Who can i trust?

As we all know by now, unless our heads are buried in the sand, it is election time again.  All candidates are putting their best foot forward, as they should. It makes me wonder about who to listen to and who to trust?  I mean politics is politics, human nature is human nature and spin is spin. We all do it, it is the way of world views. If politics does not work for you maybe just being human does.  Is it me or is the world really trying hard to break people apart?  Maybe I feel it more times than others and now is one of those, "more often than not times."  I don't know, but as I listen to people I hear so much pain, fear, anxiety, suspicion and bewilderment -just below the veneer.  I think of a Peanuts cartoon. Lucy is at her five-cent psychology booth and Charlie Brown approaches asking advice about life.  Charlie says, "Life is like a deck chair on a ocean liner. Some people place their chair at the rear of the ship so they can see where they have been. Others place it at the front so they can see where they are going."  Lucy asks, "What direction is your chair facing?"  Charlie  replies with a bit of sadness, "I  can't even get my deck chair unfolded."

So our church is working its way through a sermon series entitled Finding My story in a Storyless world.  This week we are exploring Jesus' Baptism. There is so much to say but I will highlight one aspect of it.  The endorsement of The Father regarding the validity of the son.  What an endorsement by the creator. Think about it in reference to the question, Who can I trust with my story and my life?  The one candidate (person) that God endorses -- Jesus! The embodiment of the full essence of the Trinity.  Wow that is pretty amazing. 

The story proceeds by articulating the Lukean geneology. While it is fraught with difficulties. What separates it from other Gospel geneologies is that Luke traces Jesus' lineage all the way back to this wonderful little phrase, son of Adam. And then concludes with the Son of God. So here is the paradoxical point.  Jesus is the Son of God, the full embodiment of God and yet a human, a son of Adam, just like the rest of us.  This guy gets it all. Jesus gets us because he is human. He is one of us. He is not a stranger or a foreigner. He totally connects with all of human kind. And Jesus offers us hope becasue he is God. What a trustworthy frontrunner.  Maybe he is more than just an option. Maybe he is the real deal, the package, the one! So when you cannot even unfold your deck chair maybe seeking the one who has had a similar experience in being human can help in leading you also into what it means to being holy!