This year of 2020 is an anxious one.
We face a nail-biting, consequence-heavy, presidential election in the U.S.A.
COVID-19 is bringing people and economic markets to their knees.
Syria faces its greatest humanitarian crisis since its most recent war began.
And Christians in parts of Africa are paying the same price for their faith as Jesus paid for his.
For all those reasons and more, I am drawn to these words by Helen M. Luke:
Forgiveness is not the comfortable, often somewhat superior, “I love you” that comes so easily to human lips when emotions have cooled….The ultimate experience of forgiveness brings a change of heart, a metanoia of the spirit, after which every seeming injury, injustice, rejection, past, present or future, every so-called blow of fate, becomes, as it were, an essential note in the music of God, however discordant it may sound to our superficial hearing.
Ms. Luke reminds us that Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday are not fluffy days of nostalgia or romanticism, but the bleeding results of rusted nails, splintered wood—and a God who says, “No.” “No, I have never, nor will I now, nor will I ever let these come between me and you.”
Every system is perfectly attuned to receive the results it gets. I pray it is Christ’s results to which we align all our minds, all our hearts, and all our spirits, because that is our hope.
It is our only hope.
As you preach this Holy Week and Easter, may you find the words your listeners need in this season of this year.
To that end, we’ve put together this collection of wisdom and inspiration to nourish and refresh your own spirit. May you be good news to preach good news.
Lisa+
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