Isaiah 61:5-11

Isaiah 61:5-11
English Standard Version (ESV)

  The other week I read a book my mom gave me for Christmas called Moriarity.  It's a fabulous book that revolves around the world of Sherlock Holmes, and just when you're arriving at the end, everything changes.  It's an amazing transformation, and you look back over the entire story and see the whole thing in a different light.  With one sentence, it all changes.
  God's narrative is a bit like that, only we know exactly how it ends -- we know the point of transformation that changes the way we see everything.  When Christ dies on the cross for the sins of all humanity, the arc of God's story bends in such a way that allows us back into a place of grace, condemning our sins to death and raising us to life.
  We know this, and yet somehow we don't live into it.  We manage to forget the single most important piece, the transformative love of God, and immerse ourselves in what is often trivial or at least secondary.  We drown ourselves in distractions, and the beauty and love of God pass by, unnoticed.
  And so this is a reminder to us -- God is at work, so let our souls exult our God, and our songs rise to the heavens.  You are beloved, and the single most important thing in your life happened 2,000 years ago on a hill outside of Jerusalem, where your Savior died so that you may live.  This has changed everything -- may we live with that love in the forefront of our minds, as we live and imagine what might be.