11-24-2018

 Good Morning All,

           John 3:17; “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

     One time, when my youngest son was just a toddler, his mother took him shopping with his grandmother to Kmart.  As they came out of the store, with him and all the purchases in the shopping cart; the cart began to tip as one of the wheel fell off of the sidewalk.  He screamed, his mom screamed, his grandmother screamed.  As the cart tipped, everyone tried to catch him.  His mom tried.  His grandmother tried but it was to no avail.  The cart tipped and he crashed into the pavement and scraped his nose up.  He cried, his mom cried, his grandmother cried.  It must have been quite the event.

    I don’t know if anyone else tried to catch him; I wasn’t there but I would assume that if someone was there they would have tried.  Most people will try and catch someone if they are falling.  This tends to be a standard reaction, especially for parents and grandparents.  If you ever have attended a high school sporting event where one of the participants gets injured, it never takes long to figure out who the parents and grandparents are.  It is a common response; very few people, if any, take any delight in the pain of their loved ones.  Most, if not all, will try anything to help ease the pain.

    When I visit someone who is in the hospital, it seems that the spouse or the parent is more upset than the patient is.  We hate to see our loved ones suffer.  Most of us would do anything, including trading places with them, in order to alleviate the pain.  We would take it all away of we could. 

    This is a similar response that God has towards us.  God’s response to us is out of love, out of the purest fatherly love.  God saw the pain and the suffering and had compassion on us as a loving parent would.  To quote Luther, “but God beheld our wretched state.”  God saw our hopelessness and did what any loving parent would: he took our place.  He took from us the cost of that pain, of that sin.  He lifted up Jesus on the cross so that we would be lifted up out of our desperate state.

    This is why God sent Jesus to die in our place.  His love for us is beyond that of what a parent feels for their child.  His is the perfect love that moved him to send his only son to die in your place.  He replaced you with Jesus so that you may have life and have it abundantly.  He sent Jesus, not to judge or condemn but to take your place so that all the pain and sadness could be replaced, replaced with hope.  This is why Jesus came to walk on the earth; he came to bring healing.  Whatever your condition; Jesus came to restore us to life.

Father of all good, you give us life.  Because of your great love we have life; because of your mercy we have hope.  Defend us through the trials of this life so that we may always see your love.  Be with those who are lost and unsure of your mercy.  Give them hope.  Bring them safely home.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret