"love and marriage, love and marriage

go together like a horse and carriage

this i tell you brother

you can't have without the other…"

What an amazing thought - you can't have love, true love, without a marriage, and vice versa. That they are synonymous with each other - this is an interesting thought  - one that many would argue with at this point in our development as a culture and society - as marriage has become less and less dominant, we find ourselves more and more struggling with an accurate portrayal of love - and as love becomes less and less about other and more about self, it portrays an image that is distorted. 

In a world where we prefer quick and easy answers and solutions, the Cross could stand out as an ideal expression of worship for us - that God dies and takes all our sins away. Without cost or desire to be sacrificial, how does it take image today? How can you have the resurrection without the cross?

Palm Sunday, and Holy week are around the corner. But we call one Friday a year "good",. It's the day that Jesus was nailed to a Cross for all man's transgressions; and on that particular day, most of us now celebrate what happens two days later, on Easter. By that, i mean we don't know how to enter into the Passion of Jesus, so we just party our way through good Friday. But Friday's not Sunday, and Sunday's not Friday. So why are we doing the same thing?

Why? i wonder if in our attempts to make this good Friday more "approachable", it's lost some of it's meaning - and in that, we lost a gift to give to the human race - what to do with their suffering.  For it is in the midst of suffering, in the yelling at God, "Why? Where were You? How could You let this happen"…that we remember He is on the Cross in those times - suffering for us, but also suffering with us. The cross was a timeless act: once, for all, covering all of human kind as the blood of Jesus stretched out over all of human history. Jesus carried all of sin, but also in it, gave suffering meaning, because He Himself suffered. 

SO when we enter to the reality of Good Friday, and allow ourselves to encounter Jesus crucified; we journey with Him into the tomb, and we rise with HIm 3 days later.

So on Easter……

we roll away the stone

we speak life into dead bones

we look at death and say, "where is your sting?" 

God took death and destroyed it with death. 

It was from this space of prayer that i wrote and recorded "You Were On The Cross", and "Christ is Risen"; from a space that firmly desires and believes in the need for the Church to see Christ crucified, dead, and risen on the cross. Without it, we deprive ourselves of one of the greatest gifts God has given us: the ability to endure suffering with hope. That would be something that an unbelieving world would find hard to believe, but would want to know how to. So maybe today, while driving in your car, and you get to the "slow song", don't skip over it. Don't try to avoid the silence, the darkness, the alone-ness. Instead, let God come to you there; know He is with you, and wants to lead you through it, not around it. 

amen.

http://www.mattmahermusic.com/journey

-Goose

Want to see a lighter side of Matt? Make sure you don't miss this video:

-Goose