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God’s Great Love

I just simply want to share some thoughts as I look back upon the Resurrection weekend. This column will deal primarily with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Hopefully, next week, we can dive into His resurrection. My mind often wants to understand the "whys." For instance, why is the world the way it is? Why pandemic, or some of the pure evil that arises in the world we live in. Although the answers may be somewhat complicated, they are at heart straightforward. God created man perfectly. Then why are we like we are today. In creating, he allowed man, when confronted by choice, to make his own decisions. When it came to the choice of whether to rebel or stay faithful to God, he chose to rebel. If God is who He says He is, that means that God knew man would make this choice and knowing that He created him anyway. Why? Because this allowed God to manifest His love in the most significant way possible. When mankind was walking away from God. He made it evident that He loves us by sending His eternal Son, Jesus Christ, to earth to be born as a human being. Live a perfect life, and die a horrible death, paying the penalty for man's sin. Let me use a verse that says this. "But God demonstrated His Love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

Here is the motivation for Christmas and Easter all rolled up into one verse, God’s love. Jesus isn’t just a beautiful story. What He did is the point of God's love. We needed something that could deal with our rebellion, and God filled that need by providing a way to have sin forgiven. It was a perfect one who could pay the penalty of our sin because sin was a roadblock between God and us. God's love was so great that the way this would work is through Jesus. It satisfied all the necessary aspect of our need and God's requirements. This is how much God loves us. While we were actively ignoring Him, He gave the greatest gift of love that He could, His Son. We see the same thing in John 3:16 and other verses, but this one really brings it home.

Let me illustrate the inner workings of what takes place from the Old Testament. As the Children of Israel wandered through the wilderness to the Promised Land, they were given by God a detailed blueprint for a portable tabernacle. God's presence displayed itself with a cloud by day and fire by night over the tabernacle. This tabernacle was comprised of two rooms, the "Holy" place, and the "Most Holy" place. The "Holy" place is where the priest served every day, but the "Most" holy place was only entered once a year and only by the High Priest. Every year an animal would be sacrificed for all the unknown sins of the nation, every one of them. After the animal was sacrificed, the High Priest would go into this sacred place and sprinkle the blood of the animal on the "Mercy Seat." The Mercy seat was the place of God’s presence. This was to atone for the sins of the nation. Between the two rooms of the tabernacle, there was a curtain that had no opening. The priest had to squeeze around an end to enter this holy place. When Jesus died on the cross, it says in Mark 15:38 that this veil or curtain which was now in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. This symbolizes the sacrifice for our sins, which atoned for our sin, and God the Father had accepted it. We now have direct access to the very presence of God. We don't have to approach God through a priest but through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

One of the interesting images of the tabernacle is the placement of the courtyard articles that accompany the sacrifices. When you entered the courtyard, you would first come to the bronze altar. Here the animal was sacrificed, blood was shed. Next was the laver or washbasin. There the priest would clean up, washing the blood from his hands. Many people think that they can clean up their lives first and become acceptable to God. This is impossible, we must first come to the place of the blood, the place of atonement for sin. Then and only then can we enter into the presence of God through the torn veil by the blood of Jesus Christ. This is what we have just celebrated on Good Friday. It is and only is because of the love of God. I pray that you would experience the reality of entering God's presence by believing, having experienced the forgiveness of sin by the blood of Jesus, because of the love of God.

Pastor Lynn Rettig

Musselshell Community Bible Church

God’s Promises

It has been weeks since I have been able to sit at the typewriter and type out this column. The pain was so excruciating that I could not even stand more than 5 minutes at a time. Thinking was out of the question, so I didn’t even try – nor could I concentrate on reading. The only thing I had was a TV series called ‘Heartland’ about 2 young women whose mom was suddenly killed and who decided to carry on her legacy of raising, training, dealing with horses. Thank God, it is 11 seasons long on NetFlix and my daughter had given me a Roku that had all her channels on it so I could begin watching from season 1 and am now on season 3. Every day, I can ride through the hills with them or go on cattle round-ups with them from the comfort of my easy chair and the ever present heating pad which seemed to lessen the pain somewhat. So I sat on it all day, slept on it at night, and tried to guess why I had this much pain. It took about 10 days for the pain to die down enough so that I could even think about seeking medical help. When I did, the Dr. just told me it wasn’t anything I had been treating myself for, nor was it anything she thought it might be. Well, it is much less now, and I still don’t know what it IS. Just what it ISN’T. Not a lot of comfort. Now that I can sit at the computer again, I will try to be more faithful.

Back in the ‘80’s I was taking some classes at a college of Judaica in Chicago. I was their token Christian which made life interesting for all of us. While there, I was involved in a horrific auto accident – hit head on by a drunk driver in a 45 mph speed zone. My husband was killed as a result of that accident, my daughter and her boy friend who were in the back seat also had medical problems later on, and I was banged up worse than I had ever been in my life. My husband was taken to a hospital on the south side of Chicago where he died 10 days later.

What has that got to do with anything. Well, one of my Rabbi teachers called me into his office and said “take your time in doing work, read the Psalms every day”. He was kind to me. At the same time, I was taking classes at a Protestant seminary in Chicago and not one teacher or student in that seminary even paid any attention to me as I hobbled around to get to classes. It occurred to me that the Jews were used to pain. Lived with it, ate with it, endured it for centuries and were much kinder than non-Jews. As a result, I did begin reading the Psalms through daily. One a day at the least. Today, I read Psalm 121 . The promise for me in Psalm 121 is in verse 8. God always keeps His promises. But if we don’t know what they are or don’t read them or remind Him of them, they do us NO GOOD. With all this snow, melting, sun, freezing at night – my driveway is impossible to navigate except in the morning. Before it gets totally unfrozen! This morning I wanted to go to town for some items at the store. So I left, praying that I could get back up my driveway when I returned home. Then I read Psalm 121 which begins “I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence shall my help come?” Maybe you are familiar with it. The last verse spoke to me “The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore”. Yes, He did. He kept my going out to town, and He kept my coming in so that I could make it up that slippery hill and not get stuck. I can only praise Him and thank Him for His goodness to me. How about you? Do you claim the promises He has for you? He will never fail you. Never. Only trust Him. He only wants good for you.

Rev. Joyce Kaplan, M.Div., Retired United Church of Christ pastor.