Who Will Separate Us From The Love Of Christ?
Good Morning Friends,
Are you seeking the abundant life? Are you the kind of person who is seeking God’s forgiveness? The two are related and made clearer in the contemplation of the relevance of this Holy Saturday. For if you willing to repent of your ways and follow the Jesus way, the abundant life is available to you, but it may not be exactly what you expected. Friends, it seems that the world is filled with unhappy and dissatisfied people looking for answers to fill an emptiness inside. And sometimes we must face them and encourage them to come through the gate, to come to the door that opens when we confess that Jesus is King. There are a lot of ways to think about this. We can think about it through the lens of our baptism. We can think about it as we become as sheep together seeking a pasture filled with good things…a life free from bad things to harm us. But we are still maturing if we want to do this on our own terms and not God’s. There is the reality of death. So, if we are wrestling with principalities and powers but failing to master them through Jesus Christ, God has more work to do in us. It is hard labor to be filled with faith, hope and love. It is hard work to put aside anger, greed and guilt, envy and revenge. And we cannot do it on our own. We need the support of the Savior to be reborn. And here is the thing, on this day of all days we are to be united with Him in death so we might be united with Him in life. We are to enter the door; enter the gate to the Shepherd’s Way to a full life of grace. Friends, transformation is coming… a transformation that will end sin’s reign and lift up our experience of the love of Jesus. Rejoice, God has chosen us and He and His love is strong. We are so like infants about to be born. Who Will Separate Us From The Love Of Christ?
Scripture: Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
John 3:1-3 (NRSV)
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
John 3:16 (NRSV)
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:3-11 (NRSV)
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:28-39 (NRSV)
Message: By the grace of God Jesus experienced death for us all. This is part of the plan of salvation that Jesus should not only die for our sins but experience the condition of death where souls are separated from the body. Therein is summarized the mystery of this day. But somehow it also reveals a great Sabbath rest which brings peace to everything. You see, when Jesus died, the incarnation of God in humankind had to be reconciled. It is a great mystery but hopefully a great comfort that the death of Christ demands a rebirth. On this day, between Good Friday and our celebration of the resurrection tomorrow, we are to experience the birth pangs of a pregnant creation yearning for full deliverance in us. God’s Spirit is right there helping us along, letting us know that from the beginning of it all God was shaping the lives of those who love Him along the same lines as the life of His Son…Yes, God is for us and there is nothing we could do to deserve it or thwart it. No matter whom you are or what you have done or what grief you face, it is true. God is for us. God died for us and experienced death for us and demonstrates love for us each day so we might grow into the life abundant. And in that tension of the labor of birth and love we are connected, caught up, tied up and wrapped up as a witness to the Gospel. That is the good news. When we receive this love and the wonderful grace it bestows…when we learn that Jesus is a love that lasts and He is a Lord that lives then we also see that in Him we have a labor that lingers but also transforms. Friends, God, in His infinite love, is preparing us for our inheritance. So let us love, let us forgive, let us be justified, let us labor and be sanctified. Let us rejoice that nothing can separate us from the love of God. So today we rest on an everlasting covenant in the reality that we as individuals must be reborn and not be separated from God. And that is the mystery of this day as we wait for what comes next.
Pray in this pregnant moment between Good Friday and Easter that in the tension of our losses, burdens, pains, brokenness and sins that God’s love would bring us resurrection of our spirit and through His grace, the life everlasting. Pray we encounter God’s grace and it change everything. Pray we give up what we think is our right to keep on sinning. Pray we realize that when we follow the Jesus Way we must die to our old way of living and be raised to a new life. Pray we make peace with the past. Pray we be focused on the present and optimistic about the future. Pray we realize that God is inviting us to abundant life, a life worth living, but not necessarily a life of comfort and ease, and certainly not something that comes quickly and easy. Pray the new life now is just the beginning of a lifestyle, a process of sanctification, of standing at the door with Jesus calling people to follow. Pray we realize that the Sun will come up tomorrow and it will be a very, very, very good day. Pray that our relationship with God be reborn not out of fear but out of love.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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