Our faith is not a mountain but a grain of sand, not pure gold but gilded plaster. And all it takes is a few nicks and scratches to reveal its shallowness.
If April 1 is April Fools’ Day, then March 25 is Divine Fool’s Day. Falling nine months before Christmas, it’s the day when God set in motion what appeared to be a foolish plan.
She’s clad only in a white, wet, silk blouse, as if just caught in a downpour. Her back is slightly turned toward the camera, the curves of hip and breast beckoning the onlooker.
As with so many things, regret can begin as something natural, even beneficial, as you struggle to recover from a wound in your past. But over time, regret can devolve from a sadness to a sickness.
They may also be fellow sufferers who’ve hit their own bottom with you. Whoever they are, they wear the mask of Jesus the crucified. In them and through them the Lord is at work to love you.
It may seem easy to believe in the God who changes water into wine, but it is not. For when man is at his happiest, he thinks the least of the true source of his joy.
The biblical witness is clear: all the so-called gods and lords and idols who are the object of people’s devotion, to whom they offer their sacrifices, to whom they pray, whom they call God and Lord, are sadly nothing but a front for the father of lies.
Isn’t it strange how the Jesus we end up with bears such a striking resemblance to ourselves? Our Jesus thinks as we do, acts as we act, speaks as we speak.