Lent Day 24: We're worthless, unless we're not

First a quick apology: while I started this Lenten blog series on fire right out of the gate I have recently hit a few roadblocks which have led to this blog being recently sporadic, for that I am sorry. Hopefully, we can get back on track and finish as strong as we began.

Peace and Love
Pastor K

OK, now onto other things.

I am a big fan of the TV show Arrow. For the uninitiated out there Arrow follows the origin of the comic book character Oliver Queen, more famously known as Green Arrow. I never really followed Green Arrow in comic form, though he occasionally intersected comics I did follow, such as Batman, and he has been a member of the Justice League in different incarnations. So my knowledge of Oliver mostly comes from another TV show that I used to follow, Smallville, and while Arrow follows on the heels of Smallville their perspective Oliver Queen's are quite different people with very different stories.

I tell you that to tell you the following. Last week two of the characters, who incidentally are sisters, spoke and believed the following line "Once you let the darkness in, it never comes out." For some reason that line lodged itself in my head this evening. I was taking the trash out at work this evening and I kept thinking about the line and thinking that you can never really go back to the person you used to be once you start down the wrong road.

I began to think of sin and how it stains us in ways that we can and can't even see. I began to think about how fallen I am, how fallen you are. I began to think that maybe those 'doom and gloom' people may have a point, maybe we are just trash, just waste, just worthless.

I've never been that guy. When people/preachers start speaking about our evil nature, our darkness, our human condition, I am the guy who says, "Well we're worthless, but Jesus died for us, which makes me think that God found something of worth within us. In your eyes I may be a sinner in the hands of an angry god, but in God's eyes, I'm a child who has wandered, and God sets out to find me and lead me back home."

But tonight, I started to become that guy. I started thinking about the happy go lucky guy I used to be, about the joy that used to reside just behind my eyes and I started to think, 'maybe, just maybe I've been wrong and they are right.' Maybe I am the mess that I am and I will never be the follower of Jesus I used to be. Maybe I'm on the way to Hell, maybe we all are. Maybe Hell is right around the corner and gaining fast. Maybe I am nothing and will never be anything.

And then a song came on.

Come broken and weary

Come battered and bruised

My Jesus makes all things new

All things new

Come lost and abandoned

Come blown by the wind

He’ll bring you back home again

Home again

Rise up, O you sleeper, awake

The dawn is upon you

Rise up, O you sleeper, awake

He makes all things new

All things new

Come burning with shame

Come frozen with guilt

My Jesus, he loves you still

Loves you still

Rise up, O you sleeper, awake

The dawn is upon you

Rise up, O you sleeper, awake

He makes all things new

He makes all things new

The world was good

The world is fallen

The world will be redeemed

So hold on to the promise

The stories are true

That Jesus makes all things new

(The dawn is upon you)

I love Andrew Peterson. But, more than that I love his Jesus, because he is my Jesus, and he is your Jesus. The Bible begins with 'In the beginning' and then comes the fall, the point in time where we choose our own way instead of God's way [I believe that the fall comes to us each individually, we all have our own original sin] and then there is the story of the Bible, and of the world and then in Revelation 21 we see a new heaven and a new earth and then this is spoken, "Behold I am making all things new."

ALL. THINGS. NEW.

The 'doom and gloom' people out there forget to read the end of the book. You see Revelation is not about the end of the world, it is about the worlds next beginning. It will be he day when everything that has been broken will once again be put back together. The day when the sick will all be healed. The day when the pain will all be wiped away. The day when all of our tears will be tears of joy. The day when we meet Jesus face to face and meet each other all over again.

The world was good

The world is fallen

The world will be redeemed

Do yourself a favor right now and replace the word world in that passage. Replace it with your name, and then replace it with the names of your family members. After that replace it with the names of your friends, and then the names of your enemies. Replace it with America or Germany or the Netherlands or New Zealand or wherever else you happen to be. Replace it with the name of the places in your life that have caused you pain. Replace it with Cancer, or Diabetes, or Heart Disease, replace it with death. Replace it with everything you've ever lost. Replace it with everything you've ever been. Replace it with every failure. Replace it with your hometown, your home church, your address. Replace it with anything that comes to mind and it will continue to be true.

We are living in the meantime, the space between two trees, between Heaven and Hell, but one day all of it will be redeemed and we will finally understand how much we have meant to God the entire time.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K