Lent is a time of reflection, a time to recognize our sinfulness and our need for a Savior and here about half way through this season, hope is introduced. It really is a good time for this to appear as we might possibly, if we are honest with ourselves, begin to foster despair.
The Old Testament reading of 1 Samuel 16:1-13 is about the selection of David as the next king of Israel. In those dark, early days of Israel when God had removed His Spirit from King Saul, Samuel is sent to find and anoint a young man who would be a man after God's own heart. A man who would lead Israel into its brightest days. A man who would be the ancestor, by human descent, of our Lord Jesus - the very Light of lights in our sin darkened world.
Psalm 23, although primarily about the Lord being our shepherd includes the passage about God's presence as we go through that dark valley of the shadow of death and the hope that is ours eternally as we deal in the presence of God forever.
The Gospel passage, John 9:1-41, tells us about the man born blind. Jesus gave him sight, taking away the darkness of his world, causing great consternation for the religious leaders of the day, especially when Jesus declared that they themselves were blind because they would not see. This scripture also contains one of the great I AM statements of Christ: I am the Light of the world!
Paul, in the Epistle reading of Ephesians 5:8-14, writes about Christians, once in the darkness of sin, are now light in the Lord and need to walk as children of light having no fellowship with the world of darkness, but reproving it instead. He issues the call: awake, rise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.
On this 4th Sunday, the choir sang (apologies for the tardiness of this article) an arrangement of a "chorus" from just a few years ago, "Here I Am to Worship." I selected this anthem for this time because of "the bridge" - "I never knew how much it cost to see my sin upon the cross." As we consider the First Baptist Church, Jefferson Lenten theme: deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Christ, we have to recognize that we could never die for our own sins and satisfy the righteousness of God. The cost for our sin was not our own death, but the death of Christ who took our sin upon Himself as He hung on the cross and died.
Christ is not the light at the end of our tunnel - He is the Light in our tunnel. The hope that He offers in our darkness is such that our only real response is to put aside our self, take up our cross - our means of death, and follow Him regardless of the road or the destination - in this we find ourselves worshipping Him.
As our pastor is away completing his trip to Israel, once again Dr. Todd Wilson is our guest preacher. His sermon, "A Disciple or Just One of the Crowd" based on the texts from Matthew 8:18-22 ("I will follow, but ...) and Matthew 13:24-30 (tares sown among wheat) also reinforces the need to examine ourselves - am I truly a disciple (have I denied my self, taken up my cross, following Jesus) or am I just one of the "fickle" crowd who come for any number of reasons.
Despair because of our sin?
No. Christ is our Light; He is our Hope. Let us follow Him as His disciples.
Blessings,
Richard
No comments:
Post a Comment