Saturday of 1st Sunday in Advent - Mark 2:13-22

Saturday of First Sunday in Advent
Mark 2:13-22

Most who have read and studied the Bible at all know that the parable of the new wine into old wineskins is Jesus’ teaching on the coming of the New Covenant and the necessity of the Old Covenant being abolished. Because of the radically new nature of the New Covenant (even though there is remarkable continuity as well), the New Covenant manifests itself in new ways that the Old Covenant was not capable of containing. Most importantly, the coming of God in the flesh and all of the cosmic implications of the ministry of Christ meant that the fulfillment of the Old Covenant had come.

This much we know. But if you’re like me, sometimes when reading a portion of the Scripture that has a particular historical fulfillment, I feel as if the passage seems somewhat remote from me. It would be possible and appropriate to meditate on this passage in light of the surpassing excellence of the New Covenant. We could, for example, go down a list of reasons to rejoice because the true High Priest, Temple, Sacrifice, etc. are here. And such a meditation would be fruitful for the soul.

But I want to meditate today on the new wine in the old wineskins in my life and yours. Of course such an application would not be possible without first understanding the coming of the New Covenant, but often I find that I need a more immediate application of God’s grace. After all, the Kingdom of God is at hand in my life, as I sit here writing this in December of 2006.

The sad fact is that I often feel like (and actually am) an old wineskin. I don’t just mean that the body is losing its war of attrition against time: I mean that many days I wake up and I am the same old person. With the new day I seem to clothe myself in heaviness and to pick up the heavy load I left by the side of my bed the night before. I dutifully saddle my back with it and go out into the world, and another day passes much as the days before.

It’s a comfortable arrangement, this old wine in old wineskins. I’ve hardly even noticed that the wine is kind of sour and gritty. I drink it to drink it, because it’s there, and because I’m supposed to. It’s really become a part of me, and at least with the old wine in old wineskins I know what I’m getting today.

But praise God that He offers me a source of new wine! I do get tired of the old wine, now that I think about it and see an alternative. By comparison with this explosive new wine, the old is flat and vinegary and dirty. When I seek God again, He pours for me His new wine. Maybe it’s that I’m stirred by reading His Word or hearing it in a sermon. Maybe it’s the wise counsel of a brother or sister in Christ, or the brightness of the sun on a winter day, or the child resting in my arms, or the whispering of the Holy Spirit through my conscience. There are many ways God offers His new wine, though all come through Christ.

We’ve all experienced the bite of the first taste of the new wine coming. But too often, we are in a hurry to get on with our “lives,” and all we do is sip the new wine. We leave, satisfied for an exciting new experience that cheers up our day temporarily and adjusts our attitude so we can continue in our old ways again for the rest of the day.

But what God really wants and what we really need is not to sip and run but to sit down and eat and drink with the Lord. We need to relish His good gifts to us and savor them and to linger in His company, intoxicated again with His glory and power and love.

What I want is for the new wine to flow freely and not to have a sip once a month or so. Therefore, what I need to do is to sit down and spend some time with God, finishing the first cup He gives me and asking for more, if He so pleases.

But I do not desire this new wine the way I should. Somehow I’m “too busy” or have “more important” things to do. And I wonder why my old life is still full of vinegar and sets my teeth on edge! The problem is that I am trying to put God’s new wine into my old wineskin. I’m trying, in the flesh, to continue in the flesh while enacting a “drive-by-sipping” of God’s new wine.

What I need is for God to make a new skin for me, as He did with Adam and Eve in the Garden. I need Him to cover me with the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ that the new wine of the Holy Spirit may fill me again. To do this, I must be willing to trade in my old wineskin, that is, the flesh and its ways. To put on the new wineskin that is Jesus Christ and sanctification, I must also take off the old man through the process of mortification.

I need to fervently ask Him to give me this new wine and to make me willing to get rid of my old wineskins. I’d better be ready, because for God to transform me and clothe me with the new wineskin of His Son means that I will have to change. I will have to give up my old ways, my old skin that cannot contain the Holy Spirit. I will need to ask God to make me a fit vessel for His grace and then to freely partake of this grace when it’s offered to me.

