Jesus makes our impossible dreams possible – Mark 1:12-15, Gen 9:8-15, 1 Pet 3:18-22

Lent 1, Yr B; Holy Cross Parish.

To dream the impossible dream is great; it’s heroic; it helped Andy Williams sell a ton of records.  But the odds are a whole lot better when we dream possible dreams, fight beatable foes, and run where the brave have already gone.  And we run where Christ has bravely gone.  That’s what the incarnation does for us.  That’s how, in Christ, God expands our vision of what dreams might be possible.  The one where we live forever, living holily, intimately, joyfully with God, with each other, with the earth?  That one’s been made possible again in Christ, and we do dare dream it.  In our opening prayer, we asked to “grow in understanding of the riches hidden in Christ and by worthy conduct pursue their effects.”  That pursuing: that’s running where the brave have already gone.  That’s uniting ourselves to this forty-day journey Christ undertook for us, our forty days to Easter joy.

Jesus risks everything to heal us – Mark 1:40-45

OT Wk 6, Yr B; Holy Cross - St. Stan's

A hand reaches out to ask for help, and he can’t turn away.  Praying with this story over the past week, I kept coming back to the image of the Whisky Priest from Graham Greene’s novel, The Power and The Glory.  As I was preparing for ordination this time last year, person after person told me that if I was only going to read one novel in the months before my ordination, this should be it.  It’s set during the persecution of the Church in Mexico.  The main character, the unnamed Whisky Priest, is forced underground, on the run from the also nameless Lieutenant who seeks to have him killed.  Finally, towards of the end of the book, the priest has made it through an arduous border crossing into a neighboring province where he’ll be safe, leaving his home state priestless.  A known informant for the Lieutenant tracks him down and begs him to come back across the border, telling him that another fugitive, an American murderer, is dying in the desert and that he needs a priest to hear his confession.  The whisky priest knows in his head that this is a trap, that he’s being baited to return into the Lieutenant’s snare.  But, at that moment the courage that can only come from being moved with pity grabs him, and he consents.  He can’t leave a man to die with murder on his soul.  He returns with the informant, and he’s arrested, and shot.

Jesus leads us to loving intimacy with the Father – Mark 1:29-39

OT Wk 6, Yr B; Holy Cross Parish.

Jesus seems to be having a pretty good day.  Today’s reading picks up right where last week’s left off, and maybe we should have preceded it by a “previously, on ‘the Gospel according to Mark.’”  He showed up in Capernaum, preached in their synagogue, freed someone from a demon and everything was amazed at him, and marveled at his teaching.  And the day goes on.  Now, he heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, gets a good meal out of it, casts out more demon, cures many more sick people.  The whole town turns up at his door, seeking his help.  People are responding to the call!  It appears he’s up half the night with these people.  And then he leaves, quietly, when no-one’s watching.

Jesus frees us for devotion – Mark 1:21-28, Deut 18:15-20, 1 Cor 7:32-35

4th Sunday of OT, Yr B; Holy Cross - St. Stan's.

Brooks has one arm round Heywood’s throat, and the other is holding a knife to it.  It’s one of the most tense moments of the Shawshank Redemption.  Brooks has been an inmate at Shawshank prison for fifty years and has just learnt he’s been approved for parole.  Terrified of being released into a world he doesn’t know, he sees killing Heywood as his only way to stay inside.  He gets talked down, and he doesn’t harm Heywood, but he’s still terrified.  Red – who, given that he’s played by Morgan Freeman, pretty much speaks with the voice of God – explains what’s happened to Brooks: he’s been institutionalized.  “These walls are funny,” he explains to the younger inmates: “First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized… They send you here for life, and that's exactly what they take. The part that counts, anyway.”

God brings life through our hesitant rash words – Jonah 3:1-5, 10, Mark 1:14-20

OT 3, Yr B; Holy Cross parish.

Jonah is famous for being hesitant, for running away from God’s call.  The story of him sailing away from the place God had called him and surviving three days in the belly of a whale is probably one of the more famous stories in the Bible: an iconic tale of how God’s will is done despite human refusal.  Plus, it’s a great story: vivid, action-packed, and Jesus makes reference to it in his teaching.  What is much less well known though, is what happens next, what happens when Jonah finally gets to Nineveh.  Now, he’s no longer hesitant.  In fact, he’s pretty much the opposite.

God calls us in serving and resting – 1 Sam 3:1-10, John 1:3b-10, 19

OT 2, Yr B; Holy Cross - St. Stan's

The Lord called Samuel.  We’re not told exactly what that means.  We’re not told exactly what that experience was like for hm.  We do read that it wasn’t obvious: it wasn’t a burning bush or an angel.  In fact, it presented itself as something very mundane, very worldly; the young temple servant thought he was hearing Eli, the priest he worked for, calling him!  But, eventually, with Eli’s help, he realizes that something quite marvelous is happening.  God is calling him.

Jesus baptizes us – Mark 1:7-11, Isa 42:1-7, Acts 10:34-38

Baptism of Christ (Year A readings); Holy Cross parish.

Jesus’ baptism is clearly important.  Mark pretty much opens his Gospel with it, it’s narrated by more gospels than Jesus’ birth is, one of our stained glass windows depicts, in fact the stained glass window that I chose to put on my ordination holy card.  Yes, Jesus’ baptism is clearly important.  But, Jesus getting baptized isn’t what struck me as the most important thing in this gospel.  Studying and praying with it over this week, one sentence stuck with me: “He will baptize you.”