We lay intertwined embraced in warmth flowing from fingertips to toe. Our paradise shattered as I awoke to a loud knock on the door…
We will return to my reaction to this awakening later, but for now we must leave the security of our dreams to a new reality of this prison of our solitary confinement.
Separation
COVID – 19 – – & other causes
What happened to the security of our past?
WHYa ‘new normal?’
(It’s not really normal, is it?)
We often feel like the man in prison wondering how he got there and missing his freedom of being with others.
Look into the soul of the one locked up – – – in a prison away from everyone — even in solitary confinement — to keep him safe — from other prisoners – – – to keep others – – safe from his own threatening condition.
This new reality is not like when we were back home in paradise – – home – – – with those who loved us – – – not like when our security became LIFE – – | | | – behind these confining bars – – | | | with a window looking out – – to a world virtually separated | | | from my lone soul…
We MUST get back HOME – – – – – – – for this is not our home.
..you will become like God, knowing good and evil.” – – –
The TREE was desirable to the eyes, | | | but it was the one place the LORD GOD commanded adam not to go.
Cursed is the ground because of you; With hard labor you shall eat from it All the days of your life. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – By the sweat of your face You shall eat bread, Until you return to the ground,
So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden,
and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Genesis 3:24 NASB
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
Jesus, Son of the Father, the Son of ‘adam – The Good News of John 14:
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT in the world outside the Good Garden – – – an eternal place to which the Son of ‘adam invites those banished and condemned to DEATH . . . to return to the Lord our God and Savior.
Separated from walking in Personal relationship with THE LORD GOD . . .
Therefore we pray:
.. and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who sin against us…
And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.
John 19:17 They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, carrying His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which in Hebrew is called, Golgotha.
Hours before: Sanctification of the Sacrifice
Jesus spoke these things; and raising His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, so that the Son may glorify You, just as You gave Him authority over all mankind, so that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.
And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
John 17:1-3 NASB – The Son’s High Priestly prayer
The Pangs of Death
‘I feel your pain,’ some must have mocked toward Jesus at His suffering the 39 lashes of scourging. No one ever truly feels the pain of another’s suffering.
But for His dear friends the Apostles the Son of God had assured:
“A little while, and you no longer are going to see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.”
John 16:16 NASB
Jesus had not dwelled on His prophesied suffering. Yet by the scriptures perhaps the Disciples denyingly sensed what He must suffer this day.
Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
The Apostles did not want to believe all of it, but to them the LORD revealed the Son embraced by the Father’s right arm.
For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
They also grew up near Him and even though some knew Jesus’ family, they were not attracted to Him until by Him they were called. In these three years Jesus became their Lord, Teacher and beloved friend.
He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Jesus was despised by the ruling council and leading Jews. The Disciples continually witnessed the Jews hatred for Him.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.
Temple officials had previously despised and did not esteem Him. These Jewish scholars had never believed His message or the Prophets.
21 Then He said again to them, “I am going away, and you will look for Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.”
25 Then they were saying to Him, “Who are You?”
These politically powerful religious officials most likely asked this mockingly, as they did while striking their blindfolded Messiah during the mockery of a trial before Caiaphas High Priest of the Jews and later in the presence of Pilate.
‘Who are YOU totalk of God or teach us the Law?‘
So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am, and I do nothing on My own, but I say these things as the Father instructed Me.
John 8:28
And the Apostle John adds this witness then in his Gospel:
30 As He said these things, many came to believe in Him.
Many believers will follow Jesus Christ in a victorious procession to the place of worship, but only a remnant remains following a captive King to the Cross of Calvary.
20 Truly, truly I say to you that you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy!
As the Disciples had scattered as sheep from the wolves, surely they did not recall this at the time of Jesus’ arrest, trials, scourging and crucifixion.
Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come;
but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world.
22 Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one is going to take your joy away from you.
And why this suffering? – SIN!
The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!
..Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you..
And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” – Genesis 3
The Prophesy of Christ’s Suffering
But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.
‘By oppression and judgment He was taken away,‘ prophesied Isaiah in the generation of Uzziah king of Judah. It was more than seven centuries Before Christ.
Isaiah, by the mouth of the LORD, indicts those who falsely convict Jesus.
They have just sent innocence to the Cross as the Substitute Lamb of Sacrifice for their own transgressions (sins).
‘And as for His generation,
who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people,
29 .. “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
And now sinners take the sinless Sacrifice to the altar of the shedding of Blood.
They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, carrying His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which in Hebrew is called, Golgotha. There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between.
Although my thoughts now gather more urgency, they tend to come to the page just a bit slower.
