The Greatest Gift!

Pastor Jamie continues our "Seven Sayings From The Cross" series this week. Check it out!This weekend we sang the classic "Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch; like me!"So well known, it risks losing its profound meaning, given how familiar it might be.We learned about the wretch this weekend too. A thief so lowly that as he's being crucified, he himself says he deserves this awful fate in Luke 23:41. Imagine that level of rock bottom: to believe you've earned crucifixion.Then this thief experiences the miracle of amazing grace. Not only confessing the truth of his own circumstances, but Jesus' as well and for this proclamation of faith he hears:“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”How sweet the sound. Right? You might be surprised at the reaction this kind of grace might elicit. Jesus wouldn't be, he told us in his famous parable of the prodigal son with the older brother's reaction back in Luke 15:"Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!"This grace doesn't always make sense to us. It may even make us feel threatened. All the way back to Cain our history is littered with stories of people worrying about there not being enough blessings to go around or what portions are fair.Jesus seems to speak through the father in his parable:"Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found."Salvation is a miracle that we should celebrate for anyone. The idea that God would cancel our debts and invite us to live with him should sound crazy to us. But with enough baptisms, church attendance, and serving we can forget: "I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see."