CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN

     “We Are on the Winning Side”

 

 We are leaving the deadness of winter and moving into the new life of spring. If we had not witnessed it before, we could not be convinced of the possibility of the beauty of springtime where everything was once dead. God has fixed His creation in such a way that it can survive. The forest fires of California can destroy all of the foliage, but somehow, in time one will see new life rise from the ashes. Hurricanes and tornados can cause great damage to life and property, yet before you know it, neighborhoods and families continue from the elements and people who endured the turbulence.

 

We are in the Easter season. This time, in our Christian faith, marks a horrible time when the followers of Jesus Christ witnessed the greatest challenge of their faith. They knew that Jesus warned them that He was going to Jerusalem to suffer many things by the elders, chief priests, and the teachers of the law; that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. These disciples had the utmost trust in words that fell from Jesus’ lips. They had seen the evidence that He was able to do the impossible. But when they saw Him submit to the humiliation of the ridicule of being beaten, and the horrible suffering and death on the cross, it left His disciples in a period of hopelessness. It seemed that this mighty man that they placed so much confidence in had been destroyed. Like the grass, the trees, and all of the vegetation, at a glance, seems to be forever dead, the disciples were trying to dismiss the dreams and the vision they felt while they were with the master.

 

Those of us who have invested our faith in Jesus Christ and started our faith journey by depending on His word can attest to times during our walk with Him when it seems like everything that we have believed about Him is dead, by what we are witnessing in our experiences. We are all challenged, as we try to live what we have learned about God, by how we feel about the reality of what we presently see. Life has a way of trying to make us concede to defeat, as did the disciples of Jesus Christ.

 

My advice for us, when we are faced with what seems to be our demise, is to believe what we have learned about God. Jesus told His disciples there would be trying events that He would face. They would see Him abused and He would face death. Then He spoke to them about how He would be the ultimate victor over everything that He faced,

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ should help us to understand that there are no situations or circumstances that are so dead that the power of God is unable to bring new life! Jesus Christ is the one who lived and was dead and is alive forevermore. Because we are in Him, we are on the winning side.

​

Reverend Dr. Michael Jones, Moderator of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America