Week Four

What now?

Anticipating the Kingdom and revelations of divine glory!

So we have got packing with God, we are letting go of things from the past to be able to step into newness of life. We have considered the essentials we need with us and set off into the next chapter. So... what now? What lies ahead!?

As this theme draws to a close (and we anticipate the next one!) we take a look ahead to the urgent. immediate Gospel of Mark that begins in a different wilderness — but with the same people — asking insistently, ‘So what now?’ If we are really Getting Packing with God are we open to our restless Messiah Jesus’s call to adventure? To discover the burgeoning Kingdom all around us! Are we alert to God’s Kingdom and revelations of divine glory!

SEEDS TO SOW: All month we have used the metaphor of packing, so let’s consider — what would your luggage look like if you were packing for an adventure with God? Would it be a light breathable backpack ready to sling over your shoulder, or a beloved battered leather suitcase brimming with stories? Run with it — see how God uses your imagination to offer you new insights.

Read Exodus 33: 7-11

Tent of meeting.

What can we do today to make a figurative (or even literal!) ‘tent of meeting’ to come face to face with God?

Moses went into the tent to speak to God so let’s stop now and take an opportunity to pray for those you have not met God.

Read Mark 1: 1-20

Different wilderness, same people.

Once again we encounter: a restless people, a river, and a prophet... What other parallels do we see between these readings?

The insistent, urgent Gospel of Mark drops us right in the deep end. In Exodus the people are travelling to the promised land and now in Mark we are heading to the Kingdom of God.

Not for Mark the stories of Jesus’s birth and childhood, nor the cosmic poetry of John 1. No. Jesus is here. He is on the move. ‘What now?’ The recurring question of the Hebrews in the wilderness is the constant question of Mark as we rattle through the implications of the Kingdom.

As we Get Packing with God, we are responding to the call to adventure — to leave behind the stagnant and stuck and get into the vibrant and vital call of Jesus. What questions about the Kingdom are we carrying with us?

Read Mark 1: 35-39

Restless Messiah.

The incarnated, embodied Jesus knows he is on a mission. He is yearning to share the marvellous insights of the Kingdom.

We have spent a month getting packed and as we look to the horizon we ask— where is God stirring a divine restlessness in us and the church? Where — and to whom — are we called to share the excitement of the Jesus adventure?