By Steve Weedling
Master of Divinity student

Read: John 3:14-21

Reflect:As a mid-twenty-something and self-confessed agnostic, I walked into a small-town church one Sunday morning with my fiancé not really knowing what to expect. But, rather than a friendly welcome and help figuring this church thing out, I instead heard people whispering about how inappropriately I was dressed. “Who does he think he is?” they asked one another. Instead of extending grace, grace was denied to a stranger because he didn’t know the church’s rules.

Since that day, I’ve seen grace denied in many ways – both inside and outside of church – and as much as I sincerely regret it, I too have been guilty of denying grace to others. I’ve judged the motives of others (especially on the highway!) without really knowing anything at all about what might be happening in their lives at that time. I’ve become angry and resentful of others and denied forgiveness over insults and injuries that I can’t even remember anymore. And, I’ve judged strangers simply by their appearance – which brings me full circle to that day in that small-town church almost twenty-five years ago.

But grace denied – which is really just another way to say condemnation – isn’t the gospel message: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son… not… to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (v. 16 and 17). We were created for grace-filled lives of loving, and being loved – by one another, and by God – a life modeled for us by our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not God who condemns – but we who condemn ourselves when we choose to withhold grace and forgiveness from others.

Respond: We are so quick, Lord, to condemn others and to withhold grace even while we are equally quick to ask you for grace and forgiveness. Help us, Lord, to remember always that by forgiving, we are forgiven – that by offering grace, we receive grace.

by Sara Heatwole
Master of Divinity/Master of Arts in Counseling Dual Degree student

Read: Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

During a time of service in Honduras, I became very ill with an infection of my stomach and intestines. I have found that when I am most sick, I struggle to recognize my own frailty. It was not until a doctor diagnosed my sickness that I realized how perilous my health was. It took the diagnostic skills of a trained physician to recognize my infirmity, but I had to trust this stranger with my life too.

It does not take much research or investigation to sense the breadth of our world’s sickness. Open a newspaper, turn on the TV or radio, or take a walk through the neighborhood, and the economic, moral, and psychological crises of our times meet us face-to-face. Could it be that our world is so sick that we loath that which sustains life and hope? Let this Lenten season be a time when we gather at the gates and cry out to God to save us from our illness.

Respond: Let our eyes be opened to see the grace of the Great Physician. My prayer is that our communities would be filled with a song of joy that declares that the Lord is good, and the steadfast love of God endures forever.

By Don Yoder
Director of Graduate Admissions

Read: Psalm 19

Reflect: The words on the T-shirt boldly proclaim, “It’s all about ME” reflecting a common theme of our day.

However, a completely different message is found in the Psalm. Indeed, David proclaims that the world does not revolve around me and my interests. Instead the heavens speak without a sound or a word of the glory of God the Creator.

David then claims that God the Creator speaks to us using words. The law, decrees, and commandments of the Lord found in the Bible are perfect, trustworthy, and right. They make wise the simple, bring joy to the heart, and give insight to life.

The laws of the Lord are true and fair, more desirable than gold and sweeter than honey. There is great reward for those who obey them.

So ignore the conventional T-shirt wisdom. Instead, today pray David’s prayer that focuses on pleasing God the creator of this world.

Respond: May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing to you O Lord my rock and redeemer.

By Peggy Packard
Master of Divinity student, Associate Pastor Bridgewater United Methodist

Read: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Reflect: By human standards, Jesus was a failure. After three years of ministry, he was arrested and crucified. His followers ran away and hid. The cross was not only a painful way to die but it was also humiliating. Slaves, members of the lower class and rebellious peasants were executed this way as a warning to others not to defy the government.
The story is told of a little girl who was wearing a shiny cross. A man came up to her and told her that the cross was not shiny and pretty; it was wooden and ugly. Her response: “I know. My Sunday School teacher told me that whatever Jesus touches, He changes.”
The cross has become a symbol of the resurrection. We display it in our churches and wear it as a symbol that we follow Jesus, the Lord of all. Just as Jesus, by his death, changed the meaning of an ancient torture symbol, he transforms each one of us. No matter how broken, how sinful or what baggage we carry from our past, he will touch us, change us and make us beautiful, just like that little girl’s cross.

Respond: What in you needs to be touched and transformed today?

