Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Morning Psalms: 61, 62 | Evening Psalm: 68
Jeremiah 2:1-13 | Romans 1:16-25 | John 4:43-54

Our hearts and minds can readily relate to the Roman official whose son was sick and close to death in today’s reading from John 4. Any parent knows how we suffer when our children suffer. And the thought of losing a child to death seems more than we can bear. This was undoubtedly the anguish and depth of desperation this father experienced as he approached Jesus and begged Him to heal his son.

It was in turning to Jesus, in the act of trusting in His power to heal his son, that the Roman official heard, and subsequently experienced, Jesus’ life changing words: “Go; your son will live” (John 4:50).

This encounter encapsulates and offers a tangible foretaste of the Christian Gospel. For all who belong to Christ, there is a similar story of spiritual sickness leading unto death. There is in each of our stories a season or moment of anguish and despair over our own inability to live life well and to avert death itself. This is the necessary bad news that makes the good news so good!

Paul declares in our Romans 1 reading today: “...I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (Rom 1:16-17).

In the face of our own spiritual deadness we find life, like the Roman official, by turning to Jesus and trusting in His power to heal. A power that was astonishingly displayed on the cross of Calvary wherein His righteousness becomes ours by faith.

As you journey through this season of Lent, in what ways is God calling you to turn and trust in Jesus for life and wholeness? How will you respond?

O God, by the passion of Your blessed Son You made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of Your Son our Savior Jesus Christ: who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen (BCP, p 220).

The Rev. David C. Bryan (MDiv 1983, DMin Student)
Sr. Pastor, Christ Church
Murrells Inlet, SC