Pastor’s Prattle

May 2023

Easter is now three weeks in the past.  Yet, we still celebrate the resurrection with joy and gladness in our hearts, because the promise of life is resonating in our ears.  It is the culmination of everything that has been in God’s plan from the beginning.

In the beginning, when God created the world, he looked it over and said that it was very good.  Even the man and woman he created to take care of it were created perfect in his image.  He created everything to be perfectly in order.

However, it quickly descended into chaos.  Genesis 3-11 in the Bible are the record of the chaos that started with the fall into sin all the way through the flood, when God decided to start over.  The rest of the Bible is the story of how God worked to restore the order that he had created in the first place.

It begins with the promise to Abraham that God would make a great nation of his descendants, that they would be his special people that would be a blessing to all the world.  We see that promise fulfilled first in the children of Israel, who were made a nation under God that was to be a “light to the gentiles.”  Now the fulfilment is not in a physical nation, but in the hearts of the people of God in all the world.

This people of God is made up of all those who have committed themselves to following Christ.  He no longer relies on a set of rules to create order out of chaos, but faith in the one who lived a perfectly ordered life, just as God had intended.  Everything in the Bible, from Genesis 12 on, points to the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham that was in Jesus Christ.

The final piece of that story is the resurrection.  It is the proof that the price paid for the chaos of the world has been accepted.  The perfect relationship with God, that was part of the created order, has been restored through Jesus Christ.  It is available to all those who have become one with Christ by faith.

Even though we live in a world that is descending further into chaos, we can be certain that the relationship God intended to have with us has been restored.  Everything is in order.  We will live forever in the presence of God.

CHRIST IS RISEN!  HE IS RISEN INDEED!

Pastor Jim