The Bungee Cord 6-5-18

Hello,

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Why did the turkey cross the road?

Two questions that I asked myself on my way back home from my pastors Bible study this afternoon. Taking my normal route over the ridge from Latrobe, I came around a corner only to have to come to a complete stop, waiting for a chicken to cross the road.  Not two hundred yards later, rounding another corner, again I had to apply my breaks as a wild turkey strolled its way across the road.  I wonder how many people who have made that trek can say that they were met by two birds, a chicken and a turkey, crossing the road?

So, why did the chicken and turkey cross the road?

The answer:  I don’t know.  There may have been a specific reason for their crossings, but then again maybe there wasn’t.  In the end, the answer to the question, “why?”, is far less important than the fact that I didn’t hit either of them.

Unfortunately, often not so the case when you and I are the chicken or turkey.  As you and I cross the road, that which comes barreling around the corner sometimes does not stop in time to let us pass, but instead it hits us head on.  A tragedy. A great mistake.  A Mack truck sized sin.  A horrendous diagnosis.  Feathers fly.  Wings mangle. Road gore.

But when that happens, the Good Friday cross and the Easter morning grave have something to say, and it is not, “Why did you cross the road.”  (That is the question that the judging world asks of us, wagging its accusing finger at us, blaming us for the mess that we are in. Of course, the world may be right in its blame, but what good does that right judgement do us or the world?)  Jesus, who hung on the cross and stepped out of the tomb says something to our road killed selves that is beyond amazing.  “So, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (2 Corinthians 5.17) You see, Jesus didn’t come to blame….he came to resurrect….to bring new life to the dead.  New life every day, and new life at the end of our days.  

Jesus takes hold of the crumpled mess that we have become and doesn’t just mend and repair it, but he makes it brand new.  That tragedy…that mistake…that sin…that diagnosis does not have the last word.  Jesus does, and with the power that spoke all of creation into being, Jesus
re-creates you and me.  Recreates you and me to cross the road, again….and again….and again.

So, fear not to cross the road…any road.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger