A Time to Reason and a Time to Pray

[HKHaugan]

A Time to Reason and a Time to Pray

Holy Week gives us moments to pause and consider where we are in a drifting world. Where have we gone and what are we doing with the moments we have? It’s a world where leadership in every human activity moves away from God and invents its own system. C.S.Lewis rightly observed, “We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst (from The Abolition of Man).”

In the book of Revelation, when the Lord was patrolling the 7 churches He started with the church in Ephesus: “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place (To the Ephesian church Rev.2:2-5 NIV).”

When we seek safety in numbers we become what the numbers want us to be not what God created us to be. When we seek safety in wealth we become what wealth demands in order to obtain it. When we seek safety in our ethnicity we become its slave. When we seek safety in a group, in a concept, a philosophy, in anything less than God we become the victims of that ‘anything.’ This process is made up of moments and every next moment will be owned by someone or something.

The moment we step away from Jesus we become our own god.
The moment we step away from Jesus we become our own truth.
The moment we step away from Jesus, we become our own way.
The moment we step away from Jesus we become our own life.
The moment we step away from Jesus we become our own enemy.
The moment we step away from Jesus, the devil rules.

The moments pile up, the steps more frequent, sin fades, we are in control at last, yet left wondering why life quietly and slowly sinks into a lonely sunset where the darkness of fear, guilt, regret, anger, resentment, bitterness, blame and remorse fill our seclusion. Could this be the ‘why’ of the Cross, why Jesus came, why Jesus would choose to let all that stuff of aloneness put Him there? The fruit of sin is its denial, its false promise of control, its religious lure, its fanatic self-indulgence and its final proclamation---Forget God. It’s all about me.

But here’s the truth for every next moment, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work (1John 3:8).”

Without the Cross we wither. Without the Resurrection we dissolve. Without Jesus we cease. So how do we approach our every next moment? Here is a passage to embrace the pause called Holy Week where we take moments and consider the work He did on the Cross for us when He said, “It is finished (Jn.19:30),”

“Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high (Lk.24:45-49).”