Open gates

This gate is the Lord’s; the just shall enter it. (Psalm 118:20) 

You join the parade as it passes through the city, gathering scope and momentum with every person who joins in. Joyful music rings out as you surge toward the Temple. Then suddenly, the noise of prayer, song, and conversation ceases: you have come to a halt at a massive gate, the door to the Temple courts. From the head of the procession, a voice cries out, “Open the gates!” You smile in recognition—it’s the king’s voice! A reply comes from the wall, “This is the gate of the Lord, through which the just may enter.”

What does it mean to be among that seemingly elite group, “the just,” who are permitted to step through the gate? Do you have to be flawless? Do you have to be a recognized saint like Mother Teresa or Pope John Paul II? Maybe as you stand in that crowd, fear rises in your heart. If that gate is only for the righteous, do I really deserve to step through it? Let’s try to answer that question.

The first thing is to remember that Jesus is not just the king who commands the gate to be opened; he is also the gate itself. “I am the gate,” he once told his followers. “Whoever enters through me will be saved” (John 10:9). On the other side of that gate are the courts of heaven, eternal life in the presence of God.

Second, remember that the gate has already been opened. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus has removed all the barriers that have kept you from entering heaven. You can live on the other side of that gate as he showers you with gifts like prayer, the Eucharist, and his word.

Third, remember that no sin is so great, no sense of guilt so heavy, to keep you from entering through the gate. There is no unpardonable sin. We have all been made righteous through Jesus’ sacrifice!

So go back, and picture yourself at the threshold of the Temple. Go ahead, and walk in confidently and joyfully. Jesus is waiting to welcome you with open arms. 

“All praise to you, King Jesus! Thank you for opening the gate to salvation.”

from wau.org

Insider

The man … began to publicize the whole matter. (Mark 1:45)

Have you ever watched a movie in which two characters trade places? Perhaps a mother and daughter mysteriously switch bodies. Or a pauper is mistaken for a prince. Usually, chaos ensues as the characters try to get used to their new roles.

In today’s Gospel reading, another kind of switch occurs, only this time both characters are very comfortable in their new roles.

First, there’s the man with leprosy. He had been living in a kind of exile from society because of his disease. But after Jesus heals him, he is set free from his isolation. He is so excited, in fact, that he spreads the news about Jesus far and wide.

Then there’s Jesus. He had been at the center of a renewal movement in Galilee, a kind of toast of the town, visiting every synagogue he could and receiving a warm welcome wherever he went. But all this changed when he met the man with leprosy. As a result of his healing the man, Jesus is the one who has to stay in “deserted places” (Mark 1:45). By touching this man, Jesus took the man’s uncleanness upon himself instead. 

In a way, this switch is a foreshadowing of the cross. Jesus became an outsider, despised and rejected, so that we could become insiders in his heavenly kingdom. Can you imagine? First, the infinite and eternal God became a vulnerable, helpless baby. Then, throughout his life, he endured exclusion, misunderstanding, and ridicule. Only the purest, most sacrificial love could accept all of this for the sake of redeeming a people lost in sin. 

Take a moment, and imagine Jesus standing before you. As he did with the leper, he wants to switch places with you. He wants to take your sin and your isolation. He wants to welcome you into his kingdom. Let him show you how much he loves you, accepts you, and rejoices over you.

“Lord, thank you for becoming an outsider so that I could be accepted.”

from wau.org

Saviour

Picture a state dinner in a nation’s capital: a lavish dining hall, silver and crystal lining the table, waiters lined up ready to serve the guests. A military band strikes up a fanfare, and the head of state enters. But instead of sitting down, he removes his dinner jacket, dons an apron, and asks the waiters to be seated at the table. Then, slowly and carefully, he proceeds to serve them the meal. Crazy, right?

Amazingly, the reality at the center of our faith transcends even this illustration. Jesus, the eternal Son of God, gave up his very life to save us from sin. What’s more, we learn that this wasn’t an exceptional act; it’s part of who he is.

from wau.org

Atheist pilot mocked God, until he ran out of fuel in a snowstorm

By Mark Ellis -godreports.com

Raised in the secular Seventies, completely un-churched, he had no room for God until he ran out of fuel in an Alaskan storm, miles from his destination.

“I was a God mocker,” says Mark Rose, founder of Genesis Alive, and the author of Last of the Long Hunters, a story of the pilots who fly the Alaskan Arctic.

Rose learned to fly at 16, and by age 22 had become a bush pilot who helped to take care of a fleet of helicopters that worked on the Alaska pipeline. “My ego meter was on 101,” he admits.

One day he flew some hunters to the upper part of a large river on the Arctic. But on his return flight, carrying one passenger, several things went wrong. First, herds of caribou had moved in, covering his first and second choices for a landing spot. Then he began to run low on fuel, so he called ahead for a weather check at the small airport near Kotzebue, on the Baldwin Peninsula.

“Come on in, the weather’s fine,” the FAA flight service operator told him.

