Laced With Grace

I saw a sign in front of a church the other day:  “Spring is coming…God has promised!”

“As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.” (Gen. 8:22 ESV)

I remember the lesson (as winter seems to drag on and on and on…).

It is God that has ordained this order of seasons and God is faithful to His promises.  That is the lesson I am  reminded of.  Spring has come around every year of my life (and long before that) and spring will come around again this year also.

God is faithful to His promises…not because we are good; God is faithful to His promises because HE is so good.

“For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”  (Matt 5:45 ESV)

God has promised that the cycle of life will continue as long as the earth endures!  As we look at the drab brown left behind the melted snow (for those of us in the frozen north), we are reminded to look forward to the spring blossoms.

 ”For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted…(Ecc. 3:1-2)

God has promised

On Sunday the sermon was (of course) on the resurrection.

Christ offers us resurrection, eternal life, salvation. Not “resuscitation” – we will have to face death again. Christ offers us resurrection, to go through death and never have to face it again.

The pastor gave an illustration of a typewriter.

God is not offering us white out.

He’s not even offering us new paper.

No – Christ offers something totally new! Entirely different.

With whiteout, the mistake is still on the paper, it is only covered up. With new paper, you “get rid of the evidence”.

Christ offers us a new way…

Christ has the “delete key”.

He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us. (Psa 103:10-12)

There is an old painting…it is a medieval Russian “icon” of the Orthodox church, painted by Andrei Rublev.

This painting is also known as “the Hospitality of Abraham”. It is unknown whether the icon is supposed to represent a pre-incarnation Christ with two angels, or whether it is supposed to represent the Trinity as revealed in the Old Testament.

What we do know from Scripture (Genesis 18) is that

(…)the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, “O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. (ESV)

A reason to think that Rublev meant to depict the Trinity is the language of Scripture. The Lord appeared (singular) and Abraham saw three men. When Abraham spoke, it was in the singular. All three figures are wearing the color of royalty.

The reason not to think that Rublev mean to depict a pre-incarnation Christ is because it would have been considered blasphemy to depict God the Father in an image.

Whatever Rublev meant to depict, we do know this. That the Lord appeared to Abraham in the form of a man (or men). Abraham knew that it was the Lord. And he offered hospitality.

Next week is “Holy Week”. We recognize the “sent-ness” of Christ. God sent His Son, Immanuel; God With Us. He sent Him to be of humble birth, to live His mission. To die in order to bring life to those who believe.

When Christ left this earth, He sent another. The Holy Spirit. Counselor.

These three persons in One Godhead; the Trinity.

Together, they bring us three things that we (as humans) find it hard to understand this side of the grave.

Creation…

Salvation…

Eternity…

We recognize this all year round, yet Holy Week seems a time when it is appropriate to ponder these mysteries more so than usual.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, ESV)