Author Archives: Michelle Bauer

According to the church calendar, we are in the season of Eastertide which marks the 50 days between Easter Sunday and Pentecost. I like the idea of Easter being more than just a morning or a day but a whole season in which we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection and what it means for our lives. There are many angles from which we can look at the topic of hope and explore what it means to live hopefully.

Let’s focus on a couple of verses in Hebrews 6 that use the symbol of an anchor to describe hope. “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain,  where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf.” (Hebrews 6:19-20a, NIV)

Maybe it would be helpful to touch on a definition of hope. Sometimes we can get a little fuzzy about the difference between hope and faith. Here are some definitions that help me keep them separate in my mind:

Faith involves trust. When we have faith, we are trusting in someone or something.  Having faith means that we trust God’s promises to be true, largely in part because we trust God to be true.

Hope is confident waiting. Hope allows us to wait confidently for God to keep his promises.

Here’s an example that all the teachers and students will like:

The last day of the school year is coming up. In my county it is Friday, May 21st. That is the day my home turns into a frat house. Teachers and students can have faith in that. It hasn’t happened yet, but they are confident it will. They have faith, based on the promise of the school calendar and a history of the county adhering to the calendar.  

Hope is what fuels the end-of-the-year excitement and planning. Hope is what drives students and teachers to countdown the days and plan what they are going to do first. Hope gives a vision of what summer life will be.

Hope turns the last few weeks of school from a march through time into a journey toward summer! Can you sense the difference I’m talking about?  Faith gets us there, but hope makes it a much fuller experience.

After sitting with this for a while, I wonder if we might be operating with a deficit of hope.  Maybe some of us are going through the motions of faithful living without the benefit of hope.

I want to share with you the story of how this sermon came together. I have a process of preparing. I wrote a sermon, but I didn’t like it. I started over. I stayed up late and wrote another version of the sermon which was a bit better – but still not great. Then, in the quiet of my house, I heard, “You struggle to hope. You are having a hard time communicating about hope, because you struggle to hope.” So I called it a night and went to bed. I woke up the next morning and while I was making sandwiches, I heard, “Tell them you struggle to hope.” You want me to begin a sermon on hope, by announcing that I struggle to hope?!  Yes!

So, I am telling you that I struggle with hope. It makes sense based on my story. Wounded by people who should have known and done better. It’s like I was programmed at an early age not to hope for things – things I should have been able to count on. 

God has healed me and is healing me, but I didn’t even realize until this week that life had snipped the wires in my soul that were connected to hope. The good news is when God shines the light on something in your soul, it’s usually because God is ready to work there.

The first thing I’ve learned while wrestling with hope is that hope is essential. Hope is not a bonus. Sometimes we are tempted to think hope is a nice extra or a soft emotion that feels like a luxury more than a necessity. But in reality, hope is a very powerful force that God gives to those who believe. It turns the Christian life from a heads-down march toward eternity into abundant life.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul boils down the essentials of the Christian life to faith, hope and love – the big three. Paul writes that we can’t do the Christian life without hope.  By putting them together, he is saying that hope is as indispensable as faith and love. It’s not the “frosting on the cake” for those lucky enough to be predisposed to hopefulness. Hope is mixed into the cake batter. It can’t be separated out.

But here’s more good news. God has promised to provide everything we need. Just like faith and love, hope is a grace, a gift. God can restore the ability to hope.  We don’t have to work it up or manufacture it within ourselves. We can ask and God will give it. In fact, I believe God is always offering us what we need. So: is there something that needs to be healed so that you can receive God’s hope?

We don’t get the option of putting hope in the “bonus” category for super-Christians, or for naïve Christians who just haven’t learned to lower their expectations yet. We are all called to hope.

How might this happen?

You must be connected to the anchor.

Let’s go back now to Hebrews 6: “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain,  where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf.”

The Bible uses a lot of figurative language. Have you ever noticed how timeless most of these word pictures are? We still plant with seeds. We still care for animals. Potters still work with clay, and we bake with yeast. Those pictures would translate for thousands of years.

And here, Scripture offers us another image. Hope is like an anchor. The basic design and function of anchors have not changed very much since Hebrews was written. It’s not complicated. You find something heavy, tie a rope to it, and toss it overboard!

