Filled with Passion
Stories
Contents
“Filled with Passion” by Peter Andrew Smith
“The Faith Passed Down To Us” by Frank Ramirez
Filled with Passion
by Peter Andrew Smith
Luke 22:14--23:56
John sat next to Megan and stifled a yawn. His wife looked over and frowned before turning her attention back to the pastor at the front. John struggled to pay attention. He normally liked going to church but he knew the Passion — Jesus gets arrested, the disciples fall away and the people who don’t like Jesus crucify him — and he felt that he didn’t need to listen to it being read again. He didn’t want to be sitting in church on Good Friday.
After the opening hymn, the reader started to work through the lesson for the day. The narrative just seemed so lifeless, so dull, so predictable to him. John’s mind started to wander. He wondered what they might have for lunch. Maybe this afternoon he could have a nap on the couch in front of the television.
“Why are you sleeping? Rise up and pray that you do not fall into temptation.”
The words caught John by surprise and he sat up. He looked around but everyone else was paying attention to the scripture being read at the front. He settled back down in his seat. He didn’t remember Jesus’ sounding so frustrated and anxious when he said those words to the disciples. He’d always thought of Jesus being calm and sure as the events unfolded in the Garden.
John leaned forward and listened as the reader talked of Judas arriving. Jesus sounded weary, disappointed in what the disciples were doing and how they didn’t understand his message of peace. The words he spoke to the guards after he healed the servant’s ear were challenging and yet were also filled with sadness at what was unfolding.
John knew the story of Peter’s denial and had never had any problem hearing the emotion in Peter’s voice as he denied Jesus three times and then realized what he had done. Yet as the scripture was read John also heard the emotions of Jesus. He imagined the silent suffering Jesus endured when the guards were beating and mocking him. He caught a sense of frustration as Jesus was questioned by the hostile priests, Pilate, and Herod, and no one listened to him as the crucifixion grew near.
John sat back as the choir began to sing the anthem. He had no problem hearing the feelings, the emotions, as Jesus encountered people on the way to the cross. There was lots of passion but John didn’t hear any despair. No, John could only hear determination and certainly within the words Jesus spoke.
John leaned forward again as the scripture reader continued to read. He was there as the crowds shouted their rage and hatred and he felt sorrow as Pilate gave up and condemned Jesus. John shook his head. How could they do that to Jesus? How could his disciples abandon him and the religious leaders reject him? How could the crowds who had welcomed Jesus only days earlier now demand he be killed on a cross for no reason at all? John was angry, upset, and frustrated. He wiped a tear running down his cheek.
“Do not weep for me, you should weep for yourselves and for your children.”
John froze in his seat. There was that determination again, that love and compassion spilling forth despite the horror taking place. Jesus was showing the grace that God wanted the world to see. Jesus was filled with emotion but he was also determined to make sure that people cared about each other. At the foot of the cross, he called the people to recognize the trouble and suffering that happens to many in the world and challenged them to love as he loved.
John listened to the familiar words of the gospel reading and savoured each one of them. As Jesus asked for the crowds to be forgiven, as he pardoned and blessed the criminal crucified beside him, as he ignored scorn and mockery and died a painful death. John slumped down in his seat as the final words were spoken from the cross and the guard realized that Jesus was from God.
John stood for the final hymn and he sang the words with passion. He was glad that Megan had convinced him to go to church that day for he was filled with deeper understanding and appreciation for why the story read on the Sunday before Easter was called the Passion. For in his heart John knew the story talked not simply about the emotions of the people caught up in the events of the arrest and crucifixion but also about the unwavering love and compassion Jesus showed as he went to the cross and broke the power of sin and death forever.
* * *
The Faith Passed Down To Us
by Frank Ramirez
Psalm 31:9-16
I have passed out of mind like one who is dead…(Psalm 31:12).
By one estimate around 170 billion people have walked on the face of this earth since the dawn of time. How accurate that figure is depends on how you define humanity and the way you view our origins, but in any event, we are all agreed that there are over 7.5 billion people sharing the planet right now. That’s a number beyond imagining.