Change ahead in my Christian Social Witness to you and the world.
Yet as always, my thoughts will remain well-considered in light of scripture before you read it here. (Bear with me and help me by your comments, please.)
I do have a reflection or two on my three score and ten, which I will share with you more gradually than before.
Roger Harned – reflection on continued writing at 70 years old
How many score remain?
Those accustomed to the language of King James Bible may take account of their days by the same measure of years used by Lincoln.
Lincoln and Gettysburg Address
“For score and seven years ago,” Lincoln began on November 19, 1863. He looked back to the year of our Lord1776 (as they used to say) just 87 years before.
You may also recall from Lincoln’s memorial to those killed:
… that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Lincoln could not have known then that an assassin’s bullet would soon end his own life five years short of just three score years, at age 54.
All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust.
Job 34:18
Abraham Lincoln and Job were both highly successful men of integrity in life who encountered tragedy. Lincoln no doubt had read in his own King James Bible of Job’s struggles.
If you’re keeping score
Only a few of you will know what I once chose as a ‘life verse’ and that it comes from Job.
{IF you want to know my life verse, just click the link to it above and it will open in a new tab or window.} It may help you to understand more about my purpose and gifts.
It just so happens that in this year of our Lord{Anno Domini}A.D. 2020, I have, by God’s grace, lived three score and ten years.
a bit of biography
My mother, Marie Hall Harned, lived more than four score years, though her father lived only to three score and five and her mother, Vera Tyler Hall not even to three score.
My father William E. Harned, his siblings and father William Alba all lived past four score years.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
I praise God for good health of this aging flesh and might easily boast (and speculate) of more years to come.
Yet I remember well so many struggles of the lives of loved ones, their end which came upon us sooner or suddenly.
Therefore like Job I consider that my end will be dust and strive to live for the life of my saved soul — in worship and love of Christ Jesus, One with God our Father.
Take to heart your own possible suffering to come from Psalm 22. It precedes one we know so well about ‘the valley of the shadow of death‘:
Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help…
Psalm 22 was part of our celebration of the wife of my youth, Becky Rice Harned. We considered our end — knowing how she had suffered to survive just her fiftieth birthday.
She went to the Lord in spirit in that same year of our Lord, 1999, on the 10th of February, her disintegrating frame now returned to dust.
Other beloved ones suffer in the flesh even now. Some endure pain known to us, while others, like Becky, suffer in silence.
This frail frame will fail. So will yours, yet be encouraged in the Lord.
Though our aging flesh contains the image and essence of our Holy God, our dust is not our living soul.
A few family and long-time friends know a partial history of my life in this world. And I suspect a handful know yours as well.
Most of you know my own failures and disappointments, as we all have in varying degrees at different times. Yet I do not expect to receive Job’s double blessing before I draw my last breath.
Job suffered much, as some we know — even as Jesus Christ suffered severely for our sins.
I am no righteous man – only in Christ’s righteousness – but like Job I have sought to live my life in integrity. I could not have lived through it all without the encouragement of the Holy Spirit through Christ Jesus, when finally I relented from my sins and sought the Lord for help for this helpless flesh.
Looking back & ahead
Reflecting back on my three-score and ten, as well as looking forward into the light of life given to my own spirit of hope, I continue in God’s grace.
I continue in purpose, perhaps more directed toward that which lives within reach of my limited mortal touch.
Leaving behind each dream and soul beyond my reach, I press on to preach to Gospel exclusively to those whom the Lord has chosen. (You may not be one of these.)
Those not saved by the grace of God have most likely scrolled past the Light of their salvation already.
Roger Harned – reflection on why most will never talk of Jesus Christ
Social Media is not the world
Based on technical data, talkofJesus.com has reached readers in many countries on at least four continents so far. My Christian Social Witness may yet by God’s grace reach some soul who has doubted the only Son of God as the Way and Truth of Scripture.
So often Jesus taught His followers, that is, believers who loved the Lord God and one another, and also preached to multitudes which included many who failed to have ears to hear or eyes to see.
Though in Christ, I am certainly not Christ Jesus. I can no longer preach the Gospel to those who refuse the Good News of Christ Jesus. They have no interest in a relationship with the God of love and life!
Therefore, Christ’s purpose for my witness of the Gospel to a 21st century church, wrought with ‘christians‘ who witness something other than Christ, pales by comparison. Never-the-less:
No soul has more need for the true Gospel of Christ Jesus than the 21st century christian.
Although we will soon return to my 2020 series on the Gospel of John, you, beloved reader, will be in for a new and more pointed relational look at scripture as we speak exclusively to the church.
To be continued... Lord willing...
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