Matthew 3:1-12

Matthew 3:1-12
 English Standard Version (ESV)

  So I went to the grocery store last night and had a strange experience -- I was walking up and down the aisles, all the while wondering what I would do if someone ran into the store and started shooting. 
  It's a sad reality that I have to contemplate this.  It's far worse that there are kids who are afraid to go to school, and that there are teachers who have to think about how they would protect their students if the worst became reality. 
  I don't have an easy word that makes all of this better.  What I know that I know that I know is that this isn't right -- this isn't the way that things are meant to be.  We all know this, because the hope and joy of heaven is buried within our hearts, and when we see this heartbreak and tragedy, we know that there is an alternative, a better way, and we are longing for that reality to break through and tear down these horrors that consume our modern world. 
  John the Baptist came to proclaim that the Messiah was coming, that God would be breaking into the current world and pointing to the coming Kingdom.  Things would change, and the leadership of the day had the choice to prepare for that new reality and get on board or to resist and find themselves working against what God was doing.
  Today, in our own broken world, filled with joy and wonder and beauty and tragedy and turmoil and chaos and pain and tears and love, God is still breaking in, and we have that same choice -- will we join in with what God is doing, or will we resist and stick to our own way?  We can stubbornly resist and allocate God to a dusty corner of our lives, or we can commit ourselves fully to the grace and glory of God offering all of our time and our lives and our money and our energy and seeing what God might do with that.  We can repent of our sins, of what we have done out of selfishness and what we have failed to do out of fear, and we can bow the knee before the Lordship of Jesus Christ and submit our play and our work to him.
  It is a choice we make daily -- to let God work in and through us.  May we join with the coming Kingdom and align our vision and lives to what God is doing in today's world.