But how many of those people do we imagine we really know?
Nowadays if anybody cared to get to know us each one of us has created a mountain of medical statistics, financial data, records of our buying habits, digital photographs, Facebook posts and a social media presence. But who would really want to mine all that information except a few close relatives and those who want to steal our identity?
In the ancient world it was different. Most people truly could, in the words of the psalmist, "pass out of mind" upon their death. Life expectancy was short. It would not take long after somebody’s passing for their generation and the succeeding generations to disappear, leaving no living memory of their existence behind.
There were exceptions, true. Pharaohs, emperors, and kings left behind huge monuments to preserve their memory, portraying themselves as perfect and godlike. Some of these exist still today, although even there we can't be sure. In some cases we argue over who exactly this statuary represented because sometimes a succeeding ruler would have the name of a predecessor chiseled away, replacing it with their own.
Think about Sergei Korolov, a man who changed the modern world. Korolov was the rocket designer whose masterwork, the ICBM known as the Semyorka, or “Ol’ Number Seven,” not only blasted the first satellite, Sputnik, into orbit, and the first human beings on trips around the globe, but is still the central core of the rockets manufactured on an assembly line that send cosmonauts and astronauts on their way to the International Space Station. His innovations shocked the western world, creating the space race, and as a consequence also the many digital technologies we take for granted. But at one point in his life he was unjustly imprisoned at a Stalinist labor camp, working as a slave on aircraft and rocket technologies. Even after he was rehabilitated and restored to a position of authority in charge of the space program of the Soviet Union, his identity was kept secret from the outside world. It's little wonder that his favorite saying was "We will all vanish without a trace."
But there are those who work to recover the stories of the people who are gone and forgotten. Thanks to scientists, for instance, more is known about people who disappeared hundreds and even thousands of years ago than could have been thought possible a few decades back. Just as tree rings tell a story a particular year’s weather sometimes centuries ago, so too the bones of ancient humans tell scientists how long they lived, the shape of their health, and the nature of the injuries they suffered. Teeth reveal at what times in their lives there was plenty to eat and when there was famine. And if there is DNA to recover geneticists can trace the movements of that individual’s ancestors for centuries into the past, revealing whose ancestors they were, and what sort of lives they lived.
Then there's archaeology! Three thousand years ago, in a time before Abraham and Moses, members of a family in the Canaanite town of Azekah used ceramic vessels to store oils and fats used in the manufacture of a crucial product of great value, perhaps cosmetics, perhaps costume jewelry, perhaps both, though it is still uncertain what exactly they were doing.
What is known that is a catastrophe struck down four members of a family when their home, which was also their place of business, caught fire and burned. There was a woman in her late thirties or early forties, a young man in his early twenties, a teenage girl, and another teenager whose gender is undetermined. Their roof collapsed in the flames, crushing them and burying them in the rubble.
Have you ever thought about what you would save if you only had time to grab one or two things from your home? The archaeologists who have been studying the bones and artifacts left behind of a young girl faced with that decision. Evidently she grabbed a ceramic scarab, or beetle. It looks like an insect on the rounded side and on the flat side there’s an engraved seal showing a gazelle suckling its young. She also grabbed what’s called an artisan kit containing stone tools, some pigments, and some minerals used in manufacturing ornamental jewelry. She died with those things on her person, perhaps unable to escape because she, along with the three others, waited just a few seconds too long.
If any death should have left no trace, including the evidence of bones, teeth, and DNA, it should have been the death of Jesus. Crucifixion was not only an agonizing death, but bodies were then thrown into pits to be eaten by animals, leaving no trace behind. Jesus too should have passed out of mind with his death. But we know that is not the case thanks to something beyond archaeology and genetics — the word of God, the faith passed down to us, and the witness of the martyrs.
(For more on the family caught in the Azekah disaster see Biblical Archaeology Review January/February 2019 pp 33-38.)
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 14, 2019, issue.
Copyright 2019 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
“Filled with Passion” by Peter Andrew Smith
“The Faith Passed Down To Us” by Frank Ramirez
Filled with Passion
by Peter Andrew Smith
Luke 22:14--23:56
John sat next to Megan and stifled a yawn. His wife looked over and frowned before turning her attention back to the pastor at the front. John struggled to pay attention. He normally liked going to church but he knew the Passion — Jesus gets arrested, the disciples fall away and the people who don’t like Jesus crucify him — and he felt that he didn’t need to listen to it being read again. He didn’t want to be sitting in church on Good Friday.
After the opening hymn, the reader started to work through the lesson for the day. The narrative just seemed so lifeless, so dull, so predictable to him. John’s mind started to wander. He wondered what they might have for lunch. Maybe this afternoon he could have a nap on the couch in front of the television.
“Why are you sleeping? Rise up and pray that you do not fall into temptation.”
The words caught John by surprise and he sat up. He looked around but everyone else was paying attention to the scripture being read at the front. He settled back down in his seat. He didn’t remember Jesus’ sounding so frustrated and anxious when he said those words to the disciples. He’d always thought of Jesus being calm and sure as the events unfolded in the Garden.
John leaned forward and listened as the reader talked of Judas arriving. Jesus sounded weary, disappointed in what the disciples were doing and how they didn’t understand his message of peace. The words he spoke to the guards after he healed the servant’s ear were challenging and yet were also filled with sadness at what was unfolding.
John knew the story of Peter’s denial and had never had any problem hearing the emotion in Peter’s voice as he denied Jesus three times and then realized what he had done. Yet as the scripture was read John also heard the emotions of Jesus. He imagined the silent suffering Jesus endured when the guards were beating and mocking him. He caught a sense of frustration as Jesus was questioned by the hostile priests, Pilate, and Herod, and no one listened to him as the crucifixion grew near.
John sat back as the choir began to sing the anthem. He had no problem hearing the feelings, the emotions, as Jesus encountered people on the way to the cross. There was lots of passion but John didn’t hear any despair. No, John could only hear determination and certainly within the words Jesus spoke.
John leaned forward again as the scripture reader continued to read. He was there as the crowds shouted their rage and hatred and he felt sorrow as Pilate gave up and condemned Jesus. John shook his head. How could they do that to Jesus? How could his disciples abandon him and the religious leaders reject him? How could the crowds who had welcomed Jesus only days earlier now demand he be killed on a cross for no reason at all? John was angry, upset, and frustrated. He wiped a tear running down his cheek.
“Do not weep for me, you should weep for yourselves and for your children.”
John froze in his seat. There was that determination again, that love and compassion spilling forth despite the horror taking place. Jesus was showing the grace that God wanted the world to see. Jesus was filled with emotion but he was also determined to make sure that people cared about each other. At the foot of the cross, he called the people to recognize the trouble and suffering that happens to many in the world and challenged them to love as he loved.
John listened to the familiar words of the gospel reading and savoured each one of them. As Jesus asked for the crowds to be forgiven, as he pardoned and blessed the criminal crucified beside him, as he ignored scorn and mockery and died a painful death. John slumped down in his seat as the final words were spoken from the cross and the guard realized that Jesus was from God.
John stood for the final hymn and he sang the words with passion. He was glad that Megan had convinced him to go to church that day for he was filled with deeper understanding and appreciation for why the story read on the Sunday before Easter was called the Passion. For in his heart John knew the story talked not simply about the emotions of the people caught up in the events of the arrest and crucifixion but also about the unwavering love and compassion Jesus showed as he went to the cross and broke the power of sin and death forever.
* * *
The Faith Passed Down To Us
by Frank Ramirez
Psalm 31:9-16
I have passed out of mind like one who is dead…(Psalm 31:12).
By one estimate around 170 billion people have walked on the face of this earth since the dawn of time. How accurate that figure is depends on how you define humanity and the way you view our origins, but in any event, we are all agreed that there are over 7.5 billion people sharing the planet right now. That’s a number beyond imagining.
