As we celebrated Easter, we are reminded of the enormous act of grace and mercy that God showed us, His creation, when He sent His Son to be the perfect sacrifice to reconcile us from our brokenness. Not just brokenness with Him but each other and all of natural creation.
Throughout this school year, the children and youth have been finding connections throughout the Bible of how God provided a bridge, Jesus, to be in communion with people. Regardless of how rebellious and how far away we feel we may have strayed, He continues to pursue us. He provides a way for us to be forgiven of all unrighteousness so that we can come into His holy presence. This way to forgiveness is through Jesus Christ. Christ showed us what it means to be the perfect human and became the ultimate sacrifice when He gave Himself to be crucified for our sins. And it is His resurrection three days later that we celebrate on Easter Sunday.
During the hours leading up to Christ’s arrest, we find Him in the Garden of Gethsemane going to His Heavenly Father in prayer.
“Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Luke 22:42.
As we walk alongside the children and youth who participate in our programs, we have been privileged to earn their trust and to be their confidants. Oftentimes this means that we learn about heartbreaking events in their lives. Some of these life events are much more than any young person should ever have to go through at their age. At times, I can imagine that our staff just want to take away the pain and suffering that not just the children and youth face, but also their guardians and their community. We may not understand why they must go through this suffering but we can trust that God has a greater plan. We can also share with them that they can go to Christ because He knows how they feel. He also did not want to go through the pain and suffering of dying on the cross, but He wanted to do the will of God and not what His flesh wanted.
It’s important that the families know that they can come to God with the different feelings and emotions that they are going through. He is the one who created them with those emotions and He cares for them. We have faith in a Heavenly Father that knows our innermost being and desires a deep and personal relationship with His children. We can have this relationship because of the death and resurrection of Christ. So in the midst of all this sadness we can have hope. A hope that transforms lives, even communities, from darkness into light.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”