…is not much fun at all.
Today I had to do it twice, speaking on Mark 10:13-16. It was supposed to be three times, before my boss graciously stepped in for me.
The worst of it – my head was really fuzzy (despite the drugs I had taken to counter that), so I had no idea what was coming out of my mouth. I could hear myself talking, but just couldn’t reach out and grab the words to make any sense of them.
It is then that I am really glad that I use fullish notes. God bless the church today for their graciousness in putting up with me.
One of the really cool things that I noticed in the preparation was the use of the key word ‘receive’ in both stories that feature little kids and Jesus (Mark 9:33-37 and Mark 10:13-16) – NIV unhelpfully translates the Mark 9 version as ‘welcome’, which masks the parallel). So you get these two stories about ‘receiving’ children and ‘receiving the kingdom like a child’, then starkly contrasted with the Rich Young Ruler (Mark 10:17-23), who wants to earn rather than receive.
Others have probably noticed it before, but I thought it was clever. Again made me appreciate the wonderful literature that is the bible, and how its comes together to teach us.
In Anticipation 