If I attempt to accept God’s new wine of the Holy Spirit in me, I’d better accept the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ first. Otherwise, what will happen is that the grace that God so freely pours into my life will expand and split my old wineskin, and the new wine will be wasted.

The new wine of the Holy Spirit has come to fill the new wineskin of the Body of Christ, the Church. And we are called to be made new.

Now that I think about it, I am kind of tired of this old wineskin, and the wine has been upsetting my stomach and making me pout a lot. I think I’ll go immediately and seek the new wine and the new wineskin.

Resolution: I resolve today to set aside some time to seek God with a renewed spirit.

Prayer: Father, thank You for sending us the new wine of Your Holy Spirit and for making us Your new wineskin through our Lord Jesus Christ. Fill me with Your Spirit today, and help me to take off the Old Man that the New Man Jesus Christ may live in me. I know that You have been offering Your grace to me many times each day and I have ignored or refused it. Please help me to see You and accept You however You choose to come to me today. Amen.



Points for Resolution:
1. Meditate on a time in your life when God’s new wine in your life was sweet – and give thanks.
2. If you are still storing old wine in old wineskins, consider one way in which God has brought You His new wine in the past. Then seek Him in that way today.
3. Make a petition for God’s new wine in your life part of your daily prayer life.


© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Friday of First Sunday in Advent - Mark 2:1-12

It’s easy to think of the miracles of Jesus as being ordinary occurrences. After all, we’re only halfway through Mark 2, and already we’ve heard about 4 specific miracles, as well as references to multiple miracles. The New Testament is so saturated with miracles, especially the Gospels where Jesus lives, that at times I wonder if I live in the same world where Jesus lived.

I wonder, “Where are all the miracles in my life?” But such an attitude produces a kind of envy in me, and envy drives out contentment and thanksgiving. What I forget is that most people in Jesus’ day, even with Him seemingly performing miracles in every nook and cranny of Israel, never saw one of his miracles and if they did, they probably only saw one.

What I also conveniently forget is the quiet miracle of Christ in me that I wake to every morning. Jesus doesn’t need to perform an additional miracle for me because He’s already doing one, by the mere fact of His presence in me through the gift of His Holy Spirit.

The truth is that when I gaze more intently at this miracle of Jesus healing the paralytic, I am right there, smack dab in the middle of God’s wondrous work. I like to think of myself as one of the guys who carried the paralytic to Jesus. As a father and pastor, this is in fact exactly what I do. But it is also true for me simply as a Christian.

Maybe it’s less that I see myself in this miracle than that I see this miracle in me, for like the miracle of the leper, this is the story of my life and the story of your life. As in verse two, Jesus preaches the Word to us, and, as in this miracle, there is often an obstruction to my hearing His Word the way I should. In this case, there were so many people around Jesus that the friends of the paralytic couldn’t bring him close enough to Jesus to be healed.

In our cases, our chief obstacles are the busy-ness of our schedules and the demands we place on our lives that crowd out Jesus and His miracle in our lives. We populate our lives with a day crowded by Things I Must Do Today. The funny thing is that “Going to Experience the Miracle of God’s Presence” doesn’t ever seem to get scheduled in.

Jesus is present in the lives of the paralytic and his friends, as He is in ours, but there is an obstacle. He is ready to breathe out on us His life-giving Word and to touch us with His grace. But something or some things are in our way. What are we to do?

We’re supposed to do what the friends of the paralytic did, and that is to determine what the obstacle is and find a way around it. The grace of Jesus is near us, through His Word and His presence, but often we are supposed to go and find Jesus and to so order our lives that we overcome whatever it is that is in our way.

In this case, the friends of the paralytic uncovered the roof so that the paralytic could go through it. I think of this as like prayer. Sometimes the heavens seem shut up before us so that God is hidden and we can’t seem to get any closer. But in prayer, we uncover the wall of partition that separates us from God, and once again we are able to see God. Like the friends of the paralytic, when we pray, we often “break through” and find God on the other side. The good news is that even a paralytic like me is able to pray.

