I tell you the truth,
today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43).
(2nd of Jesus 7 last words on the cross)
The
second of Jesus’ seven last words on the cross fully values individual human
rights based on the Fatherhood of God. Seldom has humanity has more public
press than today and never has there been more people feeling worthless, wasted,
and unwanted. It seems emigrants are more denigrated emigrants and condemned to
genocide, starvation, and social rejection than ever.
Waste
management has become a situational problem. Pollution multiplies while we create
new worries about our waste management. This second word from Jesus clarifies
our paradox.
We
foul our streams, lakes, marshes, and seas with every contaminant conceivable. We
bury seven million scrapped cars and thirty million tons of waste paper. We annually
dump forty-eight billion empty cans and twenty-eight billion bottles and jars. We
stockpile another million tons of garbage daily for shipment, although conservationists
complain that our seas are full of empty plastic containers.
While our air circles our globe forty times yearly we Americans singularly contribute one-hundred forty tons of pollutants: ninety million from our cars. We burn more gasoline than the rest of the world combined, fifteen million generated from electric power generation that totals one-third of the world’s usage.
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford Professor of population studies, claims our biggest problem is not our birthrate among the world’s poor but too many rich Americans. He claims one American does twenty to one hundred times more damage to the planet than one third world citizen and suggests one rich American does one-thousand times more damage.
Citing affluent Swedes as people Americans should emulate, Ehrlich early claimed an average Swedish citizen used only sixty percent as much energy as an average American consumer
Experts study the air San Diego deposits over the Pacific Ocean in layers of lead and predict Los Angeles smog will result in massive deaths at some future date. Noise already strains our lives while doubling in volume every decade. Fifty-five hundred new Americans are birthed every single day and by the end of the century this should add another one hundred million souls to our census by the end of the century, according to some reports.
Time has corrected much of Erhrich’s research, but we continue consuming and wasting more than any other nation on earth - flattening our hills, filling our bays, and blitzing our wildernesses while watching our quality of life slowly evaporate.
Like headstrong children, we disregard theorists like Ehrlich, calling them political conspiracists with unwanted political agendas. Blinded by our misgivings; we ignore ancient wisdom that suggests “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. . .” (Psalm 24:1).
Forgetting that God has a profound interest in this garden he created for us; we throw off our constraints as responsible gardeners and take all we can get and reject any accountability as good stewards.
This word from Calvary projects a profound principal for a society that too easily ignores waste management and environmental issues but buries our culture in deep pessimism. This word from Jesus, spoken from one dying man to another, reveals life at both its best and worst. It collects our failures as it dredges the bottom of life’s heap, but it inspires new values and reveals new opportunities. It offers a promissory note of reclamation with a new beginning.
Jesus speaks hope to our depression and despondency. He promises a hope-filled future for converting anyone willing to discover how to live and how to die. He reveals a future owned by hope by providing a word of genesis that begins by creating new beginnings. Here are new possibilities for rediscovering lost living; here are promises for transforming people into winners--achievers. Here is an offer of a potential future that far exceeds all we currently comprehend. It pokes its way through history’s centuries-old curtain and gently heals this throwaway generation of unhealed humanity.
One day I traded-in a sack of empty pop cans but I kept the plasstic sack in my grocery cart. When I checked out, I proudly infsormed the grocery clerk of my conservation and informed her “You can use this sack to put some of my groceries in.”
“I’ll just give you a nice, new one that is good and strong,” she pleasantly admonished me and stuffed
While our air circles our globe forty times yearly we Americans singularly contribute one-hundred forty tons of pollutants: ninety million from our cars. We burn more gasoline than the rest of the world combined, fifteen million generated from electric power generation that totals one-third of the world’s usage.
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford Professor of population studies, claims our biggest problem is not our birthrate among the world’s poor but too many rich Americans. He claims one American does twenty to one hundred times more damage to the planet than one third world citizen and suggests one rich American does one-thousand times more damage.
Citing affluent Swedes as people Americans should emulate, Ehrlich early claimed an average Swedish citizen used only sixty percent as much energy as an average American consumer
Experts study the air San Diego deposits over the Pacific Ocean in layers of lead and predict Los Angeles smog will result in massive deaths at some future date. Noise already strains our lives while doubling in volume every decade. Fifty-five hundred new Americans are birthed every single day and by the end of the century this should add another one hundred million souls to our census by the end of the century, according to some reports.
Time has corrected much of Erhrich’s research, but we continue consuming and wasting more than any other nation on earth - flattening our hills, filling our bays, and blitzing our wildernesses while watching our quality of life slowly evaporate.
Like headstrong children, we disregard theorists like Ehrlich, calling them political conspiracists with unwanted political agendas. Blinded by our misgivings; we ignore ancient wisdom that suggests “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. . .” (Psalm 24:1).
Forgetting that God has a profound interest in this garden he created for us; we throw off our constraints as responsible gardeners and take all we can get and reject any accountability as good stewards.
This word from Calvary projects a profound principal for a society that too easily ignores waste management and environmental issues but buries our culture in deep pessimism. This word from Jesus, spoken from one dying man to another, reveals life at both its best and worst. It collects our failures as it dredges the bottom of life’s heap, but it inspires new values and reveals new opportunities. It offers a promissory note of reclamation with a new beginning.
Jesus speaks hope to our depression and despondency. He promises a hope-filled future for converting anyone willing to discover how to live and how to die. He reveals a future owned by hope by providing a word of genesis that begins by creating new beginnings. Here are new possibilities for rediscovering lost living; here are promises for transforming people into winners--achievers. Here is an offer of a potential future that far exceeds all we currently comprehend. It pokes its way through history’s centuries-old curtain and gently heals this throwaway generation of unhealed humanity.
One day I traded-in a sack of empty pop cans but I kept the plasstic sack in my grocery cart. When I checked out, I proudly infsormed the grocery clerk of my conservation and informed her “You can use this sack to put some of my groceries in.”
“I’ll just give you a nice, new one that is good and strong,” she pleasantly admonished me and stuffed
my sack in the wastebasket. Without realizing it, she also
stuffed me into that wastebasket!
My
post-depression rearing recoiled with considerable angst. I was offended at this
otherwise very nice young lady, I remembered days when my father worked gladly
for twenty-five dollars a week and chided her with “You shouldn’t waste like
that! … That was a perfectly good sack,”
Without being intentionally wasteful, we have become a throwaway culture and we remain oblivious to the truth that we trash even more people than our throwaway products. We provide profitable careers for garbage collectors that we keep busy managing our waste. Even more lucrative than collecting trash is dealing in junk. Many a junk dealer finds his treasures in our trash, while others entertain themselves during free times by attending garage sales.
While our communities concern themselves with developing new landfills, we vigorously campaign to keep them out of our neighborhoods and blatantly reject our own waste. A national news wire distributed this humorous and not at all amusing story of fifteen thousand tons of incinerated trash sent by barge to Panama by the city fathers of Philadelphia.
Panamanian officials cited health and environmental concerns and refused it permission for entry. Five other nations rejected this trash originating in the city of brotherly love before American officials returned the debris to New York harbor and finally laid it to rest in a Long Island land fill.
Of course, it’s a very different matter when we refuse to permit landfills in our local communities for similar reasons. Thus, we pursue our frenetic lifestyle at the highest level of affluence in the history of civilization and escalate our struggle with the enemy within--our worst selves. Meantime; we deny the seriousness of our problem and insist that politicians store our radioactive wastes any place but in our neighborhood.
Simultaneously, Jesus provides principles for dealing with pollution and waste. He points us back to our primary priority--conserving people. Some people waste their lives by polluting the currents of human history and I have spent six decades watching people become throwaways by selfishly producing their share of a culture more concerned with self-serving than with caring for others.
We plan elaborate schemes for conserving our natural resources, like the towering California Redwoods, but we waste our human resources by devaluing human life and by denying people’s basic human rights. This word of Jesus from the cross condemns this extravagant waste as extravagant, self-serving, and sinful.
Nowhere is this “throwaway syndrome” more obvious than in our best of times when we throw out so much and value so little. Wasting our goods in the prosperity of affluence is one thing, but wasting our goods while impoverished does not happen carelessly or casually. It may happen in ignorance, but it may also be our fault that we are depleted and deprived.
Consider Typical Teen traveling the road of restless adolescence from Childrensville, New York to Adult City, California. Passing through our midlands, he falls into misfortune among thieves of moral character. His attackers strip him of moral principal, religious conviction, and physical health, and leave him wrapped in his naked notions of a non-relevant post-modern cynicism.
In the ensuing struggle, Typical Teen has his pockets picked clean of the dreams he collected, dreams he hoped to invest in achieving excellence. The thieves, after beating him without mercy, toss him aside, dumping him in the shadows of a sign reading, “Juvenile Delinquent.”
“What a shame!” exclaims Powerful Politician driving by in his limo. Seeing this wasted youth, he shakes his head in disgust, utterly dismayed. “How I thank you Lord, that young man is not one of my constituents. Help me to get to my press conference without creating an accident.” And lest he be late; he hurries on, passing on the opposite side of the Beltway. He is determined to produce effective legislation for curbing poverty and abuse
Powerful Politician later described to members of his powerful committee the abundance of what he saw on his recent trip and asked them for their support in correcting such social problems.
Likewise, Certain Citizen happened by the same place at a later time. He, too, saw the ugly problem and exuded more than a little passion. Under his breath he growled to himself, “What in God’s name are these kids coming to!”
Without being intentionally wasteful, we have become a throwaway culture and we remain oblivious to the truth that we trash even more people than our throwaway products. We provide profitable careers for garbage collectors that we keep busy managing our waste. Even more lucrative than collecting trash is dealing in junk. Many a junk dealer finds his treasures in our trash, while others entertain themselves during free times by attending garage sales.
While our communities concern themselves with developing new landfills, we vigorously campaign to keep them out of our neighborhoods and blatantly reject our own waste. A national news wire distributed this humorous and not at all amusing story of fifteen thousand tons of incinerated trash sent by barge to Panama by the city fathers of Philadelphia.
Panamanian officials cited health and environmental concerns and refused it permission for entry. Five other nations rejected this trash originating in the city of brotherly love before American officials returned the debris to New York harbor and finally laid it to rest in a Long Island land fill.
Of course, it’s a very different matter when we refuse to permit landfills in our local communities for similar reasons. Thus, we pursue our frenetic lifestyle at the highest level of affluence in the history of civilization and escalate our struggle with the enemy within--our worst selves. Meantime; we deny the seriousness of our problem and insist that politicians store our radioactive wastes any place but in our neighborhood.
Simultaneously, Jesus provides principles for dealing with pollution and waste. He points us back to our primary priority--conserving people. Some people waste their lives by polluting the currents of human history and I have spent six decades watching people become throwaways by selfishly producing their share of a culture more concerned with self-serving than with caring for others.
We plan elaborate schemes for conserving our natural resources, like the towering California Redwoods, but we waste our human resources by devaluing human life and by denying people’s basic human rights. This word of Jesus from the cross condemns this extravagant waste as extravagant, self-serving, and sinful.
Nowhere is this “throwaway syndrome” more obvious than in our best of times when we throw out so much and value so little. Wasting our goods in the prosperity of affluence is one thing, but wasting our goods while impoverished does not happen carelessly or casually. It may happen in ignorance, but it may also be our fault that we are depleted and deprived.
Consider Typical Teen traveling the road of restless adolescence from Childrensville, New York to Adult City, California. Passing through our midlands, he falls into misfortune among thieves of moral character. His attackers strip him of moral principal, religious conviction, and physical health, and leave him wrapped in his naked notions of a non-relevant post-modern cynicism.
In the ensuing struggle, Typical Teen has his pockets picked clean of the dreams he collected, dreams he hoped to invest in achieving excellence. The thieves, after beating him without mercy, toss him aside, dumping him in the shadows of a sign reading, “Juvenile Delinquent.”
“What a shame!” exclaims Powerful Politician driving by in his limo. Seeing this wasted youth, he shakes his head in disgust, utterly dismayed. “How I thank you Lord, that young man is not one of my constituents. Help me to get to my press conference without creating an accident.” And lest he be late; he hurries on, passing on the opposite side of the Beltway. He is determined to produce effective legislation for curbing poverty and abuse
Powerful Politician later described to members of his powerful committee the abundance of what he saw on his recent trip and asked them for their support in correcting such social problems.
Likewise, Certain Citizen happened by the same place at a later time. He, too, saw the ugly problem and exuded more than a little passion. Under his breath he growled to himself, “What in God’s name are these kids coming to!”
Losing
strength in the meantime, Stricken Lad attempts a feeble recovery, hopeless and
helpless. Noting the time and knowing he had pressing corporate issues just
ahead, Certain Citizen passes quickly on the opposite side. But, he did not
forget. Completing his Board business and the negotiations for a highly
profitable but hostile takeover, he concluded his trip with lunch at his local
Service Club. While there, he petitioned the Program Committee Chair to plan a
program on “How to Obtain Federal Funds for Communities with Adolescent
Delinquents Facing Problems of Poverty and Abuse.”
But unknown Youth Pastor also traveled this road. He saw this useless youth; saw that all hope was quickly draining from the tormented victim and felt overwhelmed. Parking his car on the shoulder of the road, he bound up the worst of the wounds and freely smeared oils of love across the dark bruises. He placed the victim in his softly-padded car and drove directly to the church’s Youth Barn where many friends --young and old--gave him loving care and rehabilitating friendship. In the days following, Friend of Youth led church associates and others in establishing a Center for troubled youth.
“Which of these do you think was a neighbor to the one who fell among thieves?” Jesus asked. “The one who showed mercy,” came the reply, to which Jesus concluded, “You go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).
Now; it should come as no surprise to hear Jesus challenge Peter, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah … I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build” (Matthew 16:17-19). Jesus saw the rock of a man Peter could become, but it looked for a long time as if Jesus might be wrong about the big fisherman. This dormant disciple was big, brawny, and brash, able to handle a fishing net filled beyond capacity, but vacillating, weak, and even cowardly.
Peter could swing a mean sword when necessary to defend Jesus, but he didn’t know when to stop bragging or how to defend himself against ridicule. He could talk a bigger game than he played, but when arrested he forgot his stouthearted brags. Following those terrifying events, Peter cringed in the darkening fringes, cowering in the dark.
A young servant girl recognized Peter, pointed him out and he vehemently denied Jesus. Wilting under that youthful gaze of an innocent servant, he quailed then exploded with oaths and curses understood by all. Without purpose after the crucifixion, Peter aimlessly returned to his fishing nets and had a final fling of defiance against the niggling aspirations, dreams, and hopes that had fortified him. Just when Peter’s quest for a better life promised some right answers, life unraveled at the seams.
But unknown Youth Pastor also traveled this road. He saw this useless youth; saw that all hope was quickly draining from the tormented victim and felt overwhelmed. Parking his car on the shoulder of the road, he bound up the worst of the wounds and freely smeared oils of love across the dark bruises. He placed the victim in his softly-padded car and drove directly to the church’s Youth Barn where many friends --young and old--gave him loving care and rehabilitating friendship. In the days following, Friend of Youth led church associates and others in establishing a Center for troubled youth.
“Which of these do you think was a neighbor to the one who fell among thieves?” Jesus asked. “The one who showed mercy,” came the reply, to which Jesus concluded, “You go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).
Now; it should come as no surprise to hear Jesus challenge Peter, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah … I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build” (Matthew 16:17-19). Jesus saw the rock of a man Peter could become, but it looked for a long time as if Jesus might be wrong about the big fisherman. This dormant disciple was big, brawny, and brash, able to handle a fishing net filled beyond capacity, but vacillating, weak, and even cowardly.
Peter could swing a mean sword when necessary to defend Jesus, but he didn’t know when to stop bragging or how to defend himself against ridicule. He could talk a bigger game than he played, but when arrested he forgot his stouthearted brags. Following those terrifying events, Peter cringed in the darkening fringes, cowering in the dark.
A young servant girl recognized Peter, pointed him out and he vehemently denied Jesus. Wilting under that youthful gaze of an innocent servant, he quailed then exploded with oaths and curses understood by all. Without purpose after the crucifixion, Peter aimlessly returned to his fishing nets and had a final fling of defiance against the niggling aspirations, dreams, and hopes that had fortified him. Just when Peter’s quest for a better life promised some right answers, life unraveled at the seams.
NOW;
look again! Peter stands once more in the Jerusalem Temple Courtyard. It is
fifty days later and Jerusalem celebrates the Feast of Pentecost. Local
residents and holiday visitors pilgrimage together renewing their historic
faith. Luke reports what happened when Peter saw and stood to address the
crowd.
‘Fellow Jews … let me explain … listen
carefully … These men
are not drunk … `It’s only nine in
the morning! No, this is what
was spoke of by the prophet Joel: In
the last days, God says, I
will pour out my Spirit on all
people. Your sons and daughters
… your young men … your old men … Even
on my servants,
both men and women, I will pour out
my Spirit … And
everyone who calls on the name of
the Lord will be saved.
“Men of Israel listen to this: Jesus
of Nazareth was a man
accredited by God to you … as you
yourselves know. This
man was handed over to you by God’s
set purpose and fore-
knowledge; and you … put him to
death by nailing him to the
cross. But God raised him from the
dead … because it was
impossible for death to keep its
hold on him” (Acts 2:14-24).
