REAL HOPE FOR DISMAL POSSIBILITIES

It is likely our heads-in-the-sand days of living, while fantasizing that all is well in America, are fading in the sunset.  I don't mean to be out of line in saying so, but one of the things 9/11 did to (for) Americans is to alert us for another future round of calamity.  From politics, to Putin, to world persecution, it feels like there is possibly another shoe about to drop.

What are people really to do about this?  I surely could be mistaken, but it seems that the days of pretending that the world of conflict is not all that bad is merely a matter of self-deceit.  What is one to do?  More, what is a Christian to do?  The answer seems to be the same for both.

The only safe place on earth is to hide in Jesus.  God has sent a clarion call for centuries pleading with the populace to hide in His Son; the very one who died for all of us for He surely knew the unfathomable messes we were to face.  We can't do this on our own.  Social pressures increasingly make this point.

We must have more than assistance.  We must have a plan of rescue.  Jesus is God's Plan.

Maybe we could lay down our resistance of ego and bias against faith in God and admit that this world is in a peck of trouble.  We are apparently stranded.  Yet, God has offered every person a way of escape by calling on us to make pre-cemetery arrangements.  We are to be buried....in Jesus...at baptism; sins will be washed out and the Holy Spirit will rush in.

He is our shield.  Our brain-power and our muscle have no bearing against such a gigantic opponent.  We must own the real hope for dismal possibilities.  The battle for man's eternity was slugged out at Calvary.  The WAR IS OVER.  We won....only in Him.

You and me?  We want to run to the one individual who beat death, absorbed our sins, and paid top price.  We were not redeemed at discount terms.  All other religious gurus have followers as well as their version of a holy book.  What all should seek is the one Person who beat death by beating the cemetery.  That is the signal from God.

Real hope is in the resurrected Jesus; not any one nor any thing else.  Our good deeds, our grand successes, and our self-interests sheepishly wither before the mighty opponents in this world.  Ours is the role, though, to hide in Jesus Christ.  This isn't dainty Sunday School chatter.  It is where the soul has a twinge of reality and hits the road toward God.

Yes, we feel the threat of world conflict coupled with fertile rumors.  These are causing me to realize how short we have come in living out the Word.  We have rehearsed and re-chatted endlessly about the cross, everybody taking up one, Paul's being thrashed for his faith (repeatedly abused) and Peter's shameful public denials as if a special church drama group performance were being played out in these lives.

Not.

To follow Jesus is to die to the whims and the protection of self.  So far this concept of personal engagement in the tough stuff of the church has been fairy-tale on one hand and foreign missionary report on the other for the most of us.  Real hope for dismal possibilities is now.  Jesus has always had these sort of days within his sight....with us in mind.  He has pre-handled all days of trial with precise effectiveness.

If you are not buried by being baptized into Jesus, I would urge you to get sober about sober matters.  These rough and painful ways of other nations are moving our direction.  We do clearly know what to do about it.  Stay put and join the ranks of the invisible kingdom of God which will never, never go out of style.

The darker this world gets; the brighter the other one becomes.

Where is there real hope for dismal possibilities?

It is only found in one Person; Jesus the Lamb.