God’s Truth: Easy and Powerful. Worship: March 9, 2025

“Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness” (1 Timothy 3:16). As we have now entered the forty-day pilgrimage of Lent, we approach the most climactic event of our Lord’s earthly ministry, the one that confused and frightened the first followers of Jesus and perhaps even some to this day. The expectation of the establishment of the kingdom of God with Jesus, the Son of God, seated on a royal throne as ruler was demolished as they witnessed their Rabbi, Master, and Lord taken captive, convicted, tortured, and executed on that Passover in Jerusalem.

The cross has always been an offense. To this day, the same mystery stands: His royal throne is but a frightful cross of crucifixion—His kingdom hidden to the eyes. When confronted with the facts of God’s Word, many cannot see past this mystery. Yet it is the power of God’s Word that gives people the gift of faith and new eyes to see what was incomprehensible and secret now revealed by the Spirit of God. God’s truth is that in the death of Christ, redemption and forgiveness of sin now avails for the entire world. Sinners are delivered, justified before God by faith in the blood of Jesus shed on the cross and given the ability to repent and believe and become children of God for eternity. For sinful mankind, this life-giving truth is impossible to believe or understand. Only because of the mighty Word of God proclaimed to the world by His church and by the power of the Spirit is that otherwise mysterious Word actually easy and powerful to understand and to believe.