So when the writer of Hebrews mentions an anchor here, we all get an instant picture in our minds. It almost immediately begins to speak to us at a deeper level. Reading the “anchor” entry on Wikipedia was almost like reading a devotional! “An anchor prevents drifting due to wind or current.”  That preaches, doesn’t it? “Without an anchor, a craft will drift in whatever direction the current is going. Anchors allow a boater to stop rowing or park the boat. Anchors can be used as an emergency brake to keep from crashing into other vessels or obstacles.”

Here’s something that makes the anchor a great symbol for hope. It’s not enough to be convinced an anchor is a good idea, or even just to buy an anchor. It’s not enough to bring your anchor with you on your boat trip. You have to be connected to the anchor before it’s any use.

It would be ridiculous to toss an anchor overboard that wasn’t connected to the boat! The anchor would do exactly what it was meant to do – it would sink to the bottom and stay there. But without a connection, it does the boat no good.

You and I have to be connected to our anchor. And the writer of Hebrews wants us to know that we aren’t just connecting to the universe or some unspecified force of goodness as our hope.  Hebrews chapters one through five lay out the case for who Jesus is. By the time we get to chapter six, there should be no confusion. We are called to place all of our faith and hope in Jesus. Jesus is our hope; Jesus is the anchor.

Just believing that Jesus is Lord, though, is like buying an anchor and putting it in the boat.  But in order for an anchor to work, it has to be connected. And we have to be connected to Jesus through trust to receive the promise of anchoring hope.

What is your connection to Jesus like? Connection isn’t formed by having information about him. We must have personal trust. Think of the ways you are connected to the people you love.  You may anticipate what they are thinking. You recognize the sound of their voice. You are comforted by their presence. You enjoy just being together and look forward to seeing them.

We can be connected to Jesus in similar ways. If you are struggling with hope or anything else promised to believers, check the connection. It might be that you are tossing your anchor overboard without a rope attached. Your church family stands ready to help you form this connection. We love to walk with people as they form trust with God.

Sometimes, the first step is to disconnect from other things you’ve been using as an anchor.  Humans crave all sorts of things to provide security. It might be wealth, education, skills and abilities, health. Eventually, all these temporary anchors prove to be insufficient. At some point, our boat will get too big, or the water too deep, or the winds too strong, and these anchors will fail. 

What are you using as an anchor? Anything less than a living hope in Jesus won’t be strong enough.

When an anchor is connected by rope, a boater doesn’t attach it once and then walk off to never think about it again. Rope isn’t indestructible. It can rot if it’s not tended to. This connection between the boat and anchor needs care and attention just like anything that you want to last. Take some time this week to sit with that image; ask God to help you see what you need to notice about your connection.

And when that connection is strong, we can confidently throw our anchor overboard, knowing it will hold us in place even if we lose sight of it. Are you willing to lose sight of the anchor?

Look at Hebrews again: “It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain where our forerunner Jesus has entered on our behalf.”

This is a reference to the Old Testament temple design that created a space called the Holy of Holies, where only the High Priest would enter to meet with God on behalf of the people. It was separated from the public space by a curtain. What happened behind the curtain was hidden. The writer of Hebrews says when we lower our anchor of hope in Jesus, we lose sight of it. It enters into the inner sanctuary where the High Priest – Jesus – is at work.

I hear two things in this description:

First, we don’t always get to see what God is doing. It may be hidden out of sight from us. What’s the question we deal with the most – why? Why expresses our desire to see what’s happening under water or behind the curtain. But this image of the anchor helps us. Boaters learn to trust the anchor is working, even though they can’t see it. Only in the most shallow, clear water can you see your anchor.  But who wants to stay there? The good work happens in the deep places.

The same is true in our life of faith. The good work happens in the deep places: the places where we can’t see the bottom. That’s where we begin to trust the mystery of God’s work.  God challenges us to learn to live in the unknown of the deep. Don’t get nervous, lose hope, and move back to the shore.  Hope reminds us of what is happening beneath the surface that we can’t see.

Second, we need to be willing to move our anchoring spot from where we want to be to where God wants to go. Here’s a tough question one writer asked: “Are we hoping or merely wishing?” 

Wishing is focused on getting what we want. Hoping is anchored in what God is doing. 

