Aloha Friday Message – September 6, 2024 – Ephphatha!

September 6, 2024

2436AFC090624 – Ephphatha!

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Isaiah 35:4-5 – (GNT) [1]
4 Tell everyone who is discouraged,
          “Be strong and don’t be afraid!
          God is coming to your rescue,
          coming to punish your enemies.”

5 The blind will be able to see,
          and the deaf will hear.

Psalm 146:5-9 –
5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
          whose hope is in the Lord their God,
6 who made heaven and earth,
          the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;
7              who executes justice for the oppressed;
          who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
8              the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
          the Lord loves the righteous.
9 The Lord watches over the strangers;
          he upholds the orphan and the widow,
          but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

James 2:1, 5 – 1 My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism, really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?

Mark 7:33-35 – 33 He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. 34 Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,*” that is, “Be opened.” 35 And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

Matthew 4:23 – 23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
* ἐφφαθά (ephphatha) {ef-fath-ah‘} This is a Greek transliteration of an Aramaic word which means “Be open,” אָפִחַח in Aramaic; in Hebrew is paqach (paw-kakh’)

ʻŌmea, I pray that you will let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving praise and thanks to God the Father through Christ in the powerful gentility of the Holy Spirit. Our title today is a word most of us will never hear, even if we are present when it is spoken. It occurs only once in the New Testament, and that is in today’s Gospel Key Verse. It is unusual because it is an Aramaic word, a word so specifically appropriate to the situation that it was included into the Greek text of the Gospel of Mark.

Another, similarly powerful occurrence of Aramaic is in Mark 5:41 – 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum*,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” *other translations spell this as koum. Other Aramaic words in the New Testament include Abba, the phrase Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?, Jesus’ plea from the cross. Among the remaining Aramaic words is raca an insult in Jesus” day among Jews, it meant (in our vernacular) “airhead.” Aramaic words which occur in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew illustrate that Jesus spoke to God as his father in common, everyday words, and did not use obscure “magic spells” for that purpose. Aramaic was the common, day-to-day language at that time; Hebrew was mostly ceremonial for worship and (in a sense) politics when arguing over religious interpretations of the Law.

Why was this obscure word chosen? To begin answering that question we need to go back to The Beginning – actually the beginning of the end – in Genesis 3:4-5 – 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” We can see by the context that the word opened does not refer to a physical occurrence, but rather a perceptual one. it might be paraphrased as “you will perceive and comprehend,” or “you will experience the realization that….” The verb and/or adverb OPEN occurs in that particular sense in many Scriptural passages in both the Old Testament and the New Testament – in the Old Testament as paqach (paw-kakh’), and in Greek as dianoigó as in Mark 7:34, or anoigó as in Luke 1:64. Dianoigó means “completely opened,” as in freed, liberated, no longer impeded and is often used in a contextual sense. Anoigo, on the other hand, means a physical opening, like opening the mouth of a fish (See Matthew 17:27), or a door (See Luke 11:10), or The heavens (See Acts 7:56).

Ephphatha, is like the Greek word dianoigo; it means completely opened and emptied of all obstructions. The man was deaf and had a speech impediment, yet after Jesus’ clear command in the common language of the man and the people around him, the man was completely cured, and spoke and heard perfectly. Mark makes a very convincing point that it is Jesus who affects that cure, and that he did it without employing anything but his own power. His actions form the basis for the Ephphatha Rite.

The Ephphatha rite is included in the Baptismal rite for the Baptism of infants, and can be included as an optional rite for the Baptism of adults in the Order for the Christian Initiation of Adults. In either rite, the Priest touches the person with his thumb and says, “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May he soon touch your ears (he signs the cross on each ear) and your mouth (he signs the closed lips) to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.” In this we see the signification that one needs the Grace of God to hear and to proclaim the Gospel. This “opening” is in the sense of dianoigo. It is a spiritual inauguration in anticipation of future encounters with the Lord in Word and Sacrament. It is a complete opening which anticipates the faithful attention to keeping one’s ears open – for “faith comes by hearing, and hearing from the Word of God (See Romans 10:17) – and prepare our lips to address praise to God as in Psalm 51:15 and Hebrews 13:15. These are both good “memory verses” for reflecting on what we should be doing with our speech. See also James 3:5-12 for some insights into what happens when we fail to follow through on the leading we receive in the Ephphatha rite as our obligation to praise, thank, and love God.

As we see in our Key Verse from Isaiah, there is a longstanding promise that God will open the ears of the deaf and bless the eyes of the blind. These things are impossible for earthlings to command, but for God, nothing is impossible. The Key Verses from Psalm 146 show us that God is faithful, he has created everything, he brings justice to the oppressed, he frees those who are imprisoned. He lifts up those who are burdened, and loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the disenfranchised, but for those who are collaborators in wickedness he rains down on them their just rewards of ruin by sword, fire, and pestilence. That sounds particularly severe in this modern age – especially if we consider the laissez-faire attitude so many people have, the loosey-goosey, ambivalent, relativism of “What’s true for you may not be true for me.”

Now, there’s a terrible sin! It is a true saying that “What we do says who we are. Actions speak louder than words.” We recognize that when people are denying God, they are denying that there is a knowable Truth. It is, in fact, the Truth Eve and Adam wrongly believed they could access on their own. In Matthew 7:15-17 (GNT) 1, Jesus tells his Disciples (and therefore us, Belovéd) – 15 “Be on your guard against false prophets; they come to you looking like sheep on the outside, but on the inside they are really like wild wolves. 16 You will know them by what they do. Thorn bushes do not bear grapes, and briers do not bear figs. 17 A healthy tree bears good fruit, but a poor tree bears bad fruit.” Who are the false Prophets today? Look around us; they are everywhere in everything, even where we least expect them.

They have a lot of different job titles – brownnoser, suck-up, apple-polisher, back-scratcher, teacher’s pet, lackey, minion, knave, politician, wolf in sheep’s clothing, sycophant, all of them fit the term con artist – you get the idea. These are people who will tell you anything they think you want to know. These are people who court our loyalty through favoritism. They make us feel important either by well-worn flattery, or by belittling and devaluing others. If we are honest about our past, we know that, at some time, we have all been trying to make wine from snowflakes. In doing so we miss out on being rich in faith and [becoming] heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him.

Alrighty, we’ve gone a long way ‘round to get to the purpose of this. Why choose “Ephphatha!?” That word, that concept, was chosen because of the Greek word, dianoigó. Wa-a-a-y up at the top I wrote it is about “completely opened,” as in freed, liberated, no longer impeded and is often used in a contextual sense. Now, think back through the histories and prophecies in the Old Testament, the parables and letters in the New Testament. Do they not tell us to be open to whatever God sends us, to be prepared to communicate in whichever way he chooses? We definitely want our ears open to hear the Word and our lips liberated for proclaiming the Word. We want our tongues to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. We want every possible “catchment system” in our lives to be valid ways to receive and share the word.

What is the value in opening our hearts “just a little bit” to let in a ray of Sonshine when we can throw open the tabernacles of our hearts and let in the Light of the World – Jesus? Couldn’t we let ἐφφαθά open more than just our ears and mouths, our hearing and speaking. Could we let it be the opening of our agape – ἀγάπη – Love, the unconditional Love God shows to us in giving his Only Begotten Son as reparation for OUR sins? Come on, we’ve all got them, and some of them are doozies. Every single one of them can and will be forgiven for those who are willing to go to a one-on-one with Jesus as this unnamed man did. That’s something we can do – be willing to go – but look what else happened.

Sunday’s reading stars with verse 31 in Mark 7. Here are verses 31-32 (↔ Click Link) :
31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32 They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. SOMEONE took the man to Jesus so that the man might be touched – and healed – by Jesus. Might that be a role we are called upon to take up, to Ephphatha our hearts in compassion, and lead someone else to Jesus’ loving touch and gentle but mind-blowing healing?

What if Ephphatha became the one word that characterized what we do? Would that tell the World who we are? Putting it another way, if we were arrested for being Christians, would there be enough evidence to convict us? And so I invite all of us to pray for those who are indeed Christians, and who are indeed arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and sometimes executed because they are Christians. What would their Ephphatha look like? Does ours look that open to God’s will? Jesus took the man aside, away from all the hubbub and gave him what he needed. If it came right down to that, would I, would you, would we be willing to say, “Yeah, I’m open to that?” Well then, Ephphatha!! Open me! (↔ Music Link)

And remember, IYDKYDK, so Listen Up and open up with everything you’ve got! (Yeah. You better click that link.)

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

[1] Passages marked (GNT): Good News Translation (GNT) are from the Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition)© 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.

  

Aloha Friday Message – August 30, 2024 – WHAT DO WE WANT TO DO?

August 30, 2024

2435AFC083024 – WHAT DO WE WANT TO DO?

Read it online here, please. And please – when you visit there – use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

Deuteronomy 4:6-8 – 6 You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!” 7 For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? 8 And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?

Psalm 15:1-2 –
t1 O Lord, who may abide in your tent? [Tabernacle]
    Who may dwell on your holy hill?

2 Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right,
    and speak the truth from their heart;

James 1:21 b-22 – welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.
22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.

Mark 7:21-23 – 21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Today we have another instance where suddenly we can see that there is a series happening, and we had not recognized it. the series is about “Everybody makes choices.” How often have we all used that as a disparaging remark? Yes, we make choices – As Mark Twain opined, ““Good decisions come from experience, and a lot of experience comes from bad decisions.” Doesn’t that sound about right Belovéd?  I have noticed that – once again, without my expecting it – that we are running a series here. The first post in the series was 2433AFC081624 – A Tasty Choice. There we learned that getting to know God is like choosing something by taking a little taste of it. O Taste and see that the Lord is good. We also learned that choices, discernment, decisions – all of these have consequences. One very good choice we can make is to recognize that it is indeed God’s Will that praises go to him before anything else we offer. In the second post in the series – 2434AFC082324 – Choose to Be Chosen – we focused on Joshua’s classic statement, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (↔ Music Link).” There we learned that the whole thing about God creating earthlings, was that {A} God chose to create us and {B} waited for us to choose to Love and Obey him. He began with a man named Adam, and when Adam failed to choose correctly, God waited until Abram came along and chose to make him the head of Many Great Nations. Abram chose to Love and Obey God, and when God sent him to a strange land with the promise that it would all belong to his descendants, Abram Obeyed and Loved the Lord. Because he chose that course of action God changed his name to Abraham, and he was the father of Isaac who became the father of Jacob, who wrestled with an angel and gained the name Israel. Here is the result of that encounter in Genesis 32:27-28 – 27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel * for you have striven with God and with humans, ** and have prevailed.”
*The one who strives with God or God strives ** or with divine and human beings. So, up to this day, when we say the name of Abraham’s grandson – Israel – we are saying “Strives with God.” When other Semitic nations speak about that great country, Israel, they will pronounce it “israh-elies”. Whenever we hear that word we must remember that God chose a righteous man and his descendants to love and obey him. At the founding of that nation, Isaac showed that the nation Israel would always strive with God.

