Preparing Our Hearts for Easter: Day 28

An article by Frank    No Comments

In the lead up to Easter we will be putting up a new lent devotion each week day. These devotions will also be available in the discussions section of our Facebook page and will be played on New Zealand’s Rhema.

A recent Time article stated that in the past decade, nearly every pillar institution in American society – whether it’s General Motors, Congress, Wall Street, Major League Baseball or the mainstream media – has revealed itself to be corrupt, incompetent or both. And at the root of these failures are the people who run these institutions. This issue isn’t just American though, it is global and it is not only in the last decade – it has always been like this.

What has caused these failures, at its most basic, all discussions about economics and politics aside, the answer is simple – human greed and the desire for power in some form are the problem.

We see these failures as a tragedy and when they cost people their livelihood and place families in difficult circumstances, they are, but they are predictable tragedies because they are the outworking of entirely human constructs, human hierarchy and human power structures. We set these things up to somehow fulfill our needs, to pursue our wants and desires, but they will never truly do so and they can’t – they are fallible.

In the gospel of John, Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at a well, fetching water and he says to her in verses 13 and 14 of chapter 4:

Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I give them will never be thirsty.

To find what we need, we have to look beyond what is offered by the hands of those who control the authority structures of the world and we need to look to what Jesus offers.

The hope of the world is not in our institutions and hierarchies, but in the humble, sacrificial savior who raged against those who set themselves up as a power over others and distorted the image of God in doing so, building walls between God and humanity. It is not the water of the world we must pursue – power, greed and selfishness, but the water of Jesus – humility, sacrifice and service driven by love.

Pray

Jesus, give us your water to drink. Help us to see beyond the power structures of this world to where power truly resides – in you.

Amen