The Upload
Posted on Jan 24, 2014 by
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray that you have had a blessed couple of weeks.
As you probably already figured out when you didn’t receive a letter from me last week, I was on vacation. Jill and I decided it was time to get away and refresh ourselves, so we took a seven-day cruise out of Houston to the Western Caribbean. It was a wonderful week filled with lots of time together, great food, much-needed rest, and time to meet some incredibly interesting and wonderful people.
Jill and I love to visit new places, and on this trip we visited Roatan, Honduras, Belize City, Belize, and the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, and while in each of these places we met the most incredible people who were willing to share a little bit about their culture and their way of living.
While in Roatan, one young man we met was Rupert. Rupert was one of the guides on our day of snorkeling along the beautiful coral reef that stretches from there all the way north to Mexico. It is the second largest coral reef in the world. Only the Great Barrier Reef in Australia is bigger. While on this snorkeling adventure, the water was a little rough, and Jill decided not go in the water, but Rupert insisted that she let him help her (I think he thought I might not have enough patience J). So Rupert helped Jill into the water and became her dive buddy. He held on to her if the current got too strong, and he literally pulled her along in those rough spots. He wanted Jill to come and see the incredible world below the water surface that was part of his heritage and part of his culture. Rupert was a proud and caring person, and although he probably worked harder that day than he had in a long time, you could see the joy on his face after the dive when Jill was telling everyone how awesome her dive time was and how much she saw. Rupert knew, as hard as that dive was going to be for Jill, once she saw what he had already experienced his whole life that she, too, would want to tell the beautiful story of Roatan.
In our Gospel text for both last Sunday (John 1:29-42) and this coming Sunday (Matthew 4:12-13), we hear a similar story, a story of how one person already knew some things that were so incredible that he just had to make sure that others came to know and experience the same joy. In John’s Gospel, Andrew and another disciple were following Jesus, and when they asked Jesus about who he was, Jesus said, “Come and see.” After spending the afternoon with Jesus, Andrew ran and told his brother, Peter. In our Matthew text for this Sunday, we see another story of how Jesus called Andrew, Peter, James, and John to come and experience God’s Kingdom.
To follow Jesus and be a good disciple, one does not have to study the Bible, go to seminary, or be an elected leader in the church; one only has to want to follow. When Jill was afraid to get in the water last week, Rupert said, no, come follow me and I will make sure you will be safe. Jesus says the same to you and me. So often, we are afraid to follow him because we fear we don’t know enough or we might make a mistake, but just like Rupert never left Jill’s side in the water, Jesus never leaves our side. Jesus promises that when we follow him, he will always be there holding us, making sure we come to know him and his ways.
I pray each of us has the courage to enter into the waters of God’s kingdom on this earth and that, when we do, we know that Jesus is there with us, guiding us and supporting us even when those waters get a little rough.
Shalom,
Pastor Dave