At what point in the story of the paralytic and his friends does Jesus heal the paralytic? It’s after they had acted to remove the obstacle that stood in the way of their coming to Jesus. At this point, Jesus says to them, when He saw their faith, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”

Jesus could obviously see the need of the paralytic, but what He waited for was to see the faith of those who brought him to Jesus. Notice how Jesus saw their faith. Their faith was not some invisible force that only the X-ray vision of Jesus could see. Instead, their faith was their faithfulness in taking the necessary action to place themselves before Jesus and His power and grace.

How often do we lament the lack of miracles in our lives and the seeming remoteness of Jesus? As often as we refuse to pray and act faithfully to draw near to Him. By the grace of God, sometimes He mercifully descends to us, even when we are not trying very hard to see Him.

But I find that more often He waits to see the faith of His children, a faith that His grace has already made possible but that we often refuse to put to use. Instead of lamenting the absence of God and His miracles in your life, why not seek Him today? Why not investigate the obstacles in your life that keep you from Him and determine to remove them? Uncover the roofs in your life that put a limit on the grace of God, and break through to the presence of God that is the daily miracle in your life.

Resolution and Point for Meditation: I resolve today to investigate the obstacles in my life that keep me from seeing Jesus. Some possibilities are: an attachment to the things of this world; poor choices in my use of time; valuing leisure time pursuits over time with God; discouragement from the apparent remoteness of God; a feeling of weakness or lack of faith; an unwillingness to come before God because He will probably convict you of your sins; and many others.
Whatever the obstacle, prayerfully consider what action you are supposed to take so that seeing Jesus becomes a daily pursuit of yours.

Prayer: Praise be to You, Father, that You have uncovered the roof that separated the earth from Your heaven and that You have torn down the dividing wall between God and man. Praise be to You, Jesus, because You stand ready to forgive those who come to you freely confessing their sins and seeking forgiveness. Praise be to You, Holy Spirit, for the continuing miracle of Pentecost in our lives. Amen.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Thursday of First Sunday in Advent - Mark 1:40-45

Imagine that you are a leper. Imagine that you have a disease which began several years ago with a chronic fatigue and pains in the joints. This part of the disease was something like fibromyalgia - but it gets worse. Parts of your skin become discolored, and little nodules form on this discolored skin. First they are pink and then brown, and they begin to populate especially your cheeks, your nose, your lips, and your forehead – essentially your face. These nodules grow larger over time, and they develop into sores from which comes a stinking discharge. Others tell you that your eyebrows have begun to fall out, and your face takes on the look of a lion or satyr. The sores begin to spread, your breath begins to wheeze, and your mind begins to decay. You may have been lucky enough to escape some of these symptoms but only at the expense of gradually losing sensation in the nerves of your limbs and having your hands and feet covered with sores and lose all feeling. In this case you survive 20-30 years instead of only 9.

Along with your biological suffering comes your social suffering. You have become an outcast, an untouchable, and live in a segregated world in which there are separate facilities. You live outside the city, and your only peers are others as sick or sicker than you are. People look at you as if you are demon-possessed, and you are required to cry out, not for mercy, but that you are “Unclean! Unclean!”

But one day you hear that a man named Jesus is coming near. You’ve heard that he has healed many others – even those worse off than you and who are possessed by a demon. At this point, you have nothing to lose. It seems so unlikely. It’s not supposed to be done.

But you approach this Jesus, wondering if He, like so many others, will simply redirect his steps and eyes to avoid you. You are not sure of yourself, you have some doubts, and yet you really believe this man may be more than a man.

You approach him and cry out, with a voice you had intended to be heroic and yet pitiful, but it comes out something more like laryngitis. He may not have heard you, and so you come closer to kneel and repeat: “If you are willing – you can make me clean.”

Jesus stops. This is a good sign, and yet you wonder why. His face changes. It is a face you have not seen in a long time – a face of compassion, of one whose body has been moved by your condition.

And then he does the unthinkable, even to you: he reaches out to touch your hand, knowing that he will now become like you, unclean. This great man, who a small crowd has been following, actually touches you. It feels like the hand of God, for only God or a madman would dare to touch someone like you.

For the first time in so long you can’t remember someone who is not a leper speaks kindly to you. But it’s not the pitying kind of kindness – it’s a powerful kindness that is both love and authority.

He says, simply, “I am willing. Be cleansed!”

You have the strangest feeling of synesthesia: you experience so many things simultaneously that you think you must have died and gone to heaven. At the same time that you hear the voice, the fog is lifted from your mind and your eyes become clear again. Colors and shapes suddenly have a new meaning. Your body has stopped aching, and you stand up straight. And most of all, you rediscover your soul.

“Clean! I’m clean!” you say.

Jesus strictly warns you not to tell anyone but to go immediately to see the priest and offer the sacrifice for being cleansed.

You obey immediately, whispering with a newfound strength, “Clean! I’m clean!”

Though there’s some debate about which disease this is in the New Testament, it may well have been Hanson’s disease, which we usually associate with leprosy. Regardless, the drama of this terrible disease is the drama of your life, and what Jesus did for this leper in Mark 1 He has also done for you.

It intrigues me that the same Greek word means both to save and to heal, and the miraculous healings in the Bible are actually the miraculous salvation of God in our lives.

You are that leper. You are the one who is afflicted with a terrible and progressive disease. You are the one who will one day die and who, because of your sin, will be progressively separated not only from human contact but also from the grace of God. Lepers were commonly known as “the living dead,” and that is what we all once were. We walk around with the sentence of death upon us, awaiting an even worse fate.

And then one day, we fall on our knees before Him, saying, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” And Jesus, moved with compassion, stretches out His hand to you, touches you, and says, “I AM willing. Be clean!”

And you are made clean.

You were made clean because the King of kings whose kingdom is now here because He chose to become a leper like you. He risked touching you and took upon Himself your disease of sin and death.

The story of this leper is your story. We can all imagine with what joy, praise, and thanksgiving this leper went to make his sacrifice. But I’m amazed at how many Christians walk through life as if they are still the living dead – spiritual zombies. If only we knew, if only we remembered what Jesus, out of compassion, has done for us, we would remember the uncleanness of sin that was once ours. We would remember the complete separation from the society of God that was our birthright.

And we would remember to make our lives a joyful whole burnt offering of praise and thanksgiving.

Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, thank You for coming to me, a leper, in Your compassion. Thank You for touching one so unclean and for making me clean through Your blood which washes away my sins. All praise be to You Father, through Your Son who has come once again to save His people. Amen.


Resolution and Point for Meditation: I resolve today to meditate on how Jesus has healed me from my sins and made me clean and fit to live in His presence again. I resolve today to remember this throughout the day and to offer up the appropriate sacrifice of a life of praise and thanksgiving.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Wednesday of Advent 1 - Mark 1:29-39

Why did Jesus Christ come into the world? Sometimes we think it was only to die on the Cross, and of course the Crucifixion and Resurrection are central to understanding the ministry of our Lord.

But if all He did was come to die on the Cross, then why did He spend three years ministering publicly before then? It’s important in the work of Jesus our Lord that we don’t separate one part of His ministry from the others. Jesus came to die on the Cross to save sinners, but how could He die on the Cross unless He were first born and took on human nature to redeem it? And it’s not as if He only took on human nature only so He could die – He came to redeem our fallen nature, and this relates to His whole ministry.

The birth of Jesus, His public ministry, His death, His Resurrection, His Ascension, His sending of the Holy Spirit, and His session and ruling at the right hand of the Father are all part of the same ministry of reconciliation and redemption. Returning to our idea of perichoresis, we might see all of the parts of the ministry of Jesus Christ as interpenetrating all of the others.

Therefore, what Jesus did for three years, even before His path to the Cross is important for us and instructs us. And what do we find Him doing? He is baptized, or anointed as God’s Messiah. He is tempted and defeats the Devil. But especially He comes to teach about Himself. This teaching takes two forms that also must never be separated: His words and His deeds.

