Pastor's Letter

Dear church family,

If you’ve watched TV over the past few months – especially a major sporting event – you’ve likely seen advertisements for a new campaign called “He Gets Us.” The ads are in black in white, depicting images of ordinary life and people while a narrator describes a particular theme and how, surprisingly, it points to Jesus. (One ad, for example, addresses loneliness and culminates with the words, “Jesus felt alone, too. He gets us.”) The ads then direct viewers to learn more at a website: hegetsus.com.

Intrigued by all this, I recently listened to an interview with Jason Vanderground, a marketing professional and one of the campaign managers for He Gets Us. I learned a lot. For instance, Vanderground explained that the ads were devised by Christians trying to use journalism to spread the gospel to a wide audience. He said they have spent approximately $100 million on the ads, with plans to double that amount over the next year. And he said that reactions to the campaign have been predictably diverse. For instance, surveys indicate that some people (Christians and non-Christians alike) have been intrigued and drawn in, while others have interpreted it as contrived and gimmicky; some have questioned its theological and political orientation, while others have questioned the ethics of spending so much money on an ad campaign. What’s undeniable, he said, is that it has a lot of different people talking about Jesus.

I’ll admit: in listening to the interview, I was won over by the campaign’s intentions. For the first time, or the first time in a long time, we all need to get to know Jesus — to take a good look at him in Scripture; to read about what he says and does in the gospels; and to consider if our lives line up with his life, if our mission look like his mission, if our spirits are immersed in his Spirit (and not vice versa). Indeed, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” To die to selfishness and sin, and to rise again to new life in him.

This is the motivation behind our current winter sermon series. From now through Easter, we’re taking a closer look at Jesus by reading sections of the gospel of John. John gives us a perspective like no other, in which Jesus identifies himself with the God of Israel, the great “I Am,” in some creative and powerful ways. “I am the bread of life,” he says. “I am the true vine.” “I am the resurrection and the life.” Each of these descriptions shines light on the one who came as the light of life, the very presence of God with us and for us. I hope you’ll join us this month for Sunday worship and other events in our life together as we take a deeper look at the ways he gets us.

Yours in Christ,
Blake

Winter Sermon Series: "I Am"

Who is Jesus? What does it mean to meet with him? How can we spend time with him, learn from him, and be led by him? One major way is by reading the Bible. On page after page, the words of Scripture bear witness to the Word who took on flesh and dwelled among us. Indeed, as Sally Lloyd-Jones says in The Jesus Storybook Bible: “Every story whispers his name.”

Trusting that this is so, we will be studying Jesus on Sunday mornings for the next few months at First Presbyterian Church! We'll look specifically at the ways Jesus presents and describes himself in the gospel of John, paying special attention to the "I am" statements scattered throughout the book ("I am the bread of life," "I am the true vine," etc.) What is Jesus teaching us in these statements? What does it reveal about who he is and who we are in his light?

I invite you to join us for Sunday School and worship this wintertime as we go deeper in life with God and life together.

Yours,
Blake

Sermon Scriptures & Topics

• 1/15/2023 - John 1:1-18 - I Am the Word

• 1/22/2023 - John 3:1-21 - I Am the Son of Man

• 1/29/2023 - John 4:1-26 - I Am He

• 2/5/2023 (Guest Preacher; Scripture TBD)

• 2/12/2023 - John 6:25-51 - I Am the Bread of Life

• 2/19/2023 - John 8:12-30 - I Am the Light

• 2/26/2023 - John 10:1-21 - I Am the Good Shepherd

• 3/5/2023 - John 11:1-27 - I Am the Resurrection and the Life

• 3/12/2023 - John 14:1-14 - I Am the Way

• 3/19/2023 - John 15:1-8 - I Am the True Vine

Pastor's Letter

“To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever.  But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit.” – Jonah 2:6

I have just returned from a week away.  From Sunday to Wednesday I was up at the Montreat Conference Center, participating in the 40th annual Wee Kirk (“small church”) conference.  I was joined by over 150 other pastors and leaders from all over the country, many of whom have become dear friends and confidantes over the years.  Our theme was “Love Your Neighbor,” and each talk and workshop related to this call from Christ in the gospels.  It was a rich, encouraging time.

I was especially blessed to learn from Denise Kingdom Grier, a pastor from Holland, Michigan and one of our guest speakers.  Denise shared on the topic of missional engagement and invited us to think about what it means to love our neighbors in our particular church contexts in this particular cultural moment.  Using John 4 as her biblical basis, she invited us to move beyond “outreach” to a deeper model of “embracing.”  If outreach looks like financial charity and impersonal service projects, then embracing involves friendship, patience, and openness to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. 

I was grateful to reflect on the ways that we as a church already embrace so many in our community and beyond, whether by volunteering at the Community Table, participating in events at the Black Mountain Home, building relationships at Life Challenge, or simply gathering together on Sunday mornings or Wednesday nights.  We love our neighbors well.  Yet I was also challenged to consider how we can live even more into this vision to which Denise (and Jesus) calls us.  When we are tempted to live like Jonah, sinking down into ourselves, into our own comfort zones, into our own prejudices and rhythms and ruts – how can we let the Lord bring us up out of the pit and into a better kind of embracing and life together? 

We are coming up on a busy season of life both inside and outside our wonderful “wee kirk.”  Leaf-looker traffic may be dying down, but Thanksgiving is soon upon us, and Advent and Christmas are right around the corner.  Amidst holiday preparations, family time, and a full church calendar, let’s take the opportunity to love our neighbors and embrace one another – giving thanks to the One who has first loved and embraced all of us.

Yours in Christ,
Blake

Jesus Says: I Am the Way

““Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.””

— John 14:1-7

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Today we turned to the "Farewell Discourse" in John's Gospel (chapters 14-17).  It begins with Jesus giving his disciples a word of assurance, a challenge of allegiance, and a call to adventure.  Take a look at these other resources that complement the sermon.

- Blake

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““Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion.
”I am dying of thirst,” said Jill.
”Then drink,” said the Lion.
”May I — could I — would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

”Will you promise not to — do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.
”I make no promise,” said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
”Do you eat girls?” she said.
”I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

”I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.
”Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.
”Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”

”There is no other stream,” said the Lion.””

— C.S. Lewis, "The Silver Chair"

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“It has become customary to classify views on the relation of Christianity to the world religions as either pluralist, exclusivist, or inclusivist … [My] position is exclusivist in the sense that it affirms the unique truth of the revelation in Jesus Christ, but it is not exclusivist in the sense of denying the possibility of the salvation of the non-Christian. It is inclusivist in the sense that it refuses to limit the saving grace of God to the members of the Christian church, but it rejects the inclusivism which regards the non-Christian religions as vehicles of salvation. It is pluralist in the sense of acknowledging the gracious work of God in the lives of all human beings, but it rejects a pluralism which denies the uniqueness and decisiveness of what God has done in Jesus Christ.”

— Lesslie Newbigin, "The Gospel in a Pluralist Society"

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“The way of Jesus cannot be imposed or mapped — it requires an active participation in following Jesus as he leads us through sometimes strange and unfamiliar territory, in circumstances that become clear only in the hesitations and questionings, in the pauses and reflections where we engage in prayerful conversation with one another and with him.”

— Eugene Peterson, "The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways that Jesus is the Way"

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Happy Easter!

“Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.”

— John 20:11-18

“As the risen and ascended Lord, Jesus does not now sit in heaven with his arms folded waiting for us to do something religious that he can affirm (an image from Karl Barth). Jesus is not our cheerleader from the heavens hoping we will get faith and ministry right. Neither does Jesus want to get more involved in our ministries. Why would he? Our ministries are not redemptive. We don’t raise the dead, forgive the sinful, heal the sick or bring in the reign of God.
Rather, Jesus has his own resurrected ministry to do — raising the dead, forgiving the sinful, healing the sick, bringing in God’s reign (note the present tense!) — and he wants us in on it! ”

— Andrew Purves, "The Resurrection of Ministry"

                        I have seen the Lord!

Who's Your Shepherd?

Today we heard John 10:1-21: Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd! Here are some additional resources to aid you as you reflect on this powerful passage.

-Blake

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“As a shepherd he is gentle towards his flock, but fierce and formidable towards wolves and thieves; in like manner, Christ is kind and gentle towards those who commit themselves to his care, while they who willfully and obstinately reject his yoke, shall feel with what awful and terrible power he is armed.”

— John Calvin, commentary on Psalm 110

“When so much shepherding has gone so wrong,
So many pastors hopelessly astray,
The weak so often preyed on by the strong,
So many bruised and broken on the way,
The very name of shepherd seems besmeared,
The fold and flock themselves are torn in half,
The lambs we left to face all we have feared
Are caught between the wasters and the wolf.

Good Shepherd now your flock has need of you,
One finds the fold and ninety-nine are lost
Out in the darkness and the icy dew,
And no one knows how long this night will last.
​​​​​​​Restore us; call us back to you by name,
And by your life laid down, redeem our shame.”

— Malcolm Guite, "The Good Shepherd"

You Are What You Eat

Malcolm Guite, "I Am the Bread of Life":

Where to get bread? An ever-pressing question
That trembles on the lips of anxious mothers,
Bread for their families, bread for all these others;
A whole world on the margin of exhaustion.

And where that hunger has been satisfied
Where to get bread? The question still returns
In our abundance something starves and yearns
We crave fulfillment, crave and are denied.

And then comes One who speaks into our needs
Who opens out the secret hopes we cherish
Whose presence calls our hidden hearts to flourish
Whose words unfold in us like living seeds
Come to me, broken, hungry, incomplete,
I Am the Bread of Life, break Me and eat.

Alexander Schmemann, "For the Life of the World":

Centuries of secularism have failed to transform eating into something strictly utilitarian. Food is still treated with reverence...To eat is still something more than to maintain bodily functions. People may not understand what that 'something more' is, but they nonetheless desire to celebrate it. They are still hungry and thirsty for sacramental life.

John Donne, "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions," Prayer:

Therefore I beg of thee my daily bread; and as thou gavest me the bread of sorrow for many days, and since the bread of hope for some, and this day the bread of possessing, in rising by that strength, which thou the God of all strength hast infused into me, so, O Lord, continue to me the bread of life: the spiritual bread of life, in a faithful assurance in thee; the sacramental bread of life, in a worthy receiving of thee; and the more real bread of life in an everlasting union to thee.

Do You Want to Get Well?

Today we heard the story of Jesus healing an "invalid" at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-18).  Jesus asks a probing question: "Do you want to get well?"  The man does, and Jesus heals him. 

One-fifth of all the material in the Gospels is concerned with Jesus' healing of some form of physical disease.  This has dramatic implications for our life today as Jesus' followers.  The Son of God came to save us and to heal us - in body and in soul, in this life or in the life to come.  

Take a look at these extra resources, especially the Wilson article I referenced in my sermon.

- Blake

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“We modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order. The Bible tells us that God did not originally make the world to have disease, hunger, and death in it. Jesus has come to redeem where it is wrong and heal the world where it is broken. His miracles are not just proofs that He has power but also wonderful foretastes of what He is going to do with that power. Jesus’s miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts, that the world we all want is coming.”

— Tim Keller, "The Reason for God"

• God Always Heals by Andrew Wilson
• Why has God answered others' prayers for healing but not mine? by Nancy Ortberg
• Death, the Prosperity Gospel, and Me by Kate Bowler (see this and this, too)
• The Purpose of Biblical Miracles by Tim Keller (see this, too)

Image credit: Rembrandt, “Christ Healing” 

Come and See

Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them, “What do you seek?”
They said to Him, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”
He said to them, “Come and see.” - John 1:38-39

Week 2 in John’s Gospel finds us making the turn from knowing about Jesus to following after Jesus. John the Baptist acts as our guide, helping us (and those first disciples) get their bearings for this new adventure. What will you do when he comes calling, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world?

- Blake

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“We need to pledge ourselves anew to the cause of Christ. We must capture the spirit of the early church. Wherever the early Christians went, they made a triumphant witness for Christ. Whether on the village streets or in the city jails, they daringly proclaimed the good news of the gospel.” - Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love

"Those who aren't following Jesus aren't his followers. It's that simple. Followers follow, and those who don't follow aren't followers. To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus into a society where justice rules, where love shapes everything. To follow Jesus means to take up his dream and work for it." - Scot McKnight, One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow

John the Baptist and the “pointing hand” (Grunewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece)

The Light Has Come

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” - John 1:4

Today we started our new study of John. Here are a few of the things I mentioned. Hope you can join us in reading and praying along through this beautiful Fourth Gospel. 

 - Blake

“John flies like an eagle above the cloud of human weakness and looks upon the light of unchanging truth with the most lofty and firm eyes of the heart. And gazing on the very deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which he is equal to the Father, he has striven in this Gospel to confide this above all...” - Thomas Aquinas

From Falling Up by Shel Silverstein, gettin’ all theological: 

“Of the Father’s Love Begotten” (because sometimes hymns say it best):

And never, ever forget: 

Coming in 2018: The Gospel of John

Starting Jan. 7, I'll be preaching through the Gospel of John.  This is a first for me.  I've tackled bits and pieces of John before, but never the book in its entirety.  I'm looking forward to digging in with you.  Give it a read and see what you notice about Jesus, the Word made flesh who made his dwelling among us (John 1:14).

- Blake

P.S. -- Take a look at these resources and commentaries to go deeper: