The Joshua Victor Theory

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. God sure loves sheep. All over the Bible He calls His people “sheep”, from “ the Lord is my Shepherd ” to the Good Shepherd searching and finding His lost sheep—God loves sheep. And Matthew 9:36 observes that when Jesus taught the crowds, He had compassion on them because they were “ harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Clearly the sheep were in danger. There is a lot going on in those words. Harassed and helpless means that the sheep are being abused, exploited, or otherwise harmed, and are unable to defend themselves or rescue themselves out of the situation. “Like sheep without a shepherd” indicates they are leaderless or that their leaders have failed them. These words echo back to God’s care for His people the sheep, described in Ezekiel 34. Ezekiel 34 describes another group of harassed and helpless sheep. God rails against the “ shepherds of Israel” , ...

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed, Alleluia ! Amen. The beloved old Lenten hymn, “Go to Dark Gethsemane” shifts from the darkness of the crucifixion of Jesus, to His Easter resurrection in the final verse: “ Early hasten to the tomb where they lay His breathless clay; all is solitude and gloom. Who has taken Him away? Christ is ris’n! He meets our eyes. Savior teach us so to rise.” That poetic phrase, “ His breathless clay” refers to the dead, lifeless body of Jesus, buried in the tomb. But it also reminds us of God creating Adam from the “breathless clay” of the earth, when God created the body of Adam from the dust of the earth, and then breathed into Adam the “breath” or spirit of life (Genesis 2:7). Adam, the valley of dry bones, and Jesus’ resurrection all in turn show who is the God of the Living. Who has power to make breathless clay breathe life again. Death could not hold Jesus any more. The breath or spirit of life returned to Him, and He rose, never to die again! Ezek...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. As we have been surveying the book of Revelation these past weeks, you’ve probably noticed that it is a very visually descriptive book. John witnessed glorious visions of heaven and earth, all of which he was instructed to write down. Sometimes the descriptions seem to flow like a stream of consciousness, as though John were grasping at a multitude of images to try to relate what he was seeing. Things too glorious and wonderful to fully put into words. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then thousands of words fall short to describe the glory. But, on the other hand, we shouldn’t think that John was grasping at straws and at a loss for what to say. On the contrary, inspired and directed by the Holy Spirit, John’s descriptions are highly intentional and specific. They borrow from and point us back to many rich Biblical pictures and prophecies, found in the Old and New Testament. Today’s chapter, Revelat...

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Welcome to our service on this Children’s Sunday! As parents, a special concern that we no doubt share, is the safety and well-being of our children, and setting appropriate boundaries for them. This echoes God’s parental concern for us, which shows up in all of our readings today. All three readings echo a common theme—that sin is a serious danger, and that it’s predictable final outcome is death. The Old Testament reading from Ezekiel warns people to turn from their wicked ways, and names a couple of specific sins—robbery, injustice—but mainly says in general that if we continue in sin, we will die. The reading from Corinthians speaks of the bad example of the Israelites, from the beginning of the Bible, and how their worship of false gods, their sexual sins, and their grumbling and complaining against God, led to many of them dying. Then to round out the theme, Jesus answers qu...