I remember when I was in seminary, I had a year-long class serving under a chaplain at one of the major city hospitals in Atlanta. And once a week I had to walk past the halls of the nee-natal intensive care unit. More than once I wondered: Where is God?

Maybe you have looked at the suffering of the world around you and wondered the same thing…

John begins his gospel “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and lived among us.  

And this word hungered, and thirsted and bled and died… 

This speaks to a mystery that is at the heart of the Christian faith: That God was fully present in Jesus.

It’s hard to get my mind around that. But there is something beautiful in it.  

Last week, I referred to Jesus’ last words from the cross in the Gospel of John: It is finished…

Even after years of study, I have to admit that there are aspects of our theology around the cross that I don’t fully understand. But I hold this close to the heart: We worship a God who knows what it is to suffer… who in Christ on that cross is forever with us in our suffering. 

God is with those who hold out on front lines – in refugee camps and in war zones. God is with the mother holding her child in the ICU. God is with the lonely, the hungry, the heartbroken. 

I’m reminded of Jesus’ last words. No longer can we think we suffer alone. It is finished.

Let us pray: We thank you for your love for us, O God. We thank you for becoming as we are, for walking as walk, suffering as we suffer. Be near to the brokenhearted and to those who need you most. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen. 

Sometime back a hospice worker named Bronnie Ware wrote an interesting book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. I read a review on the book and it touched me deeply. As a pastor, I have heard people express many of these same regrets near the end of their lives. Those regrets are:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.      
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.    
4. I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.      
5. I wish I’d let myself be happier.

Friend of Dial Hope, whatever stage of life you happen to be in, I pray that God would remove any sorrow or self-judgment. Instead, may you try to learn from the past, and trust God to lead you into a fuller future.

My friend Hunter Camp recently wrote, “In most instances, life allows u-turns. In all instances, God allows u-turns. While we can never take back time that is lost—or erase moments of our past that we regret, we can amend our lives so the future looks less like the past and more like the life of our dreams.”

Let us pray: Loving God, we remember today that life is short and that it is fragile. Grant us the courage to live not to please others, but to please you. May we express what is on our hearts and minds. Release us from any bitterness, guilt, resentment, or anger that only make us sick. Help us make wise choices with our time. And, set us free to fully enjoy this life which is a gift. We pray in the name of the One who walks with us – even now. Amen.

Years ago, I remember hearing about an author who was visiting the United States. One evening, needing to make a call, he found a phone booth. (Do you remember those)? But this phone booth was different from those in his own country. It was beginning to get dark, and he had difficulty finding the number in the phonebook. However, he noticed that there was a light in the ceiling, but he didn’t know how to turn it on. As he tried again to find the number in the fading evening light, a guy walking by on the street noticed his predicament and said, “Sir, if you want to turn the light on, all you have to do is shut the door.” To the visitor’s amazement and satisfaction, when he closed the door, the booth was filled with light.

Of course, phone booths are long since a thing of the past. So are phone books for that matter! But what a great metaphor for our own lives. So often we feel as though we are in the dark – groping about for guidance or peace or direction. We know there is a light, but we aren’t always quite sure how to access it. 

In the New Testament, Jesus sets an example for us. Not only during times of great need or stress, but over and over again, all throughout his ministry, Jesus withdraws from the crowds to spend time in prayer. I have to believe that this was where the inner strength to go back out into the crowds and continue his ministry came from. 

It is when we make time to sit in silence; when we close the door on the distractions of the world around us, and when we open our hearts in prayer that we begin to experience God’s light. The darkness of our worries and disappointments, our burdens, and heartache can then be exposed to the healing light of God’s love.

Let us pray: Loving God, we lay our lives before you again this day. We bring our hurt, our disappointment, our confusion, and our burdens, and we ask you to shine your healing / guiding light into our lives. Comfort us where we need to be comforted, challenge us where we need to be challenged, and fill us again with your strength, hope, and love. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen. 

Yesterday I shared that in the Gospel of John, Jesus’ last words from the cross are: It is finished…

His human life on earth, finished… 
His ministry in person, finished…
The pain and suffering, finished…

But there is more, isn’t there?

I have a friend who is about my age, who some years back was going through some serious health issues – clearly suffering. He couldn’t work. Lost his job. And I remember he called me and we were talking. He said, ten years ago, I made this huge mistake. I made this mistake and I betrayed my friend’s trust. And it hurt him deeply. And then he asked, “Do you think God’s punishing me for that now? Is that what this is about? I prayed many times for forgiveness, and I walked away from my mistakes. I’ve apologized. I’ve tried to make amends – but I don’t know.”  

10 years in the past, and it was heavy, heavy on his heart.

One of the most powerful things the cross does is that it shows us this: In Jesus, God experiences the worst of what humans can do… He quite literally bears our sins in his body… the violence, the betrayal, the injustice. And he loves us anyway.

This is a love that knows fully what it is to suffer, to be broken and betrayed. It is a love that takes on our sins, and a love that provides the means for a way forward.

The prophet Isaiah(53:5) put it like this: By his wounds, we have been healed…

Early on in John’s Gospel, John the Baptist, pointing to Jesus and what was to come on the cross, said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

As I mentioned yesterday: No longer can we think of God as out to punish, dominate, smite… That way of thinking is finished.

No longer do we need to hold on to old sins and guilt and shame. We’ve been set free to make amends and start anew. It is finished! 

Let us pray: We thank you for your love for us, O God, unconditional, undying. Help us to accept that love, mercy, and grace, and to live our lives in response. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Friend of Dial Hope, one of the common mistakes in religion is made by people who try to live on negatives, people who are whiners. They are against that but do not seem to be emphatically for something of their own allegiance. They can tell you with deep emotion what they are against, but if you ask them what they are really for, they have no clear answers. To be a Christian is not to be against things; we must be positive in our faith and action. We must be filled with joy and hope. We must be for Christ and his truth and his way of life. Life is never boring, never ho-hum…it is always TA-DA! 

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving! To reach the port of heaven we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it – but we must sail, not drift, nor lie at anchor.” 

In the New Testament, Paul wrote in Il Corinthians, Chapter 1:20, “For in Jesus Christ, every one of God’s promises is a YES.” 

Let us pray: O God of china-blue skies and dazzling sunrises, we thank you that this day is filled with promise and possibility. Grant us boldness to move beyond security to the risk of faith, the joy of service, the laughter of love. So often we are like Jonah. We hear your call, then resist your Word, running from you as far as we can. We think that you cannot possibly use us. But we forget that where we see no way, you can create one; that when you call someone, you also provide gifts of service. Forgive our resistance and excuses. Enable each of us to see where our call lies, and to serve you with contagious enthusiasm, spontaneous emotion, and unrestrained joy. Reshape our hearts until every fiber within us yearns to do your will. Through the grace of Jesus.