🦁 Lent 2-7

Readings: Psalm 105:1-11, 37-45; Jeremiah 30:12-22; John 12:36-43. 

Reflection

Good morning. This is Tim Tribble, broadcasting from Sacramento, California. Today's readings come to us from Psalm 105 verses 1 to 11 and 37 to 45, Jeremiah Chapter 30, verses 12 to 22 and the Gospel of John, Chapter 12, verses 36 to 43. So again, we come back to Psalm 105 again today. And this is the second part of it, and verses 37 to 45 goes through how God has done and what God has done for Israel brought them out with silver and gold. You know, Egypt was glad when they departed for dreaded them and fallen upon it. Then talks about how they had the cloud for covering the fire, giving light by night. He fed them with quail and the bread from heaven. Manna, manna. He opened the rock and water gushed out. All these things that God did for the people of Israel while they were wandering around in the desert. And he brought his people out with joy, and his chosen one was singing. And at the end, we get this very praise the Lord in the Book of Jeremiah Reading today. 

Oops. Thus says the Lord, your hurt is incurable and your wound is grievous. There is none to uphold your cause. No medicine for your wound, no healing you. All your lovers have forgotten you. They care nothing for you. Where I have dealt you. The blow of an enemy, the punishment of a merciless foe. Because your guilt is great. Because your sins are flagrant. So this is Jeremiah. He was a prophet. What Israel is, is during the Babylon time frame, when they were slaves to Babylon, the Babylonian empire and God through Jeremiah's time. Yeah. You're here because you really screwed up. And yeah, it's bad. And I did this. But then he goes on to say, I will restore the fortunes to the temple of Jacob, and he goes on to tell them that he will. Well, he's going to use those that that did bad to them. He will do bad to them. They will take them over. They will defeat them, which they did. And then you people, you will know I'm your God. So sometimes we we go through bad things, you know, and things happen. 

But there will be redemption in God. There always is. And that's something that to look for when we're going through bad times and bad things is God will be there and God will save us and God will help us out of it. 

And the Gospel of John today, this is titled The Unbelief of the People. And here again, this is a this is a reading. So Jesus had performed miracles and done all these things. And then he says he hid, went in, hid from the people, departed and hid himself from them because he hid in the narrative. Is he done all these things, all these many signs before him? And they still didn't believe his Isaiah In the book of Isaiah, the Prophet had said the Lord who has believed what he's heard from us and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed to. And he's blinded their eyes, hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart and turn. And I would hear them, Nasrallah said, said all those things, that he saw the glory of God and spoke Nonetheless, many, even the authorities, many of even of the authorities believe them. So there were people who believed in him, but they didn't speak out for fear of the Pharisees. They did not want to confess it and be put out of the synagogue. 

Peer pressure. We've all felt it. We felt it growing up. And school starts and kindergarten starts with your friends on the street you grew up on when you play with other people. It goes on and goes through and you look at all the things that have happened. You know, we were in the military, all the pressure we had, you know, you get in your job and everybody wants you to be like them. We all going to be of one mind, act one way. And there is a certain goodness to that that it does, is there? There is a certain thing that except when things go wrong, when you're doing bad things and bad things are being promoted, then you have a problem because we go along. I've done it and I've asked for forgiveness for it. Don't rock the boat, Don't desert you. All these things that we've heard over the years, you know, this is going to cost you. We don't. And this is one of the things. There's another scripture reading that tells us that we were to be the salt of the earth, that tangy little taste. 

And this is where we as Christians are called to be different, to be better than and you look through the the biggest one, you know, every Lord people knows what happened in Germany when Hitler came to power in 1936, 37 era and all the things he did. And people went along because, well, everybody else didn't. We don't raise a fuss. We don't do this. And he was able to do peer pressure and fear and control and all this stuff, do what he did. And there were people who stood up against them. There's a look up a guy named Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was a Lutheran pastor and theologian who took a stand against Hitler, started what was known as the Confessing Church and was killed by Hitler. He's a martyr. He was killed by Hitler because he was against Hitler. And outspokenly against Hitler and was associated with people who attempted to kill Hitler. 

And so he was jailed. He his jailers liked him. I mean, they cheered them all. The you read the story about him and what was written and up until the end. But then they had to take him out and he was shot and killed. They were hung. He was hung anyway. He was killed on the orders of Hitler. This is faith in action. The sometimes one of the problems we have to deal with and what things we have to learn. Sometimes you have to take that step. In the military, we always talk about, you know, standing in the breach. We we talk about, you know, standing in front and being the tip and what happens when you get hurt, you get injured, you can get killed, you sacrifice. Sometimes our faith and our belief require of us to make sacrifices. 

We may not wind up being popular when we get thrown out of somewhere. We may not have the funds we used to have. Whatever it winds up being what we are called upon as Christians to stand up for what is right, what is true. Our faith tells us that we are to protect those who cannot be protected, the meek or you know, we are to stand for what is right and it's not easy. Making sacrifices is never easy. And it's just one of those things that we do because it's the right thing to do. It's what we're called to do because God will always take care of us. God is there for us because we are doing what God wants us to do. Amen.