He decided to take the chance his fuel would hold out, but then weather conditions changed dramatically. “I ran into a snowstorm at night, and I couldn’t see the terrain, so I had to follow the gray ribbon of river below.” In the days before satellite weather imaging, the man had given him bad advice.

“All my options were evaporating as fast as I could fly.”

Rose had several friends – fellow pilots – who perished in similar flying conditions. There must be a way out, he thought. I don’t want to die at 22. I won’t get to experience marriage…

He had been flying on empty for 30 minutes. Then the engine started missing. “I was just waiting for silence and to have to crash at night.”

His mind turned to his very last option – God. Rose had never prayed before, but in desperation, he lifted up a silent prayer. If there is a God, I need your help now.

Then a voice spoke to him that was crystal clear. Son, you said the right thing. After he heard the voice, Rose also experienced the sensation of “a light bulb” that came on in his mind.

Immediately after his prayer, the plane popped out of the snowstorm! “Before me were the beautiful lights of Kotzebue – it might as well have been the lights of heaven,” he recalls.

There was only one problem – he still had to fly another 20 miles over the Kotzebue Sound, a broad expanse of salt water north of the Bering Sea.

“That was a breath-holder,” he says. When he landed safely at Kotzebue Airport, his humanist worldview collapsed. There was no earthly reason his plane should have traveled such a distance with no fuel.

Rose believes God added an hour of fuel to his tanks to save his life. “When I landed I was a different boy. I was not a Christian, but I was a believer in God.”

He thought about his grandmother, the only Christian in his family. So gramma was right; there is something out there, he thought.

Rose started to date a Christian woman who challenged him to read the Bible for the first time. As he read the pages of Scripture, something surprising happened. “I fell in love with the God of the Bible – his reasonableness, his forgiveness, his justice,” he recounts.

But his stubborn heart was still not ready to make Jesus his Savior and Lord.

Then he had another brush with death in a helicopter that crashed, which completely flattened the seat he rode in.

About the same time, he missed a flight with some of the lead contractors for the Alaskan pipeline due to a

schedule conflict. Shortly after the plane took off, it crashed, killing everyone aboard.

Later, on a flight to Fairbanks on a bush aircraft, he began to reflect on his life. I’m not happy. This whole thing is not working, he admitted to himself.

Everything I read in the Bible is either a lie or its true. It’s all or nothing. From reading the Bible I understand God is my creator. If Jesus can raise someone from the dead and forgive my sins, that’s exactly what God has for me.

At that moment, Rose surrendered his life to Jesus Christ. “When I landed in Fairbanks I was a different boy, once again.”

Darkest Day

I returned from a soothing retreat this weekend, and a colleague shared a beautiful poem he wrote, with us. Enjoy;

In the darkest night as the deepness fades,
Light could be seen burning away,Like the truth from a lie.Forsaken taken a-back,stripped of all fact,Life was passing him by.

 He just wanted to stay,
Stop time and waste away,In that the darkest day,Six feet down in a grave.
He would end up that way,Over and over it'd play,He would hear these words,
And would have nothing to say.

 Escaping intoxication,Forbearing false medication,
It had spread from his lungs,Heading to a destination,That's blinded by the extremes,
Stretched out and placed on the seams, 

Where forgotten are dreams,He would continue to be,
Beaten and under attack,Waiting for the relapse,Oh, how time dragged on.
One thing which he has learned,Is that slowly he had turned,And forgotten where to belong.

By Charles Klein (Newman Campus Ministry)

Open door

Jesus accused these Pharisees of shutting the door of heaven in people’s faces. That’s a startling allegation. But how did they do it? Some burdened people with stringent rules. Some missed the heart of love embedded in the laws Law of Moses. Others tried to steer people away from Jesus by their teaching.

But let’s try to look at this from the other way around. After all, if you can close and lock a door, it stands to reason that you can also unlatch one and throw it wide! That’s the awesome truth tucked away in today’s Gospel. We can actually open the door of heaven for other people!

According to the Scriptures, this door is a person: Jesus! He is the “gate” and the “way” (John 10:9; 14:6). He is the ladder to heaven (1:51). But how can we, small humans that we are, open such a special door? By opening ourselves up! That way, people can come to see Jesus, who lives in us, and find their own way to a relationship with him.

Just as there are several ways to close a door, there’s more than one way to open it. We can open it through acts of kindness and love. We can try to encourage someone. A forgiving, compassionate heart can do it. Or we can look for opportunities to share about the difference that Jesus has made in our lives. 

Jesus said that these Pharisees went to great lengths—even traversing sea and land—to find other people and train them in their ways (Matthew 23:15). While he frowned on the end result, the way they went the extra mile to win people over was remarkable. It worked! Similarly, if we want to usher people through heaven’s door, we too will have to go out of our way to build relationships with them. Friendly phone conversations, casual lunches, and the like can provide new opportunities to open up. Of course, we can’t pursue everyone. But we can pursue a few. You could even start with a list of three names. With some prayer, some planning, and some reaching out, you may even get the privilege of holding heaven’s door open as a friend walks through!

~Taken from www.wau.org