Good Morning!

We are at a cool astronomical period. Winter solstice is tomorrow, and the full moon is Saturday. I think that stuff is cool because it reminds me how big everything is in relation to me. I am just a speck in relation to the earth and moon. These are a speck in relation to the sun. Our whole solar system is a speck in relation to our galaxy. Our galaxy is a speck in relation to the universe. All of this was really no big deal compared to God.

Genesis 1:1-3 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the earth. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Simple as that. Yet, this should give us pause.

Psalm 8:3-4 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him.

Of course, Hebrews 2 tells us that David is speaking of Jesus. Let’s go on.

v. 5-9 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

We could explore all that for a long time to come. Here, I would like to consider something else – ourselves.

Psalm 103:14-16 For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.

Not only are we dust and short-lived, we are quite horrible in nature.

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Romans 3:10-18 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Yet, out of these, God has choses to pluck a few as a very special gift to his Son.

John 6:35-40 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father give me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

Revelation 19:6-8 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure” – for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

Certainly, this can’t be talking about the same people as Jeremiah and Paul in Romans, but it is. How?

Ephesians 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

Wait! What in the world are we talking about here! God the Father gave to his Son – as his bride – the most miserable, insolent, rebellious being of all creation! There is nothing worse in all the universe than man! Yet, that is who God gave SPECIFICALLY as his bride! Yet, man won’t work as a bride in the condition s/he is, so Jesus must do something to make us worthy of him. How does he do it? He voluntarily dies on the cross. Yup. He signed up for that mission. Why? To pay for all of our foulness.

Why would he do that? Jesus did all of this voluntarily. Why would he?

I don’t know if this analogy holds true to this. It’s weak, so don’t try to take it farther than the first step. Have you ever had to go through a deceased family member’s belongings? I have. Often, in special places like dresser drawers, one will find odd things. Rocks. Little trinkets. Maybe it is a flower pressed in the pages of a book. There is no note or explanation as to why something that seems so meaningless would be held in a safe place for so long. Maybe that rock was a rock that you gave to your mother or father when you were very small. You might even remember it. You might be very surprised that they kept it safe all this time.

Folks, it’s not the rock that is so special, it is the person who gives it. That’s what counts, and that is why we are so special that Jesus would die for us – because of his love for his Father. Yet, God didn’t give him something worthless, or even less than worthless. God sees something in the bride long before Jesus died. What was that? Himself, as the triune God.

Genesis 1:26-28 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

This is a beautiful story, folks. I don’t have all the answers, but I do see how all this is interconnected. It’s wonderful!

So, look into the sky this weekend and think of these things.

Father, words escape me. Thank you.

Copyright © 2018 Scott Powers