Verse 28 of Mark 1 is a fascinating verse. After Jesus has just cast out a demon, the people don’t just say, “Wow! What is this new power you have?” Instead, they say, “What new doctrine is this?” In their minds the miracles Jesus performed were clearly related to what He taught regarding Himself and His Kingdom. When Jesus taught in verse 21 in Capernaum in the synagogue, the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught as one having authority. This authority and teaching was then confirmed by the miracles of Jesus, especially in casting out demons (Jesus has authority over Satan and His forces) and in healing (Jesus has authority over creation and human bodies.)

Therefore, in today’s lesson, we find Jesus healing again and teaching.

When Jesus healed, therefore, He healed because He came to redeem the world, including our sick bodies. But He didn’t heal everyone. In fact, He couldn’t have healed everyone even if He had wanted to because He was limited to being in one place at a time.

In our lives, Jesus is not obligated to heal our bodies, even though we know that ultimately because of His life on our behalf we shall all be completely healed in heaven. But He heals us sometimes that our faith might be increased. His work in our lives is primarily to proclaim Himself to us. As in His day, this comes through the words and deeds He performs in our midst.

In fact, if we look for it, we will see that Jesus is constantly at work in our lives. Sometimes, when we have had minor illnesses (even as I write this, St. Chrys is being wiped out by a stomach virus), Jesus heals us, and we don’t even notice because it naturally would have gone away. But isn’t it His grace the same?

Often, when we withdraw to a solitary place to pray and offer up our problems to Him, He heals us. And often we don’t return thanks because we haven’t seen it as His work.

How many times does His Word come to you each day? If you are reading your Bible every day, He comes at least once every day. But doesn’t He also come to be with you and redeem you throughout the day, as the Scripture you have ingested and digested becomes a part of you and feeds you throughout the day?

I’m convinced that for those who have been faithful Christians for a long time and have faithfully maintained the godly habits of Bible reading and prayer, that Jesus proclaims Himself to you in silent ways that are subconscious because He has become so much of a part of your life. Through the testimony of the Holy Spirit, as He permeates your being, your natural habits are trained to become godly habits. Each of these is, in reality, Jesus speaking and ministering to you through His Spirit.

Sometimes I lament the lack of miracles in my own life (the advent of Jacqueline, my wife, is the one exception). But then I remember that Jesus is with me through His Spirit in a more powerful way. Instead of having one dramatic moment with Jesus, He offers me a continual feast with Him. When I accept the invitation, we eat together throughout the day in a quiet way with very little drama but a high degree of satiety.

What’s even more amazing is that because He has sent His Holy Spirit to us, He can work in all of our lives at once and is no longer limited to just Capernaum or Jerusalem at a given moment.
The same Jesus who came with such authority to Capernaum and Peter’s mother-in-law and the synagogues of Galilee is here with us today. Let’s respond with amazement, praise, and obedience.

Prayer: Praise be to You, Lord Jesus Christ, because You have come with authority into my life. Thank You for ministering to me every day, through Your Word and through Your actions on my behalf. Give me eyes to see You again, and heal me, that I may arise and serve others in Your name. Amen.



Resolution and Point for Meditation: I resolve to meditate today on the ways Jesus Christ reveals Himself to me each day. I further resolve to seek His presence each day and to acknowledge the ways He has come to me. If possible, I will re-discover one way He has been coming to me that I have been ignoring.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson

Tuesday of 1st Sunday in Advent - Mark 1:14-28

It’s here! The time is fulfilled! The Kingdom of God is at hand!

He’s here! The Messiah has come! The King of kings is at hand!

This is the message of Advent and Christmas, the message of the New Covenant, and the message of our lives.

Sometimes we seem to believe only in the eschatological coming of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom. We know that Jesus will come again, and we know that He came and lived on earth for about 33 years. But then we seem to think that He isn’t around anymore. While it’s true that He sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven, He sent His Holy Spirit to be His presence among and in us. Oh, and by the way, what is He doing at the Right Hand? Ruling over His kingdom!