Luke
obviously reports a very different Peter than we met earlier. Peter now assumes
preeminence in the Jerusalem church. He stands like a solid rock, fear-lessly
facing hostile authorities. This stalwart leader models a role of faithfulness
for the small, growing band of believers and we see a man of character and
spiritual competence whose shadow inspires healing. Meanwhile, he and the
disciples continue “testifying to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus” (Acts
4:33).
Peter
commands full attention during Luke’s first twelve chapters of Acts. After that,
Peter quietly fades off-stage and into the wings and Paul commands center stage
as Luke traces the Gentile mission throughout the remaining chapters.
“You are known as…” Jesus had
concluded; you shall be called a
rock of a man. Jesus spoke a more
powerful word than we
sometimes believe and somewhere on the
journey with Jesus Peter
found strength for thet day and hope
for the day following. Jesus
was right!
Life
dispassionately dropped Tad into a Jerusalem ghetto. Tad’s father was an
alcoholic; his mother was a prostitute. After years of disagreeable quarrels, Tad’s
parents divorced. Finding life too much to cope with, Tad began skipping school;
life at home became impossible, school demanded too much.
Finally Tad surrendered to the neighborhood Cripps Gang and showed up on local police radar. Police observed him leaving an abandoned school building, they arrested him and charged him with breaking-and-entering. The School Principal suspended him while the courts placed him on probation.
Tad
now hired on to work for the father of a fellow gang members. This earned him
the one thing he always lacked, money. However, Tad found the hours too
demanding and the rewards too limited for his growing list of demands. He found
people inexcusably unforgiving. They continually reminded him he would never
amount to anything and this Tad just did not need; he already knew it.
However,
being more than a little feisty, Tad remained ever-ready to assert his personal
rights. When necessary for survival, Tad did not hesitate to give you a healthy
dose of his opinion. He randomly reminded his companions of the many sour lemons
life handed him.
Since
no one had ever taken care of Tad, he didn’t really know he needed anyone. After
all; he was just as smart as the next guy. He knew he could get what he wanted,
somehow. So Tad, like the boy whose career in crime began by stealing an apple
at the fruit stand and ended by sitting in the electric chair, began keeping
company with thieves, was apprehended and sentenced to prison.
Tad’s
electric chair became his cross when he was sentenced to hang beside a prisoner
the rumor mills claimed was full of the Devil. Obviously, the man was out of
touch with reality, allegedly going about casting out devils - a “real nut” and
thoroughly paranoid. Officials charged him with delusions of grandeur and
preaching a celestial kingdom and calling himself God’s Son.
You run into all kinds in life’s marketplace
of life; yet when Tad met this stranger, he learned of his own personal worth
and of divine generosity for the first time in his life. He sensed this
stranger was unlike so many he had met along the way; this man was much more
than a frail, broken failure of a man, cynically resigned to a life of ruin and
waste. Tad saw Jesus as a man among men, not intimidated by his cross, but
vigorously fortified by a vision of excellence and integrity. Here was someone
who cared for Tad and sincerely dared believe, “Today you will be with me in
paradise” (Luke 23:43).
Tad
heard Jesus speak as from one dying man to another. Tad, having faith in no one
but himself and little of that above the level of a common thief, suddenly
found himself eye-balling a dying man in whom the judges found no fault. Although
this strange prophet was also dying, he was overheard to claim he was “the way
and the truth and the life.” It lit a fire
in Tad’s heart that inspired him to take heart (John 14:6).
The
word Jesus spoke to the dying thief elevates three essentials of faith by which to live; power by which to achieve our “you will
be…” and, the very real hope of
experiencing a happy and healthy tomorrow.
London’s noted Spurgeon insisted a little faith will take someone to heaven. A little more faith will bring heaven to us. This margin of faith is found only in the words of this Jesus on his Calvary cross.
Paul
discovered what Peter experienced earlier and he went to Asia and Europe
proclaiming the truth that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself
(2 Corinthians 5:19). Each man agreed it was God who empowered the resurrection
of Jesus from the Good Friday tomb. Like other converts, they found this
powerful hope sufficient to transform their lives and adequately lift any
individual out of any kind of garbage heap into which society might dump them.
The only requirement was to accept it: give up self sufficiency, and live life
as an offering to God.
This
word from Jesus challenges us to resist being squeezed back into the old mold
that proved so destructive. It allows God to energize us with new life within
and to reach new levels of excellence. Little hope remains for the legalist
who, like the Pharisee, prays, “Thank you, God, that I am not as other men.” Conversely,
hope owns the future when we can pray like the Publican, “Have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 18:11, 13).