Why, then, did God choose them? Please take a quick break and grab your Bible. Open it to Deuteronomy 7:6-11 (or just follow that link). God chose the Hebrews because they were a tiny nation, a weak nation, a stubborn nation, a fickle nation. They were the least likely to be a people peculiar to Almighty God alone. If they would Love and Obey God, their creator, they would be a perfect example for other nations. They would show that a puny, rancorous, arrogant, rag-tag, family-based group of former slaves could become a great, wealthy, powerful, and well-respected People, a “Light to the nations,” so that other nations would look at them and say, “What a wonderful and powerful God they have that he has done so much for them. Would that he would do so for us!” The People of Israel lived down to their predicted nadir. We have an account of the dreadful condition of the leaders and the People in

2 Chronicles 36:15-16 –
 15 The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place; 16 but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against his people became so great that there was no remedy. The Apostle Paul reminds us that God sent Judges, and Prophets, and Messengers, and his earthlings rejected them because they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against his people became so great that there was no remedy. He had already destroyed every living thing except the inhabitants of the Ark, so instead, he sent us his Son, our Savior, for this reason: 17 Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (↔ Music Link) 18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. Those who embrace Wrath do so in their own darkness and – having rejected the Light – they are condemned already unless they repent and believe the Gospel. And woe to those who claim to be believers but lure others into sin and darkness by claiming to be pure, wise, and “woke.” In short, like us – the present-day earthlings who are the Children of God – they refused to “purge the evil from their midst” and brought punitive judgment on themselves. Is that what WE want to do?

It should be no surprise (↔ Click Link) that most of us have the solution to that riddle in our homes, maybe even in our offices, or our vehicles, or our smart phone. It’s the B.I.B.L.E.! That’s what we do here every Friday, we turn to the Word and ask the Holy Spirit to show us God’s own Wisdom. Ah! And there we have it: Reverence for the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. (Paraphrasing Proverbs 9:10 from my logo). We have full, unrestricted access to the Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth – and that is what WE must do, what WE want to be – we can be the Children of God who Love and Obey the Lord in all things. WE can be the ones who are faithful regardless of everything that’s going on around us. WE can be surrounded by all that is evil, like captives in Babylon or Egypt, and we remain faithful.

Hopefully you will recall the anecdotes about the two banners we placed in our kids’ bedroom. One said, “What do you want to do?” and the other said, “THE RIGHT THING.” At times, sporadically and briefly, Israel “did the right thing,” but quick-as-a-wink they were back to idolatry, massive and abominable sins, and desecration of all that God had set aside as Holy. Here we must recall Edmund Burke’s famous aphorism, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” These days, that reference is made to remind us of Hitler, Kim Jong Un, Xi Junping, Vladimir Putin, and the evil-doers. This quote from Burke leads us to another of his quips, “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” What do WE want to do? Too often it is “as little as possible.” Instead we must strive to do “as much as we can however little that may be.” Remember, it is the weight of the final snowflake on the mountainside that triggers the avalanche. (See Terry Goodkind ↔ Click Link) Some of us (I stand guilty as charged) use the term snowflake to refer to the overly-entitled, easily offended (think “Karen”), pretentious yuppie-puppies who seem to be offended by everything from road-signs to livestock. They take no responsibility for the havoc they cause in their ignorance. They protest against that which they do not understand, and so their protests are alogical. They ask for permission to cause death and still be held guiltless. THAT is not what WE want to do! These verbal and physical broadsides of protest are very much like the historical broadsides of two navies firing canons point-blank at each other at sea. It is something like death by attrition or mutual annihilation. The best strategy in dealing with a broadside attack is to confront the enemy straight-on, taking a course perpendicular to the attack. What does that mean in policies being attacked by verbal and political broadsides? Think about how many times the Book of Proverbs tells us not to argue with a fool. Collecting these images together, to avoid an avalanche, stay away from locations and positions that are susceptible to avalanche. To deal with a tumbling snowball, get to the beginning of the problem and stop it rather than wait until its momentum is overpowering. What do WE want to do? THE RIGHT THING! And just how do WE do the right thing? How do we know the right thing? Riddle me this: Who or what has the answer to finding the Right Things?

We stop at the Stop Sign, not beyond it, not ignoring it – we stop because it is the law. If the speed limit is 25 mph, we go the speed limit; if it is 35 we don’t accelerate to 42 because the police won’t stop us unless we are exceeding the speed limit by more than 7 mph. WE do what is right because it is right, not because we are afraid of being punished, but rather because WE are committed to being OBEDIENT. WE respect the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Real Presence of Christ, and we do not receive the Holy Eucharist if we have skipped a Sunday to go fishing with grampa unless we have first reconciled with God. WE remember that YOLO-F is really, really Real, and so are Heaven and Hell. WE remember what The Apostle Paul said in Romans 12:1-2 – 1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.

WE do NOT go along to get along because getting along with the World is a failure to get along with God. WE do not make idols of our jobs, our sports or cinema celebrities, our music-industry stars. WE know God’s Laws and “observe them diligently.” WE “do what is right” and “humbly, with meekness, welcome the word that has been planted in US” because we are “doers of the word,  (↔ Music Link) and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” We know what our Lord and Master meant when he told us, it is “from the human heart, that evil intentions come; all these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” WE cast those things away. WE stop, confess, apologize, and turn around to return to our God when we are distracted by the World. That is REPENTANCE, and God desires and blesses every moment of repentance. Do you ever struggle with interruptions in your prayers, or find yourself distracted about something banal while attempting something devotional? Do this: Stop. Tell God, “I’m sorry. I repent of that distraction. I’m back now.” Then continue to pray. God can, will, and does mark and reward those simple moments of repentance just as surely as he takes note of our greatest, most lethal sins if we Repent and Believe the Gospel ! WE can do that because we are anointed as Priest, Prophet, and King. He is our God, and we are his servants and therefore we are NOT conformed to this world as if we are a herd of lemmings looking for the perfect cliff.

WHAT DO WE WANT TO DO? WE want to be those WHOM God sees as ones who walk blamelessly, and do what is right, and speak the truth from their hearts. Those two banners sum it up, don’t they? Adelphos, it is time to STAND up, SUIT up, GEAR up, SPEAK up, and STAND for Truth, Justice, Freedom, and Right. It is time to do Right things better, and Better things right. It is TIME to Taste and see that the Lord is good! And in HIS Goodness we declare and decree his blessings of wisdom, courage, and strength will come down on all who stand in the gap against the Worldly who call evil good and Good evil (Isaiah 5:20 ← #Clickit!)  May the Lord of Hosts preserve us from all their evil in our going out and coming in! Let now the Holy Spirit renew us with the Fire of El Shaddai-Olam’s Sh’khinah Glory. (↔ Learning Link)

We are the People of the Covenant through the Suffering and Victory of Jesus and so we remember what God prophesies about us:
Deuteronomy 20:3 b – 4 – “Today you are drawing near to do battle against your enemies. Do not lose heart, or be afraid, or panic, or be in dread of them; 4 for it is the Lord your God who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to give you victory.” But wait! There’s MORE!
1 John 5:1-4 – 1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, 4 for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. We have chosen the Best of All and left the rest of all others behind. When we have been humbled as The Chosen, we are blessed because we choose MOMENT-BY-MOMENT to be the Children of God. (←POWERFUL!!) And, ʻŌmea, why do you think every first-person plural of to be is spelled WE? So that WE will remember that WE are the Body of Christ, WE are the Bride of the King of the Universe. WE are not now and have never been, and will never be alone in this battle … so long as we Love and Obey the Lord as he has commanded. That is what WE want to do, and it is ALL we want to do. WE will not be distracted by the evil surrounding us because we will unite at the foot of the Cross and fight evil by depriving it of what sustains it — vanquish the demons by suiting up. Then get into the fray as the faithful remnant who affirm,

WE MEAN IT WHEN WE SAY,

“Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on Earth
 AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

 Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Aloha Friday Message – August 23, 2024 – Choose to Be Chosen

August 23, 2024

2434AFC082324 – Choose to Be Chosen – ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

Read it online here, please. And please – when you visit there – use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

Johsua 24:1-18 {excerpts only} – Joshua gathered together all the tribes of Israel at Shechem … Joshua addressed all the people: “If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide [choose*] today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are now dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. … But the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD for the service of other gods. … Therefore we also will serve the LORD, for he is our God.”
* : bachar choose, choice, chosen, selected from the choice ones

Psalm 34:16-17 –
16 The face of the Lord is against evildoers,
    to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
17 When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears,
    and rescues them from all their troubles.

Ephesians 5:21 – 21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

John 6:63-69 – 63 It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. 65 And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”
66 Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. 67 So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Ah, Belovéd, my heart is harking back to those days of grade school at what was then called Charles A. Bradley Elementary School. There were some great times there. I remember one of the really “coveted” distinctions was to be selected to be on the Honor Guard. There were about a dozen kids chosen to march shuffle-style from the Office to the flag pole and to raise the flag and then lead in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. At the end of the day we marched out and respectfully lowered the flag, properly folded it, and took it back to the office. There were other episodes of choosing that were not so honorable – like standing in a circle and waiting to be chosen to play on one of the two Kick Ball Teams during Recess. Great athlete that I have never been, I was usually among the last – or often the last. When my name was finally called, one of the guys in my class usually said, “God Todd! What a clod!” Sometimes being chosen is pretty gratifying; sometimes it is not. In many instances being chosen requires having to do or be something or someone that serves another – like kickball for example – you have to be able to kick, to run, to score, to catch, and to throw accurately so that your team wins the contest (which to me always seemed mainly pointless anyway). Being chosen in a Covenant Relationship is a lot more complicated and demanding. Consider the history of Israel.

You will recall that God chose Abram and sent him off on a very long trek through very hostile territory. The purpose of the sojourn was to acquaint Abram with the land God had set aside for a group of earthlings that wouldn’t even be identifiable for hundreds of years later – about 400 years, actually. That was when God chose Moses to go to Egypt where his chosen earthlings had been multiplying and – well, let’s call it “incubating” – for that 400 years. Once Moses had gotten them out of the clutches of Pharoah and their slavery there, the Lord chose Moses to convey this message: Deuteronomy 14:2 – 2 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; it is you the Lord has chosen out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession. Why did God do that? it might sound trite or flippant, but “God only knows.” He did what he did because he wanted to do it. He chose the weakest, the most abused, the most fickle descendants of the first decent man (Abram) he found after the Great Deluge and called them to be “a light to the nations,” the singular Nation that would show how God as the source of Perfect Integrity, Endless Mercy, Everlasting Love, And Eternal Salvation. EVERY nation would be able to see how great El Shaddai-Olam is by how blessed Israel became. All they had to do was love and obey him so that they, and everyone in the World, would know as in Isaiah 44:6 –
6 Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel,
          and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:
I am the first and I am the last;
          besides me there is no God.

Now, let’s take a look at the chopped-up Key Verse selection from Joshua 24. Here are the People of God’s Own Choosing, and Joshua is telling them they have already proven themselves to be fickle, selfish, and prone to do whatever their wicked neighbors do so that The Chosen will be more like the eliminated Nations: If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide [choose*] today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are now dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. And what did the people reply? “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD for the service of other gods. … Therefore we also will serve the LORD, for he is our God.” Of course we cannot know, but I do believe that God himself said quietly, “We’ll see about that,” because he knew full well they would betray him over, and over, and over again.

Now, aren’t we also like that? do we not profess to know him, to love him, to serve him in his perpetual, deep-and-wide (↔ Music Link) Conventional Love and Grace? When I contemplate that, I rejoice because How can I keep from singing? (↔ Music Link) I say again How can I keep from singing? (↔ ANOTHER Music Link) And still, I know that even as I choose God to give Primacy to, I will fail and betray him through disobedience, and the desiring of no-gods, idolatry that is adultery in the Eyes of the Lord.

Most of the time this happens when we selfishly put our own wants ahead of other’s needs: “I want what I want when I want it,” and, “I know what you want, Lord, but I don’t want that because I’d rather have something (or perhaps someone) of my own choosing.” In the writing of the Prophets Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel (and in hundreds of other place in the B.I.B.L.E.) God addresses the topic of idols and idolatry. He calls them “no-gods,” and says through the Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 44:14-17 – 14 He cuts down cedars or chooses a holm tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. 15 Then it can be used as fuel. Part of it he takes and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Then he makes a god and worships it, makes it a carved image and bows down before it. 16 Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he roasts meat, eats it and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Ah, I am warm, I can feel the fire!” 17 The rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, bows down to it and worships it; he prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god!” We, who claim to Love and serve the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our Fathers,  (↔ Music Link) [1]

[1] “God of our Fathers” is the National Hymn. Daniel C. Roberts wrote the lyrics in 1876, the Centennial of the United States. The accompaniment in this version was written later by George W. Warren in 1892. It has invoked strong sentiments of Patriotism ever since. Would to God that “We, The People of The United States of America” would learn to sing, take up, and live the lyrics in this majestic poem! **↓

[1] the God who emptied himself and came to be with us as Emmanuel, we take cars, drugs, celebrities, gizmos and doodads, makeup, toothpaste, garments, and any other material or temporal thing we value and we make them into our gods, saying, “This will make my life so-o-o-o much better.” All the while we are saying, “God does not see, he does not care, I can get back to him and he’ll forgive me, but right now … yeah, I’m good with all these things and persons I have acquired.” Don’t we often choose what is the worst of us instead of choosing God Who Is the Best of us?

Every time we act in ways that show we are attempting to exalt ourselves at the expense of others, we are making ourselves to be our idols, making ourselves to be no-gods. No-gods our powerless. They cannot breathe because no Breath is within them, they cannot walk, or move, they cannot speak and so cannot answer, they have to Life, and so cannot give anything to satisfy our wants, much less our needs. When we make other persons (including us), places, things, ideas, or even spirits more important than the One, True, Only, Eternal God Almighty who created us and the entire universe (but is not the Universe), then we have manufactured one (or more) of those no-gods. Here is a little caveat about those no-gods: The usually are inhabited by demonic spirits – yep, persons, places, things, and ideas (I’m thinking politics at this very moment) can be the intermediary for demons. Recall the words of The Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 4:1-2 – 1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later [or last] times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. THESE earthlings should be easily and clearly recognizable as not-gods, and yet our country, founded on Christian principles, is divided over two people with very different claims to the power and integrity of their Christian faith. isn’t just possible that neither one of them is right? Who among us sees a leader who can be said is compliant with Ephesians 5:21 – 21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ? And not just in America, but in any government anywhere in the World? Can any such leader be the one chosen by God?

The stunning answer is yes. Throughout the history of the People of Israel, God chose Nations who had violent opposition to Israel. He chose them to correct their apostasy – their total rejection of their heritage at the chosen people, or as The Apostle Peter put it in 1 Peter 2:9 – 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people**, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
**Greek a people for his possession peripoiēsin preservation, acquisition, acquiring, obtaining, possessing, possession, ownership; ” ‘a making to remain over and above‘; hence, ‘preservation; preservation for one’s self; acquisition; the thing acquired, or a possession’ “

Now we here in America are looking at a situation where there will be even deeper division among our citizens, where too few of us will be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. In the past, God has given The Chosen great blessings for their Love and Obedience. When “humanity” chosen or not, failed to honor his Primacy, this is the sort of message he gave us – all of us!

Proverbs 1:25-29 –
25 and because you have ignored all my counsel
          and would have none of my reproof,
26 I also will laugh at your calamity;
          I will mock when panic strikes you,
27 when panic strikes you like a storm,
          and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
          when distress and anguish come upon you.
28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
          they will seek me diligently, but will not find me.
29 Because they hated knowledge
          and did not choose the fear of the Lord

ʻŌmea, please, choose to be The Chosen People, remember the Word the Lord has given us in Jeremiah 9:23-24 – 23 Thus says the Lord: Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom, do not let the mighty boast in their might, do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; 24 but let those who boast, boast in this, that they understand and know me, that I am the Lord; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord. The wise, the mighty, the wealthy – and all the other no-gods – are like the fakey fans in Proverbs 15:12 –
12 Scoffers do not like to be rebuked;
          they will not go to the wise. It is so simple to remember because our Lord God tells us so many times, like this time: Psalm 34:16-17 –
16 The face of the Lord is against evildoers,
          to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
17 When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears,
          and rescues them from all their troubles.

NO no-gods can do that, absolutely none. And here is the result of when the Righteous call out: John 6:63-69 – 63 It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. 65 And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”
Choose to be chosen by the Lord, God of Hosts, the first, the last, the only God who deposes all the no-gods with a single breath of his mouth. For this we are joyfully inspired to give Praise to the Lord (↔ Music Link)  because of his Absolutely Perfect Plan! Blesséd be God in all his Angels and his Saints chose in righteousness “before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. (See Ephesians 1:3-14 – seriously Adelphos, read it). we must understand that God will give you what we ask for but will base it on our actions, not our words. And this is why I close every message with my pledge to be subject to each and all of you in, and through, and because of being chosen in Christ Jesus for a life of Full-Time Christian Service. I tell you each time …

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray for me that I can choose to be your servant. (↔ Music Link)

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

**↑

I choose “one Nation under God”

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

[1] “God of our Fathers” is the National Hymn. Daniel C. Roberts wrote the lyrics in 1876, the Centennial of the United States. The accompaniment in this version was written later by George W. Warren in 1892. It has invoked strong sentiments of Patriotism ever since. Would to God that “We, The People of The United States of America” would learn to sing, take up, and live the lyrics in this majestic poem!

Aloha Friday Message – August 16, 2024 – A Tasty Choice

August 16, 2024

2433AFC081624 – A Tasty Choice   ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

Read it online here, please. And please – when you visit there – use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

Proverbs 9:6 – (NLT) [1] 6 Leave your simple ways behind, and begin to live;
    learn to use good judgment.”

Psalm 34:4-5 –
4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me,
    and delivered me from all my fears.
5 Look to him, and be radiant;
    so your faces shall never be ashamed.

8 O taste and see that the Lord is good; (↔ Music Link)
         

Ephesians 5:15-17 – 15 Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, 16 making the most of the time, because the days are evil. 17 So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

John 6:52-53 – 52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit.  Today we give praise and glory to God for all the prayers you have offered for me during my hospital stay. I mentioned earlier that I was sick because of a bad altitude. Well, we are slowly climbing upwards to cruising altitude. I’ve started outpatient therapy sessions (O.T. and P.T,). We believe there are several more weeks of work to be done to restore lost muscle and endurance. Enough of that. Let’s see what’s in the queue for today.

The Key Verses for today all suggest the notion of discernment. That is a tough subject, especially when weighing spiritual things and options that affect our future. We might even say options that effect our future in that the choices we make also change our relationship with everything and everyone in our lives because, you know – YOLO-F. Let’s use the process of goal-setting as an example. Goals represent the choosing of a state of being we believe we would prefer. If I want to ace the exam, I have to study. The goal is to earn a good grade. The first objective I need to set to achieve that goal is to crack open the book. Then I need to review any notes I have on the relevant topics. As I work on my review, another objective might be to organize my objectives so that they match the teaching style of the professor – what s/he dwelt on and how that material’s relevance in the class was emphasized. Making these kinds of choices can be fairly easy if we practice them often. Sometimes, though, choices we must make are more difficult. Take, for example, choosing obedience to Christ’s Law of Love.

If anyone of you have participated in the podcasts presented by Ascension Media such as the Bible in a Year (BIAY) or Catechism in a Year (CIY), you will recognize this portrayal of sin as presented by Fr. Mike Schmitz: “God, I know what you want, and why you want it. But I don’t want that. I want what I want, so I’m not going to do what you want.” That is a choice that requires discernment. I look at what God wants, compare it with what I want, and I choose to have nothing to do with what God wants because what I want is more appealing to me. One of the life-choices we often hear discussed as requiring discernment is choosing a vocation.

Does God want me to serve his people as a professed religious, as a priest or deacon, as a layperson serving in one of the lay ministries of the Church? In these situations, the outcome of our discernment is taken more seriously. Going back to preparing for the exam, if I decide to choose playing a videogame online, or going out with friends instead of studying, my discernment is more like telling my professor, “I know what you want, but that’s not what I want.” Our failure to toe the line will most likely result in a failure to get a good grade on the exam. If we turn down the opportunity to serve God in the way he has planned for us, the consequences could be much more dire.

Choices, discernment, decisions – all of these have consequences. We have often stated here that “There are no inconsequential acts,” and “What we do says who we are. Actions speak louder than words.” Often we choose to accept the consequences rather than deny ourselves the gratification of doing what we want instead of doing what we should. IN THE LONG RUN e.g., eternity) Which is actually more gratifying: Pleasing myself or pleasing God? That answer may seem obvious, but most of the time the obvious isn’t so obvious. We choose wrongly.

