Good Morning Friends,
Today we face some scripture that is a real challenge not because of the questions it presents for us so much as because I am still thinking about Tampa Bay winning yesterday’s Super Bowl. So, I will try and focus on the scripture. But in the background, I am wondering why one team wins the prize and another goes home. The Biblical question we ask is the challenge of being transformed to love even a stranger and maybe someone with whom we would not recognize as like us. It seems an unlikely evolutionary trait, and yet like the overwhelming self-interest of some, both realities demonstrate themselves in the lives of people and maybe in creation itself. We offer privilege to some and not to others. Some are hunters and others the hunted. And often as we seek to love we are faced with unintended consequences. Sometimes we are compelled to act, and it does not seem completely rational. We wonder if we can help everyone and then are faced with individual decisions. Take the example of a child drowning in the rough surf and you are the only one around to see the event. Do you risk your own life saving that one child that you do not even know and perhaps one with whom you might consider… not one of us? The problem is a bit perplexing for many of us would jump in without a second thought and yet when it comes to similar potential negative outcomes in the lives of others, due to economics and access we might well turn a blind eye. We hide behind a veil of plausible deniability, but our alibies are lies. So, I wonder this morning if we are making as much progress as we would like to claim.
So, Are You Living Into God’s New Creation Story In The Light Of Christ?
Scripture: Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent, you set the beams of your chambers on the waters, you make the clouds your chariot, you ride on the wings of the wind, you make the winds your messengers, fire and flame your ministers. You set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be shaken. You cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. At your rebuke they flee; at the sound of your thunder, they take to flight. They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys to the place that you appointed for them. You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth. You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills, giving drink to every wild animal; the wild asses quench their thirst. By the streams, the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches.
Psalm 104: 1-12 (NRSV)
When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
Mark 6:53-56 (NSV)
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
Genesis 1: 1-19 (NRSV)
Message: It has been said that early to bed and early to rise makes a person healthy, wealthy, and wise. And perhaps that is true for one spends more time in the light. And that I think makes us happier. As I mature, I tend to live more in that way. Along this line of thinking today’s scripture seems to be saying that we should give up the darkness of our emotional baggage…to sin less and love more if we are to become the Christians that Jesus would have us to be. And one cannot really argue with that at all as we count the cost of engagement and determine the direction of our lives guided by the lamp of scripture. And as we evaluate how to jettison our dark garbage, we may just want to also ask today’s question. For today we explore things that lighten our load for the journey with Jesus and help light the path in our own spiritual development…the light of love in the healing presence of Jesus.
And it comes to my mind that when Jesus walked the earth it was not particularly safe to walk around at night but that it might just be a bit safer if others knew you had given away all your possessions and if one had a lamp on loan to light one’s path. I would think that part of the way to light the path is to make wise decisions. But our decisions need to be exposed to a process that counts the cost and then decides, with some degree of illumination of what it will take to pay that price to have the desired result. Sometimes the decision-making process helps us to see the risks involved. Still, when it comes to love we must step out as an act of faith empowered by grace. The light literally needs to be turned on as a protection here. We need to be freed of the darkness of life and recognize our debt to Christ. And in this lighter, transformed life we are to focus on a devotion to God that comes out of a heart lightened by love where things are really turned around. Even the dark side of the moon. We avoid the darkness of the world by embracing a lifestyle of light and surprisingly looks a lot like risking. But if we wear God’s armor of light the risk is mitigated in a way. Ultimately becoming creatures of the light of Christ is the only safe path.
And So, science may be able to answer more questions about light than it can about love. For science cannot tell us what a tear means for another person or what laughter to a joke means for a person who did not get it or why Jesus was willing to die for us. Extending love is not only a great challenge of life, but also a great mystery. Friends, the magnitude of God’s love for us may never be fully comprehended even if we experience it. It is the essence of creation itself. Today we have a creation passage from the first chapter of Genesis. We are familiar with it. But there are several creation stories in the collection of sacred books we call the Bible. There are two stories early in the book of Genesis and shortly after them we have the story of Noah and his family which is a kind of recreation story. Then, generations later, God used Moses to lead the Israelites through the sea, creating His new people. When after many hundreds of years that people suffered the penalty of sin through Babylonian exile, God in a sense recreated them by bringing them back to the Holy Land. But each time the people who came out of each recreation they were the same old human beings, born in sin, unable to attain their real destiny, union with the divine. Each generation fell into sin. But the last creation was the greatest. Jesus was born and grew and lived and died and rose again so that each of us could be baptized into Him through the Spirit and grow as a new creation to be like Jesus, and united with God forever. Friends, we can experience a new creation and it is all because of Christ’s sacrifice of love.
Pray we love in a way that matters even though we do not completely understand it. Pray the weights of the world be removed from our dark life. Pray we make wise decisions. Pray we see the possibilities. Pray we count the costs but risk to love anyway. Pray we realize that there are eternal consequences to the development of our souls. Pray we have an appreciation of Christ’s love and action in the world. Pray we share the blessings we have received. Pray we meet people where they are with compassion. Pray we realize that we have been freed to love everyone in the way the God loves. Pray we enjoy a full life of salvation and spiritual transformation that helps us to become creatures of the light. Pray therefor we overcome the sickness of our spirit and soul and that we become people of love growing to serve in a new creation each day.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 