3-25-12 - The Amazing Gift of Grace

3-25-12

Jerusalem

Psalm 51

            Have mercy on me, o God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.  Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.  For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.  Against you, you alone, have I sinned and done with is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.  Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. 

            You desire truth in my inward being, therefore teach me wisdom in my secret hear.  Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.  Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.  Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 

            Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.  Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.  Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.  Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

            O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.  For you have no delight in sacrifice, if I were to give a burnt offering you would not be pleased.  The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

            Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

While on internship, I was able to attend the national youth gathering in New Orleans.  Thousands of Lutheran youth filled with Superdome, brought together by a love of God and a desire to serve.  One of the speakers during the gathering was Jay Bakker, son of Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker.  One could easily tell that he was nervous, being surrounded by so many people, but there he stood and let us know how good we Lutherans have it.  He let us know that growing up he had never heard of the idea of grace.  He had not heard that God loved him solely because he is a child of God, he had only heard that he was not good enough and had to be perfect in order for God to show him any mercy.  Hearing of God’s grace, of God’s love and mercy, which we take so much for granted having heard of it our entire lives, was a life changing experience for Him, just as it was for Martin Luther, and just as it can be for many others, if only they hear about God’s grace.

The psalmist for today’s psalm had much the same experience as well.  He knew that he was a sinner from even in his mother’s womb, there as not a day that he was not a sinner, much like us.  None of us is perfect, none of us can claim to be anything but a sinner.  Our actions do nothing but heap condemnations upon us, yet God still gives us grace and mercy, God still loves and cares for us.  It can be easy to believe ourselves as better than this, as if we are good saints instead of sinners.  We can cling to comparisons, saying that we are better than Hitler or Manson or bank robbers, yet we are all still sinners, all worthy of nothing but destruction.  Under our own power, we are worthy of nothing besides destruction.  But God acts in order to save us from that destruction, saves us from ourselves.  Through our Baptisms God makes us into new beings.  We die to the sinners that we were and are raised alongside Christ as saints and we are filled with the Holy Spirit.  Each day this baptism is renewed by God, not through our own actions but by God’s amazing grace.  Each day we are made new and our hearts are cleansed and we are given the joy of knowing our salvation.  Each and every day we are shown forgiveness by our loving God .

            And yet it can be difficult for us to go and spread that good news of God’s love.  It can be embarrassing or frightening to let people know that we are Christians or that we are enthusiastic about God.  We don’t want to be seen as some holy roller, Jerry Falwell type that is out of touch with the world today. We don’t want to break that rule that states that to have civil conversation, we can’t talk about politics, money, or religion.  All we want to do is fit in, not stick out, because the nail that sticks out gets the hammer.  Yet what does the psalmist say?  O Lord open my lips and my mouth will sing your praise.  Outside of worship, how often would we say those words, how often do we want to sing God’s praise, how often do we want to go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ has come and has saved us, that God Himself emptied himself, took upon himself the life of a slave to all people, and has saved us through his sacrifice.  It can be a very frightening thing, to share our faith with people.  There is a constant fear of rejection, that we will be looked down upon or avoided.  Yet we are called to do so, we are called to rejoice in God’s mercy and to proclaim God’s love for us.  Why?  Because people need to hear it, people need to know that they are love and that there is hope for the future, not just the chance to become wormfood in our coffins. 

            Yes we are sinners, our very cores are filled with sin as is the world around us.  Sin reaches into every aspect of our lives and corrupts and corrodes is.  When we do good works or are even asked to, we weigh them against the benefits that we will receive as well.  We look towards our own pleasure, even when it means death and destruction for people that we will never see, through our consumerism and ignorance.  We take life and the world for granted, instead of reveling in the wonder of God and the joy that God brings and the majesty of God’s creation.  We turn our hearts continually away from God, with hardly a look back except for Sunday mornings, and still God loves and cares for us, and still God has mercy upon us because we are His beloved children.  No matter how royally we mess up in our lives, God is still there to support and care for us, even if our families and our friends leave us behind and scorn us, God is still there holding onto us and comforting us.         When we see that hold upon us, when we see God’s love and compassion for us, truly see and feel it, we are changed.  In that instant we see God’s activity in our lives and we see the changes and the cleansing that God has upon our hearts and we are made new, we begin to live with the Spirit instead of fighting against it.  Only god has this power, this power to change us from the sinner into the saint, the power to make our hearts whole and our will to be in accordance with His, that we may care for our brothers and sisters, but human and animal.  It is God, not us, who makes us into faithful people and followers of Christ,

 it is God and only God who has the power to push back the darkness of this world, to break the bonds of Sin that hold us down and pulls us into doing that which we do not wish to do, those things that we know are against God and yet we do them, the gossiping and slandering and addictive behaviors and self-importance that infects our lives and our hearts.  And God does these things out of love for us and out of God’s desire to be close to us at all times, to suffer alongside us and to lift us up when all hope appears to be lost. 

