True Love

We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.


The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him.

This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.

Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.

But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.



It is not hard to understand why Jesus chose twelve disciples. But why these particular men? Six were from the same fishing crew. Three more may have also been from there—James the lesser, Jude, and Thomas. But the last three—Matthew, Simon Zelotes, and Judas—seem like a mistake. Matthew was a tax collector and Roman collaborator. Simon was a terrorist. Judas was an outsider. What was Jesus thinking?

Jesus chose these men as a lesson to others. In the Kingdom of God there must be no racial or ethnic divisions. They would be one family together, growing in love, respect, and encouragement.

John tells us in these verses that the God’s kingdom is based on love. He says that we should obey his commandment. Love is the specific commandment he references here. God’s love is to be realized in us. He wants us to love each other.

The beginning of Christ’s kingdom (John says) is a dawn. Before we walked in darkness, but now we walk in light. Not everyone has seen the light, but is is coming for all. The way you can tell those who walk in light and those who walk in darkness is by this quality of love. Those who walk in light love each others. You can’t be in the kingdom unless you walk in light, and you can’t walk in light unless you love each other.

How do we know if we really are walking in love?

True love of others has four characteristics

1. Love means forgiving past wrongs,

In the new kingdom, there is no room for the resentments of the past. When Jesus gathered together his disciples, there was no room for Peter to think how Matthew had cheated him at the tax tables, or how Simon had tried to kill Matthew. All of that had to be forgotten once the new kingdom began.

I know how hard that is for us humans. Anyone who has been hurt knows the sting of resentment, and our animal desire for revenge. When we love a person that is or was our enemy, that sting does not immediately go away. Forgiveness is not reconciliation. It is simply a commitment for forgo vengeance upon those who have wronged us.

There are some people who have deeply wronged me in the past. There are even som who I would feel uncomfortable sharing a room or a car with them. But that does not mean I want revenge. I am happy to leave retribution up to the Lord, and leave it at that.

That goes not only for people who have wronged me, but groups as well. Let me tell you about the most prejudiced man I ever met. He worked in a company where he had missed several promotions. Blacks and women were promoted over him. He was sure this was because of their gender or skin color. So he hated blacks and women. The real truth was (as anyone who knew him could tell) he was passed over because of his terrible attitude. He was deeply angry and deeply depressed. He was also self-destructive.

Was he angry and resentful because he had been mistreated, or was he mistreated because he was angry and resentful? No one could say for sure.

It’s easy to get mad and the world today. It’s easy to get mad at every Arab you see because of 9-11, or to get mad at every Mexican you see because of illegal immigration. But what good does it do? How can we begin the dawn of a new day, when we are still growling in the darkness of the old one? Whatever way you want to look at it, the man needed a new start. That new start was impossible because of his anger and resentment. Forgiveness is what we do when we don’t want to be ruled by the past.

2. Love offers help in trouble.

No matter how prejudice or angry we might be, common decency will usually compel us to rescue people in need. A doctor on the battlefield does not just treat soldiers on his side, but will treat anyone of any side who needs the help. It is part of their Hippocratic Oath. Policmen take a vow to protect the citizenry, whether they like them or not. Firefighters don’t ask you about your politics before they put out the fire at your house. If emergency workers make no such distinctions when faced with an immediate danger, shouldn’t the people of God be also so inclined?

I love snow days, not because of the snow alone, but because he attitudes of people we meet. On snow days, when travel is harder, people are more helpful, more considerate, and more prone to notice those with needs. In Florida, our church helped man a homeless shelter in bad weather. Believe it or not, it was a great competition between members and churches to help when the temperature dropped below forty degrees. People help stranded travelers because hey want to. That spirit of helpfulness should be part of the church also.

When we hear of needs in our church, are we there to help? Do we drive people to the doctor when they need it? Do we visit the sick and the old? Are we helping people find jobs and take care of their families when they get laid off? The first sign of Christian love in the church is how we help people in the church with their needs.

3. Love appreciates the beauty of others.

We sometimes say that love is a decision, not an emotion. But there are also undeniable emotional aspect to Christian love. One such aspect is to learn to appreciate people’s differences of outlook without condemning or condoning.

Take, for example the relationship between old and young. Our church is facing a crisis of age. We have too many old members. Sure we want young members—but why? What do we have that would make younger members want to come here?

