Incarnate Word - March 21, 2010

Creator God, you prepare a new way in the wilderness, and your grace waters our desert. Open our hearts to be transformed by a new thing you are doing, that our lives may proclaim the extravagance of your love given to all through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.


Thoughts:
"Israel’s reflection on that forty years of landlessness leads to a remarkable affirmation. Wilderness should have been a place of death, but life is given. Wilderness should have been a place of weariness, sickness, poverty, and disease, but Israel is sustained and kept well. Israel has no tattered clothes, no sore feet. It is subjected to the worst thinkable conditions and is kept well. The place of all lacks, because Yahweh is present, is where nothing is lacking...There in Yahweh’s presence, life-giving resources are adequate, not too much, but not too little. Israel knows life as unmerited gift and so it can say, ‘Yahweh is my shepherd, I will not lack’ (Psalm 23). Yahweh has acted in landlessness to provide there for his people, just enough for life" (The Land, Walter Brueggemann p.44).


Upcoming Readings:


Isaiah 43:16-21
Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.
　
Philippians 3:4b-14
　
Even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh. If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
　
John 12:1-8
　
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."


Upcoming Events:


Tues. March 16 7:00 pm Book Club
Wed. March 17 7:30 pm Senior Choir
Thurs. March 18 6:00 pm SPIRIT
Fri. March 19 10:00 am Wellness Center
Sat. March 20 10:00 am Third Presbyterian Dining Room Ministry
Sunday, March 21 5th Sunday in Lent (Scroll Deadline)
8:15 am LYO Pancake Breakfast - free will donation
9:30 am Holy Communion
Commitment Sunday - 10:45 am Sunday School
11:00 am Adult Forum - Luke Bible Study

11:00 am Renovation Discussion - Choir space
3:30 pm Nile Lutheran Service