Faith

Last night I went to the graduation of a six month residential substance abuse rehabilitation program in Bristol. It was an emotional night for all. The graduates consisted of drug dealers, forgers and thieves. All were felons. One man had spent fourteen years of his life in prison. He entered the hospices of the Tennessee Department of Correction at the age of twenty-two. The program included a rigorous schedule of worship times, Bible study and service. For some it was the longest they had ever been sober since they were in their early teens. All gave credit and thanks to God. “I am a new creation,

“If you choose, you can make me clean.

In Jesus’ culture, a day began at night. As the first day began with darkness, and God spoke light into it, so our days begin with God’s spirit hovering over our lives as the details blur with the lengthening shadows of evening.

After an eventful Sabbath, the first day rose as the sun set. Mark frames our view through the doorposts of Peter and Andrew’s house. Rather than serving as a barricade against the undulating chaos of broken people gathering outside, the door opened to a new creation. The depressed, the anxious, the traumatized, the disturbed received their wits and grasped reality like they never had, or had long forgotten. The over medicated and uninsured extended their hands and receive health. God’s life poured irresistibly through his Son. Even the forces of evil could not refrain from declaring the good news. But Jesus silenced them. It is better to believe because of God’s good works than the devil’s word. Wholeness should speak louder than the last screech of a broken spirit.