In our society there are undeniable cultural distinctions between old and young. That is because social customs no longer last a lifetime. Music has changed, humor has changed, technology has changed. Old people, do you understand and appreciate what younger people have? If you see a rock musician playing his guitar, and you don’t like rock, can you at least admire the skill with which he plays, and acknowledge that skill as a gift of God/

Young people, do you appreciate what the old have to offer you? Mark Twain once said that when he was sixteen the thought his father was an idiot, but that it was amazing what that man had learned by the time he was twenty-one! The old have much to teach you. If you think it is all passé, can you at least acknowledge their skill and courage, that put you where you are?

Today, we are being invaded by in this culture by all kinds of foreign culures. Hispanics are pouring over our borders. It is easy to sneer at their food and make fun of their language, but can we at least appreciate that God has given them beauty and skill like ours.

The most important aspect of really loving each others it to give others respect and the freedom to be themselves. We should not disrespect the parts of others and other cultures that others find beautiful.

4. Love wishes others a future success

I am convinced that our love can build this church. Todo this, we must love those who are different from us. More than that, we must work for their success.

Any good salesman will tell you that the only way to be successful in sales is to actually like your clients. You want them to prosper, and you think you have a product that will help them prosper. If we love the people around us, we will put forth programs and ideas that will help them succeed, and show them Jesus, who can help us succeed.

Our society is becoming increasingly profane in its language. Some things that used to be profane are said regularly, so much in fact that they are no longer seen as profane. One expression that we hear more and freely used, for example is for someone to tell another to go to hell.

Have you ever told another to go to hell? Did you mean it? There is nothing more horrible to wish on a person to that. Who could have the least bit of love in their heart and with them to go to hell?

Yet when we ignore the eternal destination of others, we may as well tell them to go to hell. When we say that we don’t want a particular kind of person in our church, we are telling them to do to hell. When we have the opportunity to tell another about Christ, or lead them to come the church where they can hear the Gospel, we have told them to go to hell. When we do not care what happens to a person eternally, and would rather not have certain kinds of people with us in heaven, then we are consigning them to hell as surely as we do when we tell someone to go to hell. God does not want this. Loving others is wanting the best for them, both now and for all eternity.

We do this, because Christ has already done it for us. Everything I have just listed as aspects of love are things that Jesus has already done for us.

--He forgave our sins. Jesus could have shown resentment and vengeance against those who killed Him, but instead he asked God to forgive them.

--He rescues us. Jesus went out of His way to help us escape our selfish, destructive lives.

--He appreciates our God-given uniqueness. Jesus takes all kinds of people in his kingdom—whites, blacks, Mexicans, Arabs, Africans, Asians—everyone. He takes liberals and right-wingers, bikers and bankers, cowboys and hippies—every kind you can imagine. Jesus is so open and so loving that he has even loved you. (doesn’t squeeze us into a mold)

--He wants you to have a good tomorrow. Jesus is looking forward to the day when His whole family will be gathered together in the same place in heaven—all races, classes and cultures. He looks forward to having you at His table.

Don’t miss your opportunity to spend eternity with Jesus. him in his kingdom, and walk in love, which is the same as walking in the light.

True Mercy

Luke 18:10-14


"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men — robbers, evildoers, adulterers — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."



In The Godfather, Michael Corleone asks whether it is better to be loved or feared. He comes to the conclusion that if you have to be one or the other, it is better to be feared by your enemies. Lovers and friends can betray you out of love, but if they fear you they dare not.

The Romans agreed. Love is untrustworthy. The Romans, like the Mafia, did not believe in mercy. Mercy to them was a sign of moral weakness.

To Jesus though, love was greater than fear. God does not first all demand our fear, but our respect. We are not Christians because we fear God, but because we love Him. As the apostle Paul put it “Perfect love casts out fear.”

We Christians at least give lip service to mercy. But we seldom practice it. When we do practice mercy, we often get it wrong, giving mercy in the wrong way and to the wrong people. Much of what we call mercy is no mercy at all.

Mercy is false when it leads to our unnecessary destruction.

A man was traveling through the woods came across a bear cub separated from its mother. “I’ll take it home with me,” he said. “I’ll raise it in my home as a pet.” So he took and fed it on a bottle. The bear got bigger. Then one day the man realized he had a full grown grizzly bear on his hands. He opened the door and said, “Go! You are too big for the house.” But the bear did not go. Instead, it turned on him and ate him.

Some people are that way. We give them love, yet they can return nothing. They are incapable of returning the love we offer. Instead, they turn upon us.

Martyrdom is a noble thing, but it must be done for the right cause. Just because we suffer for mercy does not mean we should suffer for mercy. Many people make martyrs out of themselves serving ungrateful children or friends who finally are no more appreciative than a grizzly bear. Solomon said in Proverbs 20:15 “The leech has two daughters—‘give’ and ‘give.’” Heaven help us if we show mercy to a leech.

Mercy is false when it causes the innocent to come to harm.

In February of last year, the nation was horrified by the shocking news story of a Connecticut woman who kept a chimpanzee as a pet. For years, this chimp lived in her home and gave them no problems. Then it began to make threatening moves to others. But the woman could not bring herself to have it killed. One day the chimp became unmanageable. She asked her neighbor to come over and help. The chimp attacked her neighbor and almost killed her.

When we show mercy to criminals and terrorists, we are doing the same thing this woman did. We are eventually allowing the innocent to be harmed. When a person stands by an watches animals or children beaten, we are doing the same thing. Sometimes we must forcibly stop evil without mercy to those who harm others.

Mercy is also false when it cripples the person to whom mercy is given.

In both the previous stories, the bear and the chimp were not evil. They were just animals doing what they do. But the animals were in the wrong environment. We do no favor to a wild animal to bring it into a human environment. Making them dependent on our mercy.

Suppose you have a pet Chihuahua. How long to you think the Taco Bell dog would last if you let it loose. Yet it has descended from wild wolves. All the ferocious, predatory nature of the animal has been bred out of it. By loving on these little animals, we have made it impossible for them to live without us.

You can never give to others without taking something else away. If we give food and shelter, we take away independence and self-reliance. Giving to the poor is good, but not if it creates an underclass of people who are unable to take care of themselves.

There is a false mercy. But there is a true mercy as well. False mercy can hurt, but true can redeem, and save..

The Bible gives us an example of true mercy in the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. The mercy of God is best portrayed in the free gift of God through Jesus for sinners who don’t deserve it Christ.

God’s mercy is predicated upon three propositions.

First, we realize that none of us deserve it. Mercy is not mercy if we deserve it. Only those who do not deserve it can receive the mercy of God.

In Luke 18, Jesus told the story of two men who went to the temple to pray. The first one was a Pharisee. Today the word Pharisee is synonymous with the word “hypocrite.” But that was not the case then. The Pharisees were clergymen of the largest denomination of Jews.

The Pharisee represents a particular kind of person—the religious person. He was not all that different from religious people like you or me. They were God-fearing people who tried to keep God’s Law. Most of us are the same. We don’t wish to offend the living God. There are consequences when we break God’s law. We are appalled at homosexuality, drunkenness, moral laxity, and so forth. In this we are in agreement with the Pharisees, conservative Jews, Mormons, Muslims, and Jehovah’s Witness.

In spite of his moral virtue, the Pharisee in Jesus’ story had one fatal moral flaw. He had a blind side when it came to his own sin. He was proud He looked around at the rest of humanity and concluded that he was better than most. He was sure God must be pleased with him.

But God does not grade people on a curve. Just because we are better than most does not mean we are good enough for God.

Suppose you go to an “all you can eat” restaurant. You go back to the buffet seven times. If you go back seven times, but the man next do you go back eight times. Will you therefore avoid getting fat? Do your extra calories not count?

If you smoke two packs a day, and your neighbor smokes three, will you become any less sick?

Suppose a policeman catches you going eighty miles an hour in a thirty-five mile an hour zone. Will he be more lenient on you, because some other motorist was going ninety?

God does not grade on a curve. Each of us receives the punishment due us, because of our own individual actions. He has an absolute standard of goodness. That goodness is so far above us that we will never attain it. All of us are equally guilty before the Lord.

The tax collector in the story was the opposite of Pharisee. He knew he needed mercy. Romans tax collectors had no fixed tax rates to collect. They were free to collect anything above that amount they could. In effect, tax collection was a license to steal. No wonder the other Jews hated them! If they were to have any friends at all, they were Romans and other unclean people. They were the only friends their money could buy.

Jesus makes it clear in this story. If we have sin in our heart, even though there may be people much worse than we are, we are equally condemned before God. We are all sinners. There are no exceptions.

Second, we see that anyone can receive God’s mercy, if they want it.

This tax collector was no better than the rest of his profession. He had cheated others. He had entertained Romans. He had prostitutes, and had been drunk. But he realized one thing that the Pharisee did not--the distance that separated him from God.

