Shannon, my wife, is with her friend, Leslie Haskin, to speak at a women's retreat in San Luis Obispo, CA. She's in a hotel that overlooks the Pacific ocean. They arrived just in time for the Tsunami. Yesterday we talked about it all over the phone a few times. As I sat back home in NY, the situation intrigued me. Circumstances had been arranged so she could have a front row seat for the Tsunami. Here on the East coast, we listened to the news and watched the extensive footage of the disaster in Japan. Again, let's pray for all involved. The thing that intrigued me, however, was not the Tsunami itself, but the importance of location. If we are close to something geographically, we don't have to imagine its impact, we can experience it. This applies especially to the cross of Jesus Christ. The more distance we put between ourselves and Jesus' death on the cross, the less we feel its power. Sometimes, too, it seems like every activity under the sun, maybe especially religious activity, has as its motivation to put distance between us and Christ's death. The busier we are, the less the cross is on our mind. Lent is designed to interrupt our busyness. More primary than this, Sabbath is ordained to interrupt it. Without these interruptions, without our stopping, without the regular shutting down of our lives, we will only hear about the cross second or third hand. Prayer and fasting and all manner of resting from our flesh are vehicles, like the jets were for Leslie and Shannon, for moving us into place so we have a front row seat to the Tsunami of judgment and grace that is the cross of Jesus Christ.
Those who think they don't need this interruption are the ones who need it the most.
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