Christmas and Easter

 

Excerpts from the 22nd Psalm, The Message and NIV translations 

27-28 

The Psalm begins with the words later put in the mouth of Jesus on the cross:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (NIV translation)

Near the end of the Psalm, he comes up with something hopeful:

From the four corners of the earth
    people are coming to their senses,
    are running back to God.
Long-lost families
    are falling on their faces before him.
God has taken charge  from now on he has the last word. (Message translation)

I encourage you to read the entire Psalm and in several translations. If you don't have any, just go to Bible Gateway on the internet, and with no charge, you can read a number of translations.

Anyway, I was reading it this morning and thought about the shift in the Psalmist's point of view. At first, he was defeated, lost, feeling his connection to God had gone. He was depressed and desolate. He was on the cross, so to speak, in his own life. But out of the depths of despair, he found his way back to hope and faith.

Each of us here on earth have taken such a journey, maybe a number of times. The darkness lifts, and we can see and hope again.

Right now, the human story on earth looks a lot like the beginning of this Psalm. There is a pandemic, totalitarian regimes are threatening, lawlessness is on the rise, there is a polarization of extreme right and left, church attendance is down, etc etc etc.

There is a glimmer of hope arising. People are waking up from the hypnosis of propaganda. From the four corners of the earth, people ARE coming to their senses.

Let this Christmas time, celebrating the birth of the Christ Light, be our time to awaken in God, to have this Christ Light born in us, to rise up in faith to do and be great things together.