Embracing the Uncertain: A Lenten Study for Unsteady Times - Softcover

Devega, Magrey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501840584 ISBN 13: 9781501840586

Verlag: Abingdon Press, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

Just turning on the news lets us know we are living in uncertain times. Economic instabilities, eruptions of violence, and natural catastrophes can alter the lives and landscapes of entire communities. Our individual lives are often just as unsteady: relationships can break, plans can falter, and confidence can fail.Uncertainty can definitely be uncomfortable. Many of us prefer stability and a predictable future to an unknown fate. We are wired to want to control our destiny.The reality is that in our fast-changing, unpredictable world there are few guarantees in life. It's those who are willing to embrace uncertainty and make the risky decision to follow Jesus despite the many "unknowns" who will reap the greatest rewards.Embracing the Uncertain invites readers this Lent to engage and wrestle with life’s uncertainties, not ignore them. The first six chapters focus on six post-Transfiguration, pre-Passion stories in the Gospels. Each of these stories are signposts in the gospel narrative, pointing down at a world filled with uncertainty, but pointing us forward to a cross that can show us how to follow Jesus with courage, hope, and obedience.Includes discussion questions that can be used in small-group Bible study session or for personal growth.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Magrey R. deVega is the Senior Pastor at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa, Florida. He is the author of over a dozen books, including Questions Jesus Asked, The Christmas Letters, The Bible Year, Savior, Hope for Hard Times, Almost Christmas, and One Faithful Promise. He is also a contributor to numerous publications on preaching, worship design, and the spiritual life. He is the proud father of two daughters, Grace and Madelyn.

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Embracing the Uncertain

A Lenten Study for Unsteady Times

By Magrey R. deVega

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2017 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5018-4058-6

Contents

INTRODUCTION, 
ONE: The Desperate Father and the Uncertainty of Faith (Mark 9:14-29), 
TWO: Peter and the Uncertainty of Forgiveness (Matthew 18:21-22), 
THREE: The Crowd and the Uncertainty of Worry (Luke 12:1-34), 
FOUR: Lazarus and the Uncertainty of Mortality (John 11:1-44), 
FIVE: Zacchaeus and the Uncertainty of Surrender (Luke 19:1-10), 
SIX: Jesus and the Uncertainty of Obedience (Matthew 26:36-46), 
SEVEN: The Empty Tomb and the Proof of the Resurrection (Matthew 28:1-7; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-12; John 20:1-18), 
NOTES, 

CHAPTER 1

THE DESPERATE FATHER AND THE UNCERTAINTY OF FAITH

Read Mark 9:14-29

It does not take long for the shimmer of the Transfiguration experience to fade as Jesus and the disciples briskly reenter the problems of the real world. No sooner had Jesus, James, John, and Peter come down from the mountain where the Transfiguration took place than they saw a large crowd gathered. Several religious officials were arguing with the other disciples.

In the center of the discussion was a man whose son was possessed by what the Bible says was an evil spirit. It is possible that it was a literal demon, or it could have been the biblical writers' best way to describe a dark emotional and mental state, rendering the boy uncontrollable and mute.

However, as much as the boy was suffering from debilitating physical elements, the real issue at stake was what was happening spiritually. The child's father had approached the disciples with a conviction and confidence that simply coming to them would guarantee his son's healing. But as often happens when one chooses to follow Jesus, the man did not get what he was hoping for. The ending did not meet his expectations. His boy was still as sick as ever, and he was starting to lose faith. The disciples were not able to deliver.

That's when Jesus showed up, and the man piped up. He shared with Jesus his son's whole medical case file: Foamy mouth. Grinding teeth. Stiff muscles (Mark 9:18).

In response to hearing the whole diagnosis and the disciples' inability to help, Jesus responds with what appears to be an odd rebuke: "You faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I put up with you?" (Mark 9:19).

