This is one of a series of “Alphabytes” that move in alphabetical order two times in a fifty-two week year. These are object meditations. This one is at the 7th Week in the season of Pentecost–summer in the north.
Month: July 2024
John the Baptist Beheaded
Listen to Pastor Nick read the “Firestarter” and the reading.
After Jesus’s family rejects him, further family pain comes in the murder of his cousin, John the Baptist. Herod Antipas beheads this last and greatest of the prophets.
This Herod is the son of Herod the Great, the one that made magnificent expansions on the Second Temple; he murdered the innocent babies of Bethlehem when the Magi went back to their countries.
Notice the vices present, all of the seven traditional ones: pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. One vice breeds another, especially when pride is embedded in a person.
Be sobered by this evil, and the atrocious murders that take place in our day because the same evils are present. Be with John’s disciples as they quietly come and bury him; stay close to Jesus and feel his pain.
What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…
Example: Freedom from human respect v. 26
Sundays are dedicated to the Gospels from the Revised Common Lectionary.
In year B, we read from the Gospel of Mark
For daily Firestarters I recommend the ebook. You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.
Complaining Blocks the Presence.
Listen to Pastor Nick read the “Firestarter” and Numbers 20:1-13.
John the Baptist and Jesus are prefigured in this portion of the Torah that treats of the spiritual power of water. John must have had this reading in mind when he chose the ritual of baptism as a preparation for Jesus. Miracle water from the rock looks to Jesus as the living water, which flowed from his open side.
Whenever death has been touched, cleansing needs to happen. So too in death-bound unreconciled negative feelings within, such as hidden resentments and unhealed pain that pull the soul toward death. Notice the period of seven days of purification; what a blessing it would be to have your whole self cleansed of inner “death” within the space of a week! The water from your own tears can be the means of cleansing.
Look what happened to Moses when he challenged God’s decision to give the complaining people the water they needed! Do you complain when God is showing mercy?
This is the second of three parts of the Torah Portion Hukkath (Ordinance).
Conservative and Reform Jewish congregations read only this part this year,
as also in this Bible plan.
Here is the entire portion in all three parts.
Bible Breaths Learn More…
Example: Complaining blocks the presence 20:24
The Saturday passages follow the reading list that Jewish people use in their synagogue worship
throughout the world. They are taken from
“The Torah,” the first five books of the Bible from Genesis to Deuteronomy
that are read each year beginning with autumn.
For the next several weeks, the Firestarters will be from the original version of this program. For these Firestarters I recommend the ebook. You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.
The Bible Through the Seasons 