by Mason Puckett (Page 2)

by Mason Puckett (Page 2)

sheep herd on pasture at sunrise

The Birth of a Shepherd

The nativity scenes you see in front yards typically look pretty similar to each other – the baby, Mary and Joseph, some animals, maybe the shepherds and wise men are there. They’re not likely to include a great red dragon looming over Mary’s shoulder, even though that’s how the book of Revelation tells the story. In Revelation 12, we meet a woman “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her…
Number 1

It’s All One Thing

John 14-17, often referred to as the “farewell discourses,” are the final teachings from Jesus to his disciples in the hours leading up to his arrest. However, John 17 wraps up the farewell discourses not with another teaching but with a prayer. Jesus prays that the Father would be glorified (not unlike teaching us in the Lord’s Prayer to begin praying with “Father, hallowed by thy name”). He prays that the disciples would experience complete joy, be protected from evil,…
Thorn vine

Earning Hatred

“I am the vine, you are the branches,” Jesus says to us in John 15. His life is our life. What is true of him is true of us. As Jesus goes on in John 15, this also means that his struggle is our struggle. The places he fits in are the places we fit in. And the places he doesn’t fit are the places we don’t fit. Discipleship requires dissonance, like a symphony orchestra playing in perfect accord except for…
Thorn vine

What Remains?

I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. -John 15:5 There’s a mystery at the heart of the Christian faith: how is the God and creator of the universe supposed to communicate with and make himself known to us flawed, limited, sinful humans? In the words of the Psalmist, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is so high…
Sunlight on the ocean aerial

Making His Home

God is making his home with us. It’s the good news we hear at the end of the book of Revelation and it’s the good news Jesus shares with us in John 14. The promise from Jesus is that God will be with us and in and in us forever. This is no hollow promise. Jesus doesn’t give as the world gives. There are no strings attached. This presence with us and in us comes by way of what Jesus…
Aerial view on the Iceland. Aerial landscape above river in the geysers valley. Icelandic landscape

What Our Story Really Is

As we approach the end of Revelation, Babylon is fallen and the dragon is cast away forever. And now, with no obstacle remaining, “the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready.” (19:7) Christ the Lamb will be finally and perfectly united to his people. And John sees the new heavens, the new earth, and the new Jerusalem descending from one to the other “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” (21:2) A voice…
Dark underground tunnel.

Out of Babylon

Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! (Revelation 18:2) All of Revelation has been leading up to this moment – the fall of empire, the fall of every source of brokenness, division, hatred, war, poverty, greed, abuse and oppression. Perhaps you know Babylon all too well, what it’s like to be under the thumb of someone with more money, more greed, more status, more leverage than you. Perhaps you know first hand the horrors of war and poverty. Perhaps “Fallen, fall…
Knife and Fork

Eating the Word

Revelation has a reputation for being strange and difficult, but it should have an even greater reputation for making us poets, making us people who sing and pray, people who desire above all to worship our God. In chapter 8, the prayers of God’s people are rising to him like incense. That’s what our prayers are to God – a fragrant, pleasant aroma. And in Revelation, this includes prayers like, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,” but also…
White fluffy of the reed flower

Come, Be Quiet with Me

Isaiah 42 shows how God is active in the world through the one called the “servant.” The servant is described as quiet and gentle, which are not only character traits, but are nothing less than the means by which God’s justice makes its way into the world. This “servant” is originally meant to describe the nation of Israel, which is why God goes on to say a few verses later, “I have called you in righteousness… I have given you…

No Love Un-Spilled

By the end of Revelation 5, the Lamb has been revealed to take the scroll from the hand of God and open it. As the scroll unfolds, so does God’s will for human history, toward the inevitable end of the new heavens and the new earth (chapter 21). So as Revelation 6 begins and the first four seals are peeled back, we are introduced to characters we’ve at least heard of in passing: the four horsemen. We’re not meant to…
Old Bible book open on the book of Revelation

When All of Creation Bows Down

Through three chapters of the book of Revelation, things are tame enough (although the vision of the apocalyptic Christ in chapter 1 is a nice dousing of cold water). Most of our time has been spent with messages sent to seven churches, messages for the churches to endure suffering and rediscover the love that made them the Church in the first place. But in chapter 4, Revelation begins to earn its reputation for being colorful and bizarre. And I don’t…
Star trails over the rock phenomenon The Ships (Bulgaria)

How Majestic

“O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.” Thus Psalm 8 both begins and ends, with a sudden burst of praise. Our job here in Psalm 8 is simply to praise. Not to analyze or debate, but to marvel and adore. God’s majesty, God’s beauty, everything that makes God wonderful – our whole world is saturated in it. We couldn’t escape if we wanted to. And we don’t want to. God is to be enjoyed,…