we represent the light and that there is something different in the world besides the darkness that we see consuming everything around us. Amen.