the cross beckons

Wednesday March 12^th, Romans 5: 18 Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.  As a guide and helping hand along the way, Christ, Emmanuel, God with us, was sent to bring the hope, healing and the health that comes from a loving God to a humanity too easily pulled off to the wings or past by evil.  Fear had replace shame and the image of God became manipulated and a thing far off.  Those who had strayed far from God’s path had devised plans to draw more and more of the human creation off to the wings and in the process under their control.  Communities gave way to tribes and nations and empires and the temptation to play God, the very essence of all sin, developed into governmental structures.  This sin became a more efficient way to count and keep the hording of stuff, and the self-perpetuating promise of the protection of military might under someone else’s control.  We had become, and still are becoming, more efficient at killing and keeping than at caring and kindling.  But now in the distance, the cross beckons us to come, giving us light and direction in the midst of our self-created quagmire of power, might and the ever present accumulation of stuff.  Lent is the calling to turn from the harsh glare of self to the light on the distant hill, helping those you meet along the way back to the path God has set before us.