Mark – Dreams from a Pilgrimage

The_Denial_of_St._Peter_-_Gerard_Seghers_-_Google_Cultural_Institute

Mark 14: 66-72

While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came by. When she saw Peter warming himself, she looked closely at him.

“You also were with that Nazarene, Jesus,” she said.

But he denied it. “I don’t know or understand what you’re talking about,” he said, and went out into the entryway.

When the servant girl saw him there, she said again to those standing around, “This fellow is one of them.”Again he denied it.

After a little while, those standing near said to Peter, “Surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.”

He began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know this man you’re talking about.”

Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times.” And he broke down and wept.

Continue reading “Love and Fear in the Believer” →

BOO73057 — The Healing of the Blind Man of Jericho, central panel of triptych, 1531 (oil on canvas transferred from panel), Leyden, Lucas van (c.1494-1533) / Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia / The Bridgeman Art Library

“Master, I want to see!” (Mark 10: 51)

How many times have I been in conversations with a beloved saint, desperate for relief from their pain or sorrow, who would cry out, “If only I could see His face!” How many times have I been in circumstances where I have pleaded with my Savior, “Only let me see You and I can bear even this, Lord!” And in each case the darkness simply seems to increase and our words seem only to echo back to us, mocking us from the black hole of our despair.

Why?

The request seems simple enough. Even praiseworthy. We’re not asking for mountains to be moved or miracles to be performed. Just a reassuring glimpse of the One who died to save us.

“Master, I want to see!” Jesus healed the blind man who asked for his vision. But what if the blind man refused to see? What if he had gone back to acting as if he were still blind and sat begging for money from passersby once more? How foolish that would be! How truly blind!

Yet that’s how I am when, in the crucible of trial, I employ lightly the faith I have been given by my heavenly Father (Eph. 2:8). I trade something “more precious than gold” (1 Pet. 1: 7) for what I have not yet been given but will be given on that day when Christ Jesus returns.

Twice in his letter the writer of Hebrews tells us to “consider Jesus” (3:1, 12:3). He wasn’t saying it mockingly as one who taunts the blind. He was saying it to the elect of the church, the body of Christ, who had once lived in “the domain of darkness” (Col. 1:13) but now were “children of light” (1 Thess. 5:5). Only these had the eyes of faith to see, to “consider Him . . . so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted” (12:3).

So then let us hold fast to this sight we have been given, look with faith at our Lord Jesus, and say with the Psalmist, “I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken” (16:8).