But how many of those people do we imagine we really know?
Nowadays if anybody cared to get to know us each one of us has created a mountain of medical statistics, financial data, records of our buying habits, digital photographs, Facebook posts and a social media presence. But who would really want to mine all that information except a few close relatives and those who want to steal our identity?
In the ancient world it was different. Most people truly could, in the words of the psalmist, "pass out of mind" upon their death. Life expectancy was short. It would not take long after somebody’s passing for their generation and the succeeding generations to disappear, leaving no living memory of their existence behind.
There were exceptions, true. Pharaohs, emperors, and kings left behind huge monuments to preserve their memory, portraying themselves as perfect and godlike. Some of these exist still today, although even there we can't be sure. In some cases we argue over who exactly this statuary represented because sometimes a succeeding ruler would have the name of a predecessor chiseled away, replacing it with their own.
Think about Sergei Korolov, a man who changed the modern world. Korolov was the rocket designer whose masterwork, the ICBM known as the Semyorka, or “Ol’ Number Seven,” not only blasted the first satellite, Sputnik, into orbit, and the first human beings on trips around the globe, but is still the central core of the rockets manufactured on an assembly line that send cosmonauts and astronauts on their way to the International Space Station. His innovations shocked the western world, creating the space race, and as a consequence also the many digital technologies we take for granted. But at one point in his life he was unjustly imprisoned at a Stalinist labor camp, working as a slave on aircraft and rocket technologies. Even after he was rehabilitated and restored to a position of authority in charge of the space program of the Soviet Union, his identity was kept secret from the outside world. It's little wonder that his favorite saying was "We will all vanish without a trace."
But there are those who work to recover the stories of the people who are gone and forgotten. Thanks to scientists, for instance, more is known about people who disappeared hundreds and even thousands of years ago than could have been thought possible a few decades back. Just as tree rings tell a story a particular year’s weather sometimes centuries ago, so too the bones of ancient humans tell scientists how long they lived, the shape of their health, and the nature of the injuries they suffered. Teeth reveal at what times in their lives there was plenty to eat and when there was famine. And if there is DNA to recover geneticists can trace the movements of that individual’s ancestors for centuries into the past, revealing whose ancestors they were, and what sort of lives they lived.
Then there's archaeology! Three thousand years ago, in a time before Abraham and Moses, members of a family in the Canaanite town of Azekah used ceramic vessels to store oils and fats used in the manufacture of a crucial product of great value, perhaps cosmetics, perhaps costume jewelry, perhaps both, though it is still uncertain what exactly they were doing.
What is known that is a catastrophe struck down four members of a family when their home, which was also their place of business, caught fire and burned. There was a woman in her late thirties or early forties, a young man in his early twenties, a teenage girl, and another teenager whose gender is undetermined. Their roof collapsed in the flames, crushing them and burying them in the rubble.
Have you ever thought about what you would save if you only had time to grab one or two things from your home? The archaeologists who have been studying the bones and artifacts left behind of a young girl faced with that decision. Evidently she grabbed a ceramic scarab, or beetle. It looks like an insect on the rounded side and on the flat side there’s an engraved seal showing a gazelle suckling its young. She also grabbed what’s called an artisan kit containing stone tools, some pigments, and some minerals used in manufacturing ornamental jewelry. She died with those things on her person, perhaps unable to escape because she, along with the three others, waited just a few seconds too long.
If any death should have left no trace, including the evidence of bones, teeth, and DNA, it should have been the death of Jesus. Crucifixion was not only an agonizing death, but bodies were then thrown into pits to be eaten by animals, leaving no trace behind. Jesus too should have passed out of mind with his death. But we know that is not the case thanks to something beyond archaeology and genetics — the word of God, the faith passed down to us, and the witness of the martyrs.
(For more on the family caught in the Azekah disaster see Biblical Archaeology Review January/February 2019 pp 33-38.)
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 14, 2019, issue.
Copyright 2019 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