Apparently the father hadn't caught Jesus in the best of moods. But maybe what Jesus was offering here was not so much a rebuke of the man, but a reminder to everyone listening that there would be a time when he would not be with them. They would not have his real-life, flesh-and-blood presence to see, hear, touch, and experience. And if they were having trouble believing Jesus when he was around, imagine what it would be like when he wasn't.

Jesus asked the disciples to bring the boy to him, at which point the boy's symptoms were put on full display. He fell to the ground, rolled around, and foamed at the mouth. The father explained that his symptoms had been with him since childhood and that he'd had several near-death experiences. He was lucky to still be alive, but the condition of his life was really no way to live.

"If you can do anything, help us!" he cried to Jesus (Mark 9:22). Show us compassion. Please do something.

"If you can do anything?" Jesus asked, as if incredulous that the man would doubt his ability. Then he reminds the boy's father, "All things are possible for the one who has faith" (Mark 9:23).

Now pause for a moment and think about how this father's anguish resonates with your own spirit today. For then the father put it bluntly: "Immediately the father of the child cried out, 'I believe; help my unbelief!'" (Mark 9:24 NRSV).

What a peculiar response. In his distress, the father appeared to say two contradictory things at once. Belief and unbelief. Yes and no. I get it, but I don't get it. As you and I read the father's words, we wish we had the ability to ask him the obvious clarifying questions: "What did you mean by that, sir? How can you believe and not believe?" We don't understand, and we would really like some certainty.

How in the world do we make sense of this statement?

However

If a grammar teacher were there, she might give him some grammatical advice. "You seem to be missing a word in between those two statements, something to help us understand the relationship between 'I believe' and 'Help my unbelief.' What you need is a conjunction."

Looking at the original Greek doesn't offer any help. There is no conjunction there, so many English translations don't render one, either. Rather than having the luxury of asking this father personally for clarification, we are left to play fill-in-the-blank with the Gospel. There's a blank there, and it's asking for us to fill it.

First, we try the word however. That seems reasonable enough. "Lord, I believe. ... However, ..." That certainly seems to work because it is true for many of us. Yes, we believe. However, we still doubt. Yes, we live with certainty. However, we still have our jitters.

We spend so much of our formative years acquiring knowledge to dispel uncertainty. We learn mathematics and science to figure out how the world works. We develop skills in language and communication to acquire and share ideas with others. We educate ourselves in philosophy, history, and sociology to determine our place in the grand scheme of human civilization. And every time we learn something, we add it to an ever-widening foundation upon which we can frame our existence.

However, ...

There are also those moments that challenge our most basic assumptions. As we moved from adolescence into adulthood, we were confronted by the unpredictability and chaos of life. Suffering and tragedy. Grief and loss. We experience events that shock us into the sobering reality that things don't always turn out the way we expect or the way we hope.

Like tectonic plates or frayed fabric, those basic assumptions we have made about the world shift beneath our feet, or get tugged and pulled within us. All the knowledge and certainty we've carefully built up suddenly come into question. Sometimes that happens in a college classroom, in which a free exchange of ideas poses a question you had never considered. Sometimes that happens in a church Bible study, when someone offers a different way to interpret a Scripture passage that challenges the way you approach the faith. Sometimes that happens at a graveside, or in a doctor's office, or in a courtroom, or anywhere else in which the realities of life grab a singular thread and pull on the tightly wound fabric of your beliefs and your assumptions.

Life can be like a constant pendulum swing between certainty and uncertainty. Between belief and unbelief. And it is rare that those two extremes conveniently coexist.

Lord, I believe. However, help my unbelief.

To put the word however in the man's sentence is to suggest that belief and unbelief, certainty and doubt, are an uneasy mix, even mutually exclusive. The word however says that we try as hard as we can to be confident, but acknowledge that we still fall short. Is that the nature of this father's peculiar response to Jesus? Is it equal parts profession and confession? An affirmation of his belief, yet a repentance for his own shortcomings?

Therefore

Well, if however is a reasonable...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Abingdon Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1501840584
• ISBN 13: 9781501840586
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 96
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar