God has set his throne in heaven; he rules over us all. He’s the King! Ps 103:19 (NKJV)
Part 2 – Cross that is Sovereign
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Jesus didn’t arrive with an army of skilled warriors to conquer the earth by vanquishing it. His kingdom began the opposite way. Through sacrifice. Vulnerability. Death. Even on the cross, God's ‘sovereignty’ was questioned. The man dying next to him asked, “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” (Luke 23:39).
How often do we ask that of God?
We tend view control through the lens of contest – of violent battles fought with someone winning, and someone losing. Although with God, the battle is played on a layer beyond our circumstances. And his opposition is not humanity.
I don’t know why bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people, and a whole lot stuff happens in between. But I do know that our faith in God “points to the cross and says that, practically speaking, there is no evil so dark and so obscene – not even this – but that God can turn it to good.” (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC
Through the lens of the cross, sovereignty looks less like God playing chess with humanity, and more like him tenderly weaving love and grace through our lives. There are no limits to his kingdom, no jurisdiction his love cannot tread, no brokenness too restrictive for him to enter in and make his home in our hearts.
And maybe we are like we dream to be… part of a sovereign family. A movement of people, royals not by birth by but blood, weaving the threads of grace and love that have been sown into our lives throughout the earth. We may encounter all kinds of circumstances, good and bad, beautiful and ugly. But the power of love and grace, the power of the cross, is not controlled by the things we face; they march to the beat of God's eternal love for us. Pulsating freely through it all.
Sovereign.