Sunday, March 25, 2012

Dear God,

The preacher asked, "What do you think of when you look at the cross?"  From where I was sitting in the choir loft, I had to stretch my neck backward in order to see the cross suspended from the ceiling.  The cross...I think of love, faith, hope, courage, strength, and horror.

I think of the things we do to punish one another when we don't act as someone else wants us to act.  We not only try to humiliate and discard people; sometimes we go so far as to kill them.  Murders are in the news every day.

But the cross also brings to my mind One whose love so embraced the world that he was willing to take the punishment, the humiliation, and the murderous death.  One who wanted to give all, not just some, but all.  One who was a radical model of agape love.  One who revealed a way to give one's self for another.  One who "can make the foulest clean", the song says.  The cross, the One, Jesus.

I am constantly reminded to live a life of compassion.  I don't always do it but I hear the voice challenging me to be more than I am.  Use your heart instead of your anger, you might say.  Let your own grace lead you.  After all, what is the power of grace if it is received but not given?   These words of faith, spoken by the One, never let me forget what I have been offered and what I need to offer others.  Compassion, at its finest.

Set the cross
before me,
Almighty God;
teach me
the ways
of faith.
Keep love
ever before me
so that
I might
never forget
your many gifts
to me
and the challenge
you give
to me
to give gifts
to others.

Love, Andrea