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Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church 1610 Carlisle Road, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania 17011 Phone: (717) 737-0439 / Fax: (717) 737-5421 Email: gelc@comcast.net |
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You are Here: Home > Pastor Joel's Corner > Devotion Archives > 04-16-2006 Online Devotions
Devotion for the week of April 16, 2006
God is loose in the world. What does that news mean to you? Does it unsettle you? Does it unnerve you? At the baptism of our Lord, the heavens were ripped asunder (Mark 1:10), symbolizing the power of God breaking into the world, not locked up in heaven. At the time when Christ dies on the cross, the curtain in the Temple is ripped apart (Mark 15:38), symbolizing the power of God breaking into the world, not locked up in some building. In the open tomb, God is freed from the bonds of sin and death. And, God is loose in the world. I don’t know about you, but such an awesome and all-powerful God loose in the world excites me and simultaneously makes me anxious. It is exciting and amazing to know that God is a real force to be reckoned with and He is at large in the world. At the same, that force may decide to “reckon” with us. And truth to known, God already is. The resurrection of our Lord is in part about God doing God’s thing, that is, conquering sin and death. The other part of the resurrection is about God doing God’s thing in us, that is, transforming lives of believers. We believe that the resurrection happened in Christ that first Easter a long, long time ago. And, we believe that the power of the resurrection happens every time God empowers us to bring hope, comfort, justice, and mercy to others today. Easter happens in those exchanges—it happens in the person giving and the person receiving, and God gives faith to both. You see, God is loose in the world now, today, at this very moment. He is risen! He is risen indeed! Let us pray…Holy living God, we give you thanks for the resurrection of our Lord. Bring that same power that raised up our Lord to us that in all we say and do we may give witness to the transforming love of God. We pray that new life may abound in all places where sin and death hold sway. In Christ, we pray…Amen.
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