Daily Bread Pastor Mike Anderson

As many people have remarked, the Christian belief system is full of paradox. Paradoxes are apparent contradictions that turn out to be true. Some examples in the bible are: "dying to live", "poor but rich", "slaves but free", and into today's reading "foolishness is wisdom", and "the weak are the strong"! Why is Christ crucified a paradox? First, how can God die? It seems counter-intuitive but only Jesus, who is God, could die for our sins because he was sinless. If he was sinful,he wouldn't be God and he would have to die for himself. But if He is God he didn't deserve to die. Yet, the sinless one died for the sinful ones, so that they might forgiven of their sins. For us to realize the power of God, we need to die to our wisdom. Our wisdom would say that if we only were wise enough, we could be like God. It would seem like a contradiction to say that true wisdom would be to be as foolish as to believe that only true wi...

As we enter Holy Week, the holiest week of the year, we walk through the last events of Jesus' life here on earth. We will remember his Supper with his disciples and gut wrentching prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (Maundy Thursday). In the garden, he asked his disciples to watch and pray, and he went to His Father to discuss what was going to happen on the cross on Good Friday. As an aside, it is a little ironic to call it Good Friday, when what happened to Jesus was really quite "bad". Yet, it accomplished for us the forgiveness of our sins. As the reading from Hebrews says today, "If you have received forgiveness from the blood of innocent goats and calves sacrificed, how much more will the Son of God's innocent blood cleanse you from your sin. Although Good Friday was quite bad for Jesus, it accomplished for us the salvation we could never transact on our own. I hope you can find a place this Holy Week to meditate on what the Son of God did for you. As I ta...

Any builder knows that the most important way to start any building is to select the right cornerstone. The cornerstone will be the piece that the building will rest upon or fall upon. Psalm 118 is a festal hymn the Israelites sung as they went up for festivals at appointed times of the year to being their offerings and sacrifices to God. And they sang, "Give thanks to The Lord for He is good, His love endures forever", reminding themselves that it was only God who could open the gate for the righteous to enter. Here is some good background information on the cornerstone, "The image comes from the ancient quarries where highly-trained stonemasons carefully chose the stones used in construction. No stone was more important than the cornerstone because the integrity of the whole structure depended on the cornerstone containing exactly the right lines. If the cornerstone was not exactly right, the entire building would be out of line. For that reason, builders inspected m...

When kids grow up they spend a lot of time imitating their teen idols. Whether it is a movie star, rock star, or athletic star. Of course there is nothing wrong with having someone to look up to, ultimately they are all human beings who are fallible and fragile. But Paul has someone else he is trying to imitate, The Lord Jesus Christ. Paul is teaching this young Christian community to treat each other as a reflection of Jesus. At the heart of it is considering others as better than ourselves, and looking to serve their interests before ours. Well how can we possibly do that? Paul tells us to not only imitate Jesus, but have the same mindset as Jesus as we look at Jesus attitude we can see three things. 1. He did not consider equality as God as something to be grasped. If anyone had a right to think something was beneath them it was the Son of God. But Jesus did not use his position for his own personal gratification. 2. He emptied himself and became a servant. Yes the Son of God...

One of the phrases most used to describe how the Holy Spirit is activated is seen twice in today's readings. In both Isaiah 44 and the fulfillment of that prophesy in Acts 2, these passages say, "I will pour out my Spirit". In the quotation from Joel, we see that the Spirit will be poured out on all people young and old, men and women. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out on Jesus' disciples, just as Jesus had promised. And in both cases the pouring out of the Spirit causes great growth to occur. In the Isaiah passage the pouring out of the Spirit is likened to streams of water being poured out on dry ground. And grass will grow in the meadows and poplar trees by the flowing streams. In Acts, after the Spirit is poured out, the people will see dreams and visions and prophesy in the name of The Lord. And wonders will happen in the heavens above and signs on the earth below. The bottom line is the Spirit is the means by which the power of God comes...

Psalm 119 is an acrostic, with each letter of the Hebrew alphabet having a paragraph that gives instruction concerning God's word. Today's section is titled,"Beth" pronounced "bet" in Hebrew. It was the second letter in the Hebrew alphabet. The order from the beginning is, "aleph, Beth, gimel, daleth ..." Students in Hebrew school would memorize large chunks of the Torah, the first five books of the bible, also called the "Pentateuch". Today, the psalm writer gives us insight to the centrality of the Word to Jewish piety and how rabbi's taught people to, "hide your word in my heart". And, of course, the writer gives several benefits to living according to God's Word. He says, in effect, the only way you can lead a life that is pleasing to God, a life of purity, is by the power of God's word being applied in your life. And as one learns to understand God's word it becomes pleasing to us as well, like delicious m...

Six days before Jesus' death, his friend Mary and Martha and their brother, Lazarus, who Jesus raised from the dead, threw a dinner party. Part of the occasion was giving thanks for Jesus' miracle for their brother, and the unintended purpose was to anoint Jesus for the cross. While Mary was serving as usual, Mary anointed Jesus with pure nard an expensive perfume, whose fragrance filled the house. This is called spikenard, and was made up of oil derived from varying kinds of flowering plants, like lavender. It was also used as an incense in the temple of worship back in the Old Testament. It was very expensive as well. When translating into today's worth, it is estimated to be about $10,000. The fact that Mary anointed Jesus with the oil by using her hair was also an act of extreme devotion. In some ways it might have been considered scandalous, as women were not allowed to let their hair down in public. Meanwhile, all Judas can do is complain that it wasn't used for...