REFLECTION
FROM THE DESK OF THE PASTOR
Today is the beginning of
the public life of Jesus. As you remember Christmas is over, the child is grown
up, the child becomes a man and the man is baptized in the waters by John the
Baptist, a sign of his oneness with all of humanity, that he is indeed the Messiah
but he is true God and true man. We see John the Baptist testifying that Jesus
indeed is the son of God and the son of man. He says, “Behold the lamb of God,
who takes away the sin of the world.” He is telling his disciples that this is
the sacrificial lamb. This is the Messiah who does not come with great armies.
This is the Messiah who comes to us as a sacrificial lamb and as John says who
offers his whole life that sins might be forgiven. For sin is a failure to care
and a failure to love. It is not something that you just say “Well I broke the
sixth commandment or the fifth, tenth commandment,” because when you sin you
break a heart not only the heart of Jesus but the heart of the person that you
have sinned against. And this is why it is such an important word. For when
Jesus enters the waters, becomes one with us, walks with us through life
feeling the things we feel, hoping the things we hope, every bit a human being.
When he does this, he is coming so that he might take away all sin. And it is
in the loving of Jesus that we are forgiven, because he never held it against
us, he never went away and hid and waited for an apology. Remember that when we
sin against each other, it’s not a breaking of a rule, a regulation, a law
although it is that – It is the breaking of another person’s heart. And then we
will realize that Jesus came only to love. He Himself has said, “I have not
come to judge. I have come to teach you how to love”.
