1 Corinthians 2:6-10 “We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him’ – but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.”

The difference between these two kinds of “wisdom” is not a simple matter of alternative paths. When I want to visit my parents, I can either take I-35 north all the way to Minnesota, or I can follow I-44 to U.S. 71 to I-35. They are two different paths, but both will get me to the same place. God’s wisdom and the world’s wisdom don’t take you to the same places, either along the way or in the end.

Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life; the narrow door and the narrow path; the only way to the Father; the guaranteed way to the Father is God’s wisdom. The world’s wisdom teaches a general equality of all world religions, or, even worse, a generic, empty “spirituality” preferred by more and more Americans. The world’s paths lead neither to God nor to life. To quote Paul’s words here, “they are coming to nothing.”

But they are packaged and marketed to us in a way that make them hard to resist. Their constant promotion keeps wearing away at our resistance. The positive spin sounds like this: if you adopt the world’s wisdom, you will be more popular, have more fun, be more intelligent, and act more just or fair. The negative spin warns that if you reject the world’s wisdom in favor of God’s, you are an extremist, intolerant, bigoted, and guilty of trampling on other’s rights and freedoms. It’s a great marketing campaign, maybe the best there ever was. You feel its tug. In the next 20 years it is expected to capture 70 percent of the church’s youth, never to return. We need the assurances Paul is giving us today.

“No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” “God’s secret wisdom” is not so much the matter of godly morals. Those should be written in human hearts by nature (though more and more people manage to shut that message off or shout it down).

Paul is talking about the gospel. The Lord of glory was crucified for us. Look at the facts of Jesus’ life. If God didn’t intervene in human history, who would have known about this person who lived and died in the obscurity of Roman occupied Israel? When Jesus was born, who would have known if God hadn’t send angels to tell the shepherds, “Today in the city of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord.” When Jesus died on the cross, who really believed they were crucifying the “Lord of glory”? His own disciples seemed to have given up on the idea. When Jesus rose again, it took the intervention of angels to convince the women his body was alive, not stolen. Without God’s own intervention, this would have remained God’s little secret.

More than historical facts, God’s secret wisdom includes the meaning of Jesus for us: “As it is written, ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” In Jesus, God entered our world as one of us. He paid for all our sins by his own death. He freely forgave every sin and set us free from them. He made life and immortality our own as his gift. Who would have guessed that? The operative word in our relationship with God is not “obedience,” or “purpose,” or “effort,” or “sincerity,” or “passion.” It is grace. Grace makes us confident of his love. It gives us hope that we will live with him. It is this grace, God’s gift love, that has been hidden from the ages, including our own.

As one commentator noted, “No heathen people ever conceived a god who would actually take care of those who placed their reliance on him.” They lived in fear, not faith. They had to work their magic and pay their dues to keep their gods happy and themselves safe.

A God who freely loves us as a Father, and freely forgives? That’s our message, Paul says, and that’s God’s wisdom.

Luke 23: 28-31 “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then ‘they will say to the mountains, Fall on us! And to the hills, Cover us!’ For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

A Jewish court and a Roman court had passed judgment on an innocent Jesus, and he was condemned to die. Jesus warns of a more severe judgment coming for the city of Jerusalem. Some of God’s judgments come after the end of life, or at the end of time, and he has warned us about those judgments to send us running back to God for his grace. Sometimes God’s judgments come in time during our lives, as Jesus is warning here. After he died and rose, God continued to reach out to this city and its people through the preaching of Jesus’ disciples. Only a tiny minority listened and believed. Within 40 years God brought the Roman armies to Jerusalem to destroy the city, its people, and the temple.

No one ever suffered spiritually like Jesus did on the cross. But it is fair to say that the physical suffering of Jerusalem’s citizen’s at the fall of city rivaled Jesus’ physical suffering on this day. The historian Josephus tells us that many in the city suffered starvation during the siege. Those desperate for food tried to break through the Roman lines surrounding the city. Most of them were caught and crucified. At one point, as many as 500 per day were being crucified. In order to relieve their own boredom during the siege, the Romans crucified many of their victims in strange and grotesque positions as a kind of human experiment in execution. These were the conditions that would lead the people of Jerusalem to wish they never had children, and beg the surrounding hills and mountains to fall on them.

It is because of the guilt of their unbelief that Jesus can say, “Weep for yourselves.” Tears for our sins, tears of repentance–those are legitimate reasons to weep. Those tears have some value. After he denied Jesus three times, Peter went out and wept bitterly. Unlike Judas, Peter was forgiven and restored. The sinful woman who anointed Jesus’ feet wept over them and wiped them with her hair. Unlike self-righteous Simon the Pharisee, Jesus assured her that her many sins were forgiven.

We don’t offer these tears as a payment, a trade for the forgiveness Jesus offers. You remember the line from the hymn “Rock of Ages”?

We don’t deserve more of God’s grace by filling more cups with our tears, or spending more hours with them streaking down our faces.

But hearts that see their guilt, and repent of it, whether with tears or solemn apologies, are hearts that seek forgiveness. They are hearts God has prepared for his gift. They are hearts that will receive Jesus as Savior and his sufferings and death as the payment for their sins.

Then we may properly weep at the sight of Jesus’ suffering and dying, because the judgment he suffers is on account of our guilt and sin. Then our tears aren’t merely an emotional response to his pain. They are tears of appreciation for the love that leads him to stand in our place and pay off our debt. They are tears of thanks that he has spared us the judgment we deserved.

Then we can weep tears of joy, for he has given us a place in God’s eternal heart and home we did not deserve.

Luke 23:27-28 “A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. Jesus turned and said to them, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me…”

These women, and a large crowd of others followed Jesus as he stumbled and crawled through Jerusalem’s streets. They followed, but not like Peter, Andrew, James, and John did when Jesus invited them to follow him, and they left their boats and their fishing business to do so. This is not the following of faith. This is the following of curiosity and of public spectacle.

The women’s weeping was more or less the same. It was an emotional reaction tied more to themselves than to Jesus. They saw his pain, anticipated his death, and it moved them. But they didn’t see past his pain. Their reaction was not so different than the tears you find welling up in your eyes from a sad scene in a movie or a book. Have you seen the 2009 Disney movie Up? The first five or 10 minutes follow the love story between two childhood sweethearts from their first meeting to her illness and death with such nostalgia and poignancy that you probably won’t have dry eyes after that part of the tale has been told. It’s sweet and sad and good entertainment. But I don’t know that you will be a deeply changed person after you have taken it in.

Which isn’t to say that such tears are necessarily bad. So, were the tears of these women such a bad thing that Jesus had to tell them to stop? Is it wrong for us if Jesus’ sufferings are so vividly portrayed in a Lenten sermon or a Good Friday service that we are moved to tears? Only if it keeps us from seeing past his pain. Only if it keeps us from looking further, and seeing who this suffering man is, and what his suffering is all about.

And that happens easier than we might think. Too often people take some true characteristic about Jesus, blow it out of proportion, and create a false Jesus who distracts us from his real person work. Jesus was genuinely a model of love and good morals. But when we create the moral-model Jesus, the great example for all of us to follow, and see him as nothing more, we have created a false Jesus who cannot save us.

Jesus’ lips dripped words of wisdom and good sense. People of many different faiths find his instruction appealing. But when we stop at the wise sage Jesus, we have something far less than a Savior.

Here, the daughters of Jerusalem are moved by the “heart-wrenching tragedy Jesus.” Maybe we are, too. He is good for a cry, but that is not the same as faith. It may even stop us short of it. After we have given him our sympathy and our feelings, we don’t see the greater claim he wants to make on our hearts, our minds, and our lives. Even more, his suffering may turn some away from faith in him. His pain brings a tear, but who wants to follow him if this is where following him leads?

It’s not your tears Jesus wants. It’s your trust. It’s not your feelings he wants. It’s your faith. Don’t weep for Jesus if you can’t see past his pain to your salvation. This is God loving you all the way to his death. This is the sacrifice that pays for all of our sins. This is why forgiveness isn’t a wish or a possibility. It is a promise and certainty. Those truths are worthy of our tears. But even more, those truths are worthy of our faith.

