Hi everyone,
My goodness the rains are heavy this weekend. Those of you from the Lower Mainland know exactly what I’m talking about. Roads have been flooded, basements are in danger, and social media has been inundated with images and videos of the chaos that ensued.
You’d think we who are from these here parts would be used to this by now. I know these localized floods have been more extreme lately, but they aren’t entirely new. This isn’t to make light of the destruction and the plight of those negatively affected by the rain, but I’m just saying that we’ve all experienced this once or twice in the past.
Having said that, I still felt a little worried when my wife said she was going out to the mall. I was concerned when I heard that those close to me were going to brave the roads to make it to their planned events and outings. I found myself looking out the window more often yesterday checking to see if our home was in any danger of being overrun by the torrential rains.
But then I saw this picture floating around on the internet with the caption “local man makes most of rainstorm” or something to that effect. And the picture was of a guy in a kayak paddling around in a giant puddle beside a park. That caption (or something to that effect) wasn’t wrong. He made the most of the situation, that’s for sure. He saw what was happening and adapted. Things were as they were, and he reformed his paradigm and decided to go out for a little paddle.
Granted, I don’t know if the picture was old, from somewhere else, or even doctored. But I think it makes for a good story anyway.
Here are the links for next week’s readings, as well as the video of them being read:
Jeremiah 31:7-9
Psalm 126
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 10:46-52
These are the readings that we get for every Reformation Sunday, so I think it’s pretty safe to say that they’re pretty familiar. They are very appropriate for the day of course, a day that we remember how the church was reformed to see more clearly the freedom that is found in God’s truth and promises.
This freedom that seemed to be such a lost concept by the people hearing Jesus’ words for the first time here, is a freedom from sin. But sin in this context doesn’t just mean the bad or wrong actions that we might be guilty of. Rather, sin is seen as a separation from God, or things (be it attitudes or mindsets) that keep us from God.
So then the freedom that Jesus is talking about is freedom from how things have always been and how we understand them. It’s a freedom from the narrow views of the world that we might have been raised to have. It’s a freedom from the fear that we could never change, never grow out of those old ways, never fully grasp the love that God has for us all.
This is the truth of God’s promises. The truth of the love of Christ. The truth that rings in all of our lives, reminding us who we are and whose we are and how that empowers us to live, to serve, to make the best of all that is.
Thanks be to God! Have a great week, everyone!