            This is the message that so many need to hear, that there is one who will be with them through everything, even beyond death God is there to care for us.  It can seem to be too good to be true, that God would love even the worst of us, yet it is.  And in thankfulness to God for loving us so much, we offer ourselves to Him, we give God our hearts and our bodies in order that He may be glorified.  That is the meaning of God’s Work, Our Hands.  We do the work of God because that is our truest offering to Him.  We love because God first loved us and we serve because god first served us, not to earn anything for ourselves or to gain His love.  We are given the gift of God’s grace freely, free of any and all cost, because of love.  Could there possibly be anything more amazing that we should rejoice about or that we should proclaim to others?  I think not, and I give thanks to God for all that He has done, for cleansing our hearts, for making us alive in Him instead of dead in Sin, and for supporting and loving us through it all.  May we now not be afraid and go out and open our mouths to sing God’s praise and to help people see the joy that life has to offer in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. 

Amen.

March 18, 2012- Let It Go!

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. ¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ¹⁷“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. ²¹But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

                The world, for John, was not exactly an amazing place.  Throughout his gospel, John talks about how the world is darkness without Jesus, that it’s ruler is wicked and needs to be cast out, that the world does not know the Word of God, and that the world in fact hates God.  John really sets up God and the World has brutal enemies… yet he also says “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life, Indeed God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”  So God, in God’s infinite mercy and compassion, chooses to not demolish or condemn the world, which has been actively acting against God, but instead sacrifices God’s only Son in order to save the world from itself. 

          Could we honestly say that we would do the same?  I doubt it.  As mortals we tend to be quick to condemn.  Our law system states that we are “innocent until proven guilty” but so often our judgments are made far before the end of the trial, usually before it even begins, that the person who is there is guilty, if not of what they are being tried for than of something at least as bad as what they are accused.  We love to badmouth our enemies, speaking ill of them and wishing death upon them. How often have we heard each other say things like “They should just carpet bomb the whole Middle East and be done with it?”  We live in a world where the best way to unify people is to give them an enemy that they can hate and fight together.  Whether it is The X-Men and Magneto fighting against Apocalypse or The United Stated and Russia fighting against the Nazis, we are all easily united through hate and violence.  It is far harder to unite people with love and compassion, because we don’t want to share with the people that we don’t like.  Its just that simple.  We live in a world that is full of schadenfreude, the feeling of pleasure at other people’s pain.

          Who among us doesn’t want to be the greatest, doesn’t want to be the best at something and hasn’t taken pleasure when someone else did not quite measure up?  All we need do to see this is look at the early episodes of competition tv shows, when they show all the people who have no place at all being in the competition.  They are shown because we love to take pleasure to watching other people suffer and to laugh at them in our delight, because heaven forbid someone has a dream.  We have this emotion towards complete strangers, so it comes to no surprise that when we see our enemies, whether they are really our enemies or we just imagine them to be, that we would wish to condemn them, to have them fall and suffer as well.  One of the hottest songs out there right now is Cee-Lo Green’s “Forget You” which is all about a guy’s hatred of an ex-girlfriend.  You hurt me, well then forget you, you are a bane on the existence of any man who would ever dare date you.  Even our joyful sounding songs are ones that show our disdain for our brothers and sisters.  And yet here we have God, who looks upon this broken world which fights against Him and refuses to call Him King, who makes itself God’s enemy, and God says, I love you and I am going to sacrifice my only Son just for you.

          And before we imagine that God was looking at only non-Christians and said “I love you all, even though you are my enemies” think about how we treat God’s name at times.  Each time that we show hatred for others, every time we use God’s name for our personal benefit, every time that we sin while carrying His name, do we not dishonor God and become His enemy? This is not a phenomenon of just the crusades or the churches that aligned themselves with Hitler, but it’s every one of us who look at another person and say “You I cannot love, you are beneath me and you are what’s wrong with this world.”  We are called to be God’s hands in this world, and we are the way in which people see God’s face and experience God’s love.  If we show hatred and backbiting and vengeance, then people will see God as hating and cruel and vengeful and we have defiled the name of God and caused others to scorn God’s name as well.  And yet God looks upon us, his sinful, neglectful children and says “Yes, I know that you act against me, even unwittingly, and you I still love as well.” 

              We still live in a world of darkness, in a world that willingly defies God, ourselves included, and yet we still have God desiring to be close to us, to show us the light of His grace and a way that eases our burdens.  Hating people and carrying around anger creates a life that is filled with pain and sorrow.  We weigh ourselves down when we lay upon our backs all the memories of the ways people have wronged or slighted us, and it gets to the point that all we can see is pain and suffering, where instead of seeing hope we can begin to see only continual disappointment and dissatisfaction.  I know I have carried around a lot of burdens in my life.  I was bullied all the way through high school, seen as that weird kid who would sing in the hallways with the bad allergies.  I was easy prey for those bigger and stronger than me, and I became anxious of social situations, wondering who was going to reject or hurt me next.  It was a terrible way to live and I carried that pain for far too long, causing me to miss out on friendships and relationships that I never thought were possible.  It came to the point that we have to just let things go, to see that the people who hurt us are also humans who are in need of love and compassion as well, not some demonic force.  Letting go of that pain is hard, and there will always be some small memory that stays in our minds, but we need not be haunted and controlled by those memories and experiences. 

          “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ¹⁷“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  Neither are we called to condemn, instead we are called to bring healing to this broken world, the healing that forgiveness and sacrifice brings.  Here is my challenge to all of us this week, including myself – Think of one person whom you have carried a grudge against or someone who has a grudge against you.  It could be a friend, a family member, a co-worker, a kid from school, anyone.  Honestly pray for them, not that they will change or that they will be stricken dead by God, but pray for them that they may be healthy and filled with joy in their lives.  Then get a hold of them and invite them to something.  It could be dinner, or a party, or a walk in the park, whatever. They might turn you down or even curse at you for daring speak to them, but still invite them to conversation, to a time of getting to know one another better and to set aside all the hurt and the pain and to move on with your lives.  It might mean that it is best that you two don’t speak ever again, especially in an abusive relationship, but there can still be forgiveness and a letting go in that as well.  God created this world and sacrificed much in order to bring healing to it.  God has blessed each and every one of us in our lives and given us great opportunity to enjoy all that He has done.  Let us not spend our days being weighed down by the hurts of this world and the grudges that we carry upon our backs, but instead let us rejoice in the day that the Lord has made and let us rejoice in the forgiveness that God has given us and share it with our brothers and sisters throughout this world.  We don’t need to sacrifice our sons and daughters in order to do it either, all we need do is sacrifice our grudges, give them over to God and rise up in His love and compassion.  When we do, I promise you that we will be filled with new life and our lives will be changed for the better, for we shall finally see and feel the saving grace of our God.

Amen

March 11, 2012 - Yes, We DO Like the Law

God spoke all these words: ²I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; ³you shall have no other gods before me. ⁴You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ⁵You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, ⁶but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. ⁷You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. ⁸Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. ⁹Six days you shall labor and do all your work. ¹⁰But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. ¹¹For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

¹²Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. ¹³You shall not murder. ¹⁴You shall not commit adultery. ¹⁵You shall not steal. ¹⁶You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. ¹⁷You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

            In Gettysburg, there used to be a civil war chapel.  It was a wooden structure on the main road in town and it was led by people in Civil War era clothing.  This was intriguing to me, and before it burned down, I had the opportunity to go and worship there.  I was really looking forward to the sermon, since I am always curious where someone is going to take the text and show their theology.  The sermon was on the Ten Commandments, and I knew we were in trouble when he started proclaiming that the Ten Commandments were the 10 don’ts.  No matter how we look at the commandments, there is no way to reasonably call them the 10 don’ts, since they don’t all have the word don’t, or shall not, or any other variation upon that phrase.  So I was already a little bit peeved.  Then he continued on about how if you don’t follow the 10 don’ts, you are going to be smited with God’s righteous fury…  Um yeah, that part is not in the text either.The commandments are not a set of rules or obligations, but rather they are a way of life that is fulfilling, a way of life that brings about healing and makes us a blessing to one another.  They are a way of life that gives us joy and comfort, instead of pain and sorrow.

  If we do not have God in our lives, if we bow down to fake gods such as money or popularity, we lose because we do not get to experience the joy of God or the comfort of God’s love, compassion, and mercy.  If we do not honor the name of God, and instead use it to curse others or to gain our own profit, we lose that connection to God which gives us that joy and comfort.  If we dishonor our mother and father, we have broken families and we suffer.  When we murder or steal or commit adultery, we break relationships with others and we are left alone and we diminish the lives of others as well. When we forget to take care of ourselves, to take that Sabbath day to rest and rejuvenate, our bodies break down and we can become depressed.  When we covet our neighbors things and refuse to be content with what we have, we fail to find fulfillment and satisfaction.  When we break these commandments, it is not God who punishes us, but rather we punish ourselves and our loved ones with our actions and our broken relationships.  Breaking these laws are like trying to break the law of gravity.  If we leap off the Empire State Building, we hurt ourselves and those around us, since not only do we get squished like a grape when we hit the ground, but also anyone underneath of us does as well, and our families and their families have to mourn our losses.  All of this is a natural reaction to our jumping, just as the destruction left behind when we break the commandments is also a natural reaction.

These commandments are not a set of rules that we must follow in order to avoid punishment, but rather they are a gift to us from our loving Creator, a gift that helps guide us in life, in order that we may live in harmony with one another and that all people may be respected and have fulfilled lives.  We are blessed by God with these commandments, for they are guide our lives and show us how we are to live in a way that is not only congruent with God’s will, but also in a way that will bring joy to not only our own lives but to all those that we come in contact with.

In the Jewish faith, the Torah, which is the first five books of the Bible so includes the 10 Commandments and indeed many of the Jewish laws, is seen as a means of grace, a way in which God reaches God’s people and touches their lives and gives us all power and forgiveness.  These commandments are seen as a way that God helps us to define our lives and live better ones, just as we treat the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, and just as we see the entirety of the scriptures.  In a way, the commandments are much like the frog prince of legend.  They may appear to be ugly and difficult, they may not appear to be what you want, but when we give them a chance they prove themselves to be the prince that is so desired and enrich our lives beyond what we could have imagined.

The same is true for the rest of the law.  While we Lutherans have been accused of ignoring the law, just as Paul was accused before, it is simply not true.  If we did ignore it, Luther would not have written his explanation of the commandments in his catechisms, and he definitely wouldn’t haven’t followed Christ’s lead and added to their meanings.  Such as, we do not simply say “Do not steal” but rather we say that we should also help people keep what they have, and not only “do not bear false witness” and defame others, but also speak well of all people and put the best possible spin on their words and actions.

  We as Lutherans embrace the Law, because it not only sets boundaries for ourselves, but it also forces us to see our sinfulness when we break the law and forces us to see our need for God’s grace.  Without the law, we would wander adrift, believing ourselves to be perfectly fine without God, but with it we see that we are not perfect and we are in need of God and God’s mercy and love.  The law makes the hearing of the gospel all the sweeter to our ears and in our lives.

For we know that we are forgiven of our sins, we know that we are forgiven of the trespasses that we have committed against those boundaries set for us by the law.  We are given the peace that comes from God, who says I love you, you are my child and I will comfort you and guide you and be with you through all of your life, even past the point of death I will care for you. 

Amen

March 4, 2012 - You are NOT Forsaken

Mark 8:31-8

³¹Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

³⁴He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. ³⁶For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? ³⁸Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

            O Peter is at it again, trying to show that he knows better than Jesus.  Jesus declares to the disciples that He will be killed and rise again and Peter takes him aside and rebukes him, as if Jesus was some unruly child who need to be taken away from the people and chastised for his words.  Rebuking is not some gentle thing as if Peter is saying “Jesus, I’m not quite sure you know what you are saying.  I think you need to simmer down a bit.”  No, it is far harsher it is a “Jesus, You Idiot!  What are you talking about!  This is not the right message, you are not going to die, now stop talking like this now before I get really angry!”  Could you even imagine having the gall to do that to Jesus?  To take him aside and treat Him in such a manner?  I mean, I can get Peter being confused and horrified at the thought of his beloved teacher dying in such a manner, but to treat him in such a disrespectful manner astounds me. 

            Why does he do it?  He does it because he does not see the end result of Jesus’ actions, he doesn’t see the necessary sacrifice and the mission of God.  Peter doesn’t want that kind of pain and suffering, especially for someone that he cares about and respects so greatly.

