Monday
Romans 5.1-2a “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”
At the start of Holy Week, when we remember the surrender and suffering of Jesus, the Son of God, we start with peace, and grace. Christ is our peace, through the cross. We are justified, made right before God, by grace, through faith in Jesus. And through that faithful trust in the faithful Christ, we stand upon, and are surrounded by, and kneel before, the grace, mercy and peace of God. The death of Jesus is what makes that dreadful last week of Jesus’ life a Holy Week; and the resurrection of Jesus is what makes Easter the pivotal event in the history and future of the universe.
Tuesday
Romans 5.2b-4 “And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
No, Paul is not glorifying suffering, he is showing how out of and beyond the deepest and darkest suffering of Jesus, God has brought hope, life and joy. Christian character grows through resistance, struggle, and our own walk, following faithfully after Jesus, bearing the cross of Christian witness. During Holy Week, in mind and imagination, we each follow in the steps of Jesus, remembering the One through whose death and suffering we have come face to face with the grace of God, “in which we now stand.”
Wednesday
Romans 5.5 “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”
“Emptied himself, of all but love, and bled for Adam’s helpless race! Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou my God should’st die for me.” Our hearts are like buckets under Niagara! God’s love is an inexhaustible deluge of grace, experienced and known through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the Christian heart. And all this rooted in eternal love, and revealed in human history at Bethlehem and Calvary, – and in a garden ‘just as the sun was rising’, – hope does not disappoint us!
Thursday
Romans 5.6 “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.”
I’ve always paused in puzzlement that Christ accepted and walked the way to the place of powerlessness out of love for the powerless. Like every Christian since, Paul never found words adequate to that occasion. “The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” “He who knew no sin was made sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” “I am not ashamed of the gospel, it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” The power of God is seen in the weakness of Christ; the wisdom of God revealed in the foolishness of the cross.
Friday
Romans 5.7-8 “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
James Denney was one of Scotland’s greatest theologians of the cross. He once spoke of his envy of the Catholic priest with his crucifix. In a sermon he said he wanted to walk up and down the aisle with a crucifix, telling that Free Church congregation, “God loves like that!” Later in another sermon he wrote this: “What is revealed at the cross is redeeming love, and it is revealed as the last reality of the universe, the eternal truth of what God is…you wish to know the final truth about God; here it is, eternal love bearing sin’
Saturday
Romans 5.9-10 “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Holy Saturday is that liminal in-between time between death and life, darkness and light, Friday and Sunday. Today reflect on those contrasts and that phrase so reminiscent of Jesus in his teaching: “How much more.” Reconciliation is always costly, and the willingness to take the first steps, to persuade and negotiate with goodwill, sincerity and compassion for the one who is alienated – if we would find that hard, “how much more” for God. “He who did not spare his own Son, but freely gave him up for us all, how will he not – along with him – freely give us all things?”
Sunday
Romans 5.11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
Rejoice! Rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Easter Sunday is the day of resurrection joy, and celebration of the reconciling love and power of God in Christ. As promised by the angels, “Peace on earth and good will to all the people.” And that word ‘now’ – reconciliation is in the present tense. Truly, hope does not disappoint us! Christ has died! Christ is risen! Hallelujah – “we have been saved through his life.”
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