In the church, we find that God calls us to bear with one another as we walk this pilgrim pathway. The Bible brings an interesting tension of "taking care of your business" but also "bearing the burden of your brother/sister." The law of Christ is to love each other and to help bear our brother or sister's load of hardship.

John the Apostle reflects on what makes Christianity different. Long ago Cain hated his brother and killed him. Jesus calls us to a new paradigm of love and care for our brothers and sisters. Cain asked the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" John answers emphatically - YES!

In our readings today, we see two different paradigms. Lamech was a descendant of Cain, and his mantra in life was to exact revenge on whoever tried to hurt him. Jesus, in his kingdom, calls us to a different way of living. Jesus calls us to the liberation of forgiveness.

In Genesis 4 we witness the first murder in human history. To make matters worse it is not just murder but it is fratricide. In this narrative, we see a young man named Cain who allows jealousy and rage to overtake him. He allows sin to master him and never takes full responsibility for his actions. Instead of having godly sorrow that leads to repentance, he has worldly sorrow that is only concerned with the consequences.

In Psalm 6 David is struggling. He is physically sick and is languishing. To make matters worse his enemies have risen against him. David does the only thing he can do. He decides not to look at his circumstances or what is inside of him but he looks up to God for help.

Jesus Christ took on flesh so he could experience the pain we go through. The ultimate enemy facing humanity is sin which leads to death. God had to become flesh so that he could go into death to rescue us. Jesus died so that he could destroy the power of death.

John tells his readers that to remain in sin is to follow the lead of the devil. The devil's master tactic is to try to enslave us to sin and drive us deeper into death. One of the main reasons came to this world was to destroy the works of the devil.

In our story, we will see the theme of the "head crusher" come with the defeat of Goliath by David. In Genesis 3:15 in the protoevangelium, we see the promise that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. David's defeat of Goliath is a foreshadowing of how Jesus will crush Satan with his victory on the cross.