6 October – Peter Belton, St Mary Magdalen, Sheet

Encouragement

To encourage us. lt’s about the faithfulness God’s passion for His creation… His people. Easter is His plan…. His promises. From Adam and Eve, through Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, the prophets, the crucifixion, the Rising, we look to pentecost. “l will pour out my spirit on all people”

So… lsaiah 53 vI-7 who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

Jesus grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him (in His earthly form). He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Truly he took up our infirmities and carried (all) our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by Him and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; … the punishment that brought us peace with God was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. we all, like sheep, have gone astray, each one of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like the lamb to the slaughter, (as the cleansing sacrifice to God, as punishment for our wrongs) as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

Let us all pray… Father God, give us clean hearts and accept our actions as we bear witness to your everlasting goodness… You will raise valleys… You will level mountains, to enable your heart’s desire.

Go now and make the path of the Lord straight! Be the stumbling stone that reveals God to his peoplel