11-22-2017

Good Morning All,

        Isaiah 43:4a; “Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you”

     Do you remember the story of Snow White?  It had the wicked queen who possessed a magical mirror.  She would look into it and ask, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”  The mirror would always answer, “You are my queen.”  That is until one day when the mirror decided that Snow White was even fairer than the queen. 

    “Mirror, mirror on the wall, how do I look to you today?”  We use the mirror for many purposes.  We use it to see when we shave or put on makeup.  We use a mirror to be sure that our clothes are straight and neat; that our hair is combed and that nothing is still stuck in our teeth.  Most of us sigh and figure it looks good for what there is to work with.

    Now if that mirror could look into our hearts it would find all sorts of ugly stuff.  It would find jealousy, anger, greed and the like; it would find sin.  As we look at that mirror we would see ugliness.  If we asked this mirror, “who is the fairest of them all?”  It would not be you or me that is for sure.  Unfortunately, because of this sin, this is how God saw us too.  He saw us as ugly, vermin filled creatures.  He could have destroyed us and started over.  He could have just turned his back and walked away.  However, what he did actually do, was to send Jesus to correct this ugly mess.

    What did Jesus do?  He let a man named Judas betray him, a man named Peter to deny him, all his followers abandoned him, the priests mocked him, the soldiers cursed him, spit on him, and finally nailed him to a cross to die for you and me.  When the world’s mirror looked at him; he was far from the fairest in the land but when God’s mirror looked upon him; God saw the price paid and the beauty of us being restored by the sacrifice of his Son on the cross.

    So now, when we look at ourselves in the mirror, we want to make sure we look in the proper mirror.  If we look in the mirror of the world, it will remind us that we are ugly and worthless.  But we get a different mirror, because we are God’s redeemed children, we get the mirror that God looks into.  We get to look into this mirror because God has forgiven us, has claimed us through Baptism and we see looking in with faith to see a whole new us;  no longer ugly but beautiful because of God’s mercy.

    So God looks at us we are precious in his eyes.  We are his dear children because of the sacrifice that Jesus made upon that cross.  It was a bloody and ugly event but it gave to us the greatest gift ever and that is life eternal.  This is why we sing “Beautiful Savior.” The beauty that we receive because of his sacrifice gives us hope for eternal life and lets us look into God’s mirror which sees us as his forgiven, redeemed children.

Heavenly Father, you give us a new mirror to see our life through.  It is not the broken mirror of the world but it is the recreated mirror of your mercy.  Guide us down the path of the wonderful and loving life that you give us.  Your mercy pours over us like a river and our future in your loving arms waits for us.  Keep us safe and strong in your grace.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret