On this weekend between Thanksgiving and the season the Christian church celebrates as Advent, the expectation of the arrival of a Savior, I’d like to share my story with you, in hopes you may come to understand why I treasure Jesus as I do and want you to know him as well.
Many years ago, on a dark, humid August night, I stood crying beside the flooding tidal backwaters of the James River. I wanted to die. My life had come crashing in. Hopelessness, grief, guilt roared as destructively through my soul as the river flowed that night. I saw no future. I knew no hope. I thought only of how welcome would be the relief of death.
I dropped there in the grass made wet by the receding waters of a storm surge and cried. I couldn’t speak. What words could ever absolve me or do justice to the condition of my heart in that moment? I was a mess on the inside, a mess on the outside, and a mess everywhere in between. All I could do was weep. My dreams were dead. My plans for the future murdered by my own foolishness.
The stars were out, but there was no moon that night. It was as dark in the inside of me as the outside of me. The river was loud. I was alone. More alone than I had ever felt. I had felt alone before, but not like this. I had often felt rejected and often thought to myself, “Fine! I’ll just do it myself. I don’t need any of you.” But this was aloneness unlike the rest.
I had proven I could not “do it myself.” I had proven I was not adequate all by myself, and now, now I didn’t even have myself to rely on. I felt like a bug looking up at the heel of a great descending boot, knowing there was nothing left to do but make some fragile peace with what was coming next.
Then Jesus came! In my heart, I know I heard his voice, though I expect, had anyone been nearby they would not have heard the voice that spoke to me, that saved my life that night, that promised me I would never be alone again. Jesus came to that riverbank, to that utterly sinful and broken soul, and spoke just one short sentence: “Dale, don’t you know it was for this very hour that I died?”
Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, died on the cross to take away the sins of the world, to receive in himself the just punishment our sins deserve–death– that through faith in him we might have eternal life with God forever. He died my death, the death I wanted, the death I thought was all I had left, that death he had already died. Jesus had already suffered for me what I thought I had to suffer for myself. I was ready to say, “Fine! I’ll just do it myself. I don’t need any of you!” when Jesus stepped up and said, “Too late! I’ve already taken care of it. Let’s make a different plan.”
Jesus saved my life that night by reminding me he had already given his life for me so that through faith in him I could have life. He took my guilt and my grief. He took my shame and my sorrow. He took my hopelessness. He took my past, my present, and my future. He took my broken dreams and my wounded heart. He took the whole rotten, ragged mess, and in exchange he gave me hope, a new life, forgiveness, and a fresh start.
“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” He is not a myth or an unmet expectation. Jesus has come and he continues to arrive in the lives of hurting, sinful people with forgiveness and love. Open your eyes. Open your heart. It is for this very hour in your life that he died.
That’s the Good News.
Each month the clergy of the Cook County Ministerium offer spiritual reflections. This week’s contributor is Pastor Dale McIntire with The Good News. Pastor McIntire has served as pastor of the Cornerstone Community Church in Grand Marais since April of 1995.
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