Now Playing: Handel, Messiah, "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth".

Our call to worship today was Hosea 6:1-3:

"Come, and let us return to the LORD; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight. Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth."

Something beautifully appropriate about these verses, especially today. As we worshipped, it poured outside, a long gentle soaking rain. After the huge wildfires in Oklahoma this past week, the rain was a welcome change.

I love the way this passage demonstrates the union of Christ and His people. Christ is stricken with us, and as He was raised up, so we will be. The passage talks about God reviving His people on the third day--what appears to apply specifically only to Christ applies to us, too, as His body.

I was just reading Rachel's and Leslie's posts, which are also appropriate to today. There has been so much hurt and pain, so much dying over this past term, over this past year. I, too, need the reminder that my Redeemer lives, and that in my flesh I shall see God, I myself will see Him with my own eyes, I and not another. (Job 19:26-27)

That truth stands under and above and around all the chaos and fragmentation and alienation, all the despair and helplessness and fear. Christ lives. He rules now over all of this. And the leaves of the Tree in Heaven will be for the healing of the nations, for our healing.

"How my heart yearns within me!"