Thought for Today
Job 33:23 Then, if there should be for one of them an angel, a mediator, one of a thousand, one who declares a person upright, 24 and he is gracious to that person, and says, 'Deliver him from going down into the Pit; I have found a ransom;
1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human,
Hebrews 8:6 But Jesus has now obtained a more excellent ministry, and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted through better promises.
The theme this week in These Days has been “The Goodness of God Revealed.” Several of the daily devotionals have focused on verses from Psalm 119, the longest psalm in the Bible. “Psalm 119 is in an alphabet acrostic. There are 22 stanzas or paragraphs in this Psalm, one for each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet in order. Each of the stanzas has 8 verses which also begin with the same letter. That makes 22x8 = exactly 176 verses.” (www.biblegateway.com)
This morning, as I began my devotional routine, I read in Coffee with Calvin a devotional titled “Christ the Mediator.” It is based on “Now it was of the greatest importance for us that he who was to be our Mediator be both true God and true man . . . His task was so to restore us to God’s grace as to make of the children of men, children of God; of the heirs of Gehenna, heirs of the Heavenly Kingdom. (Institutes 2.12.1.2)”
The devotional in Coffee begins with “Jesus Christ stands at the center of our Christian faith.” That certainly should be the case. It seems so obvious as to almost be trite; however, I wonder how often in our lives Jesus Christs stands at the center of the lives we live. For any of those of us who self-identify as Christians how often during the course of your day do you or I consciously think about Jesus the Christ? Is the answer different for me as a minister of word and sacrament than for those who are congregants? Should it be?
Much of our daily lives is consumed with the minutia of living. We eat, we sleep. We go through the habits and duties of daily life. Do I think about Jesus when I am shaving? When I am eating? Do any of us think about God as we are driving? Some at least do seem to be calling out to God as they deal with the frustrations of traffic! Do we share every aspect of our daily living with Jesus and with God? Should we? Are we more prone to think about Jesus and God during times of duress and difficulty?
In church, in sermons and in Sunday School lessons we talk about Jesus’ being fully human and fully divine. We sometimes use titles such as Mediator to refer to Jesus. How often do we consciously and deliberately think about the ramifications of that title, the implications of Jesus’ dual nature?
As I have read my devotionals, I am constantly reminded of what I understand about the goodness of God and how it has been revealed in our world. Hopefully, it is no surprise when I say that the first thing which comes into my own mind is, “John 3:16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.’”
I believe the gospel truth of those verses and that for Jesus to me the Mediator of our salvation, corporately and individually, it was essential for Jesus to be both fully human and fully divine. It is essential for us to understand that our Creator God loves God’s Creation so much that God lived among us as fully one of us. “2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus understands our temptations; Jesus was tempted. But, because Jesus “knew no sin,” we know that we too can resist temptation. Because of Jesus, his incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection, we know and understand the truth of the gospel message of God’s unmerited and infinite love.
“Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—” Our personal relationship with Jesus, the Christ, our faith in Jesus reveals to us the truth of God’s salvific grace. We know the goodness of God and Jesus does stand at the center of our Christian faith.
Believe in Jesus, accept God’s gift, trust God,
Pastor Ray