Greetings to the Holy People of God,
A very happy and blessed Reformation! We will celebrate Reformation this Sunday with the actual date being Thursday, October 31. If you have some red, wear it on Sunday to show your reformation and reforming spirit! This is the day we remember the theological reforms of the 16th century that gave birth to Lutheranism and our continual need to reform.
We celebrate because we have a God that goes ahead of us to shape and prepare the way for us as well as reforming us in such gracious and merciful ways. Thanks be to God. We trust and receive God’s good work in his Son, Jesus who saves us and calls us into his embrace.
Take time to think of the ways God has shaped you over the years or just this past year. Reflect on how God could help to form and reform you now. After blind Bartimaeus gets Jesus’ attention, Jesus asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus knew exactly what he needed. When Jesus asks that question of you, “What do you want me to do for you?” How would you respond?
Last week, Jesus asked the same thing of James and John after they got his attention by asking Jesus to do for them whatever they asked. They wanted to sit at the left and right of Jesus in his glory. Bartimaeus wants to see again. If Jesus were to ask you, what do you want me to do for you, how would you respond? Be honest. In Mark’s gospel we are given the disciples desire for being close to Jesus’ glory and Bartimaeus’ desire to see again. The whole human spectrum is covered. Where is it you need to meet Jesus?
Wherever we meet Jesus, the road always takes us to the cross. Bartimaeus throws off his cloak and James and John along with all the crowds gathered to journey up the dangerous road from Jericho to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, the meal of freedom and what turns into Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem where a parade takes place where many more cloaks and branches are laid before Jesus and shouts of “Save us” ring throughout the people. “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” (Mark 11:9-10)
God meets us through his son, Jesus and takes us all the way through glory, through betrayal, through suffering, through death, through the promise of resurrected life and through the whole of our journey bringing us to God, to see God clearly.
Celebrating Reformation, the idea that we still need to look again and be shaped and formed by God’s creative hands so that we can see more of what God is up to as we see what God has been busy at in our history and in each day and for all our days. May the joy and spirit of reformation live strong in each and every one of us!
Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,
Pastor Connie Spitzack