What would happen if our discernment leads us to a decision that in all things we will always praise God? Wouldn’t that provide a context for all of our other decisions? Praising God in, through, for, and with all that we are, and with all that we have, would be an extraordinary goal – which is surprising because it should not be extraordinary at all. It should be natural and stand always as the primary purpose of our lives. Why? BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT GOD HAS INTENDED FOR US SINCE THE FIRST INTONATION OF “LET THERE BE ….”

It is indeed God’s Will that praises go to him before anything else we offer. We first capture this understanding in Judges 1:2 – 2 The Lord said, “Judah [1] shall go up. I hereby give the land into his hand.” You may recall that the top of the Ark of the Covenant had two Cherubim with their wings outstretched toward the center. This was The Mercy Seat, and it was there that God’s Sh’khinah Glory (← Check it out!) rested. Sh’khinah means resting, dwelling, and even throne. Consider, then, the meaning of Psalm 22:3 –
3 Yet you are holy,
          enthroned [dwelling in] on the praises of Israel. God inhabits the praises of his People! Their Praises of God are his Throne. We lift our hearts and hands and voices in praise to our Creator. Now, there is some disagreement about whether or not it is appropriate for the assembly (congregation) to pray in the orans gesture during The Lord’s Prayer. Technically that posture is assigned only to the presiding priest in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM ↔ Click Link) , and laity should not be using it.

Try this: hold your hands in the orans position – out to the side, palms up (See this link). Close your eyes and relax a bit, then say, “God, you are my God.” Now, I am going to give you a music link to one of my favorite hymns by one of my favorite composers – Rich Mullins. Click this music link, and listen to it in the orans position. O God, you are my God. (↔ Music Link)

Did you do those things? Did you try the orans position, and then use it to listen to that song of praise? If you did, then your discernment was that you would benefit from doing that. If you did not than your discernment was “nobody can see me, and besides, that looks silly,” or something to that effect. Please take a moment and think through the intended and unintended consequences of those decisions. I’ll wait.

<<<< PAUSE >>>>

Let’s expand that experience a bit to the moment you’re ready to get up and start your day. You will née to discern between watching Good Morning America (or participating in any other activity), or spending seven-and-one-half minutes in prayer. How obvious is the obvious? If you choose prayer, will you choose to let Judah (Praise) go first? In either of these actions we must discern what is proper (if we are at all interested in being proper), and so we must discern what is acceptable. In order to know what we want to be, we have to know what and where we are. Take Baskin-Robbins for instance.

Going for an ice cream can be a challenging experience for some of us. 32 flavors! What’s my favorite, do I want to try something new, who would ever choose that kind, would this one go well with that one? It is always simple for me. If they have lime sherbet, that’s the end of it; if they don’t, then any sherbet or sorbet will do. If I strike out there, it’s “I’ll have the same as s/he’s having.” Discernment doesn’t always have to be a struggle. If it works, don’t break it and don’t fix it, either. What exactly, then, is discernment?

This far in, we ought to be able to conclude that discernment is a form of decision-making. That implies that there are at least two options to consider. I’m going to list a few and then close it up. How does one become discerning, or put another way, what is the source of discernment? Like all Good things, discernment is a Gift from God – in fact, a Gift of the Holy Spirit. Way back in the book of Isaiah we have a list of Spiritual Gifts:

Isaiah 11:2 – 2 The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
          the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
          the spirit of counsel and might,
          the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. If that sounds familiar it is because we find a similar list in the writings of The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 (↔ Click Link) which includes wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of [reverence for] the Lord. Right at the head of that list are wisdom and understanding. In the Book of Wisdom, we read that Wisdom was the first collaborator called by God to watch, enjoy, and wonder at all that God was creating. In Daniel 2:21 we read he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. On my logo (← Check it out!), there is a quote from Proverbs 9:10 – 10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. We see a pattern here; discernment is gathering knowledge about anything ranging from something to everything, applying that knowledge to processing a decision, and basing that decision on what is right and just as God expects (Micah 6:8 … again!)

Sometimes I think of it as getting a little sample (like that tiny little spoon at Baskin-Robins) and acting on what I taste. In fact, guess what that word “taste” (Hebrew taam) means in the Key Verse from the Psalm above. It means to perceive, or to experience, to sample (eat) in a small quantity. Ah! As in “we become what we eat!” Take a sample of the Lord’s goodness, or his mercy, or his steadfast love, or any of the other multitude of benefits that well up in our lives “like the dewfall,” take a taste and we will gain knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and discern that, indeed, the Lord is Good! He is so Good, in fact, that we end up praising him and thanking him more and more which leads us to trust, surrender, love, believe, and receive him more and more.

Sometimes I think of it as getting a little sample (like that tiny little spoon at Baskin-Robins) and acting on what I taste. In fact, guess what that word “taste” (Hebrew taam) means in the Key Verse from the Psalm above. It means to perceive, or to experience, to sample (eat) in a small quantity. Ah! As in “we become what we eat!” Take a sample of the Lord’s goodness, or his mercy, or his steadfast love, or any of the other multitude of benefits that well up in our lives “like the dewfall,” take a taste and we will gain knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and discern that, indeed, the Lord is Good! He is so Good, in fact, that we end up praising him and thanking him more and more which leads us to trust, surrender, love, believe, and receive him more and more.

And – you guessed it – all of that brings us “closer” to God (he hasn’t moved away, we have). As we draw closer to God we become convinced by direct evidence that he IS. He is our God. We are his servants. It is in him that In him we live and move and have our being. (See Acts 17:28 a) I am, you are we are alive in him because We Are the Body of Christ (↔ Music Link) When I need to be certain about how to live, I Choose Christ (↔ Music Link) because I’m gonna live so God can use me! (↔ Music Link) How shall I serve him, when I ask him, What do you want of me, Lord? (↔ Music Link)? I will be HIS servant by serving his servants (↔ Music Link)

Now, my Belovéd reader, what shall we do? Let’s go out there into the Word with the Good News, proclaiming our Love of God in the lives we Live by discerning what is the will of God for us that we may best serve him by serving each other. Now, that’s the tastiest choice ever!

I will choose to eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood so that I will have Life within me. Can I get an AMEN?

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

[1] Judah – יְהוּדָה Yehudah the name JUDAH means Praise, ergo, let Praise go up first. We see this illustrated in the Lord’s Prayer. There is the address to God, Our Father, who art in Heaven, then Praise: Hallowed be thy name – Your Name is Holy.

[1] Passages marked (NLT) are from New Living Translation (NLT) – Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Aloha Friday Message – August 9, 2024 – The Really Real Reality

August 9, 2024

2432AFC080924 – The Really Real Reality – ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

Read it online here, please. And please – when you visit there – use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

John 6:51 – 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

1 Kings 19:8 – 8 He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.

Psalm 34:8 a – 8 O taste and see that the Lord is good;

Ephesians 5:1-2 – 1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2 and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Genesis 8:21 – 21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor*, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.

* han-nî-ḥō-aḥ rê-aḥ→ a quieting, soothing, tranquilizing, savory – רֵיחַ נִיחֹחַ odor of soothing (to God)

May Peace always be with you and may God bless you, Belovéd! Thank you for your prayers and well-wishes as I continue with the recuperation after my 10-day stay at Kauaʻi Veterans’ Memorial Hospital (KVMH). The care I received there was actually the best hospital stay I’ve ever had, and I’ve got more than a few under my pillow. There is still much to be done with physical therapy, occupational therapy, and possible respiratory therapy assistance. Nonetheless, I am significantly improved, and grateful to have regained at better altitude.

Today’s message, as you might expect, will be foreshortened. I ask you to review these Key Verses as you consider the following personal testimony.

If you are not a Christian, none of this will make any sense, and that’s OK. It is a testimony, not a diatribe, so you can choose when, if, and/or how to tune in or out. If you are a non-Catholic Christian, you may find this discomforting; some might even find it insulting or completely wrong-headed. If you are a Catholic Christian, you’ve probably (or most certainly should have) heard this before. The topic is The Real Presence of Christ. Back in the 80’s, a survey from the Pew Research Center stated that about 35% of American Catholics (and perhaps in other places, an even lower percent) were willing to state they believed in the Real Presence. As recently as last year, a similar poll indicated that ratio flipped 180° so that now an estimated ⅔ of American Catholics profess to believe in the Real Presence. That, for me, is totally-wonderful news. It is my observation that the emphasis on the primacy of the Eucharist over the past 5 years from the Ambo and in sessions for faith formation has brought about this result. I can categorically state that since the day the water of Baptism first hit my shiny pate, the Real Presence, also sometimes termed the True Presence, is a Really Real Reality. Now, what is meant by The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist?

This Mystery of Faith states that the entire Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus the Christ of God is completely present in the elements offered during the Eucharistic Prayer – the simple unleavened bread that is offered becomes the Most Holy Body of Christ, and the wine offered becomes the Most Precious Blood of Christ. How? It’s a Mystery – an Action of God that is utterly incomprehensible. The bread does not become a sliver of meat one might gag on, and the wine does not become a drizzle of blood in the mouth. The species offered become the Gifts Given at the Institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper of the Lord. Older Catholics will recall the tongue twister word TRANSUBSTANTIATION. The simplest way to describe that is that the bread and wine are metaphysically transformed into the actually Resurrected Body and Blood of Christ. It is passed on to us from The Apostle Paul who states he himself received it from the Lord. It can be found in 1 Corinthians 11:23-27 –
The Institution of the Lord’s Supper
23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Partaking of the Supper Unworthily
27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.

This formula is first presented in the Gospels. We’ll look at the Gospel of the Apostle Mark as an example: Mark 14:22-25 – 22 While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” 23 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. 24 He said to them, “This is my blood of the [new] covenant, which is poured out for many. 25 Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

The Mystery of the Real Presence also states that the entire Real Presence of Christ is completely present in both species – e.g., the bread and wine once they are consecrated by the Priest – so that if one were to receive just a speck of the consecrated Bread as the Body of Christ, that speck would convey to the one consuming it in Faith the entire Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ. Same for just a sip of the consecrated wine as the Precious Blood of Christ. “Impossible” some might say. I’ve also heard words like preposterous, ridiculous, sheer superstition, and even blasphemy. That’s OK. This is my Testimony, and I have written all of the above (which is far more than I thought I had in me) to tell you:

This is the Really Real Reality. That’s my account, I believe it, and I’m sticking to it.

The image you see in the location where the Key Verse Key is usually posted is call a Monstrance. It is used to display a consecrated host – a wafer of unleavened bread which IS the True Presence of Jesus the Christ of God. the Monstrance – from the Latin monstrare – to show, → Monstrance → Demonstration or proof. We are often invited to sit quietly before the Monstrance and to meditate on and give adoration to the True Presence of Christ. My testimony is that this is a powerful experience to reflect on the absolutely Perfect Love that made the Salvation of God in Christ Jesus personably accessible – that is, if one believes in the Real Presence of Christ. If one does not, for whatever reason, then one is just sitting in front of a pretty bauble with a piece of bread showing. That would be a very great and very sad loss in my estimation.

Thank you for your attention if you’ve gotten this far. Know that wherever you “come down” in this spectrum of belief, God still loves you (me too), and Christ still died for you and offers you all of him. We know that we become what we eat, and when we eat the Body and Blood of Christ, we become part of the Body of Christ – that is, the Church – and take the next best step to becoming wholly whole. We shall be fed on the Living Bread come down from heaven, and then get up and journey toward our Lord unhindered as was Elijah. The reality of the Real Presence is how and why we taste and see the Goodness of the Lord. Having consumed Love, we become Love and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Because when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor*, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.  There is a point in the Eucharistic Prayer where the Body and Blood of Christ are elevated above the Altar. Seeing this, my heart and soul quietly pray, “My Lord and my God! My Jesus, I Love Thee (↔ Music Link) Open hearts believe, and those who believe receive.

That is The Really Real Reality of the Holy Eucharist, and that is my testimony based on the Absolutely Perfect Plan.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Aloha Friday Message – July 26, 2024 – Approaching Cruising Altitude

July 26, 2024

2430 Notes & Final

Aloha Friday Message – July 26, 2024 – Approaching Cruising Altitude

2430AFC072625 – Approaching Cruising Altitude – ←😊 PODCAST LINK

John 6:14-15 – 14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

15 When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Read it online here, please. And please – when you visit there – use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

John 6:14-15 – 14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

15 When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! This is sort of a surprise catching-up post. Some of you may know that I was hospitalized with pneumonia for 10 days. Believe it or not, it was an incredible Blessing from God! I was sent via ambulance to a state-operated hospital on the wester side of the island of Kauaʻi – actually an hour’s drive from our home in Kapahi to the hospital in Waimea called Kauaʻi Veterans’ Memorial Hospital. The larger hospital in Lihuʻe was full with seriously ill patients temporarily housed in the ER waiting to be admitted to ICU or other wards. The staff there was wonderful, the food was AMAZINGLY GOOD, and the therapy-teams (Respiratory, Physical, and Occupational) were top-level – some of the best I’ve ever worked with. My attending physician was also amazing. Dr. Siddarth Joshi, MD grew up in Dothan, AL, and he really knew his stuff! And the nurses! Wow! So kind and patient with this crusty old man who had to get up for a restroom break about every 2 hours … for TEN days! God’s hand in all of this was so evident. Despite the fact that I was unable to prepare a post for the last week in July, the Holy Spirit gave me a solution. Share with you a new Daily-Offering Prayer.

Now, why the airplane? It comes from what I told them when I was admitted. “I’m ill because I’ve got a bad altitude, but we’re going to move up to cruising altitude slowly but surely.” I know what the outcome will be. This will not end up in another NDE. We’re now at that cruising altitude, but not yet and cruising speed; I still have work to do, and part of that work is with you.

I chose this Key Verse from last Sunday’s Gospel because it is a clear statement that says, “Now is not the time for that Big Change we planned.” I felt badly about not being able to share my thoughts with you, and as I prayed about it, the formation of a new Daily Offering Prayer formed. I’m going to put it here for you to view. Eventually it will go up on the blogsite. You may keep it or discard it, or just shake your head and move on. That’s A-OK with me. OK, enough jabber-jabber. This is based on what I have learned in the past year from the Ascension programs called Bible in a Year and Catechism in a year. Here we go.

Almighty Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – I praise you. I love you. I worship you. I adore you. I glorify your name. I give you thanks for revealing your Great Glory through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Father in Heaven, I do praise you. I give you the Glory for all that is good. I thank you for all your Gifts. I know that you love me despite the truth that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts, words, and deeds. I ask Blesséd Mary, Ever Virgin, and all the Angels and Saints to pray for me to the Lord of God that he might grant me pardon and forgiveness. Prepare me today to go out into the World with you to help fortify your Kingdom.

I ask that you teach me and help me to be just and merciful and obedient; to live righteously, and to walk humbly before you wherever your Spirit guides me. Let the constant Hope I have in you light my path and draw me and everyone I meet to your Perfect Integrity, Endless Mercy, Everlasting Love, And Eternal Salvation through Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Enlighten, guide, strengthen, and console me. Teach me your Will, and then empower and inspire me to fulfill it completely; for, it is my heart’s desire to serve you well in all that you ask of me and everything you allow to happen to me. I ask only for sufficient Grace to faithfully follow you to the Place you have prepared for me.

I offer you this prayer and my entire Life in it through Jesus, the Christ of God who Lives and Reigns with God the Father Almighty, in the Unity of the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life. Amen.

That’s it. Perhaps it might seem a little verbose to some, but it certainly fills the bill for me each day. The reasons I share it with you are –

  1. I was told to do so.
  2. To encourage you to use this form or something from your very own heart and mind to get up and get going with God every day.
  3. This is the Day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it because he made it just for us

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Creative Commons License
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

SENDING OUT A GIGANTIC MAHALO TO ALL WHO HAVE

PRAYED FOR MY POOR ALTITUDE.

Aloha Friday Message – July 19, 2024 – Days gone by

July 19, 2024

2429AFC071924 – Days gone by   ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

Read it online here, please. And please – when you visit there – use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

    Jeremiah 23:1-2, 5-6 – 1 Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. 2 Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord. 5 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

Ephesians 2:17-18 – 17 So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; 18 for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.

Psalm 23:5 – (GNT)  [1]
5 You prepare a banquet for me,
where all my enemies can see me;
you welcome me as an honored guest [anoints head with perfumed oil]
and fill my cup to the brim. [a sign of copious blessing]

Mark 6:34 – 34 As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit. I’m going to have to do something a little offbeat today. I’ve been sidelined now for several days with a nasty bronchitis. It keeps me up all night coughing and medicating; it shows no signs of surrendering to the medication,  and that means I’ve slept only about 5 hours out of the last 72. For that reason, I’m going to pull up something from the past to share with you today. The passages above are the ones given to me last Saturday – July 13, 2024 – in preparation for what was supposed to be posted today.

I’m going to list three “candidates” for reruns:

1529AFC071715 – The Rest of the Story

1829AFC072018 – Woe is us.

2129ACF071621 – The Grace of Faith
Pick one you think you might enjoy. You’ll see how the above Scriptures relate. I chose one to insert here – the one from 2015 – because it most represents what I was planning to say in this post. The key idea was that the Shepherds God put in charge of his sheep – Israel – were basically frauds who were self-serving and arrogant. That’s just the opposite of what a Servant of the Most High God (El Elyon) is supposed to be. Jesus is the Perfect Priest who serves God as he requires and deserves. We are called through these Scriptures to do likewise. Now, to continue with inserting The Rest of the Story.

1529AFC071715 – The Rest of the Story

Read it online here, please. Use the links for a better view.

(↔ Music Link) passages have not been marked so click on all the links to find a couple of them. Thanks!

Excerpt from Mark 6:30-46 – 30 The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”

Aloha pumehana, ʻŌmea. Here we are, back in our Belovéd Kauaʻi. Our journey to the mainland in the state of New Mexico was, all-in-all, good. We visited with many, many friends and relatives, ate lots of the best food on the planet, and shared in hours of laughter, joy, reminiscences, and sight-seeing. Our stay in the Española Valley was terrific. The travel to and from – not so much. It was exhausting, uncomfortable, and in some ways even dehumanizing. We will definitely need to rest up for healing and restoration of full functionality of limbs and torsos. Perhaps at another time I can fill you in on the stuff we did, but you can also check it out on Facebook if you happen to have access to my wall there.

Perhaps some of you remember Paul Harvey, the extraordinary radio and television personality who told amazing behind-the-scenes stores about people and places. He was perhaps most famous for the ongoing series of reports called “The Rest of the Story.” That’s what we’re going to do today; we will look at “the rest of the story.” In recent posts, we’ve looked at passages from Mark 6. We reviewed Jesus’ rejection in his home town at Nazareth. We read about the sending of The Twelve to the villages in Galilee. We touched on the death of John the Baptizer. There was also the feeding of the 5,000. We studied Jesus calming the storm, but did not mention him walking on the water and saving Peter from drowning when his faith faltered. And we also reviewed the healings of the demoniacs at Gennesaret. Today we’re going to look at the account of what happened after The Twelve came back from their first mission. They went out healing every disease, casting out demons, and sharing the Gospel. But let’s look at time when they reported back to Jesus all that they had seen and done. I want to show you how we can take that and apply it to our worship experiences.

In this passage, we have the stories of the loaves and fishes. That will be covered in next week’s Gospel from John. We’ll finish this look at Mark 6, which has several familiar Gospel scenes. I want to look at four key points and then compare that with what we do on Sunday. We see that Jesus told the disciples to [1] go to a place to rest and pray, [2] attend to teachings, [3] share a meal with others, and [4] go out to continue building the Kingdom. I want to give credit here to Marist Father Rev. Fr. Ralph Olek for a homily about this chapter back in July, 2012. The basic four-point outline is something I recorded in my homily notes. Fr. Ralph, I hope it’s OK to embellish a bit on what you laid out back then.

In many ways, we – the modern church – are like the crowds that surrounded Jesus as he taught. We attend to his teaching. We are a very diverse group who are of many nationalities and ethnicities. We range in age from infants to the elderly. There is wide economic variation. Some of us barely participate in worship, and some take active roles in various ministries. We come to church for many reasons. Some come to worship, some come to pray and present their petitions to God. Some come to serve God and his family. Some come to console or to be consoled. Some come to seek hope, others to share their hope. Some come out of a sense of duty, others come for political or social reasons. Some come willingly, others reluctantly, and still others come because they have no choice in the matter. For whatever reasons we have to come together at church, we are also varied feelings about being there.

We go away to a place of rest to compose our hearts and minds in God. Some of us feel convicted by our sin and wish to join in the sacraments to set our lives aright. Some of us feel the necessity of “being religious,” and some appreciate the fellowship with others whose religious aspirations and views match ours. Some of us feel the joy of friendships and some of us feel shunned by the hypocrites around us. Some of us believe we are better at complying with the practices of worship and praise – we recite, gesture, sing, listen, and nod appreciatively on cue – and some of us think that the people around us are superficial religious nuts who have no idea about the depth of faith in our own hearts. If we look at all of these traits of the people at church, we see that we are a microcosm of humanity very much like the crowds – including The Twelve and Jesus’ closest disciples – who were the foreshadowing of the Kingdom of God and The Church of today. In that sense, we recognize – or at the very least, we should suspect – that we are a work in progress. We are aware of our own imperfections (even if we don’t always fess up to them), and sometimes we are (regrettably) more acutely aware of the imperfections of others both in the assembly and outside in the World. For whatever reason we have for being in church, we come as we are even though we may not exhibit our true selves. Perhaps from time to time we pray or sing “Just As I am.” And sometimes, if we lift up our hearts and minds in prayer, we acknowledge our sins and repent, calling on our Lord and Savior to cleanse us from the things that keep us at the threshold of the Gates of Heaven as fully-participative citizens of the Kingdom of God. We may, on occasion, become so in tune with what God wants from his servants that we cry out “Here I am, Lord.” There, in church, we are inspired by the people, things, and actions around us to do as Jesus invites: “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” In the tabernacle of our hearts, we go to that inner closet where only God sees the real person that we are. Once we have placed our attention in the presence of God, we are ready to take a meal together; we feast on the Word and The Presence of Christ.