  How many of us have found out that a family member or a friend has gotten some horrendous news about a terminal illness, has fought them when they did not want to go through the treatments anymore, who had accepted the idea of death or have even wished for it?  It is hard to imagine losing someone we love, and not much easier when they talk about a willingness to die.  So here we have Peter hearing his mentor and friend say that he was going to search out death, which goes even beyond accepting it.  But Peter did not see the big picture, he did not see the lives that would be changed and the promise of everlasting life that would be granted with Christ’s sacrifice, all that he saw was his discomfort and pain.

            Being a Christian is not easy.  The feel good messages that say that all we have to do is believe and pray in order to have a carefree and easy life is a lie.  For one, our lives are filled with compassion for others, not self centeredness.  It can be hard to have compassion, because we begin to take the pain of others onto ourselves.  We are called to service, and it is hard to give up working for our own desires and working for the needs of others.  It is hard to carry the cross of our faith, but it is rewarding.  Not with ease of life, but with purpose and a fullness of life.  We may lose some of the ease of life that Peter is hoping for, but we gain so much more instead.  We gain the support of the community, we gain the hope that comes with the promises of God, and we gain our purpose.  We need not be ashamed to embrace Jesus Christ and His teachings, no matter how much they may differ from our society.  When we are ashamed, when we hide the light that God has given us, that light is dimmed and Christ is not seen.  But when we act unashamed, when we let that light go forth with our words and our actions, God is seen and heard and felt and the light burns brightly.  Even in the darkest of moments, God’s light can permeate and be seen, and it may warm us in the coldest of nights.

            Life does not always make sense.  Innocents suffer, the wicked get wealthy, and those that we love and care about are taken from us.  It can appear as though God is not present, or just plain doesn’t understand our problems.  Yet God does understand, for God took it upon himself to suffer and to die for us.  Despite Peter’s protests, Jesus does go to the cross, he is beaten and mocked and stripped and hung up on the cross for all to see and jeer and he dies.  He took upon Himself all the punishment that the world could dish out and all the pain and humiliation that the world could give.  It got to the point that Jesus cries out “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?”  Imagine feeling forsaken by God, feeling as though God had completely cut you off and left you alone to dry up and shrink into nothingness.  That level of emotion is foreign to many of us.  We may feel forgotten or distant, but its not often that we feel as though God willingly works against us.  Yet that is Christ’s words on the cross.  But those words are not without hope.  Today’s psalm is Psalm 22, and you may have noticed that it does not begin with verse one, but with verse 23.  Today’s reading is full of joy and celebration for all of God’s works.  But the very first verse on the psalm is not so joyful.  Instead the psalm begins with the very words Jesus speaks on the cross, “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?” Even when we feel forsaken, that God has turned His back on us and worked against us, there is hope because we know that God would never do such a thing.  We have a God who has been there for our ancestors and is here for us today.  Yes, times do get hard, but you know what?  God has been through those times as well.  Jesus experienced loss in his life, of friends and family.  Jesus knew the pain and humiliation of being bullied and mocked.  Christ knows the pain of being imprisoned, of being tortured, or being executed.  God, in the person of Jesus Christ, took upon Himself all of the torment that the world could dish out upon him in order to save us and in order to experience our lives, to know our pain and our sorrow and our trials.  When we are in the darkest points of our lives, God is there beside us, mourning alongside us, feeling our pain alongside us, and letting us know that we are not alone, we are not forsaken, but rather we are loved by our Creator and that He knows what we are going through and He can take all the yelling and the cursing that we can possibly lay upon Him, because God has had those experiences and loves and cares for us.

            Peter is not bad or stupid for wanting to help Jesus avoid those sufferings and those pains.  He merely could not see the full picture.  He could not see that God needed to experience those pains and those humiliations in order to be closer to us and to lower himself, in order that all could be found worth of God’s kingdom.   He could not see the fullness of God’s plan, much like we cannot see that plan.  Luckily for Peter and for us, not knowing the plan doesn’t mean that we will die.

We are not Romeo drinking poison due to not knowing that Juliet is only faking being dead.  Instead, we are all granted eternal life, all give hope and a purpose in our lives, and all called children by God and cared for by Him, even though we are clueless at times.  We have a God who loves us so much that He took the pain of the world upon Him in order to draw us closer to Him.  There is absolutely no shame in that, let us not be ashamed but instead rejoice in the light of God and take solace in his promises.  Amen.