Who Needs God?

Easter is just around the corner – and it seems we just celebrated Christmas! These Christian events are the most celebrated during the calendar year, both by followers of Jesus, and by the community at large. For business, it’s increased income, what with presents purchased and cards sent. For the church, it’s increased activities and larger attendance.

But what about us as individuals? What about you and what about me? What’s important to you and to me at these special times of the year? Do you draw nearer to God? Do I draw nearer to God?

Who Needs God?

We know the quick answer is everybody needs God. We know it for a variety of reasons. But does the world know the answer? How would they answer this question?

During this season of Lent (beginning with the 1st Sunday of March), we’ll be looking to God’s Word for the answers to this question, for you and for me, and for everyone. It’s how God’s Word answers this question and it’s also then what you and I do with God’s answer. When you and I know God’s answer it places so much more on what we do with both Christmas and Easter, for ourselves and for our church – to the marketplace, to our neighborhoods, anywhere we are, and everywhere we are.

The Apostle Paul explained it this way: For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21). Paul realized what mattered – and for us, whether it be Christmas or Easter (or any other time of the year), this is what matters – Jesus!

As people who follow Jesus, we know this – and we can make the most of our lives, living for Him. And for those who don’t know Him and therefore do not follow Him, they hopefully can see Him in us – in what we say and in what we do.

There are two main events happening at Orenco Church during Lent (beginning in March and running up until Easter Sunday) that I hope you’ll take advantage of – our new sermon series about Who Needs God? and our Wednesday night study series about the Last Week of Jesus’ Life (every Wednesday, from March 1st through April 5th). Not only do I hope you’ll be there for each of these, but that you’ll also bring others with you. That’s my hope – and that’s my prayer!

This Easter season – may Jesus Christ deepen His relationship with us – each of us. Amen!

Not my will . . .

 

Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane

It’s Holy Week – Monday of Holy Week to be exact.  Just yesterday we celebrated Palm Sunday, the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem amidst the cheers of onlookers, “Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”  Just yesterday began the events of Holy Week that would culminate in our Lord’s crucifixion and then the resurrection.

I’ve often wondered what my reaction would have been if I had been one of the original disciples.  What would I have done, what would I have said, what would I have told others, as the events of that week unfolded.

The gospels tell us what happened at that Passover meal.  The disciples were celebrating what God had done for their ancestors more than 1400 years prior. God had delivered the Hebrew people out of Egypt – out of slavery and eventually into the Promised Land.  Every year they gathered to celebrate the Passover, to remember and to give thanks.

But this year’s celebration would be different – so very different than before.  Jesus washed their feet.  And he took the bread and the cup of wine and gave them new meaning – the bread was His body broken for them, the cup of wine His blood shed for them.

They all went to the garden to pray.  Jesus prays to His father:

…not my will, but yours be done.

He asked God the Father to take away the issue of the cross.  He asked God the Father for a different way than the cross.  He asked God the Father for a different way than to die for our sins, knowing that our sin would separate them.

That separation is worse than the physical death and pain our Lord would endure.  No wonder He didn’t want to do it.  But He did.  He submitted to God, to God’s will and not his own.  What an example for us – an example of submission, of courage, of love.

Join us this Thursday evening as we gather to remember Him, as we gather as His disciples and share at His table, to eat the bread remembering His body broken for us, to drink of the cup remembering His blood shed for us.

Remember: there is no greater love than one who lays down their life for another.  Amen.

A Lenten Message

What if Jesus wasn’t risen from the dead? What if that first Easter had never happened? What would it have meant to His disciples, to Mary who had gone to the tomb to prepare His body for a proper burial, to the early church? And what does it mean for us?

The Apostle Paul talks about this in his first letter to the Corinthian church in chapter 15:

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

We are of all people most to be pitied. The Message translation puts it this way:

If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’re a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Christ has been raised up . . .

What do we receive because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Our sin is forgiven, our relationship with God the Father is restored, and nothing can ever separate us from Him again! Now we can live new lives, now we can live in victory, for our lives have been won by the One who lived and died and now lives forever! Amen!