5 December 2025 - blind faith

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

As Jesus passed by, two blind men followed him, crying out,
"Son of David, have pity on us!"

Even if nothing else in our lives is clear, the thing that matters most is to know that Jesus is the Messiah, the one who came to save us. When we seek him first he will help open our eyes to anything else that is truly important. Having him as our absolute priority will gradually reorder our other priorities until they more accurately reflect reality. It is then that we will walk without stumbling in the way of the Lord.

Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the LORD are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them (see Hosea 14:9).

Most of us are not actually blind, or using a screen reader to read this reflection. But all of us, at least at times, are not sure where to turn for answers, or even what an answer would look like if we saw it. Our paths are often fraught with confusion. And it is often a confusion that doesn't seem directly related to Jesus. We may imagine him waving contentedly from church buildings as we pass by on our apparently urgent errands. But in fact he wants to come with us, to do life together with us. It is only he himself who is the light that illumines our lives. If we only meet him on Sundays or in church buildings a good chunk of our lives will remain in darkness.

The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going (see John 12:35).

In Advent we prepare for the coming of the one who is the light of the world. We do not do this because he is the ultimate Christmas decoration, in addition to all of the other season decor. We do it because we and our world are still in darkness and desperately need more of the light he brings us. We do it because even we ourselves, let along the disinterested secular masses, still frequently stumble without sufficient light. We ourselves are meant to become light to help push back this darkness. But this is only possible when the true light, Jesus himself, is living within us. 

See that no one knows about this.

When people understand Jesus in a superficial way they tend to think of salvation as solving their problems as they understand them. But Jesus actually helps us to understand our lives and the world in a new way that relativizes the things we previously considered important. We might hope that he will fix our houses, our cars, our bodies, our socio-economic situations, or any number of other things. But the main thing Jesus wants to fix is our souls, which is to say, our relationship with his Father. This is what it really means for him to be the savior of the world. The first step is realizing that our vision of God is not yet as crystal clear as we desire. We still superimpose human ways of understanding on the divine. Salvation, if it means relationship, also means coming to see him more clearly. It is by this vision that we become more and more like him.

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is (see First John 3:2).

When we finally see him as he is, it is then that the words of Isaiah will be fully realized:

On that day the deaf shall hear
the words of a book;
And out of gloom and darkness,
the eyes of the blind shall see.
The lowly will ever find joy in the LORD,
and the poor rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.

Songs In His Presence - In Your Light

 

4 December 2025 - rock city

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’
will enter the Kingdom of heaven,
but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Some people may have gotten the wrong impression that mere association with Jesus was enough to allow them to gain access to the Kingdom. Yes, Jesus dined with sinners. But if sinners were unchanged by such experiences, if they had no contrition, and if their hearts were not moved, they could not hope to merely use the name of Jesus like a password in order to enter heaven. 

Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them
will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.

Being able to identify Jesus was not enough. But neither was it enough to merely try to perform good works without him. His words were not words like those of anyone else. His words had power to transform the lives of those who heard, causing them to desire the will of the Father, and giving them grace to carry it out. One needed not only to be familiar with the words of Jesus. One needed to make them the basis for her own life and existence. The concepts contained in the Sermon on the Mount were a recipe for frustration rather than fidelity apart from Jesus, since apart from the vine branches invariably wither (see John 15:5-6). 

The Gospel this morning is not merely advising us to set about obedience and good works on our own. The point is not the things we do or don't do so much as where the foundation of our lives is built. We can try to attain to all of the ideals of the Beatitudes on our own, apart from Jesus and the power of his grace. But we will find such attempts, however good the intentions, to be built on sand. Because the words of Jesus are different from those of others we don't build on them in the same way that we might try to internalize those of a philosopher or a spiritual guru. We don't take his teaching as suggestions that we then run with on or own. The words of Jesus have the power to renew our minds, giving us a new and fresh spiritual way of thinking. But if we don't live in a way that is in harmony with his words we will prove that we do not trust them completely. In doing so their power to transform us will be blunted or even nullified.

The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house. 

The words of Jesus do not necessarily always change our circumstances. Though, sometimes they do, since there is no limit to their power. They are not, after all, merely subjective. And yet, often we must still endure the rain, the flood, and the winds. Importantly, though, his will always change us if we let them. When we become rooted in Jesus, the source and origin of all things we become immune at the deepest levels to anything the world can throw at us. When we truly build on his words he becomes an anchor for our souls (see Hebrews 6:19) that keep us secure in any storm. The reason his words have such power, that they are unlike any other words, is because the one who is an eternal Rock is none other than the LORD himself.

Trust in the LORD forever!
For the LORD is an eternal Rock.

 

John Michael Talbot - I Am The Vine

 

3 December 2025 - basket case

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

The disciples said to him,
"Where could we ever get enough bread in this deserted place
to satisfy such a crowd?"

