12 June 2017 - receive courage

Mic drop

Today's Readings

Blessed are they who mourn,
for they will be comforted.

The beatitudes are easier to hear in the good times when we don't actually have to pay much attention. When we mourn and someone tells us that we are blessed we are probably just going to get angry at them.  Yet that is what Jesus is telling us. He says to us that our poverty, sadness, hunger, and pain all have a deeper significance in him. On their own they do not. This isn't a platitude of philosophy anyone can discover and live. It is only true because of the death and resurrection of Jesus himself.

For as Christ's sufferings overflow to us,
so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow.
If we are afflicted,
it is for your encouragement and salvation;
if we are encouraged,
it is for your encouragement,
which enables you to endure the same sufferings that we suffer.

There is no way to the resurrection which doesn't pass through the cross. Any crosses we bear by our own effort end only in death and not in resurrection. That is why Jesus brings us with him on his own journey to calvary. Because he does so all of our sufferings can now participate in his own suffering. Our sufferings become redemptive. They help us to desire more and more only that which really matters. They even become redemptive for others as we show them that death and pain don't have the last word. We empower them to endure sufferings just as we do.

If we are afflicted this morning the LORD desires to encourage us. He wants us to realize that he is chiseling away at the remnants of our stony hearts to reveal the living heart he has already placed with us. He is making us pure and and righteous and peaceful so that we will be able to be satisfied as his children by the vision of his face.

Look to him that you may be radiant with joy,
and your faces may not blush with shame.
When the poor one called out, the LORD heard,
and from all his distress he saved him.