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Midweek Lent 2015 + Clay Jars filled with Grace (Paul’s second letter to Corinth)

March 25, 2015 By moadmin

Week 5:  “God’s Appeal”

We are not our own people anymore: made a new creation in Christ, reconciled to God, we are now entrusted by God to bear this reconciling treasure that makes us into a new creation, bear it into the world as ambassadors for Christ.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   Wednesday, 25 March 2015; text: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

It’s hard to speak for another person.

When someone criticizes our loved one, or has an issue with a friend we know well, we want to defend them.  We want to speak for them, act on their behalf.  Sometimes our friend is the one having difficulty with another, and out of love, we want to help.  We’ll talk to another person on their behalf, smooth the way.

It’s just not the easiest thing to do.  Often it’s the difficult situation that we’re not sure what our loved one would want us to say or do.  Or, we can’t always explain another’s motives.  Especially when others criticize someone we love, and the criticism seems valid.  When our heart feels there must be a good reason for the problem, but our head isn’t sure what that is.

So what should we feel about Paul’s words today, that God is entrusting us with the job of “Ambassador for Christ”?  If it’s hard to speak for a loved one, how much harder to speak for God?

The way some other Christians are living into this role of ambassador doesn’t help.  They speak of a God whom we don’t recognize in the Scriptures, who doesn’t seem to be the Triune God whose love faced death for us and the world.  When we’re offended or angered by how others represent Christ, we sometimes fear to be ambassadors ourselves.

There’s no need to fear.  God’s taken care of both the job description and our ability to do it.

Paul reveals a joyful mystery of the treasure of God we bear within us.

Paul’s said we carry this treasure, God’s grace and love and forgiveness for us and the world, in clay jars, in our fragile, broken selves.  Paul’s also said our bodies are a temporary tent compared to the house prepared for us in the coming world.  This is only part of the grace.

Because even now, Paul says, this treasure of God’s reconciling with us and all humanity in Christ’s death and resurrection, is re-making us to be unrecognizable from what we were.  Paul declares we are already transformed into this new creation, now, even with our fragile, clay lives.  Even if we only see our failings, our weakness, in fact the forgiveness and life we already know has changed us.

We may need perspective to see this, a look back at the arc of our lives.  Close up, we see how flawed we are.  But if we climb to a better vantage point, turn around, and look back over the past five years, ten years, twenty years, we could see how the Spirit has transformed each of us into a new person.  With this perspective, we realize Paul’s right: we aren’t looking at each other from a human point of view anymore.  We see Christ in each other; others see Christ in us.

God makes us new so we can carry in our bodies God’s appeal to the world.

The Gospel truth is God needs us.  God’s plan to restore all things in Christ will not happen without humanity being transformed from within.  As people who are being transformed, God needs us to live this reconciliation into the world.

God has entrusted this message to us, Paul says.  The treasure we carry in our hearts and lives is not given to us to keep.  It changes us into new people, people who give the treasure away by our very lives in the world, so it reaches everyone.  Only by sharing it can it change the world.

This transforms evangelism for us.

We are made new creations so we can be ambassadors for Christ, not sales people.  An ambassador speaks for the one who sent her, carries messages on behalf of the one in whose name he comes.  Ambassadors stand for their senders.  We represent Christ in the world in our being, in our doing.

So we’re not selling “church” to anyone, or selling God.  Evangelism – “Good Newsing” – isn’t about trying to attract people or increase numbers or convince others only we’re right.

Evangelism is bearing the Good News of God in Christ in our very bodies.  So when people meet us they meet Christ.  We bear forgiving grace so people actually experience it through us.  We bear transforming love so people actually are touched by it when they are with us.  We bear God’s relentless desire for all people to know God and know they are loved, so that people can’t miss it when we are with them.

Really, we’re like Mary.

Today is the feast of the Annunciation, which wasn’t on my mind two months ago when choosing this part of 2 Corinthians for today.  But how wonderful to remember with this word from Paul that today Gabriel came to Mary and invited her to bear God’s Christ into the world.

That is precisely what God is doing to us through Paul.  Except instead of giving birth to a child, we are made into God’s Christ ourselves, so that our lives, our words, our love, our hands, our voices, everything about us bears God’s grace in Christ.

We can do this, be this, because God is making us new so we can.

So we go, filled with joy in our calling.

And all our incentive is with Paul’s words: “the love of Christ urges us on.”  This love we have come to know in Christ not only changes us.  It gets us up in the morning eager to be Christ, motivates us to seek to grow and deepen as disciples, gives us the little bump we need to reach out to another in grace and love rather than hold back.

The love of Christ urges us on.  And gives us all we need for this job.

What a joy and purpose for our lives.  What a delight that God reaches people through us so they, too, know the hope and love and grace we so deeply drink in from God every day.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Filed Under: Midweek Lent 2015, sermon

Midweek Lent 2015 + Clay Jars filled with Grace (Paul’s second letter to Corinth)

March 25, 2015 By moadmin

Week 5:  “God’s Appeal”

We are not our own people anymore: made a new creation in Christ, reconciled to God, we are now entrusted by God to bear this reconciling treasure that makes us into a new creation, bear it into the world as ambassadors for Christ.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   Wednesday, 25 March 2015; text: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

It’s hard to speak for another person.

When someone criticizes our loved one, or has an issue with a friend we know well, we want to defend them.  We want to speak for them, act on their behalf.  Sometimes our friend is the one having difficulty with another, and out of love, we want to help.  We’ll talk to another person on their behalf, smooth the way.

It’s just not the easiest thing to do.  Often it’s the difficult situation that we’re not sure what our loved one would want us to say or do.  Or, we can’t always explain another’s motives.  Especially when others criticize someone we love, and the criticism seems valid.  When our heart feels there must be a good reason for the problem, but our head isn’t sure what that is.

So what should we feel about Paul’s words today, that God is entrusting us with the job of “Ambassador for Christ”?  If it’s hard to speak for a loved one, how much harder to speak for God?

The way some other Christians are living into this role of ambassador doesn’t help.  They speak of a God whom we don’t recognize in the Scriptures, who doesn’t seem to be the Triune God whose love faced death for us and the world.  When we’re offended or angered by how others represent Christ, we sometimes fear to be ambassadors ourselves.

There’s no need to fear.  God’s taken care of both the job description and our ability to do it.

Paul reveals a joyful mystery of the treasure of God we bear within us.

Paul’s said we carry this treasure, God’s grace and love and forgiveness for us and the world, in clay jars, in our fragile, broken selves.  Paul’s also said our bodies are a temporary tent compared to the house prepared for us in the coming world.  This is only part of the grace.

Because even now, Paul says, this treasure of God’s reconciling with us and all humanity in Christ’s death and resurrection, is re-making us to be unrecognizable from what we were.  Paul declares we are already transformed into this new creation, now, even with our fragile, clay lives.  Even if we only see our failings, our weakness, in fact the forgiveness and life we already know has changed us.

We may need perspective to see this, a look back at the arc of our lives.  Close up, we see how flawed we are.  But if we climb to a better vantage point, turn around, and look back over the past five years, ten years, twenty years, we could see how the Spirit has transformed each of us into a new person.  With this perspective, we realize Paul’s right: we aren’t looking at each other from a human point of view anymore.  We see Christ in each other; others see Christ in us.

God makes us new so we can carry in our bodies God’s appeal to the world.

The Gospel truth is God needs us.  God’s plan to restore all things in Christ will not happen without humanity being transformed from within.  As people who are being transformed, God needs us to live this reconciliation into the world.

God has entrusted this message to us, Paul says.  The treasure we carry in our hearts and lives is not given to us to keep.  It changes us into new people, people who give the treasure away by our very lives in the world, so it reaches everyone.  Only by sharing it can it change the world.

This transforms evangelism for us.

We are made new creations so we can be ambassadors for Christ, not sales people.  An ambassador speaks for the one who sent her, carries messages on behalf of the one in whose name he comes.  Ambassadors stand for their senders.  We represent Christ in the world in our being, in our doing.

