A Meditation for Sunday June 14, 2020
Pastor - Rev. Elroy Christopher: First Moravian Church of Georgia
IN HIS HANDS:
It is fascinating to visit a potter at work at the wheel working with clay or a smith working with metals, and witness their skill, patience and attention to. Beginning with a lump of clay and using the potter’s wheel the potter makes some beautiful and useful item. The smith begins with a plain bit of metal, heats it to high temperatures; and using tongs and other tools reshapes and transforms that metal from its original state into the desired finished product.
An important aspect of their work would be removing impurities from the raw material to ensure that the required strength, character and usefulness of the final product would not be compromised.
Such are the imageries that came to mind as I read the Epistle appointed for today, Romans 5: 1-8. They are imageries found in Scriptures such as Isaiah 64:8; 29:16: Jeremiah 18: 1-9; Malachi 3:3. For us, God is the master craftsman who is always seeking out the “raw, shapeless material”, you and me, with all of our impurities to be discarded, so that He can work in us, through His Son Jesus Christ, and by the power of His Holy Spirit, what we cannot do for ourselves, resulting in a product that is pleasing to Him.
This is the journey of life for the Christian. First, to recognize that we are created by God and we are His. The Genesis narrative of the creation tells us God made everything good and that he made humans in his own image and after his own likeness. However, disobedience to Divine directives resulted in the fall from that original state. It is in this context that our loving God seeks to restore that relationship that was broken.
As He reaches out, he calls for faith, total dependence on Him through Jesus Christ. In the hands of God, we are molded and reshaped into the product that we ought to be, wholly acceptable and pleasing to Him, just clay or metal is worked into a pleasing product.
When Paul writes in Romans 5 that we can rejoice in our suffering he is alluding to the fact that what we endure in this world will lead to something new when we remain faithful to the God who calls us out of darkness into the marvelous light.
No one welcomes having to suffer. We may not all in the same way, but the truth is that however one person suffers, we all suffer with that person. We are all affected, whether it is under a knee, racial discrimination, the pain of losing a loved one, or from diseases like COVID 19. We do not rejoice because of such suffering: rather, we can rejoice in suffering because when in the hands of God, and having been justified by faith through Jesus Christ we firmly believe that God uses those situations for good. That is the expectation we have and to which we hold.
It calls for us to listen to God, look to him and lean on him, understand what He is saying and where he is leading in times of tribulation or suffering when they come, because they will come. That is the world the nature of the world in which we live. Thankfully, we have a faith grounded in the word given by God through Jesus Christ, who says “in this world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33). A faith that says, ‘do not give up, persevere.”
In the hands of God, perseverance leads to character. Picture again the raw material, the clay or the metal, taking on unique characteristics after going through the several processes perhaps several times over as the craftsperson works patiently and lovingly to achieve the desired results. Instead of becoming weak, the material somehow becomes stronger and takes on a character. The final product immerge from what was perhaps, shapeless and useless to what character and usefulness.
In the hands of God, each person’s character takes definite shape. It becomes evident so that even in the face of trouble, having persevered, others can the hall marks of one into whose life God has poured his love - His very nature. The fruit of the spirit becomes evident in our every interaction with others: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Therein lies the hope we have, the firm conviction, that as we remain in His hands, ‘ the God of all grace, who called (us) to his eternal glory in Christ, after (we)have suffered a little while, will himself restore (us) and make (us) strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.’ (2 Peter 5:10-11)