You did what, now?
by Sal Huckel
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‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working’ … [Jesus] was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God (John 5:17,18b).
Read John 5:17–23
Fancy accusing God of working on the Sabbath! Yet here we have (preceding an important passage showing without a doubt the deity of Jesus) the legalistic accusation that Jesus was breaking the Sabbath. This is on the back of an amazing, miraculous healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda. This was a place of sorcery and false worship; it failed the man for years and years, and Jesus showed without a shadow of a doubt that he could heal and forgive sins in a moment.
As you read today’s passage, what stands out to you the most? The legalism of the Jewish leaders who couldn’t see that Jesus had worked a miracle? Or the freedom that we have in Christ, freeing us from legalism and ritual for the sake of ritual? Or the explanation Jesus gives in what we may struggle to comprehend in an almost circular or riddle-like fashion? Truly, this speech is worth taking time over today, to unpack and slowly think through the message. Whatever we say about Jesus, we are saying about God. Whatever we say about God, we are saying about Jesus. You will come across people saying all sorts of things about Jesus. Here we have a wonderful passage in which Jesus makes it clear who he is.
If you have never read the Athanasian Creed, seek it out and read it. It is one of the three creeds in the Book of Concord and contains the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of the true church.
Lord Jesus, thank you for revealing God to us and showing us the way to the Father. May my life, words and actions point to you: you are the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through you. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Sal is the wife of Matthew, pastor at Moorabbin–Dandenong Lutheran Church and assistant bishop of the LCA Vic–Tas District. They are blessed with six children who all love and serve the Lord in their different walks of life, from high school to post-grad. Sal is currently studying a master’s degree in counselling practice. She loves writing, speaking and walking to the beach at any opportunity.
What an inaugural vision that was!
by Sal Huckel
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking (Ezekiel 1:28b).
Read Ezekiel 1:4–6,22–28
Perhaps for you, like me, today’s reading is a challenge to relate to or even picture in our mind’s eye. This is Ezekiel’s ‘inaugural’ vision! Wow, the first time he heard from the Lord, this is what it was like. Ezekiel’s ‘entry-level’ experience!
Some of us will have had dramatic experiences of the Lord, while others, quietly growing and maturing in their faith, may never have experienced anything they would consider interesting to others or worth writing down for all to see.
Long ago, hearing those kinds of stories had me doubt if I was really saved (can you tell I wasn’t Lutheran yet?!). Yet now I share snippets of God’s work in my life when things come up in conversation, amazing passages I may have read and had a realisation over, or a lightbulb moment in church that I write down to think about later when I hear a verse of Scripture that is a treasure for a particular kind of question.
So, what do you make of today’s passage? Perhaps it’s a reflection opportunity: what was your ‘inaugural experience’ of the Lord? Or perhaps it’s the descriptions used in connection with the Lord’s voice (‘roar of rushing waters’, ‘tumult of an army’). How did Ezekiel recognise the likeness of the Lord? We may have so many questions. We see so many descriptions of different encounters of the Lord in Scripture and so many descriptors of his voice.
One thing we know: we hear his voice in Scripture. This is where we find him; this is how we recognise him. ‘My sheep know my voice’ (John 10:27). Stay in Scripture, learn his voice, and follow and recognise only him.
Lord, may I steep myself in your word so much so that I can never mistake anyone’s voice for yours. Thank you for guiding me through my faith journey so far: the valleys, the mountaintops, the parts that seemed ordinary and the wild rides as well. May I use my experience and my testimony to show others who you are and how they can recognise you too. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Sal is the wife of Matthew, pastor at Moorabbin–Dandenong Lutheran Church and assistant bishop of the LCA Vic–Tas District. They are blessed with six children who all love and serve the Lord in their different walks of life, from high school to post-grad. Sal is currently studying a master’s degree in counselling practice. She loves writing, speaking and walking to the beach at any opportunity.
‘Of kings and emperors’
by Sal Huckel
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
No one is like you, Lord; you are great, and your name is mighty in power (Jeremiah 10:6).
Read Jeremiah 10:6–16
This week, my family and I visited the ‘ROME: Empire, Power, People’ exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. My children are better educated than I was at their age, so they explained to me the significance of the statues and buildings erected in honour of emperors. Apparently, there were two ways to cement your legacy as an emperor:
- Win a war and add a province to the Empire.
- Construct a public building – a palace or a temple with your name on it (preferably both).
Bad news, emperors! ‘No one is like you, Lord; you are great and your name is mighty in power … Among all the wise leaders of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is no one like you’ (Jeremiah 10:6,7).
As if that’s not enough: ‘They are all senseless and foolish; they are taught by worthless wooden idols.’
However we feel about the ‘King’s Speech 2.0’ (as we hear and maybe even cheer for King Charles’ recent rhetoric in the USA), we know that our great and almighty God made the earth by his power! One cannot add to these words, so let’s read them together (Jeremiah 10:12,13):
But God made the earth by his power;
he founded the world by his wisdom
and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar;
he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth.
He sends lightning with the rain
and brings out the wind from his storehouses.
Friends! This is our God!
We pray the final verse of the hymn ‘The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended’ by John Ellerton (1870):
‘So be it, Lord; thy throne shall never like earth’s proud empires, pass away. Thy kingdom stands, and grows forever till all thy creatures own thy sway.’ Lord, thank you for adding me to the people of your inheritance (verse 16). My great and almighty God through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Sal is the wife of Matthew, pastor at Moorabbin–Dandenong Lutheran Church and assistant bishop of the LCA Vic–Tas District. They are blessed with six children who all love and serve the Lord in their different walks of life, from high school to post-grad. Sal is currently studying a master’s degree in counselling practice. She loves writing, speaking and walking to the beach at any opportunity.
