Daily Archives: March 13, 2011

AP: 10K Dead in Japan Amid Fears of Nuclear Meltdowns

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An unmitigated disaster. Pray fervently for these people. If the Spirit so moves you, make a donation through the Anglican Relief and Development Fund, a fine and responsible organization.

SENDAI, Japan – The estimated death toll from Japan’s disasters climbed past 10,000 Sunday as authorities raced to combat the threat of multiple nuclear reactor meltdowns and hundreds of thousands of people struggled to find food and water. The prime minister said it was the nation’s worst crisis since World War II.

Nuclear plant operators worked frantically to try to keep temperatures down in several reactors crippled by the earthquake and tsunami, wrecking at least two by dumping sea water into them in last-ditch efforts to avoid meltdowns. Officials warned of a second explosion but said it would not pose a health threat.

Near-freezing temperatures compounded the misery of survivors along hundreds of miles (kilometers) of the northeastern coast battered by the tsunami that smashed inland with breathtaking fury. Rescuers pulled bodies from mud-covered jumbles of wrecked houses, shattered tree trunks, twisted cars and tangled power lines while survivors examined the ruined remains.

Read it all.

Seeing the Wisdom and Power of God

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For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

–1 Corinthians 1.18-25 (NIV)

You will never see the wisdom of God manifested in the cross of Jesus without going through your own season of Lent. Why? Because without the necessary humbling of self-denial, of confession and repentance, your human pride will inevitably revert back to some form of self-help to repair your broken relationship with God.

But the cross of Christ tells us differently. It tells us we are beyond hope of being fixed by a program of self-help because we are that thoroughly infected by sin. If we are ever to have our relationship with God repaired, if we ever hope to be transformed into the beings God created us to be, we must first acknowledge that we are powerless to fix ourselves and fall on our knees in thanksgiving and humble obedience at the foot of the cross so that we can find God’s forgiveness and be really healed.

We must be humble enough to acknowledge that we can only be fixed by God in Christ through the power of his Holy Spirit working in us. We must be wise enough to believe that God’s wisdom and power are beyond our puny ability to fully comprehend it. And we must have enough faith in God to trust his ways even when we do not fully understand them. Otherwise, we, like the Greeks, will continue to rely on a wisdom that is our own, and at the end of the day, we will perforce find that wisdom to be lacking precisely because it is human wisdom that is fleeting and subject to change. We, like the Jews of Paul’s day, will continue to demand a sign of power and might from God, and we will miss completely the wisdom and power of God made manifest on the cross.

To understand your desperate need for the love and mercy of God expressed in the cross of Christ is the first step toward entering the season of Lent that is necessary if you ever hope to have your relationship with God fully restored. May this season of Lent help open your eyes more fully to the love, wisdom, and power of God made manifest in the cross of Jesus.