So we’re not selling “church” to anyone, or selling God.  Evangelism – “Good Newsing” – isn’t about trying to attract people or increase numbers or convince others only we’re right.

Evangelism is bearing the Good News of God in Christ in our very bodies.  So when people meet us they meet Christ.  We bear forgiving grace so people actually experience it through us.  We bear transforming love so people actually are touched by it when they are with us.  We bear God’s relentless desire for all people to know God and know they are loved, so that people can’t miss it when we are with them.

Really, we’re like Mary.

Today is the feast of the Annunciation, which wasn’t on my mind two months ago when choosing this part of 2 Corinthians for today.  But how wonderful to remember with this word from Paul that today Gabriel came to Mary and invited her to bear God’s Christ into the world.

That is precisely what God is doing to us through Paul.  Except instead of giving birth to a child, we are made into God’s Christ ourselves, so that our lives, our words, our love, our hands, our voices, everything about us bears God’s grace in Christ.

We can do this, be this, because God is making us new so we can.

So we go, filled with joy in our calling.

And all our incentive is with Paul’s words: “the love of Christ urges us on.”  This love we have come to know in Christ not only changes us.  It gets us up in the morning eager to be Christ, motivates us to seek to grow and deepen as disciples, gives us the little bump we need to reach out to another in grace and love rather than hold back.

The love of Christ urges us on.  And gives us all we need for this job.

What a joy and purpose for our lives.  What a delight that God reaches people through us so they, too, know the hope and love and grace we so deeply drink in from God every day.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Filed Under: Midweek Lent 2015, sermon

Midweek Lent 2015 + Clay Jars Filled with Grace (Paul’s second letter to Corinth)

March 18, 2015 By moadmin

Week 4: “Hope for New Life”

Our time on earth, in these bodies, is short. Today, we are here together to experience the love and grace of God that abounds in this world. And when our time here is finished, we’re going home.

Vicar Meagan McLaughlin
   Wednesday, 18 March 2015; texts: 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:7, John 14:1-7, 25-29

My fellow sojourners in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Life is short! How many times have we heard it said, in different ways? Just before he is killed, William Shakespeare’s tragic hero Macbeth cries, “Out, out brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Some days, it feels like Shakespeare’s Macbeth has a point. The older we get, the faster life seems to go, and the harder it feels to keep up, until our candle will ultimately go out, our hour here expired. And some days, it does feel like we are walking shadows, doing a whole lot of strutting and fretting and not making much of a difference in this world.

In the Bible, The Book of Ecclesiastes begins its reflection on our lives with a similar feeling: “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them.”

I could easily use an hour, if we had one, just sharing quotes from authors and poets across the ages, but I will stop there!

Macbeth and Ecclesiastes are right about one thing. We are just here for a short time, in the scheme of things. In God’s time, it must seem like the blink of an eye. Because, as Paul reminds us today, this world is not our home. Not really. Our true home is in God’s house, the great beyond, heaven. We are more like tourists here, come to explore and experience a land that is not our own.

Our time on earth was never meant to be a long-term, permanent arrangement for us, but that does not mean, as Macbeth suggests, that our lives signify nothing. Because this where Macbeth got it wrong. Our lives on this earth, brief as they are, do have purpose and meaning, and we mean far more to God than mere shadow.

So, why are we here? How are we called to live, in the brief time we are given on this planet? This life is not simply a test that must be passed or a hoop to be jumped through in order for us to get to heaven when we die. There is already a place prepared for us there. It is our home. Jesus promised that there are many rooms in God’s house, and we don’t have to earn or prove our way in.

Our time on this earth is not a punishment or a penance, although there is suffering here. God created this world, and everything in it, and called it good. And there is good and abundance and beauty on this earth, along with the pain and brokenness that is also a part of our human experience.

If we are to know how to live, what to do with our short time on earth, we must first remember where we came from, whose we are. The story of our coming to this place, the story of our creation in the Book of Genesis, reveals God’s purpose, and our role here. Genesis tells us that God provided this world for us as a place of abundance, and beauty. God created us to be in relationship with the rest of God’s creation, while we are here.