One commentator writes, “The wings of hope were given not that we might flutter near the earth, but that we might rise to God. Do not let yourself be so absorbed by anticipations of what you are going to do and where you are going to be tomorrow that you have no space to think of what you are going to do and where you are going to be through eternity.”  (Alexander MacLaren, Expositions on Holy Scripture)

Wishes just “flutter near the earth.” Wishing wants things. Hope connects us to Jesus – who he is and what he is doing.  What will it look like to hope more deeply? To release our anchor beneath the water line – into the “Holy of Holies” – where God dwells?

This is what it means to have an anchored soul. And what does an anchored soul look like? It looks like Jesus.

We watch him as he walked from the deprivation and temptation of the desert all the way through the abandonment and suffering of Holy Week. The winds blew and the current pulled. He was hungry. He was harassed by Satan. His friends betrayed him. He was misunderstood and falsely accused. He suffered pain and humiliation. Not robotically: he wasn’t numb or immune to reality. He asked questions. He needed comforting. But his anchor held.

We contrast that with Peter. His was an unanchored soul until the Spirit came to rest on him at Pentecost. Jesus had shared with him God’s plan, but he couldn’t wait confidently. When the winds picked up around him, he swung from violence to deceit to despair. He was all over the place. He was an unanchored soul.

An anchored soul may face challenges without rethinking the whole plan. An anchored soul waits gracefully. An anchored soul doesn’t panic when God’s plan doesn’t come with a briefing manual. An anchored soul holds steady.

To hope for something can feel very vulnerable. We all know what it feels like to be disappointed when things we hoped for didn’t work out. Maybe you’ve had the wires cut to the part of your soul that hopes.

Are you willing to trust God to reconnect them? To hope isn’t a sign of weakness or naivete. It is a courageous choice. This is the point where we decide how we are going to respond.

Maybe you didn’t know God has offered to anchor your life.

Maybe something about your connection to your anchor needs attention.

Maybe God is inviting you into deeper waters and you’re testing the unknown.

Community is a great gift when we are struggling to hope. That’s one reason why God invites us to gather together. Sometimes we need the community to hold us while we struggle with hope.

Can you let someone pray for you? I’m going to. I’m going to respond to my own teaching. I feel like God invited me too while I was making sandwiches. I want to be more hopeful. I want to receive the grace of hope, and this feels like a good place to start.

---

Featured image courtesy Grant Durr Photos via Unsplash.

This spring as the Coronavirus pandemic gained momentum, my husband and I got ready to start a construction project at our house. We found a contractor, met with him a couple of times to talk about the plan – we even had masking tape lines on the floor where a new wall would go.  Supplies were scheduled to arrive on a Friday and work would begin on that Saturday. And then, the stay-at-home order went out. I started having second thoughts about the timeline.  Was it a good idea to start a construction project in the middle of a pandemic? Would we or the contractor get sick? Would we be able to buy the supplies we needed throughout the project?

Really, my core concern wasn’t whether we could start, but whether we’d be able to finish. The only thing worse than a construction project is a half-done, stalled construction project.

Any half-done project is frustrating. It’s messy, unusable, a constant reminder that there’s more work waiting. Usually, you can’t see a half-done, stalled project with any satisfaction. Instead, it’s a reminder that there’s more work to do – every time you walk past it.  We put construction on hold.

Thinking about the construction dilemma makes me acknowledge that what I won’t tolerate in my home, I often tolerate in myself. I am not a finished project.  I am still being formed in the image of Christ. My wounds are still being healed. My relationship with God has a lot of room to grow and deepen. All of that is okay. Those things will be “under construction” until I am done with my earthly life.

The problem is that – at times – I let those projects stall. There have been times I settle for them when they’re stalled out, half-way done, no new progress made for stretches at a time. That’s the problem.

But we love and serve a God who finishes projects. God completes what he starts. God doesn’t just want to save us – to rescue us and then leave us as we were. God wants to bring us into the safety of communion with him and then begin the work of restoration – of healing. We love and serve Jehovah Rophe – the God who heals.

The Lord is Healer

Early in the biblical story, God introduces himself to his people as healer. In Exodus, God refers to himself as Jehovah Rophe – The Lord Who Heals You.  Some of the names of God were given to him by people as they had significant experiences with the Almighty. Like Hagar who called God Jehovah Roi – The God Who Sees Me. But in this case, God doesn’t wait for someone to notice through experience; instead, God announces it.

Look with me at Exodus 15:22-26:

Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water.When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”

Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink.

There the Lord issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test. He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”

A few days before this event at Marah, God orchestrated a mass exodus of his people out of slavery – out from under Egyptian control – and into freedom.  They were free – but in many ways, they were still dragging their broken chains with them. They bore damage done by generations of enslavement. They had been mistreated, abused, threatened, their babies killed, their lives and dignity stolen.  They were officially free – but not yet in a way to live the abundant life that God promised them. They needed a God who heals.

If you read those early moments of their exodus, you know that healing didn’t happen overnight for them. This event at Marah was the first of many events orchestrated by God to heal. Look at the passage again.  Do you notice the signs that God’s people needed healing? They panicked when faced with adversity; their resilience was tapped out from repeated trauma. We can’t underestimate their suffering here, from our well-hydrated, air-conditioned, padded seats.  This was a tough spot: three days walking in the desert without water means significant suffering. In their group are babies and children, elderly people, thirsty animals.  And then, to their suffering, they add disappointment: the water they do find is undrinkable.

Their response to the situation shows that they need not only water, but the deep, inner freedom of healing. They panicked, fight or flight kicking in: “What are we going to drink?” And they grumbled not to Moses but against him; under pressure, this traumatized group of people turned on Moses.

Moses is dealing with the same situation. He is thirsty too; and he is responsible for leading this group.  But Moses does something helpful: he cries out to the Lord.  Healing had already begun in this leader. God had been working Moses’ healing during his time in Midian.  He knows to bring his problems to God. Sometimes, people grumble when they need a God who heals; but people cry out to God when they’ve begun the process of healing.

Moses cries out and God responds. God tells Moses to throw a piece of wood into the water; instantly, the water is turned from bitter to sweet.  On the surface, this is a practical move to provide desperately needed water. In another way, it was like a parable acted out: God’s kind and gentle way of saying, “Hey, Israelites, do you see yourselves a little in this bitter water? Here’s good news – I am a God who heals things. Would you like to be healed?”

God could have just yelled, “Stop being bitter!” Instead, God patiently introduces himself to this people as The God Who Heals. God heals the diseased water as a demonstration of his goodness and his healing power. Then God asks: “Will you let me heal you?”

If you read the rest of Exodus, you’ll see that the people didn’t initially get God’s deeper purpose in this miracle. They were distracted by their thirst and the water; they moved onto the next thing. Once the crisis was over, they forgot to circle back and confront their own bitterness. They continued in survival mode.

Is it tempting to stand back and admire God who heals, but to neglect allowing God to begin the healing process in you? It’s one thing to know that God can heal; it’s another thing to experience God as the One who heals you. Knowing about God only gets you so far. You and I need to experience God – not just once but many times.

God didn’t want the Israelites to be a half-way done, stalled construction project. God doesn’t want to leave you half-done and stalled out, either.

God has the power to change the very essence of something. How long had that water been bitter? Long enough for the locals to name the spot Marah – which means bitter. That’s how deep the bitterness ran.

How long had the Israelites tasted bitter suffering? For generations. As long as they could remember. But the God who heals can turn what is into what can be.  How long have you been bitter, or sad, or angry, or shamed? Do you have ways of thinking and responding that are so deep you don’t even recognize them as broken? What has become your normal?

Maybe you’ve been angry or sad or hurt or sick for a long time – maybe for as long as you can remember. God’s not put off by that. The God who heals can change the very essence of who we are. Just like God changed water from bitter – so diseased that people dying of thirst couldn’t drink it – to sweet – a life-giving joy to experience.

The water was healed much more quickly than the Israelites were; it takes time to earn trust. So God began a process of healing with the Israelites – a 40-year process.  The Israelites didn’t have a lot of patience for the process; do any of us? Do you expect an instant of salvation to resolve what can take the process of sanctification a lifetime?  Sometimes if we get frustrated with the process, we opt out.

Let Yourself Be Healed

Sometimes healing happens suddenly. I know of physical healing that’s happened in a moment. You may know someone God has instantaneously healed of emotional wounds.  But other times, healing happens in the slow lane. That was certainly the Israelites story. God healed them in stages. 

You won’t just see this in the Old Testament, you can see it in the New Testament as well. Think about the disciples’ three-year-long journey with Jesus. There’s an interesting account of healing found in Mark 8:22-26:

They came to Bethsaida. Some peoplebrought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Can you see anything?” And the manlooked up and said, “I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesuslaid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Then he sent him away to his home, saying, “Do not even go into the village.”

Jesus heals this man, but in a way that is unique from every healing story in the Gospels. For some reason, Jesus doesn’t heal him instantly like he did all the others. It’s certainly not because he couldn’t. Jesus healed people left and right. It’s not because the man lacked faith for full healing: Jesus raised the dead man Lazarus back to life, and dead people don’t have any faith.

I don’t know why Jesus took two turns at healing this guy, but I’m glad he did. It gives me hope.  For me, healing has come in stages. I don’t think I’m alone. So this story gives my story context – a way of understanding why something can take so long.  What can we learn about the healing journey?

I love these stories of Jesus interacting with people one-on-one. They are each unique and personal.  The blind man’s friends want him to be healed; they must have heard about or seen Jesus heal people. So they bring the man to Jesus and beg for healing for their friend. 

Jesus offers his hand to the man and leads him to a quiet spot where they can speak privately. Then – Jesus spits on the man’s eyes, touches him, and asks, “do you see anything?”

Each of us might handle being in the blind man’s shoes differently; I think I would have felt some performance pressure to be a success story.  Everyone else had been healed instantly. Why wasn’t I? But the way Jesus asks the question, “Do you see anything?” sets up the man to answer honestly.  “Well…I see what must be people, but they kind of look like trees…”

From this brave man’s example, I learn to be honest about where I am in my healing journey: honest with myself, with God, and with others. We all have areas that are works in progress. We all see more than we used to, but not everything clearly yet. Can we admit that? 

Sometimes in faith communities there’s an expectation that because we go to church or believe in Christ that we are done – healed – good to go.  We struggle to make room for the process of healing.

This man honestly reported exactly what he was experiencing. Jesus didn’t blame him, question his faith or intelligence, yell at him, or get frustrated and quit.  Instead, the man’s honesty led to more healing. This man didn’t settle for half-a-healing. Jesus stood right there – present, kind, patient, through the whole process. Not an eye roll. Not a sign of irritation or frustration.

And the man didn’t walk away, either. He could have said, “well, people looking like trees is better than nothing,” and settled for that. He could have decided he wasn’t up for being smeared with saliva again. Instead, he spoke honestly with Jesus, and waited while the healing continued. Jesus did all the work. All the man had to do was stay present.  And just like God transformed the water from bitter to sweet, God transformed a blind man into someone who could see clearly.  Polar opposites: bitter to sweet, blind to 20/20 vision. Jehovah Rophe: The Lord Who Heals You.

At times, I have settled for half-a-healing; I have settled for being healed enough to hold it together in public – but falling apart inside. I have settled for seeing through a fog, when I could have been seeing clearly. Does that sound like you?

Why do we do this?  Because sometimes, healing hurts. Ask anyone who has gone through cancer treatments.  The God Who Heals does the work; but we have to submit to it, and it’s hard. If you get into a hard part, you may think you must be doing it wrong. But if it’s hard – you are probably doing it right.  Healing requires us to name our baggage, wounds, hurt, or trauma, and allow God to work there – in a place that’s sometimes quite painful, that we’d rather ignore or hide or protect.

None of us are completed projects. That’s not the problem. The problem is when you begin to tolerate a constant state of disruptive “good enough.” If you let the healing process stall out and come to a standstill. If you know deep down you’re still only seeing shadows but you don’t want to admit it.

Today, do you know God as Jehovah Rophe – The Lord Who Heals You?

Where are you on your healing journey?

Everyone in this world needs healing of some kind. I’m not surprised when you tell me you have baggage. I trust that you will not be surprised when I’m honest about ways in which God is still healing me.

God doesn’t ever just heal us for our own sake, but also for the sake of others. Who are the others in your life who will be impacted when you allow God to work healing in your life?  Your children, your spouse, your friends, your co-workers, your neighbors?  In the hard moments, if  you are tempted to walk away half-done, make a list of their names. What difference will it make in their lives when you patiently stick with the process?

