God Mobilizes Weakness (An Easter Message)

Christmas and Easter merge today. Think briefly about Christmas. The Father sent His Son to earth in a most incredible way -- the ordinary way, a natural birth! The wisdom of God put to shame the wisdom of humankind when His Spirit sparked conception in the womb of a young woman. This woman, Mary, gave the weakness of her body, of her social status, of her future reputation into the strong arms of the one and only Almighty God; and this God gave His only Son to live and die and, thus, to break Adam’s death curse. On Christmas, deity and humanity lay in an ox’s manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes.

One woman’s offering herself to God’s seemingly impossible purposes resulted in God’s uniting full deity and full humanity in His only Son, Jesus the Christ. Because of Mary’s obedience, God mobilized her weaknesses; and Mary received the promise that the child to be born would be “called holy, the Son of God” (Lk.1:35).

On this Resurrection Sunday, let us be keenly aware that like His mother, Jesus was fully human with weaknesses and limitation. Jesus needed His Father’s strength throughout His days on earth. He said, “Whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say” (John 12:50). The student is not greater than the Teacher. The lamb is not the Shepherd. The pot is not the Potter. The sinner is not the Savior. When we give God who and what we are and have, He mobilizes our weaknesses with His strength.

The way back to God is Christ’s expensive gift -- His 100 percent human body hanging bloody on the cross of God’s anger. Three days after His death, Christ’s 100 percent weak human flesh burst from swaddling strips and through a closed grave into full view. Because God the Father had fully accepted Christ’s offering for sin, we have the promise that “everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name” (Acts 10:43).

Blessings,

Roger Sorensen

ReFocus Prayer Director, Orange Friends Church