Jesus Christ is risen today!
What joyful words we have to share. What a great story summed up in Acts. God came to save us from our sin(s). God took on the sin(s) of the world. God was reconciled to himself, and so too we are reconciled through God the Son. I don't have much to say today, just that I can't wait til Easter when I can sing out in my own joyful noise that Jesus Christ is risen today!
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Oppression
...how [Jesus] went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. (Acts)
The discussions of the past 2 days here on campus really have me wondering, "what is oppression?" The three passages above all seem to give different indications of oppression. Jesus healed those "oppressed by the devil." Isaiah promised that God would wipe away tears and disgrace. The young man in white of Mark tells of Jesus rising from the dead.
As I struggle with white privledge and the original sin of racism I can't help but run across all these different ways of looking at oppression. But each of these definitions is used as a description of what it looks like to end oppression. People are healed, disgrace is wiped away, Jesus is alive.
Here's the point. Oppression only ends with God. With Jesus we are reconciled to God. As such we have the opportunity to be reconciled to one another. For as on Easter we come to know that God cannot be defeated, so too as an Easter poeople we must know that we are no longer slaves to sin, but to Jesus Christ who calls us to love the poor, to embrace persecution, and to be reconciled.
The hard part of course is what this end of oppression and reconciliation looks like. For that I don't have an answer. All I have is a hope that on Easter I will once again be reminded that 1- all things are possible for God and 2- its not about me.
- Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces,
- and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth... (Isaiah)
The discussions of the past 2 days here on campus really have me wondering, "what is oppression?" The three passages above all seem to give different indications of oppression. Jesus healed those "oppressed by the devil." Isaiah promised that God would wipe away tears and disgrace. The young man in white of Mark tells of Jesus rising from the dead.
As I struggle with white privledge and the original sin of racism I can't help but run across all these different ways of looking at oppression. But each of these definitions is used as a description of what it looks like to end oppression. People are healed, disgrace is wiped away, Jesus is alive.
Here's the point. Oppression only ends with God. With Jesus we are reconciled to God. As such we have the opportunity to be reconciled to one another. For as on Easter we come to know that God cannot be defeated, so too as an Easter poeople we must know that we are no longer slaves to sin, but to Jesus Christ who calls us to love the poor, to embrace persecution, and to be reconciled.
The hard part of course is what this end of oppression and reconciliation looks like. For that I don't have an answer. All I have is a hope that on Easter I will once again be reminded that 1- all things are possible for God and 2- its not about me.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Welcome Happy Morning
So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them;
Isn't this the day we wait for all year long? Sure Christmas is a great holiday both secularly and in the Church, but the feast of the Nativity hardly holds a candle to this day, this happy morning when with terror and amazement we come to realize the empty tomb. After 40 long days of Lent (and 7 more "in" Lent) we have come to the Feast of the Resurrection. We have come to the happiest day of the year for we know that it is through Christ that we are saved. Jesus who died on the cross but 3 days; Jesus who fulfilled so many prophecies; Jesus who was 1 with the Father rose from the dead and defeated death once and for all.
Welcome Happy Morning, age to age shall say!
Isn't this the day we wait for all year long? Sure Christmas is a great holiday both secularly and in the Church, but the feast of the Nativity hardly holds a candle to this day, this happy morning when with terror and amazement we come to realize the empty tomb. After 40 long days of Lent (and 7 more "in" Lent) we have come to the Feast of the Resurrection. We have come to the happiest day of the year for we know that it is through Christ that we are saved. Jesus who died on the cross but 3 days; Jesus who fulfilled so many prophecies; Jesus who was 1 with the Father rose from the dead and defeated death once and for all.
Welcome Happy Morning, age to age shall say!
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