Luke 23:34 “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Jesus’ forgiveness is not a reaction to my new and improved attitude, a change in me. It is his general stance, a heart full of goodwill and pardon and love. It already exists though I am still stuck in my rebellion and sin. This is why Paul can say in Romans 5 that “Christ died for the ungodly,” that “when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son.”

Do you see what this means for you and me? When we do repent and seek God’s forgiveness, we don’t have to convince him to be forgiving. Forgiveness was there first. It was waiting for us to come. He has always been the Father in the parable of the Prodigal Son, looking down that road, hoping and yearning for us to come home. This was not so that he could scold us or give us a good beating. He wants only to open his heart and profess the love for us that has always been there, then embrace us and claim us again as his very own.

There may be those who will not come home. They will not receive the forgiveness God has in store, because they will not turn from their sins and believe. But that does not change the fact that God’s forgiveness is there, waiting, seeking.

If Jesus could forgive the injustice and pain the Roman soldiers were causing him, is there any sin of ours he won’t forgive? These were the men who were carrying out his murder. They mercilessly mocked him as life slowly drained from his body. Mass murderers may have massacred millions more. But whose violence and evil has ever been aimed at God so directly? Still, “Father, forgive them.”

This erases all fear that somehow we might exhaust or exceed his forgiveness. We can’t sin so many times that we come to the end of his forgiveness. We can’t sin so big, so cruel, so selfish that we come to the limits of his forgiveness.

Don’t misunderstand what forgiveness means. He doesn’t defend our sin, telling us it’s okay. We know it’s not. It is always hurting someone, always costing someone, when we sin. As often as not, the pain and expense are our own.

Nor does he excuse our sin, as though our unique set of circumstances made our sin acceptable. Many times we would like to make a case for sin because of the way others have treated us. “He started it.” “It was their idea.” “What I did wasn’t as bad as what she did.” These didn’t excuse us when we are children. They are no more useful when we are adults. Jesus has given us something better.

“Father, forgive them…” Jesus forgives our sins. Literally, the Greek word means “send it away.” Our Savior acknowledges the hurt and the damage we have done. He does not deny the condemnation we deserve. Then he sends the sin away. He removes it from us. Remember the psalmist’s words? “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103:12).

He takes them from us upon his own shoulders. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). Here he paid the price for them. Here he suffered the consequences they deserved. Forgiveness isn’t based on warm, fuzzy feelings. It is based on Christ’s loving sacrifice that satisfies God’s justice and leaves us innocent. It is forgiveness so certain, on which we can always depend.

Luke 23:34 “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

 Is there a sentence or phrase you have heard in your life that strikes you as most memorable? Maybe they are words like, “You have been accepted…” or “You got the job.” Maybe they are words like “Honey, we’re expecting,” or “It’s a boy!” Maybe they are words that begin, “Congratulations! You are the proud owner of…”

What about the words, “I forgive you”? Are there any words that have a more powerful affect on a relationship?

Jesus’ words of forgiveness just as he is nailed to the cross are remarkable. He is forgiving those who are still hurting him. Consider the level of injustice Jesus is suffering, if you can. Is your sense of justice offended when powerful companies steal their employees pensions and leave retirees destitute? Are you offended when murderers get off on a technicality, or worse, when innocent people languish in prison for years for crimes they never committed?

Then what do we do with this? To say that Jesus was innocent would be a gross understatement. Jesus was the only person who ever completely and perfectly loved every person who crossed his path. He was mercy, kindness, and charity in sandals. And for this they choose the slowest and cruelest method they know to torture him to death.

Consider the sheer physical pain he is suffering. Metal spikes tear through his muscles and tendons. They press directly against his bones as they hold his body to the cross. If he attempts to relax and simply hang by his hands and his feet, he can’t breathe. If he pulls himself up to breathe, his muscles quickly cramp, locking his arms, neck, and back in spasms of pain.

Would you be in a forgiving mood? Little injustices like door dings in the parking lot, noisy teenage neighbors keeping me up at night, shoddy workmanship in furniture I just purchased, or companies who won’t honor their warrantees stoke my desire for revenge. And I don’t think I’m alone when I see how other people react to bad drivers, or how upset they get at the customer service counter, or how long they will hold a grudge when someone else on the committee gets to do it their way instead.

Add to those little injustices pain no worse than a headache, and forgiveness is the farthest thought from my heart. I want payback! Christlikeness is far more than being nice to those who are nice to you. Jesus asked the question, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them” (Luke 6:32). Jesus praying that his Father would forgive the men who are at that moment perpetrating such injustice against him, subjecting him to such suffering, exposes just how un-Christlike we can be.

But perhaps we haven’t even considered the most astounding thing about this prayer for forgiveness: NO ONE HAS APOLOGIZED! No one has said, “I’m sorry.” Jesus was praying forgiveness for those who were impenitent. Of course, how could these soldiers repent? They didn’t even know what they were doing. They didn’t know who Jesus was–just another worthless Jew as far as they were concerned. They were simply carrying out their orders.

Are we inclined to adopt a forgiving attitude toward people who aren’t even sorry for hurting us? At times we can bring ourselves to forgive serious betrayals, costly damage, or painful injuries…when the perpetrator comes groveling to us begging for our pardon. It may even give us a twisted sense of power and superiority to see them so contrite.

But when they remains our sworn enemy, when they find pleasure in our misfortune, is forgiving them the first thing on our mind? We even realize that our unforgiving, hateful attitude hurts us more than it hurts the person we despise. Are there any good feelings, any pleasant experiences, that come out of resentment? Doesn’t it leave us miserable, sour, grumpy? Still, we hold on to it, especially when no apologies are forthcoming. Then Jesus’ forgiving words confront us. They expose our unforgiving hearts.

Then we need to remember that the main reason Jesus was hanging here was just because we fail to be like him. He was hanging here to secure the very forgiveness for us that we find so hard to offer to others. And that is why the forgiveness he speaks comforts my heart as well.

Matthew 26:63-64 “The high priest said to him, ‘I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.’ ‘Yes, it is as you say,’ Jesus replied. ‘But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.’”

Who is Jesus? That, finally, is the real issue, isn’t it? Jesus had asked his disciples the same question when Peter had replied with the wonderful confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

It wasn’t just the disciples who understood Jesus’ claims. Some people today say that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah or God’s Son. But even his enemies understood that this is what he claimed. Though they didn’t believe it, the fact that they understood it gives evidence that Jesus truly is.

Even more convincing was Jesus’ own testimony. “Yes it is as you say.” Even more evidence, these same men would one day see him sitting at God’s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven.

That will be clear when Jesus returns for judgment. “Every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father,” the Apostle Paul writes in Philippians 2. But the evidence would become clear in just three days. Jesus would rise from the dead. The resurrection is a demonstration of his power as God’s Son. It is a demonstration that he sits at the right hand of the Mighty One. This is not a physical location in heaven. God is a spirit. He has no physical right hand. The resurrection proves Jesus power, the power of God himself. Even these men would be able to “see” what happened. The evidence says Jesus is God.

That truth could easily be lost as we follow Jesus through his suffering and death. He doesn’t look divine on trial before the high priest, or later in Pilate’s court. He doesn’t look very God-like as he is beaten, bullied, and bloodied. He doesn’t look very God-like as he breaths his last from the cross.  But this is no ordinary man on trial and facing death. This is our God, and because he is, we know he is our Savior, too.

John 18:19-21 “Meanwhile, the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. ‘I have spoken openly to the world,’ Jesus replied. ‘I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said.’ When Jesus said this, one of the officials nearby struck him in the face. ‘Is this the way you answer the high priest?’ he demanded.”

“The truth hurts.” For Jesus, that meant physical pain at his trial. Clinging to the truth brought him a slap across the face. But the truth was painful for the rest of the men in the room that night, too. They were unable to face it. Jesus, himself “the Truth,” was on trial, but his judges were the ones who ended up convicted. Their guilt was exposed. The truth hurts.

That is why some won’t listen. Annas, the high priest, put on a pretty good show as prosecuting attorney. His examination of Jesus made it sound as if he really wanted to get to the bottom of the issue with Jesus and his teaching. But he was bluffing, and Jesus called his bluff.

First of all, Jesus spoke openly. He said nothing in secret. He wasn’t a false prophet trying to hide some of his less savory beliefs. His agenda had been an open one. Unless Annas had been on another planet the past three years, there was no reason for him to be unfamiliar with what Jesus was doing or suspicious of it.

Especially considering Jesus had done most of his teaching in the synagogues and the temple, “where all the Jews come together.” Annas was a high priest. His life was at the temple. “Haven’t you been in church lately, Annas?” “Aren’t you a Jew, and a religious leader?” How could he not know what Jesus had been teaching, unless he had willfully chosen not to listen?

The truths Jesus taught exposed a man like this. Annas was a priest, and a Sadducee. These were the Jews who denied the resurrection from the dead, the existence of angels, and all of God’s word after the book of Deuteronomy. Jesus himself is the resurrection and the life. His birth was announced by angels. Angels attended him after his temptation. Just this night an angel had come to him in the Garden of Gethsemane to strengthen him for this ordeal. Jesus’ preaching and ministry made frequent use of all God’s word. Annas had no interest in the truth Jesus taught.

Sometimes, we struggle with it ourselves. Sometimes we get our hearts set on something, and we know it’s off limits or out of line. We want to believe something so badly that we make up our stubborn minds about it, though deep inside we know it isn’t true. The truth is there in God’s word, clear as crystal. But we have our own agendas, our own lusts, our own goals, or our own priorities. “Don’t confuse me with the facts,” we sometimes hear people say, jokingly. But it’s no joke when we have set ourselves up against the truth of Jesus’ word.

At any ordinary trial, you expect witnesses. You don’t simply take the accused’s word for it. In Jesus case, they could have had hundreds, even thousands of witnesses to answer their questions.

“Why no witnesses, Annas? Why don’t you get at the truth that way? Why meet in the middle of the night, while everyone who could answer your questions is in bed?” Jesus wasn’t trying to avoid the issue. He was not ashamed of his teaching. But he knew that he wasn’t going to receive a fair hearing. They weren’t going to let him convince them that he was right all along. The verdict was predetermined. Annas and his colleagues held their trial under the cover of night, because the evidence showed that the judges themselves were guilty.

The witnesses are still available today. Thousands and millions know Jesus and his teaching. They can testify to his love, his mercy, and his forgiveness. But a whole world of people still fears the truth. They plug their ears and refuse to hear it. They do all they can to cover it up. They mock it, even condemn it, to silence their screaming consciences.

We are still witnesses today. We have heard Jesus’ teach us the truth about ourselves and his salvation. Don’t be afraid to answer those who put God’s truth on trial. Don’t be surprised if they respond by lashing out. Sometimes Jesus’ truth hurts, but it is also the only thing that can save our souls.

Mark 14:50-52 “Then everyone deserted him and fled. A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.”

When Jesus’ disciples truly first came to grips with the danger involved in following Christ, they had a solution. “Everyone deserted him and fled.” At the moment, this seemed like a good plan. The more distance they could put between Jesus and themselves, the safer they would be. The less connected to Jesus they appeared, the more security they would have. They would run away and escape the danger.

But you know how the story continues. Did they find the safety they were looking for that weekend? Did they feel secure once they had put some distance between Jesus and themselves? Didn’t they rather spend the weekend huddled together in fear, reduced to a pathetic group of whimpering cowards? Weren’t they paralyzed and crushed by the guilt they felt over leaving him alone?

As a group, they were exposed and shamed like the last man to flee that night. “A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.” This young man was interested in Jesus. He was curious about him. But he certainly wasn’t prepared for the sudden danger in which he found himself. When the enemies of Jesus turned on him, he wriggled free and ran away like all the rest.

The application to us is obvious, isn’t it? We may be some of the loudest and stoutest defenders of Jesus when safe at church or home. Who’s going to oppose us? But how are we doing out there, in the world? Are we like those John wrote about? “They loved praise from men more than praise from God.” We may not literally get up and run away when Jesus’ teachings come under attack. But we are just as cowardly to bite our tongues and say not a word.

At school, maybe we don’t participate in all the immorality around us. But do we manage to fit in because we keep our mouths shut? Do we keep peace in the family by avoiding religious talk with our relatives? We see a possible confrontation coming over matters of faith and Christian life, and we turn and we run. When we have protected ourselves in this way, do we find the safety and security we were looking for?

Part of the suffering Jesus willingly endured for our sins was being abandoned by his friends in his hour of greatest need. Part of the reason he needed to suffer for sin was our own unwillingness to stand by him. And how does Jesus react to those who have bailed on him? Remember Jesus’ first words to these men the first time he was together with them again: “Peace be with you.” He holds no grudges. He demands no restitution. He simply promises them peace.

Only Jesus can give such peace. He had to suffer and die alone to secure it. No one could help him do it. He did not run to safety for himself. He gave himself up and made us safe. Flee to him in every need.

Isaiah 52:7 “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation…”

Isaiah is speaking about the messengers who would run from the battle with news of another victory for God’s people. Over the mountains they came to Jerusalem to tell the people that the Lord had given them victory again. No sight could be more beautiful than those messengers, no news more welcome than theirs. Attacks against this people threatened more than a politically insignificant, Middle-Easter nation. These were the people of the promise. Theirs was the land of the promise. Every attack threatened to destroy God’s promise of a Messiah, the Savior from sin. Beautiful was not too strong a word to describe the feet that carried such welcome news of victory home.

How much more doesn’t this apply to those who bring news that God has sent that Savior and given us victory over sin by his death and resurrection! The Apostle Paul understood it this way in Romans 10. He quoted just this verse to describe those who go and share the message of faith in Jesus. That is why we can say 2700 years after Isaiah that you look beautiful in the news he describes.

We still look stunning when we “proclaim peace.” Isaiah’s word for peace describes more than an end to swords, spears, and shields. This is a peace that comes from knowing everything is settled between you and God. No sin stands between you. Your life can be full of blessing, harmony, fulfillment even when it is full of trouble, turmoil, and frustration. This is a “peace which passes all understanding.” Perhaps it will help to illustrate it.

Several decades ago a Lutheran missionary was flying back to the mission field in Africa. A man sitting next to him asked him why we would trouble the people of Zambia with our religion. “Here is the pious African offering his sacrifices to the spirits of his ancestors, keeping his own simple religion. Why would you want to confuse him with yours?” But the missionary pointed out that the pious African offers his sacrifices to the spirits because he lives in sheer terror of them. He has no real confidence in his god. He constantly fears whether he has done enough to keep them happy. We don’t come to impose another religion on him. We come to give real peace in Jesus Christ. We are introducing him to the God who loves him so much he gave his own life to save him. This is peace to which people living in Africa have just as much a right as any Westerner. The popularity and spread of Christianity on the African continent today is evidence that the message hasn’t lost its luster.

Perhaps we may take this peace for granted. It always seems like a good thing, but calling it “beautiful” sounds a bit much. Maybe we even reach the point where we don’t feel a regular need to hear it. The message is still spiritually nutritious, but not all that tasty. We don’t live as though our lives depend on it.

At just such times the Lord may shakes us up so that we feel the hunger again. Usually I am in the business of dispensing God’s good news of peace. But as a pastor, members of my own family have sometimes landed in the hospital with life-threatening conditions. Then I have been on the receiving end of God’s promise of peace. At such times I couldn’t tell you what my own sermon was about the week before. But I can tell you that the devotions we heard in the hospital were a life-line for physically and spiritually weary parents. The feet that brought that peace looked beautiful dressed in that news.