By Howard Zehr,
Professor of Restorative Justice at the Center for Justice & Peacebuilding

Read: John 2:13-22

Reflect: We all know the story of Jesus cleansing the temple. It comes immediately before Christ’s execution and may well have served as the spark that led to his execution at the hands of authorities.

The passage has been interpreted by some as an example of Christ condoning violence. His actions seem more symbolic than physically harmful, though. They are probably best viewed as an example of symbolic, non-violent action against wrongs, like those taken by Old Testament prophets.

What was Christ condemning in his action? One debate sounds a bit like the arguments in our last presidential election. Was he angry at greed and graft – the abuse of the vulnerable by the rich? Or was he angry at the larger economic system connected with worship? Still another interpretation is that he was striking out at the whole system or cult of blood sacrifice. Each of these possibilities has some plausibility, given Christ’s concerns and message. Maybe all are true.

For me, there are several important reminders in this passage. Sometimes assertive action is needed to confront “the powers.” Like President Mandela of South Africa, Jesus knew and used well the power of symbols and symbolic action.

Second, as Rene Girard and Gil Bailie have argued, I am convinced that Christ’s intention was to end the cycle of sacred and sacrificial violence that is common among human communities. Western civilization has turned Christ’s message upside down, however, using his life and death to justify violence rather than condemn it.

Christ’s action here calls me back to what I believe is the central message of the gospel: come live together in a community guided by the “upside down kingdom” of the shalom vision: to live in right relationship with each other, with the creation and with the Creator.

We sometimes forget that the New Testament was lived and written in an era of imperialism. As John Howard Yoder has argued, faced with the oppression of an overwhelming foreign power, Jesus chose a third way: not violent opposition, nor collaboration. Rather, a new community that by its way of being together demonstrates God’s intentions for humankind and invites others to join in.

Jesus rarely confronted Roman authorities directly though he clearly made his differences known and he created a community that was by its very existence a challenge. But he was very direct with the religious community of his birth. In the cleansing of the temple, we see him symbolically addressing the issues of his day within his own community.

Respond: The season of Lent, as we move through “dark Friday” to the light of the resurrection, is the right time to ponder not only the meaning of Christ’s death but also what his death and life mean for our life together as a community of believers. What does this suggest for how we live together? And what does it mean for why, and how, we reach out to others?

By Emily Derstine
Senior justice, peace and conflict studies major

Read: Psalm 19

Reflect: My housemates and I were trying to come up with inspiring catch-phrases to assist each other in making it through the busy week, and life in general. The title of this devotion, “Radical Hope,” was my contribution to the white board full of motivating messages.

After spending a week in Philadelphia to attend a peace gathering in mid-January, I came to the conviction that any inspirational phrase most definitely had to include hope – especially during times of frustration and uncertainty.

In today’s selected passage, the psalmist wrote of the certainty and perfection of God’s laws and commandments. We so often want to know what the future holds and are uncomfortable with the uncertainty. What will happen next? Where will I be in a year? Which option is best?

Psalms 19:8 reads “the commandment of the LORD is clear, enlightening the eyes…” When reminded of this, our future seems discernible, our list of choices and options more succinct.

During these times of unknowing, doubt, and hesitation, we must rely on and hold fast to a sense of unwavering hope. Hope is an active trust – always right in front of us, moving us forward and transforming our lives. In this time of Lent and searching, especially, we may find it quite challenging to hope, to see that the sun is present through the rain. As we wait, though, with great anticipation, winter melts into spring. Easter comes at the end of the long forty days in the wilderness. Jesus is resurrected, lives, and comes to us, offering us new life.

Jesus embodies our hope. Hope is essential to our life and faith journey. Hope is active, ever-engaging, and vigilant. Hope takes courage. To hope is a radical choice, as this state of being can be extremely difficult amidst struggles, fear, and doubt.

Let us remember the importance of Psalms 19:1: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.” Let us remember that hope, in Jesus, is greater, larger, and more powerful than all death, despair, or uncertainty.

Respond: Hope is what carries us through and brings us to new life in Christ, moving among us and transforming our lives.

By Christian Early,
Associate Professor of Philosophy and Theology

Read: Exodus 20:1-17

Reflect: I wonder whether it would be possible to give up sin for lent. I think I’d like to try. Some give up meat, some give up gas; but I, I will give up sin.

