Jesus Teaches in the Temple

The 14th Sunday in Ordinary time
                                                              Gospel

                                           Mark 6:1-6

Jesus departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples. When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They said, "Where did this man get all this?
What kind of wisdom has been given him?
What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!
Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary,
and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?
And are not his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house." So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.

If Mark's Gospel were a newspaper it would be a headline like in any newspaper — meaning that the syntax is short and punchy, to the point and direct. There is a perception that a tabloid newspaper is inferior to a broadsheet (or compact) and in many ways it is. However, the great skill of this medium is in its journalistic craft, its ability to grab a reader's attention, and Mark has this skill in abundance. So much is packed into these verses today. It is a rich vein, to adopt a mining analogy, of insight, treasure and revelation. Let's get mining!

Who are we following when we say we are 'Christians'? The question seems so obvious that most of us think it a silly question even to ask: it's obviously 'Jesus', isn't it? But the question is not silly, nor is the answer obvious, because who Jesus is and what he means to us is far from obvious. Indeed, it is because it is anything but obvious that there have been so many disputes down the centuries among Christians, and there is a whole branch of Christian theology called 'Christology'.

Let us begin by noting that most people like 'to keep it simple' — and that means they imagine there should be a simple answer to the question 'who is Jesus?' — but the reality is that life is complex, and the more any issue involves human beings, the more complex life becomes. Everyone knows that her/his human relationships are complex — how many of us can really say 'I know myself!' — so why think that understanding Jesus is easy?

The situation recorded in today's gospel shows a reaction that must have been widespread: the local people have Jesus in one box in their imaginations: he is the guy from down the road —they know him, his brothers and sisters, and his background. For anyone who comes from their town they have a box for what they expect for and from that person: fine to get him to do a job for you, fine to go to the well with his sisters, fine to engage with them socially. That's all there is to them: another family, just like us, and they should not think of themselves as anything special. So if Jesus stands up and presents himself as a leader, that is just not quite what they expect of him!

On the other hand, they have heard him in the synagogue: he comes across as one filled with wisdom, he is a teacher like they have heard, he speaks in a way they have always imagined a prophet would speak. They have another box marked 'prophet' and he seems to fit there too! But that box comes with a label: prophets are very distant from everyday life, they are exceptional in every way, they are 'not like us'.

So when these people find that Jesus ticking both the box marked 'prophet' and ticking the box marked 'ordinary person' / 'regular guy' /'one of our own,' they cannot cope with this complexity. So, since they are more sure that he is the guy down the road, they reject him as a prophet.

Faith is the ability to imagine that God's goodness is greater and closer than the bits-and-pieces around us and the ups-and downs of life. In this case, faith was the ability to imagine that God was so close that Jesus was both the guy from down the road and the great prophet and the wise teacher and more besides. But the group could not make that leap of imagination —and Jesus was amazed at their lack of faith.

Would we have been among that group that could not imagine that God's goodness was that close? Can Jesus also be amazed at our lack of faith, even though we have read and hear so much about him from down through the ages by countless prophets and Evangelists.

Surely not! After all, we are Christians, who publicly declare our faith in Jesus each week in the creed. We say that we have faith and that we believe. We say we know that Jesus is “God with us”.

However, we, too, have problems of our own in imagining the goodness of God coming close to us in Jesus. For many people, it is fine to think of Jesus as a wise teacher —a proclaimer of great religious or moral truths — and as such one who should inspire us to high ideals. This is all true, but is there a label on that box which may say to us: 'Not needed on a day-to-day basis in life'?

Mark has one clear goal and purpose in this Gospel passage, which is to lead his readers to understand that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah and to help them open up their hearts and minds to grasp what this truly means, that he is also God made man. Mark does this, however, against the backdrop of the resistance, unbelief and rejection which were part and parcel of Jesus' public ministry.

Isn’t that also true of our belief in Jesus, today. How do we view this Jesus who came to us as a man, but in reality, is God? Can we grasp this awesome concept? Can we understand that the life and ministry of Jesus is in reality God among us, showing us the possibility of what we can become if only we have faith and belief in him? Can God really care for us that much that he chooses to be right there among us? And if we do believe that, what does that mean for our own lives? Does it change our reality? Does it change the belief of what we can become and what we need to do for those around us?

These are questions that we each have to answer for ourselves. In truth it is easier to believe that Jesus was nothing special and neither are we. But, with God’s help, we can become all that God wants to love us to be. We only have to be aware and to recognize that great love that is being offered to us. Think about it. Free will is an awesome responsibility, but it is also God’s awesome gift to us. How will we use it?

                                               Valentine Faith Community
                                                     Mass: 10AM Every Sunday
                                                       2670 Chandler Avenue
                                                         Suite 7 & 8
                                                           Las Vegas, NV 89120
                                                  702-523-8963 Rev Sue Provost, Pastor

"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. " (1 John 4:9-10)

Healing Presence of Jesus

The 13th Sunday in Ordinary time

Gospel

Mark 5:21-43

When Jesus had crossed again to the other shore, a large crowd gathered, and so he stayed by the lakeside. Then, one of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came forward, and seeing Jesus, fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with Jesus, saying,
"My daughter is at the point of death. Please! - Come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live."
Jesus went with him, and a large crowd followed, pressing upon him from all sides. Now in the crowd, there was a woman who had been afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years;She had suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and had spent all that she had seeking a cure. Yet she was not helped but only grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and she came up secretly behind him in the crowd, and touched his cloak. She had told herself, "If I can touch even just the hem of his clothes, I shall be made well again." Immediately, after touching Jesus' cloak, her flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. And Jesus, aware at once that healing power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"
The disciples said to Jesus, "You see how the crowd is pressing upon you, and yet you ask, 'Who touched me?'" But Jesus continued to look around to see who had done it. Then the woman, realizing what had happened to her, approached in fear and trembling. She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth. He said to her, " My daughter, your faith has saved you; go in peace and be free of your affliction."

While Jesus was still speaking, some people from the synagogue official's house arrived and said to him, "Your daughter has died; why trouble the Teacher any longer?" Disregarding this message that was reported, Jesus said to the synagogue official, "Come, and Do not be afraid; just have faith." Jesus did not allow anyone to accompany him
except Peter, James, and James' brother, John.
When they arrived at the house of the synagogue official, Jesus caught sight of a huge commotion, with people weeping and wailing unrestrainedly. So he went in and said to them, "Why all this commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep." At this, they all began to ridicule Jesus, so he put them all outside. Jesus took the child's father and mother and his own companions and entered the room where the girl lay. Taking her hand, he said to her, "Talitha, koum," which means, "Little girl, I say to you, arise!" Immediately, the girl, a child of twelve, arose and began to walk around. At this, all were overcome with astonishment. Jesus, though, gave strict orders that no one should know of this and told the family to give the little girl something to eat.

In all three synoptic gospels, the raising of Jairus' daughter and the cure of the woman with the 12-yr hemorrhage are combined, one story sandwiched within the other -- the term for which is "intercalation".This suggests that the 2 stories can be better understood in relation to each other...indeed, that one interprets the other.

There are several similarities between the two stories...both have to do with the curing of women--women who both for different reasons were considered by their society to be useless in their present condition;both women remain nameless; both of their circumstances render them unclean (the young girl becomes a corpse, and the woman's bleeding makes her continuously unclean and untouchable)........both are 'as good as dead'...both are restored by the 'touch' of Jesus, as he rejects his culture's degradation of women. Both Jairus and the woman had a great need, they both believed that Jesus was the only one left who could help them;they both threw caution to the wind (risking ridicule and even punishment); and they both humbly fell at Jesus' feet in their worship and entreaty. The term 'daughter' recurs (Jairus describes his daughter's grave illness, and Jesus addresses the woman as 'Daughter".)

