Make This a Year to Renew Worship Passion
By Pastor C. Franklin James
As we prepare to enter the spring of the year, our faces brighten with a new sense of the beauty of life. In our part of the world, life begins all over again. The trees and flowers bud and blossom, the grass turns green and the frozen world of winter is but a fading memory. We love it!
In our faith, we easily think of the natural likeness of spring to the glory of the resurrection. Jesus' lifeless body had been placed in the tomb. His death on the cross left his friends and followers fearful and forlorn. But how all that changed when they discovered that their Master and Teacher--their Savior and Friend--was alive again! He had risen, just as he said he would. "Hallelujah!" indeed!
During the season of the church's calendar known as Lent, we hear once again the description of the crucifixion and resurrection as these are found in the scriptures. How easy it is for us to skirt around the horrors of the cross! We must never allow ourselves to diminish in any way the brutal treatment that Jesus suffered on our behalf. The message of the cross is absolutely essential to the preaching and teaching of Christ himself. Again and again, he sought to impress upon his disciples the necessity of his suffering and death. The apostles' preaching, too, was crystal clear about Christ's suffering and death on the cross. This continues to be the message of the church. Without the cross the message of God visiting this world in Christ was powerless and not terribly compelling. But as the message was proclaimed that the Son of God, the spotless Lamb of God, had been slain for sinful humanity, now that was a message with teeth!
But the message of Christ's death on the cross, as compelling as it may have been, was lifeless, even hopeless, if that was the end of the story. The disciples knew that quite well! But when they made their way to the tomb in which the body of Jesus had been placed, their gloom turned to joy. He was no longer there. "He is not here," the angelic messenger told the disciples. "He has risen!"
True, it took awhile for all that had transpired to make sense, even for the early followers of Jesus. But their message to us is complete. It is both sobering and yet a word that brings joy to all who embrace it. It is a message of hope and new life. Because Christ lives, we too shall live!"
2018 can become a year of renewing the passion in our worship before the creator of all things. The fire of God's passionate love for the world can ignite a flame in our hearts as well. May the joy of our resurrection faith propel us forward in our own personal growth in grace.
And as we grow in our faith, may the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead also raise us up to new efforts of redemptive involvement in our community and the world.
Come, celebrate the joy of Easter! He is risen, indeed!
