Tag: Morning Musings

Morning Musing: Mark 15:8-11

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“The crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do for them as was his custom. Pilate answered them, ‘Do you want me to release the king of the Jews for you?’ For he knew it was because of envy that the chief priests had handed him over. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd so that he would release Barabbas to them instead.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever read or listened to someone else read the Bible out loud? Forget about the Bible for a second, have you ever read or heard someone else read any story out loud? How does that usually sound? If we’re being honest, pretty dull and lifeless. Most people read out loud with a monotone voice. Have you ever noticed that? That’s really interesting to me. I don’t know many people who talk like that. When you’re telling someone else a story you care about, you put all kinds of emotion and feeling into it. Your face is animated, you move your hands, you alter the pitch and tone of your voice for emphasis. It’s engaging for others. But when we read something someone else wrote, all of that goes away. I’ve never really been sure why exactly that is. Now, come back to the Bible with me. When we read the Bible out loud like we read everything else out loud, what gets conveyed to the listener is that this is really boring stuff. There’s no life to it. There’s no excitement. There’s no real story. It’s just…blah. The thing is, though, the Bible is anything but blah. Here’s a story that proves it.

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Morning Musing: Mark 14:61-64

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“But he kept silent and did not answer. Again the high priest questioned him, ‘Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?’ ‘I am,’ said Jesus, ‘and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.’ Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, ‘Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy. What is your decision?’ They all condemned him as deserving death.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

In the world of courtroom dramas, the money moment is when the prosecutor finally gets the defendant to somehow admit his guilt under oath while on the witness stand. These moments are a dime a dozen on television, but perhaps the best such scene ever put on film is the climax of the movie, A Few Good Men, where Jack Nicholson screams at Tom Cruise, “You can’t handle the truth.” Just for your viewing pleasure, here’s a link to the scene (with a language morning). If that one critical moment doesn’t make you want to stand up and cheer for Cruise’s Lt. Kaffee’s incredible victory for justice you may want to check and see if you have a pulse. There’s just something satisfying about seeing someone guilty own that guilt and face the consequences of it. What we see unfolding here in Mark’s Gospel is a scene kind of like that except the charge to which Jesus finally confessed wasn’t a crime at all. It was simply the truth. Let’s talk about the moment Jesus finally admitted to the “crime” that led Him to the cross.

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Morning Musing: 1 Thessalonians 4:13

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“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Last week we talked about the Netflix series, Virgin River. I don’t usually come back to talk about the same series so soon after hitting it once, but as I watched the penultimate episode of season three last night, I was bothered enough I couldn’t ignore it. And I was going to wait until tomorrow like I usually do, but events in my own life lined up such that today is the right day for it. We’ll go back to Mark tomorrow instead. Today, we need to talk about a funeral.

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Morning Musing: Mark 14:37-38

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“Then he came and found them sleeping. He said to Peter, ‘Simon, are you sleeping? Couldn’t you stay awake one hour? Stay awake and pray so that you won’t enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Did you ever get caught sleeping in class? I’ll confess that I dozed in class a lot through college and grad school. I never got caught that I know of, and I never fell totally asleep like this girl in my eighth grade algebra class who actually fell out of her desk she was asleep so hard, but I definitely dozed. I would later laugh at my notes that got more meager and difficult to decipher the longer class went. The trouble with falling asleep is that we miss things. Now, if what we miss is just part of a lecture, that’s probably not going to be the end of the world, although it may make the midterm more challenging. Sometimes, though, sleeping through life can be entirely more problematic. Peter learned that the hard way here.

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Morning Musing: Mark 14:36

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“And he said, ‘Abba, Father! All things are possible for you. Take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever done something you didn’t want to do? How many of you do that at about 8:00 every morning? Life is filled with times when we are faced with having to do things that are not our first choice. In fact, they may not even be our second or third choices. It may be they are so far down the list that you could scroll for days and never find them. But we do them anyway. Why? Many reasons. It could be a sense of duty or obligation. It could be out of compassion for someone else. It could simply be that we like to eat and live indoors. Whatever the reason, though, we set ourselves aside and push through. As you do this, you should know there’s no one who understands this so well as Jesus does. Let’s talk about why.

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