Topic: Life In The Kingdom
As we observe Holy Week, my thoughts are turned toward the ceremonies of commemoration that we engage this week. From Good Friday through Easter, we will have observed home church services, interdenominational services, the church calendar, fasting, and so on...
Please, at this holy time of remembrance, let us consider that the institutions of rights not overshadow what these services mean.
Feasting, Communion, and Foot Washing Services are not an end in themselves, but a deliberate act of forcing us to reconsider the pattern of life that Jesus gives. These reenactments of His "new commands" are to heighten our awareness of how life in the kingdom is to look. If we simply "observe" these ordinances without walking the reality of them daily we miss the point.
Tonight, we will overlay the Stations of the Cross with Maundy Thursday into one Service, but our lives, each day, will reflect our love for God by loving people in the ways that He has "ordained."
At the cross, everyone is equal. If it was important to Jesus to reconcile us through terrible sacrifice, should not His followers endeavor to commune, eat with, and wash those who are suffering without Him. Should we not, at least embody the same kind of love?
He "stands at the door and knocks" (that is the door of the Church)... Could it be that He does this in human form-in the form of the poor, the homeless, the unfortunate, the simple, the mentally ill, the incarcerated, and all the cultures we might not want to touch?
"If you have done it to the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto Me..." (Jesus) Lets consider today.
