Father, thank You that blessings of a new school year. Thank You for Your watchcare over us all. May I become better acclimated to my early mornings, as well. Amen.
Mark 15:39 (<<click to read the passage)
One detriment to being around “church” for a length of time is that we begin to see things – and quite often important things – in a tunnel vision mindset.
You begin to sing a familiar hymn or worship song and you just go through the motions, singing the words but not really even thinking about what they say. (Have you ever been driving to a familiar destination and all of the sudden you tune back in and realize that you must have been on autopilot because you don’t remember being on the last part of your journey?)
Or how about important things like observing the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. You take the bread and you take the cup but instead of focusing on the importance of those elements your mind drifted to what you would be having for lunch?
You see or hear a familiar passage of Scripture and either skim past it or tune it out because, “Yeah, I’ve heard this one before…”
Well, for me at least, this is one of those passages.
When the centurion, who was standing opposite Him, saw the way He breathed His last [being fully in control], he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” Mark 15:39 (AMP)
I sort of divide this whole section of Scripture into good guys and bad guys. Jesus, the disciples, Simon of Cyrene, the women at the cross – they are the good guys. The Sadducees and Pharisees, Judas, Pilate, the Roman soldiers – they are the bad guys. It’s a pretty black and white assessment.
But if we think about it, we realize that the disciples were a mess at this time. Simon was probably trying to figure out what everything meant – so not necessarily all good.
The Sadducees and Pharisees as a whole were pretty bad…but what about Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea? They were part of that group but not so much when it came to the reality of who Jesus was.
How about the Roman soldiers? They were rough and tough…and well, overall, pretty nasty – they cracked Jesus over the head with a reed, spit on Him, mocked Him, put a crown of thorns on His head as “king” and all this after whipping Him almost to death.
Yeah, not a nice group of guys but…what about the centurion in verse 39? His proclamation is phenomenal! He didn’t throw all “criminals” into the same basket. And neither should we…
Two thoughts for today. Don’t let time with God become routine. Pray for freshness. He is as dynamic and powerful as ever! Maybe we’ve just become unplugged. And don’t automatically group people into stereotypical boxes. We are all unique and just because we find ourselves amongst “criminals” doesn’t mean we are one, too.
Sept 12th, 2019, Thurs, 9:31 am
