Hope unending

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come’ (John 2:1-4).

So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull (John 19:17).

The time draws near. And Jesus knows, the hour for which he was born has come.

Long before and many times, he spoke of this hour in John’s gospel, starting with the day he turned water into wine at a wedding, pleasing his mother and the thirsty crowd. But this was not the hour on which hinges all hope and history.

That comes only now, as Jesus carries his cross to the place of execution. The meaning of his entire existence rests on whether he can embrace and endure this hour or whether he will recoil from the bitter brutality and pain to come.

Will he love and love to the end, or will the cruelty that kills him also kill the love that is in him, the Love he is?

All creation holds its breath. For if the hour of bitterness kills his love, then the hope of the ages is gone. If his love does not prevail, then darkness not light, death not life, despair not love is the final word over us and all that is, and all we know, all we are and all we love ends in the dust of the grave.

But, we are not a people without hope. We know … hope is never lost.

For he who turned water into wine transforms bitterness into a radiant beauty beyond any the world shall ever see. He is love and light and life and love, lifting us from every death we shall ever die

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By you holy cross you have redeemed the world

 

For mercy's sake

 A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him (Luke 23:27). When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home (John 19:27).

It is mercy we crave and mercy we find in him who is shown no mercy. And seeing him, hearing his voice, we know the mercy of the One who is Mercy, another name for our God to be sure.

The women of Jerusalem weep for Jesus as he drags himself toward his execution. We are not told that Mary, his mother, witnessed this, only that she was at his cross when they lifted him high to be mocked and bleed out his final hours.

We cannot imagine Mary’s agony as she watched, even if we have been at the side of our beloved as they drew their final breath. There is no pain like the death of one’s child under any circumstances, let alone ... this.

We are left to wonder if Mary spoke to him as he died, offering final words of love that could never be enough to say what was in her heart. Scripture is silent about this, too.

But Jesus spoke to her and to a friend he loved as dearly as any he knew in this life. He gave them to each other that they who loved him might be bound together in the love he awakened in them.

It was a final act of mercy, by one denied mercy, revealing the Mercy who holds us one and all.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By you holy cross you have redeemed the world

 

 

 

 

 

That we may know

 

             Wednesday, February 24, 2021

But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. (Mark 15:20)

Alone you are, Jesus, stumbling, exhausted, played out; your arms tied rough and hard, shoulders scraped raw against the coarse grain of the cross as your skull jars harsh against the cobblestones.

Do you hear their voices as you lie there—taunts and derision, soldiers’ demands to get up and get on with the grisly business of the day so they can go drink away the rancid phlegm stinging their throats before they have to do it all again, maybe tomorrow?

Or maybe you are so beaten down that their voices are a distant echo in the background of your soul, knowing what is to come and wondering if you have grace or strength to be and do what love requires.

And this? To bear it all, refusing to return hatred for hatred that the divine heart may be known—and that we may know it.

This is how the world is saved. This is how sin’s ugly cycle is shattered, not by force of power or victory over enemies, but by hearts who repay bitterness with blessing, taking the worst the world can give and giving back the best.

The way of Jesus.

Pr. David L Miller

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By you holy cross you have redeemed the world

 

He is the one

 After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. (Mark 15:20)

I see her every time I step into my office at church. She walks south, her back toward me, and I wonder if she still lives or if the child on her shoulders survived what I witnessed.

She ... is a Sudanese mother carrying her child. A dirty brown sack drapes across her back containing everything she owns.

I took the photo in the middle of a war as people fled along rutted dirt roads, running from certain death, carrying what they could, often falling exhausted along the way. The fortunate found succor from scattered relief workers or stronger refugees who gave what food and water they could. But tens of thousands were not so fortunate.

I see all of them in this one woman, who carries the most precious cargo of life on her shoulders, and seeing her ... I see Jesus and love him with tears that flow from my heart’s deepest room.

For Jesus, cloaked in the purple robes of royalty, walks with the poor, the beaten and forgotten, the oppressed and those denied all justice and mercy. He shares their struggle, carrying the weight of love even when it crushes him.

Here, here is our God, walking a Sudanese road, bearing the weight of love for all the burdened who stumble and fall along the way.

If there is one worth worshiping in this world, surely he is that one.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By you holy cross you have redeemed the world

The weight

 So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. (John 19:17)

The weight

It is as it should be. Jesus carries the cross, bowed beneath the weight of human misunderstanding and cussedness. Nothing new here.

He has carried the weight of disciples who didn’t and couldn’t understand him. He bore the condemnation of those who thought him a libertine for welcoming tarnished and ruined souls into God’s embrace.

He shouldered the constant hectoring of those trying to trap him in his own words and endured the cynicism of a religious establishment that sought only to protect its position and privileges, truth and decency be damned.

And now he carries the instrument of his destruction, a Roman cross, the ultimate expression of oppression and brutality reserved for the poor and most despised.

His death will be like his life, a demonstration in the face of hardened hearts of just how far divine love will go to change our minds about God, about ourselves and about the only thing that really matters in this life.

He carries the weight of the world, bearing it all in love, a love that doesn’t break. Ever.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore you, O Christ and we bless you.

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world