Though the Earth Give Way
Wednesday (December 17)
Though the Earth Give Way
Psalm 118:22-23
The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.
What is the LORD doing in America today? Our political scene is in uproar. There’s hardly any semblance of peace, not with so many irreconcilable differences between factions when it comes to moral and cultural vision. But what about the church today? Factions abound there too. Splits take place over politics, methodologies, budget priorities, and many more things. How many feuds have you witnessed in your own experience over things like musical choices or dress codes or biblical interpretations of Revelation? You’ve probably left one or two churches yourself based on personal convictions, and, if you haven’t, you know friends and family members who have. Okay, but what about your family? How unified and solidified are your blood-relationships? Are there splinters forming in the structural walls even at home? Have you been the victim of a nasty divorce or parental abuse or lies being told behind your back by your siblings? Division seems to touch every family in one way or another, and the splintering only widens over time.
Nevertheless, consider the powerful declaration Paul makes about Christ in Colossians 1:19-20: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” Friend, I want you to fix your attention on those wounds on our Savior’s hands and feet. Are these not the wounds of reconciliation? Does He not desire for us to be reconciled to Him and to one another? And if by a supreme act of Self- sacrificing love and mercy He could transfigure an ugly, sadistic, hideous Roman cross on an ugly, dark, jagged hill into a beautiful, sacred symbol of divine kindness, shouldn’t we believe that He can take the brokenness and division in our own country and churches and families and reconcile them into an even greater good? Rejoice today in the truth of Psalm 118:22-23! The rejection and abuse and murder of Christ seemed at first glance like an earthquake in the very foundation of the cosmos, and yet, that sound was not the rumbling of walls collapsing, but the rumbling of a foundation being laid.