It would make a lovely dinner party conversation. “So, Christian, what’s going on in your life?” “Well, I’ve given up sin for Lent…you?” It would be like always getting the ace of spades in a game of, well, spades.

There are complications, however. The experience of most people I know is that they never really craved the thing (meat for example) so intensely until they tried giving it up. And a still voice inside tells me that giving up sin for Lent is surely a Sisyphus-like task: roll the great stone of sin up the hill, and right as you think you have reached the top, it rolls right back down over you. You have to begin all over again, and again, until you reach the point of soul exhaustion. Since I do not have that patience or personal resilience, giving up sin for Lent would seem very unwise: I might actually begin to crave it.

But is there something that we could give up, something along the lines of sin?

Exodus 20, a classical site for sin, is almost perfectly centered in the text. If you think about the whole of Exodus, it narrates a contrast and a comparison between Israel, which is coming into being, and Egypt, which is always already there. “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” says Yahweh (I will be what I will be).

It is to these liberated slaves that the 10 words are spoken. In your worshipping, have no other gods (combining three words into one). In your working, rest and remember the gift of life and this world. In your marrying, do not sleep with others. In your making a family, honor your parents. In your relating, do not murder. In your trading, do not steal. In your court-testifying, do not speak falsely against your neighbor. In your friendships, do not crave what your friend has.

These words are as-you-are-going-on-your-way words; they are traveling words. The last that we see of Yahweh in Exodus, the nomadic note is repeated: “For the cloud of the Lord was over the Tabernacle by day, and there was fire in the cloud by night, and all the Israelites could see it at every stage of their journey” (Ex. 40:38).

Respond: Here perhaps is a word to and for us as well. Perhaps the word to us is not so much to give up sin, but to join the adventure of becoming the people of God – following even if that journey leads not to a land flowing with milk and honey (though in beautiful Shenandoah we are grateful to have both cows and bees) but to a hill with a cross.

By Kevin Clark
Assistant Professor of Spiritual Formation and EMS campus pastor

Read: Scriptures for the week

Reflect: While engaging the scripture readings for this week, a certain turn of words or phrase would not leave me alone; “hope against hope” (Romans 4: 18 NRSV). Hearing the scripture in this way, at times seems to root in my life a new possibility. After all, how can one ignore the word as it leaps off the page and invites consideration? As prayerful reflection began, a sense of my own “hopelessness” emerged. The local and world news of late has been crisis oriented and tragedy; real or assumed, seems to lurk around every corner like a thief waiting to steal life away. The urge to “do something” or “give into resignation and apathy” can keep me from knowing how to respond.

“Hope against hope” as an English idiom means, “to hope very strongly that something will happen, although you know it is not very likely.” The Romans 4 passage is also translated; “Who against hope believed in hope” (KJV), “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…” (NIV), “Even when there was no reason for hope…” (NLT)

In the Genesis narrative, Abram (who is renamed Abraham) hears for a second time a promised covenant that seems to be flung in the face of hope deferred due to the circumstance of life. What did Abram hear in this nearness of God that gave rise in him to believe in that which was not very likely? In the Gospel story, Peter’s hopes are challenged as Jesus foretells his death and resurrection. He then finds himself on the wrong end of a rebuke by Jesus, “you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” How did Peter hear and understand Jesus’ call to follow by losing one’s life for him and the sake of the Gospel? What do I hear in the nearness of God and in the face of the seeming impossible?

Of course, we do know where the story line leads, but the reality is still being played out in real time. “Hope against hope” seems to be an invitation to participate in something that is beyond us but very much at work within us and in the world today. Abraham, as Paul states, “being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised,” lived into that hope. Peter finally gets it only after he lets go of his own agenda for Jesus and God’s work in the world to recognize the “new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…” as a gift of God’s grace. (1Peter1:3)

Lent calls us to reflect deeply on our assumptions and responses; In who or what do I hope? What am I setting my mind on? How am I to engage in suffering of our time?

In a time such as ours, “Hope against hope” can surely find fruition in the living hope given in God though Jesus Christ.

Respond: As the Psalmist prayed;

Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all day long.
(Psalm 25:4&5)

By Jill Gerig
2007 EMS Alum, Hospice Chaplain

Read: Romans 4:13-22

Reflect:I was standing up in front of the attendees of our Gerig family reunion leading a worship service on a Sunday morning last summer. It didn’t occur to me that I might feel nervous once I was up in front of our extended family. I was conscious of feeling that I had a lot to live up to. We were gathered in the fellowship hall at Oak Grove Mennonite Church in Smithville, Ohio. A place that was a reminder of great faith and history for our family over the years. My grandfather, Virgil Gerig, had been pastor here for several years. He had baptized people in the creek that flowed behind the church. Every time I go back to Oak Grove, I go down to the creek and put my hand in the flowing water. My grandmother, Mary Kay Gerig, directed several performances of Handel’s “Messiah” in the sanctuary. As a recent seminary graduate, I went and stood in the pulpit in the empty sanctuary where my grandfather had preached many years before. Several of our extended family members of generations past were buried in the church cemetery. After the worship service, we proceeded out to the cemetery and listened to one of our cousin’s tell stories about our family and ancestors in faith who were buried here—what they were like, and why and when they emigrated from their homeland to this particular place where we, their descendants, were now gathered.

In reflecting on this Romans 4:13-22 text, several words and phrases stood out to me. “Promise,” “descendants,” “heirs,” “faith,” “shar[ing] the faith of Abraham,” “hoping against hope,” and “[giving] glory to God.” No matter what our own stories of faith have been, we are all part of God’s overarching story spanning generations upon generations. It is our ancestors in faith, who have helped shape and bless us in who we are and how we serve today. Let us remember them. Remember these pilgrims of faith who have gone before us. And in this time of Lent, as we join the followers of Jesus in their journey toward Jerusalem may our faith be affirmed in God “who gives life to the dead” and along with Abraham be “…fully convinced that God [is] able to do what [God has] promised” no matter where the journey may lead.

Respond: Who have been your ancestors in faith? How have they blessed you for service in your family, community, and world today?

By Roman Miller,
Daniel B. Suter Endowed Professor of Biology

Read: Mark 8:31-38

Reflect: Alferd, my Haflinger horse, has a strong independent streak. When I’m involved with him, Alferd wants to be in charge. Yet if Alferd is going to have a happy successful experience as a horse on our farm, he must learn to submit to every whim and wish of his master. What gets Alferd back into the appropriate frame of mind? Repetitive training is the answer. For example when Alferd is slow at responding to a command to move sideways (side-pass), then aggressive repetitive reminders from his owner reach him and he responds more readily.

Longeing is an exercising technique where the trainer directs the horse to run in a circle in a round pen while the trainer stands in the middle directing. The point is to enhance responsiveness in the horse to the trainer’s cues to stop or trot or reverse direction. After period of longeing, a responsive horse demonstrates his submissiveness by licking his lips and lowering his head.

Mark 8:34 is the key verse in today’s passage where Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Following Jesus is more than a trivial pursuit. It is humbling myself. It is yielding my will and ambition to the Master. It is acknowledging that Jesus is Lord and is in charge of my life.

The key to self-denial is humility. David Augsburger in his seminal work on discipleship (Dissident Discipleship: A Spirituality of Self-Surrender, Love of God and Love of Neighbor, Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006) devotes an entire chapter to the practice of habitual humility. Recognizing both the essentiality of humility and the difficulty of embodying this virtue, he describes the dilemma by saying, “Humility claimed is pride renamed.”

In Augsburger’s further description of humility, he suggests that humility is a balance where one perceives our right place within the human family. However, an even more radical concept of humility is to voluntarily give up one’s “rightful place” for the good of another. That in essence was the suffering servant example of Jesus, who died on the cross to atone for my salvation. Jesus knew what it was to do the will of the Father and to tune Himself to the Divine Plan.

As I work with Alferd, I am reminded how my Lord works with me and lovingly draws me back to him when I stray from His plan. The secret to a harmonious relationship with Christ is to lovingly submit to His directives, words, and example.

Although I may not understand the discipline of the Lord, submitting to His enhances my life. When I’m given a longeing lesson by God, it is more than a trotting episode. It is an opportunity to learn to know my Trainer and to develop a more responsive relationship with Him.

Respond: Dear Jesus, I acknowledge that often I want to go my way and not yours. I pray that your Spirit of grace will change my will. So God, if you want me to side-pass or canter around in a circle, I’ll do it. Just show me how fast and how long. Amen.