Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

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19 April 10

    Dear fellow travelers...

    This is a special day for us.  The whole idea of Pamela Rebecca Selig Sparre was conceived 65 years and 9 months ago today.  She's still a living, breathing, wonderful reality.  She has been my wife for 42.5 of those years.  I'm not able to do a big splash for her.  But at the little cafe in town where we just had breakfast, I stood up and gained everyone's attention and said, "You're probably wondering why I've asked you to meet me here."  A fellow that I knew piped up and said, "I don't think I got the message."  Of course I let them know I was kidding..."but the fact is that today is my wife's (beep) birthday, and I want to invite you to join me is singing the Happy Birthday song to her."  They did.  From then on the cafe was an open forum of all kinds of friendly talk and chatter between tables...just like small town cafes in America are supposed to be.  We had our little grandson, Kaden with us too.  He enjoyed the whole thing.

    Lots to do.  Be good.  Be blessed.  Keep looking up.  Things are heating up.

        Love and prayers, Dad/Ray

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19 April 2010
Passage: Mark 10:32-52
Focus: “We want you to do for us whatever we ask.”  Mark 10:35.

            Is it possible that the same posture of heart as displayed here by James and John is at the core of much of our own praying?  They said, “We want you to do for us whatever we ask.”

            One thing for sure, the competitive power struggle of 9:33-37 is certainly not dead.  That’s where the disciples actually had engaged in verbal debate over which of them was the greatest in the line-up behind Jesus.  James and John now sense that things are heating up and coming to a climax soon.  So they are motivated to get their bid of glory in early…ahead of the others.  Of course that doesn’t set well with the other disciples who have their own visions of greatness.

            I’m inclined to interpret the CUP Jesus referred to as suffering, and the BAPTISM as death.  They are certainly not very attractive pursuits in themselves, but if we can accept suffering and death as essential and unavoidable stepping stones in the course of fulfilling God’s Will, they are certainly not things to repel.  After all, Jesus Himself said, “As the Father has sent Me, so send I you” (Jn. 20:21).

            My thoughts at present are giving me a sense of feeling very, very small.  The attitude of James and John while very understandable, is raising in me a certain amount of revulsion.  Against the backdrop of history, amidst the countless millions of souls that have ever cried out to God down through time, I am feeling more like a grain of sand than a marble monument.  The wonder of the Gospel is that the Sovereign God is concerned with and has a special place for each little grain of sand.  Hey!  A thought has just occurred to me: Maybe all these grains of sand that are “tried by fire” (1 Peter 1:7) join together to form the symbolic “sea of glass, clear as crystal” (Rev. 4:6) that John describes in his vision of heaven.  Whatever.  I know—that’s a stretch.  But I think this kind of perspective is a whole lot safer than the one demonstrated by James and John.