Jairus' daughter is '12 yrs old' (the normal age for marriage, perhaps already promised to someone, meaning that Jairus was facing financial loss, as well as social disgrace, in addition to personal sorrow for his daughter's illness and death) 12 yrs is the same length of time the other woman has suffered hemorrhages ( and given the life-expectancy of the time, basically, this suffering has gone on most probably, for her whole adult life) The 2 cures are very public affairs, witnessed by many....but at the same time, the cure and the resuscitation are inward and private....Both Jairus and the woman had the opposite options of fear and faith, and they both chose faith.

Let us look first at Jairus....he is described as one of the leaders of the synagogue, the main teaching institution of Israel since the time of the return from exile in the 6th century BCE. As we know, many of the Jewish authorities (whether Pharisees, scribes, or Sadducees) took issue with Jesus' preaching and actions, and determined from his earliest public life, to put him to death. Yet, here is Jairus, who not only believed that Jesus was capable of healing his daughter, but also that Jesus would do so if asked !!! It took a lot of courage, with much risk to his standing in the synagogue and in the community, for Jairus to beg for Jesus' help in such a public, demonstrative way....his faithful expectation is rewarded, as Jesus straight away starts following him to his home where his daughter lays so gravely ill.

Jairus' hope must have been short-lived though, for immediately their journey back to the house is interrupted by an unnamed woman, who picked that moment to exercise her faith and create her own commotion. In a subtle, but powerful way Mark identifies this woman with Jesus. The phrases "suffered greatly" and 'afflicted' describing her torture are the same words used by Mark in Jesus' passion predictions to describe the outcome of his journey to Jerusalem [Mk 8:31; 10:34]. Let us just picture this woman, suffering from a bleeding uterus for 12 agonizing years, going from one doctor to another, having exhausted all her funds and yet remaining unhealed. Shamed because she was labeled unclean by the rabbis and ostracized due to Levitical prohibition to touch others and to be touched, the woman was desperate. Life was ebbing out of her day by day, not to mention the debilitating stigma resulting from years of gossip and innuendo that her ailment was caused by her sin of sex...she is physically, spiritually, financially, and socially empty and alone......Then she heard of Jesus and believing he could help, traveled the 30 miles to Capernaum; but as a social outcast, she did not have the nerve to ask him for help.

Unable to really communicate with anyone else, she is described as shoring up her confidence by talking to herself...She has no one to run interference for her, no one to intercede on her behalf as Jairus did for his daughter, so she approaches Jesus secretly, from behind. Remember that people in the crowd are pressing upon Jesus from all sides, so to reach him she must push and shove and elbow her way between people when tiny openings occur. She is weak; her strength is drained, and yet she will not give up. She must reach Jesus, and so she continues to wedge her body through the crowd until she comes up behind him. She has decided in her heart, "If I can just touch the hem of his clothes, I will be healed." She does not want to confront him in public, and so is crouching low, crawling, on her knees; she is too ashamed to admit the nature of her illness, and too afraid of being rebuked and punished for mingling with others in her unclean state. She must do this without revealing anything about herself; but she must touch him....she must.

By the way, and this is the IRONY of the story, dozens of people in this crowd had been touching Jesus in these few minutes of moving towards Jarius' house, but only one (this ill, but determined woman) touched Jesus with faith that released his saving power -- so we see, that unfortunately, it is quite possible to be in the immediate vicinity of Jesus without receiving his salvation because of our own lack of faith

By law the woman's touch would have made Jesus unclean; but by His grace, just the opposite happened. "Immediately her bleeding stopped". Without a word, a look, or a touch from Jesus, she was made whole simply by believing he could heal her and by acting on that faith. But her heart must have really started to pound when Jesus, realizing that healing power had gone out from him, kept looking for the one who had done it !!... The disciples thought he was being silly; the woman thought she was caught. And Jairus??? We wonder what he was thinking !!! He just wanted Jesus to get to his house as quickly as possible....and here they were wasting, precious moments on seeking useless information!

Jesus wasn't looking to accuse the woman, but to affirm her, only at the time she did not know that -- but the same faith that enabled her to stretch out her hand to touch Jesus, now gave her the strength to step forward and tell everyone her whole story. Mark notes that the woman spoke the 'whole truth" -- similarly, Jesus is recognized even by those seeking to entrap him, as a 'truthful man' -- not concerned with anyone's opinion. Here this woman is, shunned for years, and now suddenly Jesus wants to listen to everything! Very likely she began hesitantly, and as she witnessed, with Jesus patiently and lovingly standing and listening to her every word, she continued at length, until Jesus responded with great affection and tenderness, calling her "Daughter' , thus linking her with the other 'daughter' whose life was hanging by a thread. With this single word from Jesus, 12 years of pain and isolation were swept away...In no other gospel account does Jesus use this term of endearment and respect. Daughter.

Jesus was not condemning her after all, but acknowledging her faith .......Although the witness of women is not valid in Judaism and women's testimony is not accepted later by the Christian male leaders, such as Peter [Luke 24:10-11], the witness of this woman is confirmed and celebrated by Jesus himself, thus naming her a disciple as well as a daughter.....In making her actions so very public, Jesus was saying that it wasn't his clothing, but that it was her faith that healed her, saved her, made her well and made it possible for her to return to society....this was a life-giving moment for her!!!!... but not so for Jairus....who was having to listen to a recital of 12 yrs of sickness and doctor troubles, with rising distress at what this delay meant for his own daughter.

For just at that moment, came the news to Jairus that his daughter had just died !!! It was too late; Jesus didn't get there in time. How might an important person react to this news that an interruption by some unkempt, unclean, homeless person turned out to have fatal consequences for his child???We can only wonder...because, Jairus is not given an opportunity to respond. Instead, Jesus turned to him and said, "Come, don't be afraid; just believe." Jesus was offering him a choice--fear, anger and sadness, or BELIEF. He had just witnessed the faith of the homeless woman and seen its powerful results; he could learn from her strength.....so he led Jesus to his home. At this point of learning that his daughter had died, Jairus could have lost heart and given up or keep believing that even now, Jesus was both able and willing to help him.In our own waiting moments it's of course much longer than those few minutes that Jairus had to wait, but the lesson is the same and the questions we must ask ourselves are the same.....

What is draining me in my faith life?

What draws me to believe that Jesus can heal me?

Has my faith ever moved mountains?

Do I believe that I can have faith enough to move mountains?

Do I know that I can learn to have faith to move mountains?

In reading these stories together, we can see that there is no limit to the good that God can do. One person is not healed at the expense of another. Those choices do not have to be made -- ie., either/or, one wins/the other loses,.....Jesus demonstrated that our life-giving God is present and caring for everyone--rich or poor, male or female. The young girl, like the hemorrhaging woman, were considered outside the boundaries of cleanness and holiness--but are now included in the righteousness found by faith in Jesus -- which is not dependent on or beholden to, any human standards to the contrary. No one is more important than another.

Valentine Faith Community

Mass: 10AM Every Sunday

2670 Chandler Avenue

Suite 7 & 8

Las Vegas, NV 89120

702-998-2220 Office

702-998-2221 FAX

702-523-8963 Rev Sue Provost, Pastor

"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. " (1 John 4:9-10)

Testify to the Light

The Nativity of St. John the Baptizer

                                                                      Gospel

Luke 1:57-66,80

When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother said in reply, "No. He will be called John." But they answered her,
"There is no one among your relatives who has this name." So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called. He asked for a tablet and wrote, "John is his name," and all were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God. Then fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea. All who heard these things took them to heart, saying, "What, then, will this child be?" For surely the hand of the Lord was with him. The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel.

Today, for the third time since Pentecost, the Sunday liturgy of ordinary time gives way to a feast, a great feast: that of the Birth of John the Baptizer, he who was chosen by God to prepare for the coming of his Son into this world! It is indeed a great feast, a feast of joy, but above all a feast of mercy! For Elizabeth, the mother of John, was barren (cf. Lk. 1:7 and 36) and she gratuitously - through the grace of God - received the extraordinary favor of conceiving a son in her old age (cf. Lk. 1:36).

But if this is a feast of mercy, it is above all because the birth of John proclaims the coming birth of the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God made man, sent to earth to redeem humanity from the death of sin. With the birth of John, all of humanity finds itself at a turning point in its history: from that point on, the world will no longer be in the darkness of sin, but rather the grace of God will, little by little, win over the hearts of humanity in order to bring them into the light of God’s love and grace.

When John was born, his father, Zechariah, was unable to speak. Nine months earlier, when Zechariah was in the Temple, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him to announce that his wife was going to have a son: "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer is heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John..." (Lk. 1:13) But Zechariah doubted the power of God and, as a consequence of that doubt, the angel said to him: "You will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things come to pass, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time." (Lk. 1:20)

During the nine months of his wife's pregnancy, Zechariah had time to reflect upon all this and to meditate upon the goodness and the mercy of the Lord who had blessed his family with this birth, with the result that one of his descendants would be he who was to proclaim to all the People of God the coming of the Messiah! So, when the moment came to give his son a name, he did not hesitate: he confirmed what his wife Elizabeth had said: "His name is John!" By writing on a tablet the name that the angel had dictated to him, Zechariah manifested his faith in the word of God, and, as the angel had foretold, Zechariah recovered the use of his voice...

 Truly, the birth of John the Baptizer takes place at a decisive moment, one that is crucial to all humanity. Zechariah, his father, is the first witness of this: he goes from being incredulous to becoming a believer; from being dumb to becoming the one who proclaims the praises and the blessings of the Almighty God! The world will change, for the Messiah is here! Already, he has sanctified John in the womb of his mother; already, mercy goes forth throughout the earth, for God comes to save humanity in order to transform humanity into a new creation, a creation according to the heart of God.

John is a man upon whom rests the hand of God: "the hand of the Lord was with him". From that point on, John bears a name which did not belong to his ancestors: he bears a new name! A name is what expresses the entire personality of a being. And when God bestows a name upon someone, this means that one who receives this name is truly known as such in the very Spirit of God.

Now, the name of John means "grace". By naming him John, God already sees in him his own Son; John is not the Son of God made human, but it is he who announces him, it is he who is his living sign. Another John, who wrote the fourth Gospel, understood this very well, for he says: "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John... He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light. The Word was the true Light..." (Jn. 1:6-9)

Everyone has his own vocation. And so does John - an unusual vocation, it is true. Like everyone else who is called by God, John must interiorly prepar for the mission that had been entrusted to him. This was his life. This was his life with the Spirit of God. Is this not a counterpart - although a rather faint one - of the preparation of Mary for the coming of the Lord into her on the day of the Annunciation? For Mary had also received a new name from God: the angel Gabriel called her by the name of "full of grace" (Lk. 1:28)!

We, too, have a name and a mission that God has given us. We, too, are called to testify to the light of Christ. Just as John accepted his mission and said yes to God, we must also be willing to say “yes” to what God has planned for us. May we see John as an example for us on this day, for the grace of God to come into our hearts and make us new creations according to the heart of God. May we be united in a single faith, a single hope, a single love, and in an eternal communion with the Christ, who we are called to announce to all the world.

 Valentine Faith Community
Mass: 10AM Every Sunday
2670 Chandler Avenue
Suite 7 & 8
Las Vegas, NV 89120
702-998-2220 Office
702-998-2221 FAX
702-523-8963 Rev Sue Provost, Pastor
www.stvalentinefaithcommunity.org
sueprovost056@aol.com

3rd Sunday of Lent

Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple, he found people selling oxen, sheep, and doves, while money changers sat at their counters. Making a whip out of cords, Jesus drove them all out of the Temple--with the sheep and oxen-- and overturned the tables of the money changers, scattering their coins. Then he faced those who were selling doves and said, "Take all this out of here! Stop turning God's house into a market!"Then, the disciples recalled the words of Scripture, "Zeal for your house consumes me."At this, the Temple authorities intervened and said to Jesus, "What sign can you show us to justify what you are doing?"Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."They retorted: "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you're going to raise it up in three days?"But the 'temple' he was speaking about was his body.It was only until after Jesus was raised from the dead,that the disciples remembered this statement, and came to believe the Scriptures and the word Jesus had spoken.While Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Passover festival, many people believed in him, for they could see the signs he was performing. But Jesus knew all people and what was in their hearts, and for that reason, didn't entrust himself to them. (JOHN 2:13-25)

What constitutes true worship of God? What does God himself expect of us? How do we know our relationship with him is even remotely appropriate? How does someone who has understood – within human limits – who God really is, relate to him? These are questions the liturgy of this Third Sunday of Lent answers for us. It begins by acknowledging God´s holiness and his claim on us. It recognizes that we are his people, and must live in a way that reflects his holiness. The covenant proposes the conditions of a holy people, and Jesus indicates the respect due to his Father and the new worship that will center on the temple of his body, that is, his humanity. The new mentality of the Christian people, no longer conformed by worldly aspirations of success, understands that Jesus is first of all the Crucified One. Nailing our worldliness to the cross, we become capable of true worship.

DOCTRINAL MESSAGE Who is God? An absolutely fundamental question, but how can we answer it? He has no paragon; God is… well, God. One way we try to express it is by saying the God is holy, the All-Holy. The concept of holy in Scripture is the idea of one who is "God, not man", separate from whatever is profane, material, imperfect; totally pure. In fact, it is something that men and women of prayer – such as the great figures of the Old Testament, and Mary – sense without being able to define. The purification of the temple is a Messianic gesture. Its purpose is to indicate the beginning of the final stage in the history of man´s relationship with God. At long last men and women will offer God a worship worthy of him, "when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth" (John 4:22). But, can a created being offer God worthy homage? Is this not a vain and arrogant pretension? No, because from now on our praise and adoration will be offered through the Son of God - who is God (Creed: "God from God") but has united himself to our humanity and is man. "Through him, with him, in him" we are now able to offer the Father "all glory and honor". Our Christian understanding is not solely that Jesus becomes, as it were, the one worthy representative of our race who can worship the Father in our name, but that having been incorporated into him we can all offer worthy sacrifice to God in his Name. What is the secret formula, then, for a religion pleasing to God. "Jews demand ´signs´ and Greeks look for ´wisdom,´ but our way, preached to us by St Paul, is the way of God´s foolishness: Christ crucified - the one perfect sacrifice that has reconciled us with God and returned to our hearts the Spirit that cries out to him, "Abba, Father".



PASTORAL APPLICATIONS The two essentials of true worship are to go through Jesus and to live according to God´s will. One of the most frequent accusations of non-believers against religious persons is that they are "hypocritical". More often than not, this is either a case of people justifying their own lack of religious commitment, or of the misconception that you profess the faith because you live it perfectly (while in fact we profess the faith because we don´t live it perfectly, though we want to). Nevertheless it is certainly true that we cannot please God if we "praise him with our lips while our hearts –and lives- are far from him". Prayers and devotions are quite useless unless we want what God wants; unless we live in conformity with his plan for our life. When he established a covenant with Israel, he gave us in the Decalogue the blueprint for the basic structure of the edifice. Jesus filled in the details with the Beatitudes, and with all he did and taught. A healthy Christian spirituality, or religious practice, has to respect the way to God that he himself has established. Our way to him necessarily passes through Jesus Christ, God and man. The saints, and much more so Mary the Mother of God, can help us, but Christ must be the center of our faith. To go through Christ is not exhausted by using liturgical formulas. It´s power is only fully unleashed if it defines your whole attitude to God and others, and to all the realities of life. Among other things it involves: Giving a Christ-centered meaning to your professional life. Treating everyone around you as you would treat Christ himself. Making the four gospels your preferred reading; if you read the newspapers every day, you should definitely read a passage from the gospels every day too.

