Pressing On into the Light (Lent 33, 2017)

Do you ever feel like giving up?  Just throwing up your hands and saying this whole Christian thing just simply isn’t worth it?  Maybe you’re under spiritual attack or even persecution. Maybe you’re just plain tired.  In those moments of temptation and feeling under pressure, I remember the journey Jesus embarked on.  Pressing on to Jerusalem.  Pressing on… into the crowds shouting ‘Hosanna!’ Pressing forward to the Cross.  Pressing into the will of the Father.  Pressing against death.  And pressing on His way to victory!  All the while preaching the Gospel by His actions and spreading His Light.

2 Corinthians 4:1 Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. 2 Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 

When we are pressed on all sides, we need to be pressing on into the Light! 

Fun Fact of Light:  Light can move objects.  Consider Crooks Radiometer-a gadget resembling a weather vane/ windmill of sorts inside a glass enclosure-which you can see in this video.  According to AweSci,  “The correct explanation was given by a  prominent Anglo-Irish innovator, Osbourne Reynolds. He explained …Due to a temperature gradient formed, the air starts moving along the surface from colder to the warmer side through the edges. The net pressure difference around the vane is created which pushes it in a direction that is away from warmer air and towards the colder air – makes sense for the apparatus.  This is the reason, if it is cooled, it moves in the opposite direction.”

Popular Science says about the sci-fi notion of tractor beams that “Moving objects with powerful light is not new — researchers have long been using optical tweezers to pluck bacteria-sized particles and move them a few millimeters. The U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, won his Nobel Prize for work with optical tweezers. But Andrei Rhode and colleagues at the Australian National University say their new laser device can move glass objects hundreds of times bigger than bacteria, and shove them a meter and a half (5 feet) or more. Rhode says the 1.5-meter limit was only because of the size of the table where he placed his lasers — he thinks he can move objects up to 10 meters, or about 30 feet…The system needs heated air or gas to work, so in its present incarnation it wouldn’t work in space — sorry, Star Wars fans.” 

For Further Thought:

• How might your light, sharing the Gospel, move people?
• Is oxygen required?  How?
• How is the life of Jesus revealed in us?

Father God, thank You for the message of the Cross.  A light shining in darkness so that we might attain the light of salvation through Your Son Jesus.  Thank You, for the hope we have and the hope You give, so that even though we are pressed in this world we can press on through the power You provide!  Amen.