"By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Genesis 3:19 ESV
"When God says, 'I know you are dust. I made you'. That's when God says, 'I share my grace, my love and my mercy, because I know how frail and fragile you are, and I know that you cannot do it alone.'" Rev. Mark Bryan, senior pastor Glen Leven Presbyterian Church (as quoted in the Tennessean, 3/2/17)
"All we are is dust in the wind." - Kansas
The party of Fat Tuesday has past. Ash Wednesday has come, from the ashes of the celebration of last year's Palm Sunday. Now we enter the season of Lent, a time of waiting and preparing, like Advent. Unlike Advent, however, instead of a birth, we prepare for a death.
We are reminded of our own mortality almost daily. To think that God would come down and subject Himself to that mortality, for the single purpose of a horrible, sacrificial death, seems beyond comprehension. Yet He did, because only in His sacrifice, could we come back to a true relationship with Him. Only by sinless sacrifice, could sin be washed away; removed as far as the East is from the West. Forgiven.
Jesus knew that sacrifice would require His death. But the idea of our reunion with Him and the Father was so wonderful to Him that He willingly suffered and gave life itself to achieve it, because He also knew what was on the other side of that sacrifice. Life everlasting together.
So for Lent we wait, we sacrifice, but knowing that in the end, we rejoice. For He who bore our sins, lives and reigns and loves us beyond our wildest dreams. Amen.
" He knew me then, He knows me now, and He loves me still somehow."
- Dallas Holm
No comments:
Post a Comment