The tax collector hungered and thirsted for God. More than anything, he wanted to close the gap between him and God. He bowed his head. He beat his chest. He behaved like a man who has just lost his best friend or closest relative. He had lost his way and he wanted it back, A man is better off if he knows he is lost, than being lost and not knowing it.

Here is the wonder of God’s mercy--anyone can receive it. It is free and readily given. God’s mercy does not take away the consequences of our sins, but it closes the gap between us and God so that we do not have to go through life alone, without His help. If we gain all things and do not have God, we are lost. But if we lose all things and have God, all is gained.

This isn’t the weak mercy of the lazy man, or the sloppy mercy of the weak and sentimental. This is the tough, sinewy mercy of a God who knows full well our capability of betrayal, yet doesn’t care. He knows even as these two men pray that the tax collector will still be a tax collector, and that that Pharisee will still be a Pharisee. Outwardly, the Pharisee will likely still look like the better man. But God knows better. Only one has received mercy, and only one will experience a change of life. God knows their inner hearts and judges accordingly.

Finally, we see that God’s mercy is at Jesus’ price. God is not a fool. He knows the price of betrayal is death. But God, in infinite understanding and full knowledge paid that full price himself, allowing Himself to be sacrificed for our forgiveness.

t could be no other way. There is no true mercy without sacrifice. The wages of sin must be paid. But if God punished sinners without mercy, no one would survive. So God became a man, living among us, and dying on the Cross so justice and love could both be fulfilled.

You need mercy. Don’t think for a moment that God won’t give it. But consider the price God paid for your mercy. Think of the awful sacrifice of Jesus. Then we might begin to understand what is true mercy.

True Faith

Eph 2:8-10


For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

What is true faith?

True faith is not a religion—People often ask “What is your faith?” when they mean “What is your religion?” But faith and religion are not the same. You can have faith without a religion, and you can have religion without faith.

Paul was a religious man. He believed in his own religion and practiced it methodically. He was willing to kill for it. Yet all this did him no good. It was not faith for him—it was bondage. Practicing religion is not the same as having faith.

True faith is not intellectual. What we believe should be grounded in a careful and thoughtful examination. But we should never think that intellectual pursuit in itself will do a thing for our faith.

Think about a person who has an irrational fear of flying. He may know the principles of airplane flight. She may know that it is safest way to travel. He may believe that our pilots are well trained and that airports are well run. But when she get on an airplane, something irrational takes over. He won’t get on that plane, no matter how much he knows.

We may know the teachings of the Bible and still not trust them. When we try to live by them, our fleshly shortcomings take over and we do wrong, even while affirming the right.

Faith is not positive thinking. For many people, faith seems to be a denial of reality. There is a school of thought that believes if we act successful, we become successful. This is pretense, not faith. \

Several years ago, I attended a hospice conference Q and A session. One of the volunteers told proudly about a patient who refused to accept that he was dying, but told everyone he was going to get better.

The speaker answered with this illustration. Suppose you are standing in the road, and a truck is bearing down on you. You can choose not to believe in trucks. You can assure everyone that the truck will not hit. But when it hits, you will still be dead. Eventually, we all have to come to terms with our own mortality.

I do not mean to suggest there is no merit in positive thinking. There is much profit in looking on the bright side. Hope is an essential ingredient of everything we accomplish. But hope alone is not faith. If our hope leads to acknowledge only one outcome of any situation, that that is not hope. That is presumption.

So what is true faith? Let me suggest a definition.

Faith is a crazy response to the Living God and His promises.

Faith has three ingredients. Let me list them.

It is crazy—or so it appears ot others who see it. It flies in the face of conventional wisdom and rationality based in a horizontal knowledge of the world.

It is a response. A response means a way of moving, not a way of thinking. We may think what we like in our hearts, but it does us no good unless we are willing to respond to what we belief.

It is based on a Living God. Our faith is grounded in God’s faithfulness.

It is based in the promises of God. We believe what God has said and done. This is what distinguishes a believer’s faith from that of others.

Let’s examine each of those four concepts.

Faith is crazy.

\Faith, if properly practices, will make other people think you are crazy. There is an element of wildness to it, the unpredictable behavior o a man or woman who is truly looking to God for guidance and protection. \If other people don’t think you’re a little crazy, chances are you don’t have enough faith.