We are in this life here on earth to do the work God has for us to do, and to enjoy the fruits of this world. We are to remember that creation was given to all of us as a gift, and we are called during our short time here to care for it and share its abundance with everyone. And God, knowing it would not be good for us to be here alone, created us to be in relationship with each other, to share the love of God with those around us. In short, we are here to live!

And God has not left us here to fend for ourselves. God is with us, loving us and guiding us. Paul writes that we are being inwardly renewed, even as our physical bodies age and we grow closer to death and the end of our time here. The world may see growing older as a sign that we are outliving our usefulness, but we walk by faith and not by sight. Aging, facing illness, even nearing death, does not lessen our worth as children of God. It just brings us closer to home.

We don’t need to be anxious or afraid about what will happen when we die. In a world that offers hundreds of ways to slow the aging process, look younger, and extend your life, this is not a message we hear often. Death is the end of our life here, but more significantly, it is our return home to the one who created us, the one who loves us without condition. We have nothing to fear in dying. Jesus promises us peace, not based in security in this world, but a peace that comes from knowing that God has a place for us when our life here is over.

Our time on earth, in these bodies, is short. Today, we are here together to experience the love and grace of God that abounds in this world. And when our time here is finished, we’re going home. You’re going home. Home to the place God has created, with a new body that will never fail. A home where separations and barriers between us and God and between us and others are swept away. A home that is without the suffering and brokenness of this world. So don’t let your hearts be troubled. There are many rooms in God’s house, and God has a place waiting just for you.

Thanks be to God!

Filed Under: Midweek Lent 2015

Midweek Lent 2015 + Clay Jars Filled with Grace (Paul’s second letter to Corinth)

March 18, 2015 By moadmin

Week 4: “Hope for New Life”

Our time on earth, in these bodies, is short. Today, we are here together to experience the love and grace of God that abounds in this world. And when our time here is finished, we’re going home.

Vicar Meagan McLaughlin
   Wednesday, 18 March 2015; texts: 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:7, John 14:1-7, 25-29

My fellow sojourners in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Life is short! How many times have we heard it said, in different ways? Just before he is killed, William Shakespeare’s tragic hero Macbeth cries, “Out, out brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Some days, it feels like Shakespeare’s Macbeth has a point. The older we get, the faster life seems to go, and the harder it feels to keep up, until our candle will ultimately go out, our hour here expired. And some days, it does feel like we are walking shadows, doing a whole lot of strutting and fretting and not making much of a difference in this world.

In the Bible, The Book of Ecclesiastes begins its reflection on our lives with a similar feeling: “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them.”

I could easily use an hour, if we had one, just sharing quotes from authors and poets across the ages, but I will stop there!

Macbeth and Ecclesiastes are right about one thing. We are just here for a short time, in the scheme of things. In God’s time, it must seem like the blink of an eye. Because, as Paul reminds us today, this world is not our home. Not really. Our true home is in God’s house, the great beyond, heaven. We are more like tourists here, come to explore and experience a land that is not our own.

Our time on earth was never meant to be a long-term, permanent arrangement for us, but that does not mean, as Macbeth suggests, that our lives signify nothing. Because this where Macbeth got it wrong. Our lives on this earth, brief as they are, do have purpose and meaning, and we mean far more to God than mere shadow.

So, why are we here? How are we called to live, in the brief time we are given on this planet? This life is not simply a test that must be passed or a hoop to be jumped through in order for us to get to heaven when we die. There is already a place prepared for us there. It is our home. Jesus promised that there are many rooms in God’s house, and we don’t have to earn or prove our way in.

Our time on this earth is not a punishment or a penance, although there is suffering here. God created this world, and everything in it, and called it good. And there is good and abundance and beauty on this earth, along with the pain and brokenness that is also a part of our human experience.

If we are to know how to live, what to do with our short time on earth, we must first remember where we came from, whose we are. The story of our coming to this place, the story of our creation in the Book of Genesis, reveals God’s purpose, and our role here. Genesis tells us that God provided this world for us as a place of abundance, and beauty. God created us to be in relationship with the rest of God’s creation, while we are here.

We are in this life here on earth to do the work God has for us to do, and to enjoy the fruits of this world. We are to remember that creation was given to all of us as a gift, and we are called during our short time here to care for it and share its abundance with everyone. And God, knowing it would not be good for us to be here alone, created us to be in relationship with each other, to share the love of God with those around us. In short, we are here to live!

And God has not left us here to fend for ourselves. God is with us, loving us and guiding us. Paul writes that we are being inwardly renewed, even as our physical bodies age and we grow closer to death and the end of our time here. The world may see growing older as a sign that we are outliving our usefulness, but we walk by faith and not by sight. Aging, facing illness, even nearing death, does not lessen our worth as children of God. It just brings us closer to home.

We don’t need to be anxious or afraid about what will happen when we die. In a world that offers hundreds of ways to slow the aging process, look younger, and extend your life, this is not a message we hear often. Death is the end of our life here, but more significantly, it is our return home to the one who created us, the one who loves us without condition. We have nothing to fear in dying. Jesus promises us peace, not based in security in this world, but a peace that comes from knowing that God has a place for us when our life here is over.

Our time on earth, in these bodies, is short. Today, we are here together to experience the love and grace of God that abounds in this world. And when our time here is finished, we’re going home. You’re going home. Home to the place God has created, with a new body that will never fail. A home where separations and barriers between us and God and between us and others are swept away. A home that is without the suffering and brokenness of this world. So don’t let your hearts be troubled. There are many rooms in God’s house, and God has a place waiting just for you.

Thanks be to God!

Filed Under: Midweek Lent 2015

Midweek Lent 2015 + Clay Jars Filled with Grace (Paul’s second letter to Corinth)

March 11, 2015 By moadmin

Week 3:  “So We Do Not Lose Heart”

The Triune God opens our hearts to care about our own sin and the world’s pain, fills our hearts with grace and mercy that cannot be killed, and so makes our hearts God’s heart for the world that will change everything.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   Wednesday, 11 March 2015; texts: 2 Corinthians 4:1-16a

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

You have to have a heart to be concerned about losing it.

Paul’s beautiful encouragement today in 2 Corinthians only matters if we are so engaged in our lives and in the world that our hearts are committed and open.

There is much about our lives that is not what we are created to be.  We are not always the loving person toward God and toward our neighbor Christ Jesus calls us to be.  If we care about that, our hearts are at risk.

There is much about the world that is not what it was created to be.  The suffering, pain, and evil we see in our city, nation, and world has damaged the good creation the Triune God made.  If we care about that, our hearts are at risk.

There is much we fear about what we can’t control, including death.  If we care about that, our hearts are at risk.

When our hearts engage with our own lives, with this world and its problems, with our fears, we risk losing them, having our courage fail us, falling into despair.  But if we don’t engage our hearts, we lose everything of value to life in this world.

There’s a tremendous grace that helps us here, received when we gather together as Christ’s community: we find our hearts in the heart of God.

Here our hearts are opened and aligned with God’s.

Unlike most of the rest of our lives, we are called outside ourselves when we come here.  We hear a Word from the God who made us, an external voice that calls to us to open our hearts to the truth so that we care.

Here we are reminded of our sinfulness, our flaws, our brokenness.  That we keep coming back, knowing we’re going to hear more of that, means our hearts are being engaged.  We are learning to care that we aren’t what God would have us be.  Instead of ignoring that pain and pretending we’re just fine, as much of the world would, we come here for the truth, and it opens our hearts.

Here we are reminded of the good of God’s creation and the broken mess we have made.  That we keep coming back, knowing we’re going to hear more of that, means our hearts are being engaged.  We are learning to care about how God would have the world be.  Instead of looking only to ourselves and ignoring the rest of the world, as much of our culture would, we come here for the truth, and it opens our hearts.