Jesus Christ came as a man that He may dwell among men – and not just for 3 short years, never to be among us again. Immanuel: God is with us. This is not only an Old Testament prophecy that was fulfilled but a present reality for every true Christian.

Dallas Willard, in his Divine Conspiracy, sees the Kingdom of God as meaning essentially the rule of God in our lives. God’s ruling power is now available to mankind, through Jesus Christ who became man. Our kingdom, Willard says, is the range of our effective will. It is the realm of choice that we have and is related to our being made in the likeness of God. It is our ability to go and take dominion over the earth.

But this Kingdom of God was invisible for so long and burst forth only at key moments, it seemed, in the Old Covenant. The rule we were supposed to have in union with God was taken from us so that we became ungovernable and used our God-given powers for our own selfish purposes.

But when Jesus Christ became man, was baptized, and began His public ministry, all this changed. The King of kings descended and become man, and now man was able, through Jesus, to once again rule over creation with God.

That the Kingdom of God had come because the King had come is clear from Mark 1, for what do we find there? We find that Satan is defeated in the first fight between Jesus and Satan (he also loses the rematch at Calvary), that Jesus gathers disciples who will follow Him, that these disciples will make other disciples, that demons are cast out, people healed, and the Kingdom of God preached. All in Chapter 1. I told you Mark was like a literary John the Baptist!

The Kingdom of God is here!

But if the King is here and God now dwells with man, then we should find man ruling with God again. And we do. We find it in Jesus’ calling of His disciples. Now that the King has come and has brought His Kingdom with Him, the first thing He does is share it with man. So he chooses four fishermen to be His disciples. Those who used to feed off earthly food now seek the heavenly food which is Jesus Himself. Because they have accepted the rule of Jesus in their lives, they immediately leave their fishing nets and fathers, follow Jesus and begin the life of a disciple.

More than this, they are elected to spread the Kingdom of God by making disciples themselves. Those who before only caught fish were now commissioned to catch men, to bring them under the rule of the King of kings.

The Kingdom of God was therefore manifested especially in the lives of people who submitted to the rule of the King and to those who have given up their own petty and selfish kingdom and have bowed the knee to the King of kings. When we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” we are praying that God’s kingdom will come because His will is being done. That is the measure of where God’s kingdom is at: it’s wherever His rule is accepted.

The spread of the Kingdom begins with us, but we must all be faithful disciples who then spread His Kingdom by making disciples of others, that is, by bringing their lives progressively under His rule. We are all called to be fishers of men.

You have heard the call of John the Baptist: now hear the call of Jesus Christ. The kingdom of God is at hand! It is here, among you, within you, by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, live as if you are in the Kingdom of Heaven – because you are! Repent from your sins, that God alone may rule in your heart again. Believe in the gospel, a belief you will demonstrate to the world both by what you say and by what you do.

Be a disciple! But being a true disciple requires that at some point you will also be manifesting God’s kingdom by making more disciples.

The Kingdom of God is at hand! God has come to rule among His people again. This Advent, make it your goal to accept the rule of the King of kings by being His faithful disciple. Since He lives in you, go out and make other disciples.

But don’t worry, the One who is asking you to be a faithful disciple is also the One who reigns in you and will shower you with every gift necessary to do His loving will.

Prayer: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us or trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Points for Meditation:
1. Do you believe that the Kingdom of God is here? Spend some time today cultivating an awareness that the Kingdom of God is within you and around you because the King is here.
2. As you prepare for the day, remind yourself that you are living in the Kingdom of God. Imagine the decisions and actions you will take today and how they can be brought under the rule of God.
3. Meditate on how much of your life has been brought under God’s rule. Examine one area which you have not surrendered to God, and carefully consider what steps you might take to surrender it to Him.

Resolution: I resolve today to meditate on the meaning of the Kingdom of God already being here because the King is here.

© 2008 Fr. Charles Erlandson