More than 600 years before Jesus was born, King Josiah ruled the land of Judah. He was the last king of Judah to be faithful to God. His father and grandfather had been horrible rulers. Under their reigns, many of the people had turned to idolatry. So, when Josiah became king, he tried to transform…
When you compare the story of Bartimaeus with the stories that come before it in the gospel of Mark, the first thing that might stand out is that nothing goes wrong.
When we last heard from Mark, he was reporting on Jesus’ conversation with the Judean mucky-mucks who wanted to know why the disciples were eating without washing their hands? Why were they not following “the tradition of the elders?” Why weren’t they following the rules for cleanliness?
One of those ongoing debates had to do with the words of institution at communion. In most Lutheran congregations, the pastor presiding at communion uses the words of Jesus, “Take and eat, this is my body. Take and drink, this is my blood.” These words have been key to our understanding of the sacrament for…
Today’s gospel is one of those stories. I can remember hearing this story as a girl and thinking how wonderful it was that Jesus was concerned about Jairus’ daughter. The man was so sad about his little girl dying, and Jesus wanted to help her. It seemed like a family story. A children’s story.
Today, we are still in Chapter three of Mark, but the people who put the lectionary together- the ones who decided what to read and when- they skipped a good part of this chapter. They probably did it because the two paragraphs that they left out are a bit dry and full of lists, but…