A New Imagination
A reading for Wednesday, February 4, 2015: Mark 8:11-26.
Jesus hopes for a different imagination in those that hear his teaching. He teaches about the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven and a new reality that has been ushered in, one in which only God is the creator, ruler and sustainer of all of creation. Nothing else can deliver us and offer the peace that only God can. Jesus says this is the new covenant, a new way of life lived in a new reality.
But they don't get it. The Pharisees are too consumed with their own power and position as the religious people of the day. They can only test Jesus.
The disciples don't get it either. They are overwhelmed with making sure they do everything right, and earning their place of presence with Jesus. Even after Jesus teaches them again, they still don't understand.
Only those that need Jesus for healing and transformation it seems have a chance at understanding and looking at the world differently. Even they have to be touched by Jesus again and again, dependent on the power of God, in order to be fully transformed. They are given a new way to live.
We can't just go through the motions. We aren't going to earn our way into a new way. Jesus takes the broken and the lost, the lonely and the hopeless and gives us what we need. A new imagination for life, one that is fully dependent on God. Only God is the creator, ruler and sustainer of all creation.
Jesus hopes for a different imagination in those that hear his teaching. He teaches about the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven and a new reality that has been ushered in, one in which only God is the creator, ruler and sustainer of all of creation. Nothing else can deliver us and offer the peace that only God can. Jesus says this is the new covenant, a new way of life lived in a new reality.
But they don't get it. The Pharisees are too consumed with their own power and position as the religious people of the day. They can only test Jesus.
The disciples don't get it either. They are overwhelmed with making sure they do everything right, and earning their place of presence with Jesus. Even after Jesus teaches them again, they still don't understand.
Only those that need Jesus for healing and transformation it seems have a chance at understanding and looking at the world differently. Even they have to be touched by Jesus again and again, dependent on the power of God, in order to be fully transformed. They are given a new way to live.
We can't just go through the motions. We aren't going to earn our way into a new way. Jesus takes the broken and the lost, the lonely and the hopeless and gives us what we need. A new imagination for life, one that is fully dependent on God. Only God is the creator, ruler and sustainer of all creation.
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