Henri Nouwen explains in his third letter within the book, Letters to Marc About Jesus: Living a Spiritual Life in a Material World, that “God sent Jesus to make free persons of us. He has chosen compassion as the way to freedom.” In regards to compassion, Henri writes, “compassion…is taking part in the suffering of others, being totally a fellow-human-being in suffering.” And it is in the midst of our suffering where we find Jesus. Nouwen points out that “Jesus is God who-suffers-with-us.”

 

To live the virtue of compassion as Jesus’ followers, just as Christ lived it, requires seeing those who are suffering, listening when others are crying out, being present in the midst of the pain people are enduring, and bearing the burden alongside the sufferers. Living the virtue of compassion means denying ourselves when we are tempted to close our eyes and ears so that our lives are sheltered from the suffering of others, taking up the cross of suffering alongside our fellow human beings, and following Jesus as he leads us through the darkest valleys of life (Mark 8:34-35). For many of us, we have spent far too long avoiding the virtue of compassion because we prefer to avoid pain. Yet, according to Henri, “when you come to see Jesus more and more as the compassionate God, you will begin increasingly to see your own life as one in which you yourself want to express that divine compassion. What can happen then is that you feel a deep longing grow within you to make your own life a life for others.”

 

Throughout 2021, you are invited to focus on living with Jesus at the center of your life. To help us with Living Consistent with Christ, we are continuing our new message series connected to Henri Nouwen’s book, Letters to Marc About Jesus. This weekly Your Faith Journey devotional is connected with the series worship service messages and some of the content of Henri’s book.

In his second letter to Christians in Corinth, the apostle Paul wrote, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17 NIV). God’s Spirit sets us free. Are you free or do you feel enslaved? Henri Nouwen explained to his nephew, Marc, in his second letter within the book, Letters to Marc About Jesus: Living a Spiritual Life in a Material World, that we are free in Christ “to forgive others, to serve them, and to form a new bond of fellowship with them,” as well as “to love and to work for a free world.” Do you feel the freedom to forgive, serve, form new bonds of fellowship, love, and work for the benefit of the people of the world? If the Holy Spirit is in you, you are free!

As Jesus’ ministry was beginning, he read the following passages from the prophet Isaiah to reveal things about himself, “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free” (Luke 4:18 NLT). Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. The Holy Spirit releases captives and sets the oppressed free.

Throughout 2021 you are invited to focus on living with Jesus at the center of your life. Allow the Holy Spirit to set you free in a way that only God can. To help us with ongoing Christ Consistency, we are continuing our new message series connected to Henri Nouwen’s book, Letters to Marc About Jesus. This weekly Your Faith Journey devotional will connect with the series worship service messages and some of the content of Henri’s book.

In the 1500s, God enabled Nicolaus Copernicus to conclude through his studies of astronomy and mathematics that the earth revolves around the sun. Until Copernicus, it was believed by most people that the sun and other planets revolved around the earth. Copernicus’ conclusion was a radical revolution in thought and understanding within the world at the time.

 

What does your life revolve around? Who or what is at the center? In his book, Letters to Marc About Jesus: Living a Spiritual Life in a Material World, author and pastor, Henri Nouwen shares that, “my personal relationship with Jesus is the heart of my existence.” In his first letter within the book, he shares with his nephew Marc, “If you were to ask me point-blank, ‘What does it mean to you to live spiritually?’ I would have to reply, ‘Living with Jesus at the center.’” Are you living with Jesus at the center of your life?

 

Throughout 2021 you are invited to focus on living with Jesus at the center of your thoughts, will, emotions, and actions. To help us with ongoing Christ Consistency, we are embarking upon a new message series connected to Henri Nouwen’s book, Letters to Marc About Jesus. This weekly Your Faith Journey devotional will connect with the series worship service messages and some of the content of Henri’s book.

 

*If you would like to read the book Letters to Marc About Jesus during our series, you can purchase it through Amazon.com, ChristianBook.com, or Cokesbury.com.

Early on the first Easter morning nearly 2,000 years ago, Mary Magdalene went to Jesus’ tomb to finish the burial process that had been hastily done on Friday night before the sabbath began at sundown. As the new day was dawning Easter Sunday, Mary arrived and found the stone rolled away from the entrance of the tomb where Jesus’ body had been buried. As she entered the tomb an angel told her, “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here” (Mark 16:6 NIV). Jesus arose from the dead! The grave couldn’t hold him and death couldn’t defeat him. Because of his victory over sin and death, we too can be victorious through faith in our Savior. Hallelujah!

 

This week, you are invited to study some of the encounters the disciples had with the resurrected Christ during the forty days Jesus appeared to them (Acts 1:3). The accounts are recorded in the four gospels, Acts of the Apostles, as well as Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. The apostle John explained that he wrote the Gospel According to John so that “you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31 NIV). May you continue to believe the Good News and share it with others so that they too may have life in Jesus’ name!

