Pastor Joynt's Devotionals

The Other Jesus, Part 2, Week 1, Day 3

Luke 5:35

“The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then in those days they will fast.”

Mourning and celebrating are both key to the Christian life. Sorrow over the world’s brokenness and tragedy, and joy over our shared life in Christ are the two sides of our love for God and this world. We ache for others to know the peace of God’s love, to see them experience grace and find purpose beyond themselves. We long for the struggling and the ill and the impoverished to be healed and blessed, finding assurance that evil and death and disease will not have the final word. At the same time, we experience the daily joy of communion with God, the fun of serving him, the richness of life in his community, the excitement of his direction, the wonder of his work in ways great and small.

 PRAYER

Gracious God, Tune my heart to mourn and to celebrate, to ache and to sing. Help me embrace the world’s needs with genuine concern, in concrete acts of love and mercy and generosity. Let me experience the blessings of life with you too, and to know the joy of your salvation this day. Amen.

The Other Jesus, Part 2, Week 1, Day 2

Luke 5:34

And Jesus said to them, “Can you make wedding guests

fast while the bridegroom is with them?”

This is a one sentence parable, a compressed analogy with one main point. During the week-long Palestinian wedding celebration, in which the bride and groom were king and queen of the festivities, all guests were exempt from fasting. Such individual acts of self-discipline had to give way to the shared communal joy centering on family, love, and blessing.

Now there was one standard first century picture of the coming of God’s Kingdom—a great celebratory feast called the Messianic Banquet. Jesus is claiming that his disciples are guests at this event. If fasting is out of place at a wedding—how much more at the Great Feast of God’s arrival? The healing, exorcisms, and teachings of Jesus were signs of the New Age and reasons to celebrate. His disciples’ joy and spontaneity were a natural response, as the prophets’ hopes were filled, and God’s promises made real, in their Master’s words and deeds.

PRAYER

Gracious God, Give me a new joy in my life. Grant me a new sense that through Jesus I am a citizen in a Kingdom of love and peace that will someday cover the earth, eliminating everything that is dark and dangerous. Help me celebrate every sign of that Kingdom. Amen.