Beauty

Very interesting days we are in.  Holy Week is in full swing and most of us are under stay-at-home orders, trying to make sense of a world that is sending us information, speculation, political perspectives, daily virus updates, special interest stories and wonderful replays of sporting events like the 2015 Hot Dog Eating Contest or the 2018 Axe Throwing Championships.  We are finding some very creative and lame ways to spend our time.  Here are a few thoughts about all of this.

1.  Jesus didn't lose sight of His mission in the midst of a very chaotic week.  He focused and went on to the cross.

2.  Jesus' horrible but necessary week of suffering, betrayal, torture, humiliation and abandonment was redeemed on Easter Sunday as death was swallowed up by Jesus' victory over the enemy.

3.  Maybe all of this chaos will teach us to stop, think, remember, listen and see through the mist of our world to God's better world for all of us.

I have to say that yesterday was a struggle.  We had technical issues as we tried to get Palm Sunday service up and running.  I had some great friends who were waiting and trying to link in to our service and I wanted everything to be perfect.  The Zoom site had issues yesterday and our links to the service were altered without our knowledge.  It was crazy, confusing, frustrating and just plain infuriating at times.  My team was working frantically and they stayed their course (thanks to all of you!) but their fearful leader was frazzled.  When I went home all I wanted to do was curl up in the corner in a ball.  Then, I read a text from my daughter.  My granddaughter, who had been working to ride her bicycle, was up and going strong.  I got a wonderful little video of this, and it brought me out of my pity party into the reality of this week.  I remembered that nothing I had experienced meant much when it was compared to the beauty of Jesus' resurrection ... the beauty we will celebrate on Easter morning.  In spite of the craziness in this world we are in, Easter will happen.  We will sing Christ The Lord is Risen Today.  We will talk to family.  We will be glad for the beauty of the day that the Lord has made.  And all of us will know the most beautiful thing ever ... we are loved by a God willing to give up His very life so that we could be with Him forever in eternity.  That is true beauty!  Randy