For Jesus
Monday, April 3, 2023
We Build Houses,
Even For Fishing With Jesus For People.
God Has Other Plans
For Us.
Psalms 16:8
I keep the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Hebrews 12:2
looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
Words of Grace For Today
For us all, all too often we see God as our right hand power that enables us to succeed in the world. Our enemies should lay down and worship, if not God, then us, for the power we wield.
Except life is not like that, and God’s Word for us is not either.
Instead God deals with the reality of life … which ends in death for us all.
God frees us from our sins, and our ultimate fears of death,so that we can live.
On Easter we will say: Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed! As enthusiastic as we may have learned to proclaim this wondrous news, the power of that news is clear only when we know deep in our bones and hearts what has come before: Jesus has died. Jesus has died a terrible, torturous, unjust death.
That’s what Holy Week is all about. It reminds us of the reality that Jesus addresses with his death and resurrection.
Make no mistake there have been plenty of deaths recently. Among them:
Five siblings, their spouses and children and friends gather to bury the siblings’ parents killed in an accident. An earthquake rocks the mountain overlooking the cemetery and buries them all. A tank runs over an orphan soldier crushing the breath out of him forever. An addict dies alone and helpless poisoned by xylazine cut into his drugs. An old man dies forgotten in his soiled bed. Two women are stoned to death by a crowd of self-righteous zealots.
And then this Friday we remember also that Jesus was falsely accused as many before and since, was strung up and left to die on a cross.
Anyone who is paying even a little bit of attention knows the searing sadness, and profound sorrow of death. That’s life on earth. We get used to such news.
God planned for that, too.
God lets us dive into the familiar of death, and then jars us out of our comfort zones with Jesus’ resurrection,
Turning our worlds all topsy-turvy, back upright,
Where only God is in control, and we live and breathe only as God gives us these gifts … to share.