Connecting the Generations

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,   Because He lives, all fear is gone, Because I know He holds the future,   And life is worth the living,   Just because He lives! This is one of the songs you are sure to hear sung with gusto on Resurrection Sunday, the climax of Holy Week. And what a wonderful truth it represents! For more than 2,000 years, the truth of Jesus’ resurrection has given people the hope and confidence they need to keep on living in the face of weaknesses, hardships, insults, persecution, and death. Look at the verses of this poem written by Phillis Wheatley, an African girl who was brought to the United States of America as a slave in 1761 at the age of seven or eight. See him with hands out-stretcht upon the cross; Immense compassion in his bosom glows; He hears revilers, nor resents their scorn: What matchless mercy in the Son of God! When the whole human race by sin had fall’n, He deign’d to die that they might rise again, ...

Why did Jesus do it? Why did He go through it all? There is a song about King Edward VIII of England, written and performed by a blind Bahamian musician whose stage name was Blind Blake. In 1936 King Edward gave up his throne so that he could marry Wallis Simpson, a divorcée . The world was shocked. “Why would he give up his kingdom, with all its wealth and power and glory?” people asked. Blind Blake answered their question with a cleverness that suggested that if he, a blind man, could see why King Edward gave up his throne, then it should be obvious to the seeing world! “It was love!” Blind Blake sang, “love alone that caused King Edward to leave the throne!” Why did Jesus leave His throne? Why did He give up the glory He had with the Father before the creation of the world? Why did He take on human life then suffer and die? It was love, love alone that caused King Jesus to leave His throne. God’s love for us was the reason God the Son left His throne, with all its glory and s...

On Palm Sunday, I told my congregation that the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus is the mountaintop of the Christian faith. And from that mountaintop we can see clearly the landscape behind us and the landscape ahead of us. When we stand on the mountaintop of the Resurrection, we can look back on Christmas and understand why God came to earth in human form. Yes, I believe it is Easter that makes sense of Christmas. Let’s look briefly at these two epochal events and the king they portray. In the Christmas story, the Gospel of Matthew 2 states that After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem  2  and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 9  After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the c...