"He Opened Their Minds" - Ascension

(see John Gishler Youtube channel for the video service)

We all have trouble understanding how things work in the supernatural dimension. We see this all through the Bible and in our own time:

·      Prophets are ridiculed, ignored, persecuted

·      Disciples do not understand what’s happening

·      Christian Church is divided and confused over doctrine

The Good News of Ascension is that Jesus / Holy Spirit will open our minds so we can understand the scriptures.

1. Jesus promised believers will be baptized by Holy Spirit

Home Church Prayer Resources

I am sharing the prayers Lucille and I use on Sundays in our participatory home communion service below. With churches closed now, many people are discovering that each household grouping can be a home church and be spiritually nourished by simple daily Bible readings, morning and evening prayers and remote participation in our Communion service. The services are streamed live on Youtube channel "John Gishler" soon after 10.00 am. on Sundays. You are invited to participate in the prayers, intercessions, confession and absolution and receive Holy Communion spiritually your heart. The weekly Readings and teachings are based on the Common Lectionary - this Sunday will be Ascension Sunday. If you have trouble with the resources email jgishler@gmail.com and I will send you the links / files.

Holy Communion Service
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1IPq_kDmDUC857fHaljo85XV4caalzF27

Common Lectionary Readings:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/lections.php?year=A&season=Easter

Developing Relationship With Jesus (Easter 4)

(Homily will be on YouTube on Sunday May 3 with a home Holy Communion service

https://youtu.be/g-YK8ywGVec)

In John 10.1-10 Jesus challenges the Pharisees to give up their legalistic dependence on the Law of Moses and depend on Him as Messiah and Saviour.  Jesus is describing Himself as the new shepherd of Israel and the (not a) “gate” each person must pass through into eternal life in His Kingdom. The test is that they know His voice and He knows them personally. The big question is how do you have a relationship with someone who died over 2,000 years ago? The Good News of Easter is that we can have an intimate, personal relationship with the Risen Jesus. The other Readings (Acts 2.42-47 and 1 Peter 2.19-25) teach us how to do this:

·      Jesus left a community of Apostles and believers in a growing home church.

·      This is where we all are today.

·      Sharing a spiritual communion service and teaching how to develop a home relationship with Jesus through:

o   Reading and sharing the “Apostles teaching”

o   “Fellowship” or developing a caring community

o   Relevant “prayer” and worship that connects us

o   Outreach or sharing to serve the needs of others

1. Developing Relationship through “Apostolic teaching”

Christ's Mass Is A Birthday Celebration (Christmas)

I was trying to figure out a way to explain our Christmas service to some very young children.  I realized that what we do in church to celebrate our Faith in Jesus is the same as what we do at a child’s birthday party. We invite their friends and family to gather for a meal and celebrate the child’s birth. Christ’s Mass – the first Mass or Holy Communion service of Christmas has all the same elements:

1.     We invite friends and family to gather

2.     We talk about the person

3.     We renew relationships, sing, pray have special food

4.     We go home with a special gift

1. We invite our friends and family to gather

We All Hunger For The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit (Proper 21)

 

For the past three weeks churches using the Common Lectionary have been studying the same passage in John’s Gospel (6.25-69) which is about Jesus as the “bread of life” that feeds our eternal spiritual life. Jesus is using the historical experience of the Hebrews in depending on God to keep them physically alive with mana; to explain how Christians must depend on Jesus gto keep them spiritually alive both in this life and after physical death. The key is our dependence on the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and our fellowship with the Holy Spirit. This is the opposite from the (false) hope many people in our time have in “self-salvation” through good works or good moral behaviour. Self-salvation is the greatest lie of our time.

 For over twenty years I have been working with generally declining Anglican churches to help them find the key to stopping the decline, thrive, grow and be more spiritually nourishing. Last week I had an epiphany moment after a particularly nourishing and uplifting experience WITH the tiny (14 people) congregation in Sundre, Alberta. I asked myself why was this experience so spiritually nourishing? What is so different about this congregation?

 1. These people regularly depend on the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ

The One Who Feeds On Me Will Live (have spiritual life) - Proper 20

The Gospel of John Readings assigned for Propers 18-20 – four weeks of teaching, all cover the same central idea of Jesus as ‘the bread of life’. This is probably the most important – and hardest teaching of Jesus to understand. It is a summing up of the New Covenant of Jesus all the way from the Hebrews experience under Moses to the Pentecost experience of the first Christians. The subject is how to have a personal spiritual life that will last forever, including after our physical bodies die.

 1. Jesus explains He is like the mana that came from heaven

This is another example of using a visible and physical thing to explain an invisible and spiritual thing. The Bible teaches us that when the Hebrew people wandered in the desert for 40 years God provided a strange, powdery / flakey substance that formed on the ground in the morning and had to be gathered and eaten each day.

Palm Sunday Is the Roll-out Of the New Covenant

•  Chose these powerful and exciting Palm Sunday Readings for my Ordination 20 years ago
•  Words ‘set His face like flint’ gave me the courage to seek ordination
•  Roll-out: new word for introducing a new program / computer system
• Readings roll-out - reveal who Jesus is, how to respond & how to celebrate
• I pause at Eucharist Prayer words “New Covenant” to let them sink in - very dramatic moment

1.     On Palm Sunday Jesus reveals who He is publicly

a.     The disciples had begun to see this but were still  confused

b.     Many people had figured it out when He raised Lazarus

c.     Riding a donkey into Jerusalem was a claim to authority

d.     This was a claim to the religious authority of the Messiah

e.     Riding a horse would be a claim to political authority

f.      Even the crowd figured it out as fulfillment of prophecy

g.     Revelation includes quoting the Isaiah 57 Prophecy and throwing the money changers out of Temple – “my Fathers’ house”

2.     Jesus defines the New Covenant