It wasn't all that long ago that Jesus had multiplied bread for an even larger crowd. Did they forget? Was this a different set of disciples who were not present at the earlier event? Or were they the same individuals who were present before, but this time speaking disingenuously? Did they give up immediately because they believed that this crowd was not worthy of the pity of Jesus in the way that they automatically accepted that the five thousand were? Indications from the text suggest that the earlier crowd was a Jewish one. For them there were twelve loaves leftover, suggesting the twelve tribes. But this group of four thousand appears to have been of Gentile origin. This was the reason the text made note of the fact that "they glorified the God of Israel". Otherwise, of course, whom else would they have glorified? But if they were Gentiles then it made since to specify. So too, after the multiplication of the loaves did the amount of fragments left over possibly point to the crowd being made up of Gentiles. The seven baskets full were a possible reference to the seven nations of Canaan. Were the disciples simply not interested in ensuring the well-being of this crowd? Did they begrudge seeing even the crumbs of the childrens' bread being given to the dogs?

Jesus said to them, "How many loaves do you have?"
"Seven," they replied, "and a few fish."

It is a good thing for us that the disciples got over it, since we too (or most of us) are among those of Gentile origin who continue to benefit from the fact that Jesus has pity for us as well as the Jewish people. It is more than noteworthy that the whole world of peoples and nations has come to glorify the God of Israel precisely because the compassion of Jesus was without limit. But he had to train his disciples to achieve this impartiality. Had they been allowed to act naturally they would have allowed prejudices and blind spots to restrict the ways in which they were willing to spread his love to the world. So too with us. We are not permitted to love only when it feels natural to do so. Sometimes we must overcome limiting feelings or perspectives, even if we have had them for our entire lives until now. As we learn to let Jesus use us and our resources he will gradually change our hearts as well. We will act as the people we want to become and in that way actually become such people. This may not always work in every scenario. We may not become rich by acting like rich people. But when we act like the Christians we want to be we allow the grace of Jesus to work within us and help us to make genuine change and forward progress. Even the best of us probably need such progress. Most of us prefer to perform the virtues that come easiest, and avoid the vices that are the least appealing. But Jesus may be asking us to act in ways that don't come naturally, since what we have been used to thus far is by no means automatically unassailably sacred. He may be asking us to actually grow. And that always means leaving our comfort zone to some extent. But with his help, our pathetically limited resources, far insufficient to the task at hand, become so superabundant that we not only don't struggle, but even have a baskets remaining.

Matt Maher - Bigger Table

 

2 December 2025 - the downside up

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to the childlike.

Jesus rejoiced in the great reversal being accomplished by his Father. This was same reversal of which Paul wrote, saying "since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe" (see First Corinthians 1:21). Why was God pleased to make "foolish the wisdom of the world"? (see First Corinthians 1:22). It was in choosing what was "low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God" (see First Corinthians 1:28-29). But God had no need to humble the proud for his own sake, as if he needed to vindicate his ego, or eliminate possible rivals. He did so for the sake of the world, which didn't fully understand how much suffering was caused by all of the bluster, pride, and arrogance of which it was full. 

God himself did not cling to the privileges of divinity or the image of greatness. He was the one most entitled to lord his authority over others. And yet he chose to save the world by sending the Son to be born as a poor carpenter, as one who came to serve. The deepest truth of reality was not pride, but rather, self-emptying love. Pride was ultimately unrealistic and unsustainable. Not only was it trying to usurp the place of God oneself. It was to do so in a way that was inconsistent with the inner life of God. It was by definition a form of idolatry, creating a god of oneself, according to one's own blueprint and design. But such attitudes infected the fallen creation like a cancer. And only the great reversal manifest in the person of Jesus was an adequate cure.

Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father.
No one knows who the Son is except the Father,
and who the Father is except the Son
and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.

Jesus was the one who came from the Father, who did everything for his good pleasure. His love of the Father made him prefer the Father's will to any alternative. It was in virtue of this that he knew the Father in a way that others could not. But Jesus was able to share his inner perspective, his own relationship to the Father, with those who were united to him as his disciples. But it was not possible to ascertain this perspective from a dispassionate and detached remote analysis of the Son. The only ones who were able to share the life of the Son was those who allowed themselves to be drawn to him by the Father. Flesh and blood was insufficient, as Peter learned (see Matthew 16:17). There was no fixed position in this arrangement for an ego to fortify as its own. It was giving and receiving all the way down. There was no place for possessiveness, no room for boasting as though for one's own accomplishment.

Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.
For I say to you,
many prophets and kings desired to see what you see,
but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.

We are living once more the season of Advent in which prophets like Isaiah speak to us of the things that they desired to see, the shoot that would sprout from the stump of Jesse, the root of Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations. We have seen what they desired to see and heard what they desired to hear. And we will do so again, as if for the first time, this Christmas. We have a more exact sense than they of whom we are expecting, the birth on Christmas mourn for which we long. And because of this our yearning and expectation can, if anything, be still the greater. Jesus turned out to be even better than predicted and we have not yet begun to plumb the depths of that greatness. Let's prepare to welcome him once more, knowing that, if our eyes and ears were blessed in years past, there is always more to discover. Let us seek him out, " for his dwelling shall be glorious".

Maranatha! Music - Here I Am To Worship

 

1 December 2025 - only say the word

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

The centurion said in reply,
"Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof;
only say the word and my servant will be healed.

Most people would probably take it for granted that, if he chose to help at all, Jesus would do so by entering under the roof of the one in need. The centurion in particular had enough authority and importance that he might have assumed that Jesus would either do what he asked because he was impressed by such things, or else not do it at all. But the centurion had a higher view of Jesus than that of mere magician or miracle worker. What the centurion knew of authority led him to suspect something about Jesus that many others missed. However much it was appropriate for him to show deference within the Roman military hierarchy, it was far more so before Jesus. He knew this wasn't a situation in which he was going to impress or intimidate Jesus into doing something for him. But he did not seem to be a man who relied on such assets. He was capable of expressing his need and his vulnerability in a way that left the choice of whether or not to respond entirely in the hands of Jesus, without any attempt at manipulation. Just as he did not attempt to force the hand of Jesus in whether or not to save his servant neither did he attempt to dictate how Jesus would do it. 

For I too am a man subject to authority,
with soldiers subject to me.
And I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes;
and to another, 'Come here,' and he comes;
and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it."

It would be silly for civilians who needed defense from their enemies to tell the military how they ought to do their job. But most of us are all too ready to tell Jesus, not only what we need, but exactly how and when. Typically, we barely pause to consider for a minute whether every detail of our desire might truly yield the best result, since it is the result that seems to us to be the most urgent. Those dealing with an enemy invasion might also feel a sense or urgency. But in most cases that would not qualify them to start teaching strategy to the armed forced. The centurion understood both authority and the limitations on that authority. He knew he was not in a position to dictate to those higher up the chain than himself. At the same time he knew what it meant for words of authority spoken by the rest person to have their proper effect. He understood fairly well the limitations of even the greatest imperial or military authority in the face of the suffering of his servant. But he also somehow came to understand that Jesus was all a man with authority, and one with an entirely different scale than his own. Yet it was not without a slight parallel. He himself spoke words of command and his soldiers carried them out. This was how he had come to understand the power of the words of Jesus. They too were words of command that, when spoken, were effective. We know that Jesus did indeed have legions of angels at his beck and call, waiting to carry them out.

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him,
"Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.

Perhaps we can learn from the centurion that Jesus is worthy of greater faith and trust than we imagined. We should ease back from trying to force Jesus to do what we assume is the best and instead submit our requests to the discretion of his infinite wisdom, while trusting that he will do whatever is truly for our good and the glory of his Father. We should learn that even if the what of our prayer is spot on the how is less likely to perfectly match God's will. We should surrender to the fact that he may choose the act in a way that does not satisfy our emotions or our curiosity. He probably won't perform his miracles in order to impress us. Our felt need to be present when he works has less to do with end results and more with our own uncertainty and insecurity. When we trust Jesus to work, and trust that the way he chooses to work is for the best, we open doors of faith through which his salvation can enter the world. Such faith is the basis for our relationship with him, the reason why even Gentiles such as most of us can now be called sons and daughters of God, and dine at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven.

I say to you, many will come from the east and the west,
and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven.

Leeland - Way Maker

 

30 November 2025 - a very particular set of skills

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

As it was in the days of Noah,
so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Noah was not motivated to prepare for the flood by his understanding of climate science. No, what he saw and understood of the world around him were the same as what those who were not preparing, but living life as usual, also saw and understood. The only difference was his faith in divine revelation. So too for Christians in our own day. We see the same world as others do but we understand it differently based on the perspective faith gives us. Divine revelation gives us an interpretive key to reality that is not available to the paradigm of empirical science. Even philosophy was not enough to suggest that Noah ought to build an ark. Nor can it tell us enough about our own eternal destinies to suggest how we ought to prepare. Philosophy can help us to eat and drink and marry virtuously, and therefore without regret. It can help make us the people with whom others won't object to sharing an ark. But it won't actually tell us to help with the building or to watch the skies for rain. It can help make us wise enough to listen when someone makes the case that we should enter the ark. But it won't automatically prevent us from being caught up in daily life in such a way that we don't give the prophets who call to us a fair hearing. There is often a certain amount of believing in the unlikely or apparently impossible that is asked of us when we are called to make an act of faith. Philosophy tends to resist extremes. But the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, cannot be overdone. They can, it is true, be done in the wrong way. But when they are done in the right way there is no such thing as excess since God himself is their object.

They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away.
So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man. 

The only warning we have about the impending judgment we will face at the end of our lives and that the world will face at the end of time is the one that we have because of our faith. A philosophical perspective might recognize that it is not contradicted but rather fulfilled in finding the world to after all be one in which justice is real. But it might stubbornly resist anything, even fulfillment, that is alien to its own way of understanding. It could not, of itself, discover how mercy and justice would be reconciled. It really could not have even made a guess of the direction and goal of history. And given that this perspective, apart from faith, is the best we've got, we need to recognize our need for the warning Jesus gives in today's Gospel reading.

They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away.
So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man.
Two men will be out in the field;
one will be taken, and one will be left.

In the flood it was those not taken by the water and the waves who were the fortunate ones. It was those who were left, the divine remnant protected in the ark were those who were blessed. It was often thus in the history of Israel, when those taken into exile or lost in battle were not the ones to envy. It was those who remained, who enjoyed God's protection, that attained a desirable result. That's one of the reasons we can tell that this passage has nothing to do with the rapture or dispensionationalism. In this case we don't want to be among the taken. We want instead to be among those preserved in the ark that is the Church established by Jesus himself, the barque of Peter. 

The rains of the flood may not yet be falling in an obvious and visible way. But we nevertheless need to heed the command of Jesus to stay awake. We can't allow ourselves to be lulled by what seems normal to those around us. Whatever floods may come to us in our lives will require from us a response of vigorous faith. Therefore we must remain alert to what matters most. Those of us who are lukewarm or merely half awake are at risk. We might say, as Augustine did, "Oh Lord, give me chastity, but do not give it yet", assuming that we can get serious about are own conversion at some distant as yet undetermined future date. But it was precisely our reading today from Romans that caused Augustine to wake up and to stop delaying.

not in orgies and drunkenness,
not in promiscuity and lust,
not in rivalry and jealousy.
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.

We too are called to have hearts that are ready to welcome the Lord Jesus Christ. Advent is a precious time in which grace is given to us to help us prepare. It is also a time in which it is very easy to be lulled into what the world considers normal by the business and commercial nature of the secular season. And so we must let the words of Jesus and not the world define us and our reality.

O house of Jacob, come,
let us walk in the light of the Lord!

DC Talk - In The Light

 

29 November 2025 - the King shall come

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy
from carousing and drunkenness
and the anxieties of daily life

When our hearts are drowsy they are slow and stupid. The heart is the center of who we are. With it we can engage questions and makes choices with regard to matters of utmost importance. It is the heart that in this way determines our destiny. Thus we can understand the danger of a drowsy heart as the spiritual version of being half asleep at the wheel. We may manage to avoid accidents by noticing things at the last minute and swerving. But it isn't a skill on which we want to rely. 

Physically, we get tired without enough sleep, or as a side effect of medication, and then ought to avoid driving or operating heavy machinery. But when it comes to the drowsiness of the heart, this is more than mere physical exhaustion. It comes about when we've allowed over-stimulation of the wrong kinds, including carousing, drunkenness, and the anxieties of daily life to use up our reserve of attentive spiritual awareness. Drunkenness is a problem in this sense not only because it can make us physically tired, but because it can numb us in a way that makes it hard for us to feel the importance of higher things. Our hearts become drowsy when we live as if this world is absolute, fearing the inevitable evils that the future will bring, and trying to draw as much pleasure and distraction as we can in the moment. Hearts like these have little use for going to meet Jesus when he comes to us in our daily lives and in the mass. Such celebrations will not rival the rancor and volume of secular parties. Hearts given over to fear about tomorrow, the next day, month, or year, will not have sufficient self-possession to give due thought permanent consequences and eternal destinies. The news cycle seems designed specifically to narrow our focus to the next potential disaster and prevent us from seeing the bigger picture from God's point of view.

For that day will assault everyone
who lives on the face of the earth.

The Lord will come whether or not we are ready. His coming can be for us a blessing or a curse depending on how we have responded to the grace he has given us to prepare for it. We want to be among those who remain spiritually vigilant, alert and awake enough to rise to meet the Son of Man at his coming, and to stand without shame in his presence. We are given both ample warnings and plentiful opportunities to practice for the final version of this, which will be at our death or at his coming in glory. We have the mass, the season of Advent, and the countless times he comes to us in the midst of our daily lives, all as opportunities to practice being ready to meet him. If we take opportunities such as these for granted it is unlikely that we will do better later unless we begin making changes now. If, however, we learn to welcome him each day, his coming at the end will not be a shock or unwelcome surprise. It will instead feel like the final version of something mysteriously familiar, like coming home.

Ike Ndolo - Awake, O Sleeper