That’s the way it is with anyone who trusts in God. It seems crazy to everyone else. They cannot see the invisible power that upholds us in everything. We can take ristks, and be a little crazy, because we know that no matter how badly we fall, our redeemer lives.

Ephesians 2 1-5 states “You were dead in your trespasses and sins—God has raised us together with Christ.” What could be crazier than that? Dead people don’t live. It is not rational by human standards to expect to live when you are dead. There is no basis for acceptance of this idea by natural means. Yet that is excactly what the Bible tells us.

I once saw a magician walk across a swimming pool. The pool was full of people splashing and swimming, when he suddenly stepped out on the water and walked calmly across.

It was a trick, of course. Before the trick began, he put a sheet of thick plexiglass just under the water. They people in the pool were in on the trick. He was taking no chances at all. If other people saw him step out into that pool, they would think him crazy, but if they knew what he knew, they would not think it crazy at all.

The most foolish thing we can do it to believe our eyes and ears. Satan is a skilled magician. He knows how to distract us and deceive the bulk of humanity. If we trust in our normal senses, we will be deceived.c Bu

t if we are willing to fly in the face of our own conceptions of he rational we may perceive the truth, even while everyone else calls us crazy.

The Romans thought the Christians were crazy when they went singing to their executions. The Jews thought the Christians crazy when they said God became a man and raised from the dead. The Catholics thought Martin Luther crazy when he said the just will live by faith. Every believer is thought crazy today, when he listens to the voice of God instead of the voices around her. Don’t let the world define you by pressuring you to follow their rationale. Be independent enough to question the prevailincg authority and believe the authority of God.

Faith is a response.

“For it is by grace we are saved through faith,” Paul said. Faith is responding to our belief in the grace of God. Every living creature responds to stimuli—hot, cold, hunger, fear, and so forth. If we can create a perception of a particular condition, we can provoke a response. If we sneak up behind a person and say “Boo” they may jump, even though there is no real danger.

But human beings are more than animals. We have a choice responses. We do not have to run from a scary situation. We do not have to eat when we are hungry, of engage in sexual activity when stimulated. We choose to what we will respond.

Faith is to choosing to respond to God and to ignore oher perceptions. The world may say that greed is good, but we know better. The world may say that he who dies with the most toys wins, but we know that is not the case. He who dies and can face the Living God with a good conscience wins. We always have a choice.

Faith is a response to a Living God.

“It is a gift of God.” Faith is never about what we do. It is always about who we do it for. Our faith comes from knowing a living God.

There’s a story in Acts 19 about a group of men in Corinth practice exorcism. One day, they tried to cast out demons in the name of “Jesus of Nazareth, whom Paul preaches.” They had seen Paul cast out demons, so they assumed they could have the same power. But the demon turned on them and ran them out of the house. As he did he said, “Jesus I know and Paul I am familiar with, but who are you?” The devil is not impressed by second-hand faith. Faith must be really our faith.

The problem with faith is that we do not always know who we are really believing. It is easy to miss what really holds us together. What do we really have faith in--our ancestors, our own self-reliance? The only way we can really know we have faith is respond boldly and definitely to the promises God his made. “Attempt great things from God,” William Carey said. “Expect great things from God.”

Faith is a response to God and His promise.

Our faith is not vague. It is based on the concrete statements we find in the Bible. Believing the promises of the Bible gives content to our faith.

What promises? Here are a few.

That God loves me, no matter what.—“By grace are we saved.”

It takes real faith to believe that God loves us, given the reality of our sin and weakness. Paul says that were aren’t just sinners, we are the devil’s tools. We aren’t just weak, we are dead. In all things we have failed, but in all things, God has shown us mercy.

God loves us because He loves us. He saves us because he chooses to save us. Nothing e can do can make God “de-gift” us. His cross has given us all things, through his love and grace.

That we don’t have to work to be accepted by God.--“Not of works, so that no one can boast.”

There are many people work. Some do it out of necessity. If we don’t work, we don’t eat. Others work out of joy. Necessity is good but joy is better. Sages through the ages, from Solomon to Marx have taught that the greatest joy on earth comes from willing labor. But when we work out of necessity or fear, we are slaves.

God doesn’t want us to obey him as slaves, but as free men and women who do it willingly. He wants partners, not servants. We may fear retribution when we don’t get things right, but that is not what God wants. God wants us to work for Him without fear or regret. He is much more concerned about out attitude in doing His will than our accuracy.

That God has a purpose for our lives. --“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of doing good.

