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THERE IS POWER
I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about power. Webster's first definition for power is "the ability to do, to act, or to produce." As I look around in my world, I see people struggling to exercise their power, struggling to do, to act, and to produce.
Think about the relationship between parents and their children. There is a constant battle that goes on almost from the moment a child is born between the parent and the child over who has the greatest power "to do." Infants will learn very quickly how much power they have when they cry. By crying, they have the power to summon someone to pick them up, to feed them, or to change their diapers. As they grow, they may exercise this power as a means of expressing their desire to have a toy, to play a game, or simply to get attention.
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The parent, on the other hand, exercises the power to respond or not to respond. I was in McDonalds the other day eating lunch. There was a mother and her small son who looked to be about three years old. The child wanted to play on the playground at McDonalds, but the mother would not let him. In response, he threw a fit. However, the mother did not respond; she totally ignored him, letting him scream at the top of his lungs. She left him powerless, although he was able to clear one entire section of the restaurant of people who could not stand his tantrum.
This conflict over power is nothing new. It is a struggle that has been going on since the beginning of time. However you understand the creation of our planet, it was a process that grew out of the harnessing of the natural forces and organizing the world’s power into something that had structure and meaning. The story of Adam and Eve is a story about power. It is the beginning in a long line of stories in the Hebrew scriptures about humanity’s inability to listen to, to trust in, and to obey God.
In the New Testament, what threatened the Pharisees the most about Jesus was his power and what he intended to do with it. They did not understand how he could be the Son of God. No human had the right to assume such a position; besides to do so was blasphemous. Ultimately, it was the Pharisees’ fear of Jesus and their concern about his use of power that led to his crucifixion. In Mark's gospel, we are told that false testimony was brought against Jesus by those who heard Jesus say, "I will destroy this manmade temple and in three days will build another, not made by man" (NIV,14:58). Because of this testimony, Jesus was not only taken prisoner, stripped of his clothes and beaten, but Jesus was also stripped of his power. No one who is a prisoner has power; no one has power when he is beaten; no one has power when he is hung on a cross to die; and no one has power when he is encased in a tomb.
Praise be to God, the story does not stop here. Praise be to God, Jesus was not stripped of his power, but his power was made known when he was resurrected from the tomb. What was to be the final chapter in the life of Jesus, the cross and the tomb, has become the source of power for our Christian belief. Because Jesus lives, because Jesus retained his power, we are given the power to live and to endure, and we are forgiven. This is the Easter story. This is what we celebrate! May God Bless You,
Pastor Pat
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