Ancient
Wiseman knew of a way that seems quite right but becomes so wrong (Proverbs
14:12). That first thief knew he belonged on the cross. His circumstances were
his fault, even if he was convinced that life was unfair. On the other hand, the
second victim realized Jesus was innocent in dying. The absurdity of this thief’s
own error-filled journey was painfully obvious.
Jesus
came to his cross fully innocent. His most pressing fault was declaring God’s sovereignty
over a humanity preoccupied with serving itself. His response-ability
to God within the boundaries of his own freedom of choice challenged humanity’s
insistence of being without obligation. In examining the quality of life through
the life of Jesus, Paul concluded, “Your attitude should be the same as that of
Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).
The
real glory of Jesus revealed [revelation] God’s divine generosity with utter
assurance (John 17:3-5). Nothing can separate us from the love God demonstrated
through Jesus (Romans 8:38). In being made right with God (i.e., reconciled through
Christ), Paul found that we experience new peace and increased power (Romans
15:1-8). We can become all God intends for us to become (John 14:27).
To
live in Christ, suggested Paul, we must walk with Christ. When we walk with our
hope in Christ; we discover what Paul already knew: hope owns our future, our
past, and our present. Early church Fathers taught that God formed us, sin
deformed us, and Christ alone transformed us. In expressing this spiritual
minimum-wage law, Paul’s letters reveal God’s justice tempered with love and
mercy (Romans 6:23; John 5:24-29; I Thessalonians 4:16-18).
The
thief on the cross had the one quality that qualified him as a candidate for
faith in Christ; i.e. he offered no self-justification for his failures. He
went home with the Father’s blessings simply because it is “the pure in heart” that
“see God” (Matthew 5:8).
It
takes a man with a good heart to show an evil man the folly of his way. It
takes someone at the end of his own rope of self-justification, someone with
enough integrity to confess his own internal chaos, someone that will willingly
act on that truth and allow it to operate freely within.
If
a good man can come to nothing for the sake of his brothers and sisters, surely
a lesser man can improve and become a little better by accepting the example. It
is this internal change that we recognize as the new birth, which Jesus
described to Nicodemus (John 3). This internalized transformation releases the
now-redeemed person from the old launch-pad of self-service and launches them
into the new orbit of living for others, transformed by focusing on Christ and rotating
one’s life around hm.
The
dying thief lacked the necessary time to grow into a man of good culture and character,
because it had taken him his lifetime to discover what he needed to know about Jesus
and his power-to-become. Jesus was providing power long before the thief ever
encountered it. The multitude overlooking the Sea of Galilee heard it
proclaimed by Jesus in a hillside sermon.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for
they shall see God”
Jesus had announced--they no longer
insist on justifyin
themselves.
With
no one to blame but himself, this dying thief now discovered new hope. He
settled for a deathbed peace that brought a personal conviction of a meaningful
tomorrow. It came with a full guarantee. It introduced the One making the
promise and resulted in a passionate peace that freed Jesus to experience his death
more concerned about other people than about himself.
When
the Psalmist sat on that ancient hillside tending his sheep long ago, he recognized
O Lord, you have searched me and you
know me. You know
when I sit and when I rise: you perceive my thoughts from
afar.
You discern my going out and my
lying down: you are familiar
with all my ways. Before a word is
on my tongue you know it
completely, O Lord (Psalm 139:1-4).
This
second word from the cross of Jesus promises hope, as it confronts the life we
know and offers renewed faith in our human worth. It renews spiritual throwaways;
it offers a personal and satisfying walk with God. Paul summarized it and
concluded “God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can
bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can
stand up under it” (I Corinthians 10:13).
I
have the lines of John H. Finley taped on my refrigerator door to remind me of
Jesus:
Sought by the greatest and the least as friend
He gave himself, unsparing, to the end;
He even kept death waiting at the door
Till he could do a friend one kindness more.
This
promise of power-to-become provides a fitting conclusion from the cross by
promising security beyond life that remains as certain as death itself and
guaranteed throughout eternity.
This
is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com affirming that
God acting as Eternal Steward, became
the Great Ecologist,
ever seeking to conserve everything
of value. Acting as Divine
Watchman, God dumps no one on the
trash heap of life. He
remains busy as he can be, recreating
and transforming new
treasures from old lives cheapened
and trashed
(revised from chapter three
CONCLUSIONS FROM THE CROSS).
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