Within the creation account in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, God creates “the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1 NIV). After six days of creating, “the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work” (Genesis 2:1-2 NIV). John, the gospel writer, connects his account of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection with the creation story. He uses the same opening line, “In the beginning,” found in Genesis (John 1:1). The opening chapter of the Gospel According to John goes on to share that, “Through Jesus all things were made” (John 1:3 NIV). Similar to the seven days of creation, John shares seven signs within his gospel that reveal the divinity of Christ as the Son of God. After sharing the seven signs, John transitions into the final week of Jesus’ life that leads to the cross and the crucifixion of the Savior of the world.

 

According to John, as Jesus was dying upon the cross he said, “‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30 NIV). Perhaps John is pointing us to Jesus willfully giving “up his spirit” similar to the act of rest of his heavenly Father on the seventh day of creation after “God had finished the work he had been doing” (Genesis 2:2 NIV). John may also be pointing us to the fulfillment of the words Christ shared with his disciples earlier in his ministry when he stated, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34 NIV). Jesus later explained God’s will by stating, “this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day” (John 6:38-40 NIV).

 

Within the Gospel According to John, the gospel writer is revealing to us that a new creation began after Christ willfully surrendered his life upon the cross. John wants us to know that we are living in the new days of creation made possible in and through the sacrifice of Jesus.

Throughout the Gospel According to John, Jesus is progressing towards fulfilling his role as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29 NIV). By the nineteenth of twenty-one chapters in John’s gospel, Jesus is dying upon a Roman cross. Jesus was the perfect “Lamb of God” sent to shed his blood so that it could cover the hearts and souls of all who believe in him (John 1:29). The apostle Paul reminds us that, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7b NIV). His blood was shed much like the Passover lambs when the Hebrew people were slaves in Egypt in 1446 B.C. The night of the first Passover, the Israelites were instructed to wipe the blood of the lambs they slaughtered on the top and sides of the doorposts of their homes. The plague of death passed over the homes of the Hebrew slaves where blood was on the doorframes, leaving them unharmed. That night death passed by them, Pharaoh released them from slavery, and they began their journey towards the Promised Land. The night of the first Passover God concluded a chapter of hundreds of years of slavery for the descendants of Abraham and enabled them to begin a new chapter of freedom.

 

In his written account of the crucifixion, John includes that Jesus uttered, “I am thirsty” (John 19:28 NIV). This phrase seems to be another verse that reveals the humanity of Christ. Yes, Jesus was both fully divine and fully human, so his suffering was real and extreme. Yet it is important to note that there is another time Jesus requested a drink in John’s gospel. It was when Christ was at a Samaritan well and stated, “Please give me a drink” (John 4:7 NLT). John includes the detail that Jesus was “tired…from the journey” when he requested a drink from the woman at the well (John 4:6 NIV). Although his body may have been thirsty, Jesus wanted something for the lady at the well instead of something from her. He went on to explain to the woman, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water” (John 4:10 NLT).

 

Although humans rejected the Author of life and the source of living water by sending him to the cross like a criminal, the fountain did not run dry. It seemed as though death and sin had defeated the King of the Jews and Savior of the world, but the story wasn’t over. The cross was not the end. Even when it seemed as though all hope was lost, an old chapter of human history was concluding on the cross so that a new chapter of life and salvation could begin.

Although John and Luke’s gospel accounts include multiple phrases that Jesus spoke on the cross, Matthew and Mark only include one phrase, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Mark 15:34 NIV). Both Mark and Matthew make it seem that this was Jesus’ cry in agony after spending hours suffering upon the cross as his life was being extinguished. Some biblical scholars believe that Jesus’ words on the cross found in Matthew and Mark are there because Jesus felt abandoned by his Father in heaven. Yet a further study of Jesus’ words reveals that he was quoting Psalm 22. In the psalm, David’s prayer includes these words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent” (Psalm 22:1-2 NIV).

 

 

Have you ever felt like God wasn’t listening to you or wasn’t helping you when you needed him? It seems as though Jesus felt forsaken and forgotten while he was dying upon the cross. Yet the prayer of Psalm 22 also includes these words, “In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed” (Psalm 22:4-5 NIV). This prayer points towards hope even when we feel forsaken. This prayer points towards the truth that God can be trusted. He has delivered his people in the past, and been their Savior, so continue to trust in him as our Deliverer and Savior today. Through Christ God has delivered us from death and saved us from our sins. Even when we don’t feel like God is with us, nor listening, nor answering our cry for help, we should continue to trust in the Lord. Jesus used some of his final words before dying upon the cross to remind us of the message of Psalm 22. We will not be disappointed if we continue to trust in God.

Genesis Chapter 2 reveals that after God created the first man from the dust of the ground, “no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs…Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man” (Genesis 2:20-22 NIV). The Lord created human beings in his image and likeness. During their earliest days in the Garden of Eden, human beings had a special fellowship with God that included trust, flourishing in God’s care, with nothing to hide or be ashamed of because sin had not yet caused division, brokenness, and death.

 

John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, connects his gospel account of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection to the creation account in Genesis 1 & 2. In the Gospel According to John, the beloved disciple includes Jesus’ first miracle of turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee (John 2). During the wedding celebration, “when the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, ‘They have no more wine’” (John 2:3 NIV). Jesus responded to her in a very interesting way. Instead of saying “mother,” he said “Dear woman” (John 2:4). Within John’s gospel Mary is mentioned again when Jesus is dying upon the cross. The gospel writer shares, “When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, ‘Dear woman, here is your son’” (John 19:26 NIV). At the cross Jesus was establishing a new order for family and his followers who are also known as disciples. Although Mary had other children, Jesus’ siblings, one of Jesus’ closest followers was given the responsibility of caring for his widowed mother. The gospel writer shares this in regards to Jesus’ mother and the beloved disciple, “From that time on, this disciple took her into his home” (John 19:27 NIV).

 

Jesus intends for his disciples to care for widows as if they were their own mother. He also established that through the cross and our faith in Christ, we are a family in and through faith in Christ, united with our fellow believers. One time during his ministry Jesus stated, “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:50 NIV). The Church is the new family of God that was established in and through Jesus. Our faith in Christ connects all of us to our heavenly Father and to one another as sisters and brothers.

This week, we continue to focus on Jesus’ words while he was being crucified on the cross. One of the two criminals on the crosses next to Jesus “hurled insults at him” (Luke 23:39 NIV). Yet by the grace of God the other criminal recognized that Jesus was innocent and did not deserve to be punished. His words to Christ seem to reveal that he believed that Jesus was the king of a kingdom, death would not be the end for Jesus, and the criminal wanted to be remembered by the one who’s name means, “God saves” (Luke 23:39-42 and Matthew 1:21). Jesus’ reply to him is proof that Christ “came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10 NIV). Jesus stated, “today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43 NRSV). The Greek word for “paradise” in Luke’s gospel means “a garden,” and it can be thought of as a king’s garden. The paradise that Jesus refers to reminds us of the Garden of Eden before Eve and Adam sinned. Before the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden, humans felt no shame, they had an intimacy with God, and they had no unfulfilled needs (Genesis 2). Death, pain, suffering, sin, and loss were not part of life in Eden when the first human beings walked through the garden with the King of Creation, God Almighty. Jesus ensured the criminal next to him that death was not going to be the end, but instead he would be with the King of Creation in Paradise. Christ can do the same thing for us as well. No matter what we have done, said, thought, or should have done but did not, we can be forgiven if we’ll trust in the one who died for our sins.

 

Jesus’ reply to the thief on the cross reveals that, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Acts 2:21 NIV). “Everyone” includes those who have waited until their life on earth has almost expired, it includes prodigal sons and daughters, as well as the least, the lost, criminals, and saints. “Everyone” includes you too. Have you placed your faith in Jesus as your Lord, as the source of forgiveness and eternal life, and as your Savior? Everyone who places their trust in Jesus will be saved!

On a Thursday, Jesus ate the Passover Meal with his disciples for the last time. The twelve had spent years listening, watching, and walking with their teacher and friend. Yet that night one of the twelve betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver and led a crowd of chief priests, officers of the temple guard, and elders to arrest the Son of God (Luke 22:47-53). Later that night, Simon Peter disowned Christ by stating, “I don’t know him”, when a servant girl claimed that he was one of Jesus’ followers (Luke 22:56-57). The next morning, the Jewish religious leaders confronted Jesus, then took him to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, in hopes that the Romans would crucify him (Luke 22:66-23:25). Eventually, Pilate surrendered Jesus to the will of the crowd and had Roman soldiers lead Christ to the place where he was to be executed (Luke 23:1-33). On “the place called the Skull”, Jesus was crucified with a criminal on a cross to his right and another criminal on a cross to his left (Luke 23:33 NIV). The gospel writer, Luke, shares this prayer from Jesus as he was hanging on the cross where he would die hours later, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34 NRSV).

 

Jesus’ prayer was said aloud on behalf of the soldiers who mocked, tortured, and crucified him, the Jewish crowd who yelled for him to be executed on a Roman cross like a criminal, the religious leaders who conspired against him, the disciples who deserted, denied, and betrayed him, as well as for you and all the people of the world. Jesus died as an atoning sacrifice for our sins so that we could be forgiven. We didn’t earn it, and we don’t deserve it, but Jesus paid the price for the sins of the world, because God so loved us

(John 3:16-17).