It is not self-centered to choose to search for healing. It’s so that you can come out on the other side more whole and healthy. It’s as if God is throwing pieces of wood into the water, saying, “Come on! Taste the water now. I can do this for you, too.”

Where are you on your healing journey? Is the construction in process; has it come to a standstill? Have you settled for blurry, good-enough vision? Do you hear God’s patient invitation to stick with it? Wherever you are, consider some of these next steps:

1. Ask for help. You might not even know how to frame the question or issue. “Will you help me?” might be all you can say. That’s a perfectly fine place to start.
2. Reach out. Maybe you know right away what needs healing and you’re ready to engage with God. Reach out to someone and let them walk with you – a pastor, a small group leader, a district confidant, a spiritual director, a trusted friend.
3.  Tell your story to someone. Sometimes our healing lies in bringing things to the surface that we’ve ignored until we’ve almost forgotten. Tell your story to someone and notice what still hurts. That might be an area God wants to bring wholeness and restoration.
4. Seek out professional help. Spiritual healing does not happen apart from emotional healing. God uses professional therapists, counselors, addiction specialists and many others to heal.

What is your next step? God is so patient with us. Will you be patient and let God change the essence of your life? God remains Jehovah Rophe: The Lord Who Heals You. God can take your life from:

bitter to sweet

sadness to joy

fear to trust

So how does the water taste to you today? What is it that’s blurry? What can you see?

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.

But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. – Luke 2:8-20

In order for shepherds to do their jobs well, they had to live in the fields and stay up all night watching their flocks in order to keep the sheep safe from predators; shepherds leaving their sheep would mean leaving them vulnerable.  What do you think their lives were like? Would we consider this a “good job” today?

If the weather allows, sit outside for a few moments tonight, look at the sky, and imagine what it would have been like to see the sky suddenly filled with light and angels. What did the shepherds see that night? What did they hear? 

The angels told the shepherds, “a Savior has been born to you…” Put yourself in the shepherd’s shoes and hear that angelic message for yourself. Christ the Lord has come to save you. What do you need to be rescued from?

The angels filled the sky saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men.”  How does “Emmanuel,” God with us, bring peace into our lives? In what area of your life would you like for God’s peace to come?

For shepherds leaving their sheep, what do you think could make them willing to hurry away from their flocks and head into town to witness these events? In what ways did Jesus’ birth interrupt their lives?

The Shepherds couldn’t keep this amazing experience to themselves. It sounds like they told everyone they met! Is God doing something in your life that you would like to share with someone today? Do you know someone who needs to hear about God’s peace?

Eventually, the shepherds returned to the fields and their work, supervising livestock. We can only imagine that their lives have been dramatically changed. How has your life been changed by God’s presence? Take a moment now to glorify and praise God for those things.

One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body. Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way.

Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?” And they had nothing to say.

When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited.If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place.But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests.For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

 Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid.But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” – Luke 14:1-14

Jesus celebrated the Sabbath by accepting a dinner invitation. How will you observe the Sabbath – a day of rest – this week? Do you rest on Sundays? What is your plan for finding time to rest this week?

In this account, Jesus wasn’t approached by someone asking to be healed. He noticed someone with an obvious medical condition and healed him on the spot. Take a moment to imagine the scene. How do you feel about Jesus as he steps outside of himself and the drama that seemed to follow him and focuses his attention on this ill person? If Jesus ignored a group and focused on you, what would you hope that Jesus would see about your vulnerabilities?

In what ways were the Pharisees failing at feeling and showing compassion? What distracted the Pharisees from the suffering of others? Who is it easy for you to show compassion to? Who do you find it difficult to have compassion for?

To be humble is to have a right view of self. What makes humility difficult? What are you learning about humility from this passage? How do you see humility in Jesus? How are humility and compassion linked together?

What do you do for others that you expect to be repaid for? Think about a time when you served someone who was incapable of repaying you. What was that experience like? What did you learn from that experience?

What aspects of interacting with broke people or ill people do you find challenging? Jesus invites us to love the person in front of us. If you are ready, ask God to help you notice someone in your life who needs your compassion.  

Think about a time when you needed compassion. Who did you receive it from? What did they do or say that expressed their compassion?

In what ways do you need compassion today? Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a sense of God’s compassionate heart.