Good Morning Friends,
There is a law in nature that nothing takes more than it needs and if it does death follows. Sadly, the earth has a growing cancer that believes it has the right to keep more than it can ever use. The air is polluted. The oceans are dying. Species are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. Pride is an all-time high and humility at an all-time low. People in positions of power are corrupt. Technology keeps increasing but somehow does not provide what we so desperately need. We are depressed and too many are over medicated in the face of growing violence. What is popular supersedes what is prudent. Even nature groans and is fighting back and we have a failure to communicate the one thing that can save us. The end of the age is coming…and perhaps it will be celebrated as a wedding or a fought as a war or both. Need we really ask as we look into the spiritual mirror of scripture: What Is Wrong With This World?
Scripture: Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned—But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. But law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 5:12, 15b, 17-19, 20b-21 (NRSV)
“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
Luke 12:35-38 (NRSV)
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.
Genesis 2:17 (NRSV)
Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 (NRSV)
He came to his hometown and began to teach the people in their synagogue, so that they were astounded and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor except in their own country and in their own house.” And he did not do many deeds of power there, because of their unbelief.
Matthew 13:54-58 (NRSV)
Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures. You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing. If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
James 1:17-27 (NRSV)
Message: G. K. Chesterton may have been right when he answered today’s question years ago by simply writing a two-word response. “I am.” But what if he was wrong and Christ the “I am” in us is the solution to the madness of this world. Maybe the path does not end in our broken hearts and destruction but begins in our changed minds and hearts. Truly scripture and tradition tell us far more of restoration and redemption than of original sin. No matter how great the number of sins committed, grace was ever greater in the stories of the Bible. In the story of Noah, for example, the rainbow becomes a sign of God’s promise of restoration. Still, for the most part, humans are not all that they were meant to be, even though fearfully and wonderfully made. We seem to have all the ingredients for happiness, but something seems to rob us of joy. Unhappiness and evil in the world are definite problems. Solutions are so elusive. And so, we persevere even as we again ponder the origins of evil in a world created by God who is infinitely good. So, we meditate on the story of Adam and Eve and how they fell from God’s grace but with the assistance of the Holy Spirit apply this story to our own time through the life of Christ, the second Adam. And then we discover that answering what is wrong with the world is of little help. It is like embracing the pain of all the laws that become overwhelming burdens. The focus needs to be on the fruit we become not the work we do.
And So, we must seek an answer to how we can become right. And here the answer to the problem of evil is for God’s love to be revealed in redemption. And it is demonstrated in the fruit we become not the work we do. Surely original sin and its consequences demonstrate our need for God to be in us. And here friends, love…the love of God and that fruit of love in us becomes the greatest weapon against evil. Real love and kindness are contagious. Our hearts were made for God, and they will know no rest until they rest in God’s peace…of God’s love. For this desire and love in God’s heart not only moved Him to create us. It also urged Him to go through a process so that He could enter us and make us His expression. Everything Jesus did, said, and thought was a pure expression of God in humanity to be released and made available to us. Christ opened the way for us to receive His divine life that we might become the reproduction of Christ, bringing delight to God’s heart by fulfilling the most important purpose of all. Friends, maybe we are the problem. But this morning I would like to believe that with Christ we are also part of the solution.
Pray we keep the light on so the fruit might grow in abundance. Pray we realize that Jesus exchanged the perfect harmony of heaven for the turmoil of life on earth, with its pressures and pains, trials and tensions, conflicts, and crises so we might become right with God and each other. Pray we believe that the one by whom all things were created and who owned every square inch of the Earth had no place to lay his head and even though he had formed every molecule of water still had to ask someone to give him a drink. Pray we realize that Christ’s humiliation was without parallel while at the same moment the splendor of God’s glory is so wonderful that even angels cover their faces in Christ’s presence. Pray we realize that the Incarnation of the Son of God unites earth to heaven so that what was wrong might become right. Pray for redemption and a new creation. Pray our hope is not in vain. Pray we are part of the solution through our love of Christ shared all to the glory of God as the fruit of love.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 