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When our McCreary County Mission Team finished unloading and getting settled into the mission house, I walked into the pantry and took stock of our food supplies for the week. As my eyes scanned the shelves and glanced in freezers, I realized that our mission was much larger than the number of people who had actually made the journey to Whitley City. Those frozen entrees and the tasty desserts represented a vital contribution to all that was accomplished during the week.
By the time the week was complete, over 20 members of our church had shared Christ’s love in McCreary by being there working on houses and relating to people. However, when one considers all the food that was sent as well as all the prayers that were offered on behalf of those who went, the size of the team increases dramatically. To be sent out from Ball Camp Baptist Church on a week-long mission project is special. It is special because the trip itself is opportunity to put into action the core values and concerns of our congregation. Equally special is the reality that the spirit and the energy, as well as the thoughts and the prayers of those who remain behind, get sent along with the mission team. Ball Camp Baptist Church...Sharing Christ’s Love...Together. Some of us were in Kentucky; some were in Morocco; some were in Knoxville; and all of us were...Sharing Christ’s Love...Together.
This is the week when we focus on Christ’s great sacrifice for us. We remember that He suffered and died so that we might know that God loves us. The love that we seek to share throughout the year was born in a manger and came into its fullest and clearest reality while hanging on a cross. For us to claim to be the inheritors of this kind of love is no small matter.
Living and loving as Christ lived and loved is certainly what each of us as Christ’s followers should desire for our lives. Yet, life and love sometimes get mixed with trial and hardship, stress and anxiety, as well as failed expectations and frustrated dreams; and we find ourselves not only not living and loving as Christ did but perhaps wondering if life is worth it and love is possible. The great temptation of Easter is to think that the empty tomb is some sort of cure-all elixir for whatever ails us.
It is not. If we journey through the next seven days with Christ, recalling the events of His life during the week before His crucifixion, we see that living and loving as Christ did brings its own trials and hardships.
This Friday, Good Friday, marks the day that Jesus was nailed to the cross. While hanging on the cross, He spoke these words, “Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit.” Before He spoke those words, it looked to all the world like His life was being taken from Him, like He was being killed. The severest form of punishment the government had to offer was being administered to Him. That fact should have made Him their victim. Saying what He did, He took Himself out of their hands. He gave away what they thought they were taking from Him.
He took a moment that seemed to be a complete loss and full of despair, and turned it into victory and hope. In His death, burial and resurrection, Christ transformed unimaginable loss into a victory never thought possible. The decisive point in that transformation was His willingness to say, “Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit.” That is our moment of transformation as well. When we commend our spirits to God, we are able to share Christ’s love in ways we never dreamed possible.
Joy and peace,
Ed
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