Peace and love,
Reverend Sue Provost



"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. " (1 John 4:9-10)

Baptism of Jesus

Matthew 3:13-17

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Today we celebrate the Lord’s baptism by John in the River Jordan. In presenting the baptism of Jesus, the Gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus accepted Baptism from John only as a fulfillment of righteousness in line with the tradition of Judaism. It goes further to say that in this baptism; Jesus was declared as a Son by God and anointed with the Holy Spirit and power.

Every human person is born with original sin which makes life of grace impossible. According to the Jewish religious tradition, every Jew must go through some ritual actions in order to be right with God. When Jesus was born, he identified with some of these ritual performances, namely, Circumcision (Lk 2:21); Presentation to the Temple (Luke 2:22-23) and Baptism (Mt 3:13-17). Baptism at this time had different kinds of meaning. It might be administered for the purposes of cleansing or to be right with God or to show belief in God or as a sign of repentance or as a requirement for membership into Judaism, etc. Jesus may have received baptism to identify with Judaism so as to be accepted when he begins to minister to the Jews as one who professes the same Religion with them. It is true that John who baptized him, baptized people for repentance (Matt 3:11), but Jesus was like us in all things except sin (Phil 2:7; Heb 4:15; Rom 8:3). The bottom line is that Jesus does not need baptism for repentance but accepts it to fulfill all righteousness involved in becoming right with God according to the Jewish worship tradition (Matt 3:14-15). Today, to become right with God, to be born into the family of God, we receive Christian Baptism and the grace of son-ship.

In the Baptism of Jesus, God revealed that baptism is much more than water cleansing and or purifications. It is a birth place in which the recipient is born again into the family of God through the Holy Spirit. In this encounter, the glory of Jesus was revealed when the Holy Spirit came upon him and God declared “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”, showing the kind of baptism Jesus was to bring about, and which was prophesied by John the Baptist “But after me will come the one … who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Math 3:11). Is it any wonder why Jesus told Nicodemus that “unless one is born again with water and the Holy Spirit will not enter the kingdom of heaven (John 3:3-5)?

It is important to note here that while Jesus did not baptize any one during his earthly ministry (John 4:2), the Baptism he received is different from what he taught his disciples to do. He commissioned them in the new dispensation to baptize with the Spirit (Matt 28:19) which makes Jesus’ baptism different from the many dimensions of baptisms in existence in his time. This way the disciples administered the sacrament of baptism to all their converts before they join the faith and worship with them (Acts 2:38-39).

In his baptism, Jesus laid the foundation for a new dispensation of grace. From hence through the Sacrament of Baptism, the recipient establishes a union with the Holy Trinity. In this new birth (John 5:3-5), the believer receives remission from sin (Ps 51:5), receives the Spirit of membership which enables him or her become a child of God and a member of the Church (Rom 8:8-15), and a citizen of heaven (Phil 3:17-21). This way baptism becomes the gateway to the life of grace and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. In so doing, it defines the believer’s rights and responsibilities as a Christian, privileges and mission.

So, baptism units us with Christ, and in this union we find the strength to go about doing good after the manner of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, living as beloved sons and daughters by faith in the Son of God who lives in us (Gal 2:20; Col 2:20-3:4). It is the duty of the baptized then to make this life of grace a daily living by following in the footsteps of Jesus, the Christ

Peace and love,
Reverend Sue


St Valentine Faith Community
2670 Chandler Avenue
Suite 7 & 8
Las Vegas, NV 89120
Rev Sue Provost, Pastor

"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. " (1 John 4:9-10)