10-3-2023

Good Morning All,

              Matthew 8:7; “And he (Jesus) said to him, “I will come and heal him.”

  You may notice I am a moderate movie addict.  One of my favorites is the movie “Jaws.”  This is a classic from the mid 1970’s and starred Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss.  I liked it because it has some really good dialog in it.  This is one of those movies where you can say a line from it and a lot of people will recognize it.  The line when Brody (Scheider) sees the shark and says, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Is or at least was pretty popular.

   There is a scene in the movie where the three leads are in the boat, drinking more than they should, and they start to compare scars.  One shows a scar from a moray eel, and one shows a scar from a thresher shark one shows a scar from his appendectomy.  Quint (Shaw) shows a scar on his arm where he had a tattoo removed and that was a fairly poignant moment in the movie. 

    We all have scars.  I have one on my left wrist where I put my hand through the window of a door.  I have one on my right leg where I landed on a fence post wrong.  I have a couple of little ones here and there.  You probably do as well.  Perhaps from a surgery or some accident or something in your life that left that mark on you.  The funny thing about a scar.  They don’t seem to tan as dark so in the summertime they are more apparent.  They seem to be more sensitive to the touch.  I have been told that if you cut the skin of a scar that it takes longer for this to heal a second time.

    Many of us have scars that cannot be seen.  It might be from the pain of growing up in a house that provided little love and mostly anger.  It might be from the shattered relationship that you thought was good until one day it wasn’t.  It might be from the cruel comments made or the repeated rejections that you experience.  We all have scars.  Scars that cause us to doubt our self-worth and our value.  Scars that cause us to think we are of no use to anyone.

    Yet Christ came to heal you.  He came to heal your scars.  He came to remove those scars which cause you to believe you are worthless.  You are the apple of God’s eye.  You have value far beyond your understanding.  God loves you.  He sent Jesus to die for you to remove those scars.  Those scars do not define who you are; they only show what you have experienced.  God’s grace for you defines you and it defines you as precious and valuable, loved and redeemed.  It defines you as one of his eternal children.

    The devil will try to convince you that scars remove any value you have but God loves you and removes any scars that matter and heals over the ones that don’t.  He gives us life and gives us the hope for battling life’s struggles.  He comes to heal you.

Gracious Father, in you we have healing.  In you we have hope.  We thank you for sending Jesus to be our savior and to give us health and hope.  Be with those who are especially scarred at this time.  Give them the assurance of your love and the comfort of your mercy.  In the precious name of Jesus our Risen savior, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret