Cradle to Cross


 Luke 1:46b-55

It is finished.

Dare we hear, in Mary’s Magnificat, echoes of Jesus’ last words in John? If we consider Holy Scripture as God’s creative word which acts on us at every encounter, our attention to reverberations across the Gospel can bring us closer in tune with the breadth of God’s plan.

In Mary’s song of praise in Luke 1 she sings not of the great things that will come to pass because of the birth of the Savior but of that which is already accomplished: God has shown strength with God’s arm; God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. Her words signal the fulfillment of God’s salvific work, affirm her obedience to God’s plan, and testify that God is in solidarity with all who suffer, just as do Jesus’ words from the cross.  

We read this, we hear it, we may even know it to be true, but do we accept it our hearts? How hard it is for us to truly believe in God’s forgiveness and mercy! May we experience today and every day the divine compassion of God which comes to us through the grace-filled action of Holy Spirit in the Savior who took on human form, as Martin Luther said, not to terrify or crush but to console and confirm.

Blessed Jesus, king of grace, imprint your image on my heart and let me live by its inscription: Born for me, crucified for me, you are my life, my hope’s foundation, all my glory and salvation.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

LET CREATION SING

Image
(From Sunday, March 11, 2018) Sometimes I go outside and try to feel how the breezes are blowing not around but through my body. I am a porous thing of the wind, miraculously held in place by skin -- or, as quantum physics might tell us, -- a holistic entanglement of immaterial energy waves, as are all material things. This dissolves the superior view of human-hood over against creation, of which I find myself frequently guilty, and place me in solidarity with all that is around me, animate and inanimate. The experience of being in solidarity with God's creation is a form of prayer. Listen, and you can hear all creation singing. Everywhere there is life, there is song. The Bible tell us that the entire breadth of creation shares equally with human being in actively praising God. "Let the sea roar, and all that fills it” we sing in Psalm 96, "let the field exult, and everything in it" (vv. Ilb-12a; RSV). In Psalm 98, “Let the floods clap th
Read more

The heart of worship

Image
Yesterday we reflected on works righteousness as if affects philanthropic giving. The statistics seem to suggest that large donors give generally not out of genuine concern for the needs of humanity, in particular the poor, but in order to be noticed. We give to see our names on a building, or to be placed in the top 10 list of donors to our university, or to make a lasting impact on the life of some nonprofit institution for which we will be remembered. (James 2:15-16: "If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,' and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?") This same attitude dominates the life of our congregations, at the expense of what we need most -- the growing awareness within each of us of the light of Christ which burns at the center of our being. In many parishes activity is perceived to be the main sign of life. (We have given up on growt
Read more

Feed My Sheep

Image
Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Bexley, Ohio, which last year merged with Capital University across the street, has a new dean who is widely admired. In a recent edition of her weekly newsletter, Dean Kathryn Kleinhans talked about the state of seminary education across the ELCA: “The numbers are out. This year the seminaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – together – are graduating a total of 114 students available for call. That’s not even two for each of the ELCA’s 65 synods. Geographical restrictions limit even further the number of candidates available for a call anywhere in the church. Any of our bishops will tell you that the need is much greater than that!" Why are there so few seminary graduates? It's complicated, but the bottom line is that the ELCA itself is struggling. Congregations are closing or merging (and members are always lost in mergers), few are flourishing, and those who are somewhere in between are cutting
Read more