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All life is precious; human life most precious of all. Each
of us regards our own life as invaluably dear. You cherish
your life and would surrender all else before relinquishing
it, because your life is more important and costly than any
commodity of this world. It is so prized and to be
protected that people have exhausted all else they may have
to keep it.
This tenacious hold to life is common to all human beings.
No matter one's age, regardless of one's station in life,
achievements or pressures, notwithstanding wealth or lack of
it, triumphs or failures, acclaim or obscurity, life is
precious.
Life is also mysterious. Not as to its origins, for all life
is of God. It is no mystery from whom our life has come
whether acknowledged or not. We were, each of us, created
and endowed by our Creator, the holy Trinity, with life and
limb, with breath and potency.
It is also no mystery how life is sustained -- surely not by
our wisdom or ability. Not having given ourselves our
bodies, senses, movements or years, the power to protract or
prolong life is also beyond our doing.
We cannot will ourselves longevity, much less immortality.
Much as anyone might wish to preserve his life, and much as
one might seem to achieve a few added years by good habits
or shorten them by reckless neglect, life is not in our
hands to give or preserve.
Indeed, to take our lives in our own hands is to lose them.
Yet we have all done so. Like our fathers all the way back
to Adam in the Garden of Eden, we have all tried to manage
our own destiny, stand in our own strength, survive by our
own wits, live by our own code, and weather what comes as
best we can. And yet, LIFE --this inscrutable and
unfathomable mystery is ultimately taken. The mighty fall
just as definitely as the weak. The wise perish no less
certainly than the fool. The athletic and the crippled both
return to the ground from which they were taken; the famous
and the unknown, the tycoon and the rag-picker, the child
and the aged.
We are all made of the same fabric. We all share a common
ancestry. We are all sinful -- God help us. We are all in
the same fix, flawed and fallen.
We don't like to think of ourselves that way, and saying so
isn't meant to offend. It is just that we must ever remember
that we all have the same need for a Savior. The yearning
for deliverance is universal. The commonality we share is
profound. If one is overtaken in grief, join the human
race. If we are doubtful or fearful or bewildered, we don't
have to look any further than the next person for someone
who has encountered the same temptations.
The truth is that we are all dependent on a Source outside
ourselves for the miracle of life. We are defenseless
without the protection and providence of Christ. In the
main there are no distinctions between us. At the core of
life is Christ, so anyone who thinks he will stand and only
others fall is mistaken. Anyone is confused who thinks some
folks are star-crossed while others are lucky. Rather, we
must say, "There, but by the grace of God, go I," because
the truth is that we are all the same in our nature and our
need.
That is why it is so much our joy and privilege to hear that
this need is met, this nature is redeemed, and this quandary
which neither you nor I could resolve has been answered.
The dark labyrinth of disappointment, distress, and death
has not just been disentangle but conquered and liberated
through the Prince of Life, Jesus Christ.
The insurmountable barrier which divides loved ones,
estranges friends, breaks health, grieves the soul and
delivers death has been overcome.
God has provided "the" way of escape which all humanity
craves. And that escape is through the death and
resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.
As all of us can testify, we are all practiced at looking
for escapes, aren't we? There is the old man who escapes to
his hobby shop rather than look out for his neighbors.
School drop-outs use another means of escape. Others seek
escape through pills or a bottle. We are all so much like
Jonah who tried to escape God. Even the youngster pulling a
wagon to run away from home displays the fervor for escape
which drives people everywhere.
But where shall we flee? Peter declared, "Lord,
to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."
The one glorious rescue and way of escape is given through
the triumph of Christ.
God doesn't just watch us. Jesus, as a true human being
himself, spoke from his own human experience about all the
temptations common to man. Jesus not only confronted all
the same threats, anxieties, perils, and adversaries; He
received into his own flesh the faults, liabilities and
errors which have accumulated in our lives that we had
neither the strength nor will to carry. That which crushes
us, crushed Him who laid Himself over our lives to protect
us.
Jesus Christ has loved us all from eternity. This is not
merely an affection or feeling toward us. God does not
offer us mere sympathy. It isn't just that He understands
how we feel. He delivers the very substance of life.
God's Word of promise is not a palliative, a kind of
analgesic to numb our worries and fears. No, God resolved
long before we were born to commit Himself to being the
Rescuer and Redeemer for us and provide the way of escape we
could never otherwise have known.
The escape would not be through us digging ourselves out,
but Christ burrowing His way in. Jesus was burdened,
butchered, and buried for us. The pain and heartaches of
all Jesus chose for himself.
That precious Life, that invaluably dear and costly Source
of Life, was exhausted, deprived, and surrendered upon a
cross, in the mystery of God's atoning sacrifice for the
sins of the world. All of them. All the times we've erred
and fallen; all the times we offended or failed; all the
umbrage we've taken or the affront we've given--all have
been paid for. All have been pardoned. All have been
buried with Christ.
The way of escape is Christ. He has mastered sin and death
by smothering them in his own dying and rising as only the
Son of God could do. In the strength of His victory you
not only can endure temptation but repulse it. In Jesus
Christ, you Christians, are given your Lord not just so you
can bear a sorrow but sing in celebration the Easter anthem,
"Jesus Lives, the Victory's Won."
Pastor Reed
© 2009
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