What I fear the most is not death. What I fear is never having lived. I do not want to leave this world without leaving something of substance behind. I do not want to die meaninglessly. I want t do good.

“I have been crucified with Christ,” Paul said in Galatians 3;20. “ I live no longer, and the life that I continue to live in the flesh, I live by the Son of God, who loved m, and gave Himself for me.” God promises us just that. When we live by faith in Him through Grace, God promises to make our life fruitful. We are not meaningless. We have a purpose--to become part of God’s plan of redeeming the world. We are not just animals wandering in the wilderness, satisfying our cravings and impulses, but beloved Sons of God, participating in the redemption of all creation.

This is the substance of our faith. This is why we believe in His promises.

Good Friday

Today is Good Friday--or so we call it. It is sometimes called Black Friday, because it was the anniversary of the death of Jesus. But more often, we call it Good Friday, because of the ultimate victory of Christ, which could not happen without it.


Every year at this time I struggle to explain the miracle of Good Friday. Every year I fail. The main reason, I guess is that when it comes down to it, I don't understand it myself. Oh, I can give you the theological meaning of the Cross. I know that Christ suffered and died for my sins. But that doesn't answer all the questions. Couldn't a God who is the creator not only of this world but of all possible worlds construct the moral universe in such a way that the death of Jesus would not be necessary? After all, He's the one who makes the rules. Surely he could have found a less bloody way to show us leniency?

But he didn't. He chose to make salvation available to us by becoming human and then dying at the hands of Roman torturers. Taking communion from silver trays in an air-conditioned church, presided over by serious looking men in robes does not adequately express the horror and wonder of what He did.

The cross is a shocking, shocking story--an offense to good people everywhere who think the world is good, just, and noble. Here was an innocent man nailed to boards and hanging by his wounds in the burning Middle Eastern sun. His government condemned him as a traitor. His religious leaders denounced him as a heretic. Even his friends ran from him as too dangerous to support. He received this treatment for telling the truth about Himself, gently and politely. For the crime loving truthfulness, he was beaten, mocked, stabbed, whipped, and left to die of exposure, blood loss, and pain.

Yet we call that day Good Friday.

Looking back through the Resurrection even, we see the meaning of it. But on that Black Friday, it made no sense at all. Why should a good man die for nothing? Didn't he deserve better? The peacemakers are always the ones who usually get assassinated. If it was God's will to take him early, then why couldn't he be assassinated like Lincoln or Caesar, quickly and suddenly, rather than having to endure the physical an psychological torture of one of the most humiliating deaths imaginable?

The senselessness of death was brought home to us this last week. My wife Joy works with preschool, visually impaired students. Last Friday on of her children--a three year old child-- suddenly died for unknown reasons. This was the first time one of her student had died. She went to the service, where the preacher spoke of him as an angel who showed Christ in his little face. He wasn't Christ, though. He was just an innocent kid who died too early and left behind a grieving family. There was nothing "good" about that death at all.

Life has many meaningless moments. Children die, the innocent suffer, evil people win battles, good people lose them. The same world that gives us sunsets and gentle breezes also gives us hurricanes and tsunamis. Whether we get flood or drought makes no sense, but depends on water temperature on the other side of he world. It has nothing to do with us. Try as we might, we cannot make sense out of why one person suffers and an other escapes. Mortality is the price we pay for being alive.

It would be nice if before death took us, Jesus would just come again and take us all to heaven. But for most of us, the path to paradise leads through the grave, like a thousand generations of ancestors before us. And we all live in this world of pain and suffering, looking up to God and crying out "Why?" To which God does not really give an answer--not that we could understand the answer if we knew it, anyway.

Since we are unable to comprehend the reasons for suffering, God gives us the next best thing. He gives us companionship. He did not exempt Himself, but went through the worst of it without flinching or complaint. He demonstrated that suffering does not have to lead to despair or hopelessness. It is possible to be faithful in the middle of torture and death and remain obedient to a greater and higher purpose. Suffering can be endured, even the loss of someone we love. We do not have to know the meaning of it. We only have to know that God knows the meaning of it all.

What makes Good Friday good is not what happened on that day, but what happened three days later, when Jesus rose from the dead. Even death is not permanent in the end, and God's goodness is vindicated. Where He went, we can go, too.

We can never look at God and say "You don't know how I feel." He knows exactly how we feel. He's been through it, too. He demonstrated that Black Friday can also be Good Friday in the end, when we keep believing in Him.