SCRIPTURE: Romans 8:1 (TM)
With the arrival of Jesus,
the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's
being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black
cloud.
STORY:
Medieval theologians argued that since a ladder leaning
against a wall forms a triangle and a triangle is a symbolic reminder of the
Holy Trinity, anyone who carelessly blunders through this mystical space is
risking divine wrath! Even when that argument lost itself in history's muddle,
condemned Englishmen about to be hanged at Tyburn or some other notable place
of execution were required to walk under the ladder that stood against the
gallows for convenience of the executioner. In those circumstances, you could
say the man was certainly in for a spell of very bad luck.
OBSERVATION:
Do you remember the character
Joe Btfsplk
from the comic strip Pogo? He's well-meaning, but is the world's worst jinx, bringing disastrous
misfortune to everyone around him. A small, dark rain cloud perpetually hovers
over his head to symbolize his bad luck.
We
all know individuals who truly feel that if they didn’t have bad luck they
wouldn’t have any luck at all. They are living proof that “Joe Btfsplk” lives
in our world or at least there are some who truly feel that way about life. How
sad.
We
all have things that go bump-in-the-night and there are times that everything
doesn’t turn out the way we think it should, but “bad luck”? What is the old
saying, “They said, ‘Cheer up things could be worse,’ so I cheered up and
things got worse.’” Good old Joe Btfsplk raises his head once again.
The
message of Christ is that the bad times do not last… that black clouds do not
linger for very long… that hope comes in the morning. We just have to live into
that reality and believe it!
PRAYER:
God, we really truly want to
believe that bad times don’t last, but it sure feels like they do. Bring the
solution of Christ into our situation and may hope dawn once again up our
lives.
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