Good Friday morning! Well of course we did. A couple of us menfolk got together last night and inevitably our talk turned to how difficult work is these days. With so many out of work, those who have jobs really have the screws turned down tight on them. Somewhere, someone is thinking how much better production is and how much money the company is saving without that "dead weight". As a part of that so-called dead weight, I have a good reason to resent that kind of thinking. But who does that? When I turn my mind to that person, that's a person I really want to pray for.
If it's your job to read charts and graphs, note how production is up and the work force is down, and perhaps treat yourself to an evil chuckle or two; know that we are praying for you. How about the rest of us; could we do a job like that? Somewhere a fellow goes to work one day; we'll call him Bob, and suddenly has an epiphany. Poor Bob comes to realize that it's his job to report to management that their force reduction program has worked spectacularly because of the recession. Those who kept their jobs in the company are working like cats fleeing the vacuum cleaner; sweating fear out of every pore as they scramble to volunteer for overtime assignments. (Sorry about the metaphor, that subject keeps coming up lately.) They know the executioner is stalking the company hallways, axe in hand. Bob has a problem with his job one fine Friday - he realizes that he just can't do it any longer. In fact, Bob would rather become the company night janitor than to keep reporting on how another person he knows has been let go, and other persons that he knows are now working longer and harder to do the extra work. However, that isn't the real problem.
You see as a production counter, Bob is also asked to recommend a list of possible targets for the job executioner; those who will get the ax if you will. Bob cannot stand to recommend one more person for that dreadful list.
Of course, we would like to hear that Bob has no debt in his life, plenty of savings, kids graduated from college with good jobs, and a wife who is heir to a fortune. "Just get out, Bob!" we would say. However, we know that poor Bob will have the same burdens that we do - kids in college, the wife underemployed or laid off, a mortgage on his house (probably to send the kids to college), car payments, perhaps some credit card debt (now greedily eating up his paycheck at 25% or more interest), and no way it seems to get out of his predicament. Poor Bob is just like us.
Just like us, or is he? We have a hope that Bob may not know. We have Jesus, the Son of God, the Almighty One. The world may think that God is far away, not paying attention, or doesn't exist, but we know that He is sovereign. Bob's situation, fictional though it is for this morning, is not that far away from what many people are in right now. Those folks need some good news. Wouldn't it have been great to hear President Obama tell everyone that they need the light of Jesus Christ in their lives right now in these dark times? The scoffers of the world would have piled on the scorn, but that would be a proud moment in Christ. Ah well, if those in power are afraid to say it, then it is our job to spread the good news of Christ.
The situations we find ourselves in can make us look up to the light of Jesus. Many of us have come to Christ by looking up from the bottom of a dark pit. I can think of stories about drug addiction, bankruptcy, alcoholism, crimes, hurricanes, car accidents (sounds familiar, that one does!), and other tragedies that have brought us to the foot of the cross. We look up on that cross and there He is! Not the bleeding, whipped, and suffering savior, that part is done, but the triumphant Lord of all Creation; the Redeemer lives!
Not everything is right in this world. We can think of much that is very wrong, but the end times are here. Jesus reigns!
Bucky
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