In this meal, we are edified and nourished so that we can do our part in bringing the Kingdom of God to all Peoples and Nations. That is our primary responsibility in the World – to call all earthlings to repentance and to proclaim the Gospel so that they, too, will believe and receive the Salvation of our God. (See Psalm 98:3) As in the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, Christ provides the sustenance we need, and – as his followers – we share that with others as we give and receive from one another. The lesson there is a powerful one: We participate in the sharing by passing on that which we have so that others will also have it. It is part of the way we work at building the Kingdom of God: We share the meal that comes from what we have by inviting others to come so we can share it with them as well. WE become what we eat, and all become the Body of Christ. That is the kerygma κήρυγμα (kérugma) {‘keh-rig-mah} – the Truth called the Good News, the Gospel we proclaim – we are one in the Lord. Because we are one, we are sent out into the world to increase the size of that one. To the World, that makes no sense. But if you can fire up your imagination for just a moment, think of the signs above the doors at your church. They say EXIT, but they are also and entrance.

When we exit the church, we enter the World. The signs in the church above the door could say ENTRANCE. We “go in Peace to serve the Lord and each other.” We are sent at the end of every church service – Mass or otherwise – to take the peace from our visit with God, the teaching we received, and the energy from the nourishment of Word and Eucharist and to share all of that with the World. The purpose of that sharing is to take invitations to everyone who has not come into the Kingdom of God. We share what we have become when we feed on the Word and on the Christ. It is the rest of the story. We cherish the sacrament of nourishment so much that we cannot help but want to share it – if indeed we partake of it fully. What we share through our gifts to others and to the Church becomes the treasure laid up for us in Heaven. It is returned to us in full measure, shaken down, pressed together, and filled to overflowing. The measure of return is God’s measure, not ours, and his is always more generous. What he returns to us is always better than we can imagine, better than we deserve, and more than we can hold; it just flows out onto the people around us. No matter what trials we have, the blessings we receive make the trials seem more manageable by comparison.

When we experience these changes in our lives, the connections they produce are temporal, spiritual, and eternal Good; but, without these four actions in our lives – seclusion for prayer, meditation on teachings, feeding on the Word and the Christ, and going forth to share the Gospel – we decline a portion of the available Good. We in essence tell God, “I don’t want any more blessings.” It sounds silly, but earthlings are messy like that. We interrupt the flow of blessings so we can do what we think we should and avoid doing what God requires of us. And what does he require? He requires us to repent, to believe in the Gospel, and to share the Gospel to all the corners of the World. The best place to start that is to share it in every corner of our family, then every corner of our community, our locale, our Church, and our nation. From there it goes on to cover all humanity with the Goodness of the Lord. Sometimes this seems too formidable a task, and we despair and feel powerless to even spread the Gospel among family and friends. But God is El Shaddai, God Almighty, God All-Powerful. El Shaddai knows how to clean up the messes we make. He shows us we need to pray, learn, feed, and go because he takes our place in life and death so that we can be together with him – and each other – in the resurrection and eternally thereafter. There is no need to have a fear of evil or to feel any distress, for God is always with us. We can be calm in all situations when we fully rely on the Lord who made Heaven and Earth. His generous love is extraordinarily extravagant!

And THAT’S the rest of the story!

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Creative Commons License
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Unported License

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages)
http://biblehub.com

Please remember the sick and dying this week, and include all the people you know about who are battling cancer or working to stay in remission. Ask God for his merciful Divine Intervention. Pray also for those who are working on or preparing for ending cancer. I put myself on the Intercessory Prayer List, too.

[1] Passages marked (GNT): Good News Translation (GNT) are from the Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition)© 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.

Aloha Friday Message – July 12, 2024 – Stop! It’s time to go!

July 12, 2024

2428AFC071224 – Stop! It’s time to GO! ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

Read it online here, please. And please – when you visit there – use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

Like a baby bird leaving the nest

Mark 6:7, 13 – 7 He called the twelve and began to send them out (↔ Music Link) two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 13 They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

Ephesians 1:13-14 – 13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; (↔ Music Link) 14 this [Holy Spirit] is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 1:17-18 – 17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart (↔ Music Link) enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him. Today’s Gospel Key Verse comes in the next paragraph after last week’s message about Jesus’ visit to Nazareth. Jesus has gathered the Twelve and is sending them out in pairs. They are to go with no extra provisions – just a walking stick – but no food, no sack, no money in their belts, no second tunic, but it was OK to wear a pair of sandals. They went out and did as he told them. They went to various villages. They stayed with whomever would welcome them. They ate and drank what was offered. He told them to go, and they did. They “left the nest” so to speak, and learned to work together doing something no “ordinary Jew” would dare attempt. Here’s another account of this as found in the Gospel of Matthew.

Matthew 10:1-15 – 1 Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. 2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him. Now, this is only the first 4 verses of that passage cited in the link above, but it’s a good place to start.

We’re going to work with some of the details from this passage as it provides some additional information not available in the passage from Mark. First, we note that this is just the Twelve. We may recall another passage where Jesus sent out 70 or 72 Disciples, but this first-sending was just for the 12 Apostles. We’ve used this passage in the past to provide a list of the names of the Apostles, but there is more to it than that, isn’t there? The second thing to notice is that Jesus gave these twelve good men authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out. Until this time, only Jesus had that sort of authority – given him by his (& our) Heavenly Father – but he gave it to all twelve of them. The next thing we see is that he also gave the power and authority to cure every disease and every sickness. Now, I haven’t watched The Chosen, so I don’t know if this scene has been portrayed in that production. In my own little movie theater called imagination, I see these fellows sort of looking at each other with that classic “are-you-kidding-me?” expression. They were going to try something they had seen done only by Jesus, and even when he did it, it was hard to believe sometimes. Now they were going to do those same things!

And look who went out on the first “mission” for the disciples – everyone including Judas Iscariot. Judas was told to go perform miracles, and he obeyed … initially. I have often wondered with which of the others he travelled. James and John bar Zebedee were brothers. Simon-Peter and Andrew bar Jonah were brothers. Thaddaeus and James bar Alphaeus may have been brothers (though not specifically named brothers in Scripture it seems; some speculate Thaddaeus – who is also called Jude or Judas – might have been James’ son). We have no way of knowing who paired with Judas Iscariot, though. Could it have been Simon the Cananaean who is also called “The Zealot?” When all twelve went out from Jesus, I’m sure they discussed what he had told them to do.

It must have been a little scary at least, don’t you think, to go to strangers (or perhaps worse, to people they knew well) and tell them, “The Kingdom of God is at hand. The Messiah sent us to teach and to heal. Who’s going to be first?” Based on the terrific reports they brought back at the end of their mission, they enjoyed good success. They had to stop being afraid and embrace the authority Jesus granted them. But that’s not all they had to let go. To do what they did, they had to leave Jesus’ side, and the comfort of his presence. Like baby birds, they were taking off on their own to do what they had seen done. That required them to stop waiting, stop hanging around with Jesus, and to go out into the world with Jesus’ power and authority.

“Well, they had the Holy Spirit to help them out, didn’t they?” The Holy Spirit was not breathed into the Apostles until after Jesus had “given up the Spirit” on the cross. The account in John 7:37-39 confirms this: (GNT) [1] 37 On the last and most important day of the festival Jesus stood up and said in a loud voice, “Whoever is thirsty should come to me, and 38 whoever believes in me should drink. As the scripture says, ‘Streams of life-giving water will pour out from his side.’” 39 Jesus said this about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were going to receive. At that time the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not been raised to glory. They had to stop doubting, and go forward in F.A.I.T.H. Guess what? SO DO WE!

After the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (See Acts 2), The Apostle Paul assures us that we were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this [Holy Spirit] is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory. You see, the Apostles went on to multiply the gifts of healing Jesus alone had been able to give. There was as yet no Gospel other than the coming of the Kingdom of God. Jesus was just beginning to shape his life around the events that would end his earthly life, and the Apostles had nothing else to offer; still, what they offered was more than the average earthling could fathom. The Apostles were taking healing as they went, not Prophecy, not Gospel, but healing. This is something we can remark on for the Psalm for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time:

Psalm 85:9-11 –
9 Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him,
that his glory may dwell in our land.
10 Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
11 Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
and righteousness will look down from the sky.
How would this be done? From whence do we receive these Gifts of God’s Glory, Everlasting Love, Mercy, Truth, Righteousness, Peace, Faithfulness, and Salvation? With Whom do they “come down from the sky?” How? Why? Thank the Lord that The Apostle Peter has the answer! Here is 1 Peter 2:24 – 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. Isn’t that just the most amazing thing??? But we already knew that, right? It’s part of the Absolutely Perfect Plan as in Isaiah 53:5. How do we, we as in even us, get into that flow? We stop, turn around, and go back to God by going out into the World with the Gospel and the Gifts of healing we have been given. (See 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 on how that works. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.)

All it takes is a miracle. (↔ Music Link) We see that everything in Scripture tells us God has little interest in punishing us. If we but love, trust, and obey him we receive the full benefit of Jesus’ sacrifice. It is called Grace. Unmerited favor, the fact of not receiving whatever punishment we deserve and instead receiving whatever blessing we don’t deserve. What an amazing plan! One of the Principal benefits of that Grace is the wide availability of healing, and as further benefits, we see that suffering, sickness, subjugation, and sin are attributable to the Devil and not to God. Love God. Serve God. Obey God. STOP any one of those things and – literally – all Hell breaks loose; but, not because God chooses that! WE choose that when we choose to stop following the Plan in God’s APP. The plan involves figuring out where to start and what to keep. There is a blueprint provided which directs us on how to change things, and the work is coordinated by a team of experienced and skilled workers who willingly GO and do the job at hand.

The Apostle Paul has a suggestion for those kinds of situations, great or small, and it is wonderfully simple. It is the plan, the blueprint, and the workforce all rolled into one: “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” The Plan? Rejoice always. The Blueprint? Pray without ceasing. The workforce: A thankful people – or person – using the blueprint to implement the plan. God has a plan, and even though a “certain obnoxious serpent” sullied it in The Beginning, the blueprint and the workforce were already prepared. The blueprint? The promise of Salvation. The workforce? The Son of God – “The Boss’s Kid.”

Here’s another way to stop ang get ready to go: Serve under when possible and contend against when necessary. There’s a lot of needless angst and excitement over the coming events in November. What are we forgetting? How does either one of those undesirables get into the White House? Take a gander at Lamentations 3:37-40 –

37 Who can command and have it done,
if the Lord has not ordained it?
38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
that good and bad come?
39 Why should any who draw breath complain
about the punishment of their sins?
40 Let us test and examine our ways,
and return to the Lord.
Yeppers! Repent and Believe the Gospel! Whoever wins, I’m with Joshua! – “As for me and my house ….” God, Country, Family. That’s the way it should be. Let’s face it, America, we have “done evil in the sight of the Lord.” We try to hide our sins, individually and as a nation, but they cannot be hidden from God. Love. Trust. Obey. Repent. Believe. And of course, as our Father, David, prophesied:
Psalm 146:3 – (GNT)
3 Don’t put your trust in human leaders;
no human being can save you.

Whadaya think about that, eh? I’ll tell you what I think. I think that sounds like a plan – THE Absolutely Perfect Plan – and it’s time for all of us to stop worrying about tomorrow and just be really good today with Faith, Hope, and Charity. That’s the way to go. Let’s stop whining about it and try living like 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18 – 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Let the Holy Spirit enlighten all our hearts because, if we get lit up like that, we can live like we know that God absolutely knows what he’s doing – because he does!

See ya next week? Same Time, Same B.I.B.L.E.! & – 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Did I repeat that often enough to help all of us remember it?

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

[1] Passages marked (GNT): Good News Translation (GNT) are from the Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition)© 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible

 

Aloha Friday Message – July 5, 2024 – What are YOU looking at!?

July 5, 2024

2427AFC070524 – What are YOU looking at!? ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

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    Ezekiel 2:4 c -5 – “Thus says the Lord God.” 5 Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.”

Psalm 123:2 – Listen to it ⇒HERE (↔ Music Link)
2 As the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
until he has mercy upon us.

2 Corinthians 12:9 b– 9 but he said to me,] “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Mark 6:3-6 – 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son* of Mary and ♪brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took ♫offense at him. 4 Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” 5 And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. 6 And he was amazed at their unbelief.
*Son – huios ♪ Brother – adelphos  ♫ ἐσκανδαλίζοντο   eskandalizonto – to scandalize, to impede by tripping or stumbling, to be offended, made indignant, caused to distrust, disbelieve, disapprove.

   Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. I want to begin today at the end. The end of the Mass, that is. I want to specifically address those persons who are frightened by the words, “LET US PRAY.” This usually is the first thing we hear after Communion. It is referred to in your missals as “Prayer after Communion.” We must assume that this is an alarming invitation. So many people are so upset by its approach that they leave the building immediately after they have received their portion of The Body of Christ.

If this is a habitual practice of someone you know, please assuage their fears, and encourage them to stay until they have the opportunity to receive the benediction and dismissal at the end of Mass. This study might be something you could share with them. You see, the benediction (“Bow your heads and pray for God’s blessing.”), and the dismissal (“Go forth and proclaim the Word by your lives.”) are very important parts of the Mass that bring it to conclusion. Leaving early is a great way to tell God, “I don’t have time for you. I’ve got to get out of the parking lot before the rest of these laggers. I have a brunch reservation at the club, and Father’s homily went a full 16 minutes!” ʻŌmea, is that really what you want to tell Jesus immediately after sharing fellowship (koinonia) with his adelphos? One could argue that those last few elements of the Mass are the best parts because they are so personally enriching. If we don’t want to share in the BEST parts, is there really much point in being there for anything that precedes them?

We gather together in a special place, a building we call “the church,” to receive the blessings of Word and Sacrament. Now, most people will get up from their seats in the theater when the final frame of the movie is shown, and most people will gladly skip sitting through the Credits. If you were one of those who learned to stick around for the credits after watching Shrek, you know that there’s some really good stuff there, and it’s well worth our time to stay and watch. NEWS FLASH! The prayers after communion, the benediction, and the dismissal are not the credits! Those three things are the closing moments of what should be the most important hour of our 167-hour week.

DON’T SKIP THEM!

Now, what is a Prophet, and what does God mean when he says, “they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.”? The Old Testament word for prophet is nabi (nabiy’) {nah-bee’}. There are some disagreements among scholars about the origin of that word, but one that is well-accepted is that this noun comes from the verb noba’ meaning to “bubble up,” “boil over”,” as in “to pour forth an abundance of words,” such as those who speak with divine inspiration. It is by and through the power and inspiration of God that a prophet speaks, and a prophet can’t help but speak when and what God commands any more than a pot of boiling water can stop bubbling. And that is the key. Those who have Divine Inspiration are True Prophets. The converse is that those whose “inspiration” is self-generated are the False Prophets. How then can we tell the difference? If we look at the verses following Jesus description of wolves in sheep’s clothing, the answer is clear. (See Matthew 7:15)

The answer is, “by their fruits you will know them.” And here’s where we run into trouble because these days there’s a lot of fake fruit on the table. The fake fruit comes to us through the tireless work of the Prince of Lies, the Devil, and he uses a few seeds of Truth and a ton of manure to raise a crop of bad advice. We are admonished to be wary of false Prophets, hucksters, and con artists. BUT, we are also admonished to be aware of things that are right, and true and spiritual. Are we looking at the host, the Body of Christ and the Precious Blood of Christ, or are we just looking at a cookie and a drink? What do we see?

   I can answer that. We see what we believe. We hear what we believe. We believe what-we-do-not-know if we believe that seeing the Living Christ raised above the altar is NOT the True Jesus, alive and whole. When we read from the Prophets during the Liturgy of the Word, we hear the Voice of God telling us how to Live and Love as he commands – and he commands us to Live and Love in the same way as he Lives and Loves for each of us. What do we see when we see that Life, that Love waiting there for our spiritual nourishment?

Belovéd, have you ever bought a carton of grapes or a sack of plums and discovered when you opened them at home that there were rotten fruits in your purchase? The store might tell you “buyer beware,” and they could be right. Don’t we usually check the products before we put them in the basket? Do we take home all the dented cans? What are we not looking at? Come to think of it, in Mass, what are we not looking at? God uses many, many signs and wonders to attract our attention. If we claim we want to please him by obeying his Will, then we need to be watching for those signs and wonders. Sometimes they may seem too subtle for us to detect; but that only happens when we are not watching closely enough. That’s why we ring some bells at the epiclesis (↔ Video Link!) so that we’ll LOOK at the miracle before us.

In that passage from Psalm 123 (I hope you listened to the music link. It was a tough one to get right.), it mentions servants who carefully watched the hands of their “bosses” when serving guests to the household. The boss and the servant would devise and carefully rehearse nearly imperceptible gestures that would signal what the boss wanted the servant to do so that it appeared they readily anticipated and completed every command. This was of great benefit to the boss as it showed s/he had a supreme ability to choose and control the best of servants. It also was of great benefit to the servants because it demonstrated the superior ability of the boss to train the servant, and therefore elevated their service to the level of exceptional. They watched. They learned. They responded as expected. What are we watching? What do WE see? Do we see the Lord God stretching forth his hand of Blessing to bestow his Mercy on us? Are we attentive enough to be able to welcome his Perfect Integrity, Endless Mercy, Everlasting Love, And Eternal Salvation?

Let’s consider that movie-watching we mentioned above. Perhaps more than a few of us can remember the ending of the first Star Wars movie, Episode IV: A New Hope. Toward the end of the film, Han Solo and Chewbacca suddenly rejoin the battle just in time to knock Darth Vader’s ship off course before he can destroy Luke Skywalker’s X-wing fighter. Obi-Wan Kenobi – who sacrificed his life to allow his compatriots to escape – speaks to Luke from “The Force” to tell Luke to trust his instincts. Luke turns off his ship’s computer and somehow sends two torpedoes into an exhaust port on the Death Star. The Death Star explodes, thereby saving the Rebel Base. Obi-Wan’s voice reminds Luke that The Force will always be with him. The movie ends with Princess Leia giving Luke and Han medals (and promotions!) for their heroism. We know now that the Empire has suffered a setback, but there is still much to do. Now, does any of that ring a bell? If so, let’s imagine that about 10% of the people in the movie theater get up and leave right after the destruction of the Death Star so they can get out of the parking lot and over to Pizza Hut before the crowd. Years later, these same people bought the Blu-Ray disc and watch this movie multiple times, but always stop watching and eject the disc right after the Death Star explodes. Does that make any sense?

What makes even less sense is that many of us can follow and discuss that entire story line, but cannot relate to the Liturgies of the Word and Eucharist. I find it incredible that there are still so many people who believe in The Force, or hope for the coming of United Federation of Planets. My Hope is built (↔ Music Link) on nothing less than Jesus’ Love and Righteousness. Belovéd, you know why! That hope is REAL because at any moment of any day I can tell Jesus Your Grace is Sufficient for Me. (↔ Music Link) The Apostle Paul understood that well. No matter what happened to him – some of it quite painful – he accepted the fact that he could endure every pain – including what he called a “thorn in his side” – for the surpassing Love and Peace in which he was held by Christ Jesus. He even asked Jesus to take that thorn away, but Jesus denied his request and showed him an even greater Mercy than deliverance. He showed him Fellowship (koinonia) in and through the Holy Spirit.

The Apostle Paul accepted this extra-ordinary Gift – not with resignation, but with the Wisdom of Gratitude. That sort of Gratitude comes only in uniting our lives with Jesus’ Life. That, in turn, is accomplished only but remaining in constant Fellowship with Jesus. Like the servants in ages past, we must [1] find and cultivate the Joy of knowing Jesus as Lord and Master, [2] then we carefully learn to watch for, and respond to, all the signals and miracles he shows us during that fellowship, and [3] we must eagerly lean forward in to the future and continue to prepare for and respond to any and every opportunity to intensify that Fellowship.

“But it’s so hard, and Mass is so BORING, just the same thing over, and over, and over.” Of course it’s hard! Jesus himself told us we would regain every gift freely given to him, and would be blessed 30-, 60-, and 100-fold – with persecutions (See Mark 10:30) – AND Eternal Life! ʻŌmea, that is definitely not boring – unless, that is, you think it will be boring to spend eternity hearing the Angels and Saints say, “Let us Pray,” or seeing the indescribable and unimaginable Glory of God attended by myriads and myriads of Angels ministering to him. Adelphos! I want a seat right at the threshold of that Throne Room, so I can watch and listen, and then, afterwards, listen and watch! Recently we discussed the approach to religion based on “Well-maybe-it’s ….” That’s what the people of Nazareth were experiencing when Jesus visited there. “Who is this guy? And where does he get off talking like this? He spent years living here with us (yes, that was right after they all got back from Egypt, uncle Jonathan), and now suddenly he thinks he’s a Prophet! There hasn’t been a Prophet in Judea since Ezekiel – not even that nut-case Yôḥānān ben Zkaryah.”

You see, Belovéd, in those people we recognize the adage “Familiarity breeds contempt.” Jesus himself was astounded by their lack of faith. They found him offensive. They had more important things to do with their lives than wait around from some local-boy to show off with some sort of magic trick. One wonders if they actually ever learned that they completely missed out on an Ocean of Grace (← Please follow this link for more information.) That immeasurably immense expanse of Grace is completely available to anyone and everyone, and it is more-than-sufficient to restore every soul ever conceived since Adam and Eve. How is that possible? What’s good for The Apostle Paul is good for us as well, so we look to our Eucharistic Lord at the Altar and declare with The Apostle Thomas, “My Lord and my God!” because that is who we see. For The Apostle Paul, that reality dawned with Jesus’ answer to his prayer. The thorn would stay. The Power of Mercy would increase. The Hope of Eternity in the presence of God would always thenceforth be a reality. All of that would come from seeing Jesus as he is.

Let us lift our eyes to our God waiting joyfully, lovingly, expectantly for his Mercy! The better we watch, the more we shall see. The more we see, the deeper we are moving “further up and further in.” We stand outside the Walls of the Eternal City now, but our pilgrimage is always “further up and further in.” As soon as we can see and understand that such is the case for all earthlings, the greater our perceptions of the value and importance of koinonia will become. What do we see? We see ourselves Standing in the Need Of Prayer, (↔ Music Link) traveling Home, and we are looking at the Lord God Most High (El Elyon) standing next to the Lion of Judah, both smiling with great Love, Peace, and Joy that we have at last seen our Hope made real. We are looking at heaven, Belovéd, and that’s exactly what EVERYone is created to see.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Aloha Friday Message – June 28, 2024 – Winning a spot in the Final Four

June 28, 2024

2426AFC062824 – Winning a spot in the Final Four

Read it online here, please. And please – when you visit there – use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

    Wisdom 1:12-13 –
12 Do not invite death by the error of your life,
or bring on destruction by the works of your hands;
13 because God did not make death,
and he does not delight in the death of the living.

Psalm 30:3 –
3 O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol,
restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.

2 Corinthians 8:15 – 15 As it is written,
“The one who had much did not have too much,
and the one who had little did not have too little.”

Mark 5:41-43 – 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” 42 And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43 He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Blesséd be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Those of you who read these essays often will know that I have zero interest in sports as participant or observer. Our topic today mentions “The Final Four,” but has absolutely nothing to do with any sport, especially the “March Madness” variety. The Final Four described here is something heard most often at the beginning of a Tent Revival or a Parish Mission. It will be presented as part of God’s Absolutely Perfect Plan. We’ll also be bringing in some famous Guest Authors to contribute to this topic. Hopefully by now you’re dying of curiosity to find out what this crazy old man is going on about here (wow! 3 prepositions in a row!)

Our first guest is someone who was part of my inspiration for learning to play guitar – Hank Williams, Sr. who declared “I’ll never get out of this world alive.” (↔ Music Link) As the Cowardly Lion said, “Ain’t it the truth!” (←video link!) Of course, there’s also that old saw about “Only two things in life are certain : Death and Taxes. And I’m not that sure about death.” If you’ve looked through today’s Key Verses, you have probably figured out that the main theme is death. But, what does that have to do with The Final Four?

Years ago, when there used to be such things as revivals and Parish missions, the opening topic somehow boiled down to The Last Four Things (hence, “Final Four), and those four things are easy to remember: Death. Judgment. Heaven. Hell. Like the basketball final four, there’s only one spot left at the end for both teams. One team is the winner; the other team is the looser. Both of them have a spot in The Final Four. That’s a good example of how it turns out in life, too. Some of us will be winners in the end, and some will be losers. Either way, all of us have to go through the first two phases of Death and Judgment. Those are two things that happen in this life, in this World. The other two things – Heaven or Hell – are the result, the outcome, the choices made in the first two things. Every earthling, every flower, rock, tree, fish, goat, river, sea, puddle, tiger, swan – all of creation goes through the same thing at the end: The End. It’s true no matter how much we deny it. Big Daddy’s going to die and so are we.

Sort of.

Hopefully a special word/phrase just popped into mind: YOLO-F. Yes, we are all going to live forever in either Heaven or Hell, but the only way to get there is to die first in this life, in this World. “I’m too busy! I haven’t got time to die!” Surprise! Everyone has time to live as well as A time to die, (↔ Learning Link) a time for everything under the sun. There is at least one short passage that explains where death originated. Some of you might not have access to this, so I’ll put the whole thing here. It’s from Wisdom 2:21-24 –
21 Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray,
for their wickedness blinded them,
22 and they did not know the secret purposes of God,
nor hoped for the wages of holiness,
nor discerned the prize for blameless souls;
23 for God created us for incorruption,
and made us in the image of his own eternity,
24 but through the devil’s envy death entered the world,
and those who belong to his company experience it.

“But wait! We don’t belong to the Devil’s company!” Oh, yes we do! Remember, the Earth is Satan’s domain; even if we belong to Christ, we are still predisposed to sin and death. God can, and will, abandon us to what we want, what we choose. If we choose God, then all goes well. If we do not, well, none of us really want to go there even if we consistently choose it as our YOLO-F preferred choice. One of my favorite writers, and our first Guest Author, is Emily Dickinson. I’m going to insert her poem …
Because I could not stop for death: (↔ Learning Link)

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed Us –
The Dews drew quivering and Chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – ’tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity –
And there is also Dylan Thomas’ Do not go gentle into that good night (↔ Learning Link)

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

We’re all going to get there, so do we go quietly as if we’d forgotten time altogether, or shall we go out ranting against being forced to go? The answer to that seemingly “deep question” is perpetually simple and one which we cover often in these pages:

CHOOSE.

Look at the first Key Verse. What happens if one’s lifestyle looks more like a death-style? God will always give us what we need, correct? Sometimes, though, he lets us have a taste of what we want – sours the milk so to speak – in the hope that we will repent and go back to him. There is a point in our lives where the opportunity to repent is G-O-N-E-gone! That is at the point of the first of the Final Four – Death. God does not need new angels, and he doesn’t turn our departed loved-ones into angels when they die. It doesn’t work that way. When we die, we instantly collect the wages we have chosen in our lives – eternal Joy or eternal Despair. Given the fear of death many people allege having, one wonders why they forget that God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. That would mean we have forgotten we are created in the likeness and image of God which is to say God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity. Why would we want anything less than sharing Eternal Life in the Presence of El Shaddai-Olam? If we would not choose that Eternal Life for our loved-ones, then why even pretend we love them?

If you love someone who is on the brink of losing everlasting life, hold them tight and tell them “DON’T DIE! REPENT AND BELIEVE THE GOSPEL!” Remember the Big Blue Button? (← Memory Aid) Here’s another way to look at it, and why you don’t want your loved one to die. Tell them this:

“If that elevator will be going up, the instant you die, you will see an Angel coming up to you to take you by the hand and lead you to the Chariot that will be carrying you home. (↔ Music Link) If the elevator will be going down, in the instant your soul leaves your body, you will see the blackened hand of a demon reaching up from below the Earth to grab you by the heel and drag your soul straight into Hell.” Yes, ʻŌmea, the idea is to simply scare the Hell out of them. The Road we take ends at the front cate of home. This World is part of the Road, not part of Home. (↔ Music Link)

The Psalmist told us O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit. Quick review on Sheol and the Pit: Sheol – the place of the Dead, sometimes called Hell or Hades; it is the first step into the afterlife. The Pit – a trap, a place of destruction, a place of thanklessness, despair, and a place without hope or joy or peace or praise, or any good thing because it is a place without God, a place where only our wants are gathered but never fulfilled and nothing we need can be gotten. God will give us that if we choose it. Yes, he will! The other option is to choose him. There is always Death until the new Heaven and New Earth are presented – gifted – to us. With every Death, there is Judgment. With every Judgment, there is the Reward of our choosing. The final Spot in the Final Four is incontrovertible – it is Heaven or it is Hell.

Last week we mentioned manna and its relationship with “the bread come down from Heaven.” God gave the sinners who were wandering in the desert what they needed so that, when they were ready, they could enter into the Promise of their Fathers. What would happen if they didn’t eat the manna? They would die. What would happen if they took too much? It would rot, and they went hungry. What would happen if they obeyed God’s instructions about gathering and using manna? They were fed and lived. When God gives us Gifts, all his Gifts are Good and all of them are entirely-sufficient. Now, think about the Bestest Gift God ever gave you. Got it? If we accept that remarkable Gift, and use that Gift as he commands, then we show him our choice for the gift of YOLO-F. You may be tired of hearing this for the past 20 years, but WHY WOULD WE WANT ANYTHING LESS?!?!? Repent and Believe the Gospel!

We’re going to go just a bit farther and look at the Gospel because it is one of several places where we find words in Aramaic: He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” The word koum is similar to the Hebrew word qum: to arise, stand up, stand. Belovéd, close your eyes, take a slow deep breath, and hold out your hand so Jesus can take it as he tells you to stand. Stand in his presence, stand in his Love, stand in his Light, as a lamp stands on a lamp-stand in the center of your Life.  (↔ Music Link) You will know the same happiness the little girl knew, the same incredulous joy her parents knew, and the same wonder and awe the Disciples in the room with him knew. You will have and intimate knowledge of God, knowledge which includes joyful obedience and leads to lasting happiness. TRUE happiness is not in having what we want. It is found only in wanting what we have. ʻŌmea, we have God – in Christ Jesus – through the Unity of the Holy Spirit. Do not invite death by the error of your life, or bring on destruction by the works of your hands. There is no need to want anything, or especially anyone, else. We’ve chosen our Spot in the Final Four. Look for me. I’ll be along shortly, because I am …

Going Home

I’ve been going Home
for a long time now,
remembering how good it was
to be with You there.
One good poet told us
we could never go back Home.
So be it, but
what about going Home?

Going isn’t being there;
it’s only getting there.

I’m on my way Home, now.
Don’t know if or when
I’ll ever get there,
but having You, and Home,
in the back of my mind
makes going Home more
important than getting Home, or,
even what I’ll do if
I finally make it. Home.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

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Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

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