3-29-2025

Good Morning All,

      Isaiah 63:9; “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.”

    When I was growing up I liked to listen to the radio.  I listened to basically two types of music.  We had rock and roll like Queen or the Beatles or Three Dog Night.  We had the balladeers like Jim Croce or Simon and Garfunkel.  I really like the ballads; they speak to life.  They spoke of joy or sadness of elation or incredible pain.  I liked Simon and Garfunkel and their song “Bridge over Troubled Water.”  It is a plaintive love song. 

    It was a refreshing song in that it was about drugs or sex or violence.  It was about one person’s undying love for the person.  He promised to always be there, no matter what.  This is a promise to be there as one to lean on, to cry on, to be able to be comforted by.  This is still one of the best love songs around. 

    One of our greatest needs as a person is someone to love and to be able to count on when we need them most.  For most of us it is a spouse or a few really close friends.  These are the ones who know us, warts, and all, and still love us.  The ones who can best tell us to move on, think about what to do, and whatever we need to hear.  These are the people who can provide a rudder in our life when life can really get muddy on us.

    That is one blessing that we as Christians have over other religions, we have a God who has “walked the walk.”  Jesus became a man to experience our life.  We often spend time thinking about how he keeps the law perfectly and dies for us.  Don’t forget that he also cried for us and hungered for us, he was elated for us and saddened for us.  Jesus experienced all of our human emotions and all of our experiences.  So, when we hurt, He truly feels our pain.  When we are elated, He knows our joy.  The full range of emotions Jesus has experienced them.

    So, like the song says,” when you’re weary, feeling small when tears are in your eyes, I will dry them off.”  We have the undying love of a God who willingly became man in order to save us.  He died that we might live.  In all of our afflictions, Jesus is there to lift us up.  He is there with his love to redeem us.  His grace sustains us and carries us on.

     We will face hardships and afflictions; that is part of being human.  Yet we do not face them alone and we do not face them with a stiff and uncaring God who fails to see or feel what we see and feel.  God has carried our every affliction and has defeated them with his power because of his love.  We can always find comfort in his arms.

Dear Father, you carry us in your loving arms to safety with all the certainty of your promise.  May we always find comfort in you.  We know that there are many who are hurting and in need of comfort.  Lead us to them that we may be your arms, hands, shoulders, and voice to be the comfort that you so richly offer.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret