How could the weather be so beautiful and I feel so awful? Spring is in full blossom and my allergies are in full bloom. This is a paradox that many of us living in Atlanta experience at this time of year. Spring in Atlanta can be a contradictory experience to say the least when all around us nature is coming back to life while so many of us who suffer from allergies often feel like death warmed over.
That's what paradox is all about; living with seemingly self-contradictory realities. Here are a few you might find entertaining:
- Nobody goes to that restaurant, it's too crowded.
- Don't go near the water until you've learned to swim.
- The man who wrote such a stupid sentence cannot write at all.
- If you get this message, call me; if you don't, then don't worry about it.
- If a person says about himself that he always lies, is that that the truth or a lie???
The paradox of Spring coincides with the paradox of Holy Week; both beginning yesterday. The sacred journey of this week opens us to the divine paradox where the omnipotent creator and ruler of the universe loves us so much that this God, in his son Jesus Christ, dies a God-forsaken death on a cross.
Paul puts it this way:
"in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his advantage; rather he made himself nothing by taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death-even death on a cross!
-Philippians 2:5-8
But death wasn't the ultimate ending but the road to a new beginning! God's yes to Jesus through his resurrection was God's no to the seemingly ultimate power of death!
Paul continues:
"Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow..."
Prayer for Today
Lord God, we lift up the name of Jesus and praise you for his obedient faith which made the ultimate sacrifice. May our minds be more like his, so that with self-giving love we will witness the glory of his name; a name which is above all names. Amen.
