Author: Jim Cantelon

May 4, 2020

Perhaps some of you have logged on to biblediscoverytv.com lately and joined a prayer time hosted by Rod Hembree. I’ve been cohosting twice a week. The point is to pray for those suffering the direct or indirect impact of the Covid 19 pandemic. As always, prayer meetings, whether in a church, a home, or online bring out the universal vulnerability we all share, not only in terms of health crises but also in terms of ongoing human need. Those prayer requests range from pending death to minor aches and pains. This, of course, is what Jesus faced in his 3...

April 29,2020

Jesus Tested in the Wilderness – Matthew 4:1-11 Immediately after the Father had singled Jesus out as his “son”, Jesus was “led by the Spirit” into the wilderness for forty days of testing. This is often referred to as the “temptation” but the Greek suggests “testing”. Whereas “temptation” bears the nuance of being tempted to sin, “testing” possessed a more positive tone. Jesus was, then and always, sinless. The point of the testing here was his “new” status as “my Son”. Satan hoped to capitalize...

April 27, 2020

As we continue to reevaluate our lives, our values under deep assessment, it’s tempting to yield to “end of the world” thoughts. Not only is the world shut down but so is life as we’ve known it. Many of us feel lost without the former parameters of social, physical, emotional, and spiritual markers that gave our lives context and meaning. Then we look outward via the internet and see Yemen about to implode, South Sudan and East Africa besieged by billions of crop destroying locusts, multilateral aid agencies warning that huge famine is closing in, and reports that the world economy may...

April 22, 2020

Jesus’ Baptism Matthew 3:13-17 The big question here is “Why?”. Why would the sinless Son of God intentionally submit to John’s baptism of repentance? Some commentators suggest it betrayed a dawning awareness on Jesus’ part that he was special. Others say he did so because he was anticipating a “word from Heaven”. Still others suggest he began his public ministry by taking on the sins of mankind (thus the need for baptism) and ended it by dying for those sins. Even John himself wonders “Why?”. He tried to stop Jesus with “I need to...

April 20, 2020

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is an unwelcome adventure but adventure none-the-less. The Oxford dictionary calls an adventure “a daring enterprise; a hazardous activity”, which this crisis certainly is. No doubt it’s “hazardous”, but there are also many elements of “enterprise”. There are several burgeoning medical breakthroughs in potential vaccines, repurposing of proven anti-retrovirals; and societal revisioning involving everything from how and where we work to relearning relational skills. New horizons are being forced upon us which may be catalytic to innovations that...

April 15, 2020

John the Baptist – Matthew 3:1-12 (Part 2) For sure his lifestyle was similar to theirs (referring to desert holy men). And his message had parallel aspects as well. These Essenes saw themselves as “end-time” heralds of a coming war between “the Sons of Darkness and the Sons of Light”. The end was near. Their urgent task was to call people out of the morally bankrupt towns and cities to become cleansed soldiers in the last battle. Like the Essenes, John preached “The Kingdom of Heaven has come near”, or, “is at hand”. Repentance was not...

April 13, 2020

We’ve just come through the Passover/Easter week even while in the grip of Covid-19. This has been a Holy Week like none other-ever. Imagine online Easter services and Passover by Zoom! No need to imagine. It happened. The underlying life lesson in this anomaly is how much we need each other. Whether sacred services, weddings, funerals, baptisms, they are all community celebrations. Remove community and meaning can be lost. Luke’s record of the early Church’s beginnings says “They continued daily in the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer…all...

April 8, 2020

John the Baptist – Matthew 3:1-12 (Part 1) Jesus’ cousin John (the “Baptist” as he became known) was just a few months older and unlike Jesus had spent most of his young adult life in the desert. In fact he had become a bit of a “wild man” in the sense that his clothing, diet, and ministry were offensive to city dwellers. Smelling like the camel whose hair he had fashioned into a shirt, eating whatever he could find (“locusts and wild honey”), and preaching cutting sermons against priests, tax-collectors, and soldiers, he seemed a throwback to...

April 1, 2020

Egypt to Nazareth Matthew 2:19-23 Joseph, like his patriarchal namesake, was a “dreamer”. Here in these four verses of scripture we read of a third, then a fourth directive dream. Joseph receives from the Lord. The third instructs him to go back to Israel. The fourth moves him and his young family on to the region of the Lower Galilee to a town called Nazareth. It was here that Jesus lived the next thirty years of his life, working as a carpenter side-by-side with his mentor Joseph. We can only imagine the conversations, the family meals, the fellowship with friends and neighbours,...

March 30, 2020

You’re reading this in self isolation and I’m writing in similar circumstances. We’re all in lockdown. Who knew? Well, not to be trite, but the Lord knew. Indeed, he knows. Covid-19 is no surprise to him. And we know that his omniscience informs his sovereignty- he is Lord of every situation. I think there will be a renewal of spirit all over the world as we re-examine our values and priorities. As many freedoms are currently lost to us – like freedom of movement for example- we may rediscover the freedom of spirit that emerges with reading, prayer, and lengthy talks (via...

March 25, 2020

Infanticide Matthew 2:16-18 It’s surprising that Herod’s paranoia had not fuelled more efficient “intelligence gathering”, in that he sent no place with the Magi, nor did he commission any of his officials to “follow the star” to Bethlehem. He simply asked the magi to let him know once they had found the baby king. But, in his rage at being deceived by the Magi, his paranoia and cruelty kicks into gear and he orders every male child in the Bethlehem region to be killed. None of our Christmas traditions include this unspeakable tragedy. We focus on the one...

March 18, 2020

Egypt (Matthew 2:13-15) This is the second time an angel gave instructions to Joseph. As husband and protector of Mary and the baby, he was told to “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt.” This was to avoid Herod’s murderous intent. We read a couple of sentences like this and tend to “watch” the action like we do a movie. The scenes shift from moment to moment, from place to place, and sometimes from time zone to time zone in the flash of an editor’s cut. But, we need to slow down here. It takes at least twelve hours to ‘drive’ from...