This is genius, from the genius film Juno and the even more genius soundtrack to the film. And if you think that’s overuse of the word genius I don’t care.
Sunday
Jesus died.
Jesus did what dead men don’t do and rose.
Jesus will come again.
That makes most things make sense. (kinda weird eh.)
Saturday
I’m not sure how the disciples of Jesus felt the day after they’d seen their Lord, Master and friend crucified on a cross. I’m not sure whether they would have remembered his talk of rising again in the pain of their grief. I’m not sure if they wondered what on earth it was all about and I’m sure they didn’t know how to deal with the pain of loss and separation. Easter Saturday reminds us of such times. In a way it was entirely fitting that today we went to a uber amazing restaurant to eat incredible food and drink everflowing wine (well as much as the lovely Sarah Meagher would pay for) to comemorate what would have been James’ thirtieth birthday. It was the right day for it to happen. Mainly because this day is about so much of the darkness and pain of this world. But the things we did today pointed towards a time when we would see him again, when the glory of tomorrow will come because Jesus did rise again. We sit on such days and feel the sadness, but it is a sadness tinged with hope, even if it’s in the brief glimpses of sun and blue skies on an otherwise rainy day. Here’s to James and all the others that we miss right now, and to all in inexplicably hard situations. There is a final day, there is more than this, and that final banquet will be a pretty good feast.
Friday
My song is love unknown,
My Savior’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I? That for my sake
My Lord should take frail flesh, and die?
Sometimes they strew His way,
And His sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the day
Hosannas to their King:
Then “Crucify!” Is all their breath,
And for His death they thirst and cry.
They rise and needs will have
My dear Lord made away;
A murderer they save,
The Prince of life they slay.
Yet cheerful He, to suffering goes,
That He His foes from thence might free.
Here might I stay and sing,
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King,
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend, In whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.
Posted in From the basement
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Have I done enough?
I guess this is a question we ask a lot in life. “Have I done enough?” I ask it of the work I do, we ask it throughout any Christian ministry or service we undertake. “Have I done enough?”.
I wonder why we ask the question, whether it’s born out of wanting to prove to either ourselves, God, friends and the people we work with that we have done a good job. It’s also the natural question to ask in a job that has few boundaries or limitations. In the endless quest to make the brilliant news of Jesus known, and remind all of the reality of God it’s hard to know what really is ‘enough’. Who can tell? Who can really say? And will we ever know?
I sense we might be asking the wrong question though. Enough for what? Enough for who? Surely not enough to get love, surely not enough to stop, not enough to earn a reward. What is this enough we crave? We aren’t living this life to find the answer to that question. We are living in response to the answer given to us.
Jesus is our enough. Without him we can do nothing, we can never on our own do enough. He is our enough. He is our fullness, our answer, our safe refuge, our rock, our joy, our crown, our life. We need to open up our hands again and receive the enoughness of Jesus. And from that place serve in the strength he provides, with the opportunities he provides, to the people surrounding us. It’s good to stop and think about why we are here, what we are doing in this crazy thing we call life, whether we are doing the right things, but none of it comes down to ‘am I doing ‘enough’?’. Jesus fills that. We need to direct our thoughts to ‘who can we best love today?’ And at the end of each day repent of where we have not loved, thank our God for where he has enabled us to love and sleep resting in the knowledge that tomorrow there will be new mercies. Now that’s ‘enough’.
The Long Walk Home 