“The righteous will never be moved; he will be remembered forever. He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord” (Psalm 112:6-7).
Where’s God in the torrent of terrible news? He’s as close as sitting and doing nothing. “Mary…sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted…. ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be take away from her’” (Luke 10:39-42).
“‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.’ The Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden… He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:23-24). That’s where we are, Mary, Martha, you, me, all outside of paradise. It wasn’t just that Mary sat with Jesus. Jesus sat with her. Immanuel, God with us wherever we are. "I am always with you" (Matthew 28:20). “When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul” (Psalm 94:19).
It’s the weekend, Sabbath time as the Bible teaches. “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.” That’s the first Immanuel moment in the Bible, God with us in the days of our week. Sabbath started in paradise, but now our Sabbaths are outside of paradise, looking in. Faith and hope. Sitting with Jesus transcends our troubled times. “Take heart, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you" (Isaiah 26:3). Jesus is the tree of life forever.
“He opens us again the door / Of paradise today;
The angel guards the gate no more. To God our thanks we pay”
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 105:8)
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