Most importantly, here we find the truth answering those deepest fears about what can harm us, what we can’t control.  For here, in Word and Meal and community we receive the heart of the Triune God.  We receive the love of God for us and for the world that led God to take on our existence and even suffer death on our behalf.  Here we learn that God brings life to the world in Jesus’ resurrection, and we are loved fully, in spite of our flaws, our death, and the world is loved fully, in spite of its flaws, its death.  We learn God’s heart is even more engaged with bringing life to death and brokenness and sin than ours ever can be.

We come here and are changed by this.  Our hearts are shaped to be like God’s, to care as God cares.

That’s when the pain starts.  The only way to avoid pain is to stop feeling.  We can’t do that, now we care about our own brokenness and the world’s.  So now we’re ready to hear Paul’s good news.

It sounds like Paul starts with the opposite.  He says we’re fragile.

We’re like clay jars, easily broken.  We face affliction, perplexion, persecution, even death, he says, because our hearts are engaged in the ministry God calls us to do, in ourselves and in the world.  Fragile sounds like a bad thing.

It’s not.  Paul’s helping us let go of that last protection we want.  He’s saying if our hearts are engaged as Christ invites, expect it’s going to hurt.  In other parts of the world Christians know this, as some are persecuted in horrible ways for living their heart-led, Christ-shaped ministry.  In our safe country we’ve taught ourselves to expect no negative impact from committing our hearts and lives to serve Christ in the world.  Paul says that’s foolish.

We’re fragile, breakable, clay jars.  We’ve got no power or strength on our own.  Which of course we already knew.  The reason we shut off our hearts toward growing deeper as disciples or shut off our hearts toward the pain of the world, is that deep inside we realize we aren’t very strong.  Imagining how we could become more Christlike in our loving in our personal lives, how much work that would take, how many things we’d have to change, is daunting because we know we aren’t strong enough.  Imagining how we might make a difference in a world of evil and pain, how much work that would take, how many things would have to change, is daunting because we know we aren’t strong enough.

Paul says, Good.  Now you’re starting to get it.  You don’t have the power to do this.  Now you’re ready to hear what’s really good about this news.

Here it is: we don’t need to have the strength because we are filled with the treasure of God’s grace and mercy.

This isn’t about us.  It’s about God’s hope and dream.  When we consider our own brokenness and sin or the pain of the world, no matter how huge a task of healing it seems, it doesn’t matter.  We, fragile, clay, jars, carry in our hearts the death-destroying, eternally forgiving, unstoppably loving heart of the Triune God.  We can risk our hearts engaging ourselves and the world because even if we are wounded, even if it costs a lot, even if we break to the point of death, we have God’s heart inside us giving us life.

We do not proclaim ourselves, Paul says.  It’s not about us.  We are vessels of the grace and mercy of God we have come to know in Christ Jesus, and that is all we need.

This treasure transforms us into completely different people.

We see everything now through the lens of God’s grace and mercy that is poured in us.

So we never look at our own problems the same again.  So many, even in the church today, see their own issues and sin and difficulties and rarely ask, “What is God going to do about this in me?”  There is nothing wrong with us and our lives that God cannot heal and transform.  This is God’s truth that changes us.

We never look at the world’s problems the same again, either.  How often, even in the church today, do people discuss what needs to be done, what problems ail society and the world, and rarely ask, “What is God going to do about this through us?”  There is nothing wrong in this world that God cannot heal and transform.  This is God’s truth that changes us.

So we do not lose heart.

We do not lose heart, even when we consider the work we each need to do to be people who love God and love neighbor with our every breath.  God will make this happen in us.  We do not lose heart, even when we consider the depth of work that needs to be done in this world to make it whole and at peace.  God will make this happen through us.  We do not lose heart, even when we see all the fearful things we can’t control, even death.  God will bring life to us and the world in Christ Jesus; God will make this happen.

It is by God’s mercy we are engaged in this ministry, and we have this treasure in clay jars so that it may be made clear – to us and to the world – that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.  It’s in God’s hands, always has been.  We’re just blessed to be the vessels, fragile as we are, carrying God’s healing of the world and of our lives.

Now we get to see that grace extend to the whole world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Filed Under: Midweek Lent 2015

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