A powerful tornado rolls through your neighborhood. A massive hurricane heads straight for your city. A bolt of lightning sends 300 million volts to earth. The raw power and unpredictability of storms can inspire both awe and terror. We cannot stop storms from coming. We can only hope to survive them. However, we know the Almighty God can stop storms. He can calm literal storms. He could remove metaphorical storms, other types of troubles and trials. So, if He can, why doesn’t He?

Well, would you rather have a God who was distant from you but removed all the storms of life? Or would you rather have a God who allowed some storms to come but promised to be right there by your side within them, holding you close? May God give us the top-down faith that sees that the latter is by far the better option. God promises to be with us through all the storms of life. Sometimes He removes them. But when He doesn’t, it’s only because He has plans to use even storms for our eternal good.

After a long day of work, you have earned the right to sit down in your favorite chair, put your feet up, and watch your favorite program. After a hard week on the job, you have earned the opportunity to relax a bit that weekend. After doing your job well for many months, you have earned those two weeks of vacation at the beach. This is how everyone thinks: rest is something you earn through hard work. We even teach that to our kids: no gaming until homework is done, no playing with friends until chores are complete.

Since that concept of rest being earned is so deeply engrained in us, to properly understand spiritual rest requires a top-down faith. God needs to send us the Spirit so that we can grasp this truth. True spiritual rest cannot be earned. In fact, the harder you try, the more restless and the less peaceful you become. Spiritual rest is a gift that God gives. The rest we need most—from guilt, from worry, from shame, from hopelessness—is graciously given to us by the Lord of the Sabbath.

No Christian teaching demonstrates that we have a top-down faith more than the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Scripture teaches that there is only one God. Yet that God exists as three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Incomprehensible! It is the type of teaching about which the psalmist declares, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain” (Psalm 139:6). We believe in the Triune God without fully comprehending His existence, simply because the Spirit has given us the gift of faith. Our belief in the Triune God came from the top down.

Not only is the concept of the Trinity itself something unique to the Christian faith, but what the Triune God does for us and offers us is also completely unique. Our Triune God invites us into the blessed relationship that is part of His very nature. The members of the Trinity share with us an intimacy that they have enjoyed with each other from eternity. Our Triune God makes us not servants or subjects but blessed members of His family.

The entirety of God’s Word can be summed up in one word: love. God’s Law is all about love. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37, 39). The Gospel is all about love: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…” (John 3:16). From His compassion for the sick and broken, to His sacrificial death on the cross, to the peace He provided after His resurrection, Jesus was the perfect embodiment of love. Love is His business.

Therefore, love is our business too. The resurrection reality is that with the same supernatural power by which God raised Jesus from the dead, God now enables us to live a new life—one marked by radically selfless love. The motivation and ability to do this comes from seeing the endless love Christ has for us. We love only because He first loved us.

The Triduum (TRID-oo-um, “three days”) refers to the time from worship on Maundy Thursday until the final worship of Easter Day. The “Three Holy Days” of the passion and resurrection of Christ is the culmination of the entire church year. It is over these days – Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter – that we celebrate God’s redeeming love in the dying and rising of His Son, Jesus, and still see that love today. The Triduum is a single celebration. Once we have begun the Triduum on Maundy Thursday, we do not “leave” it until Easter Sunday. It is one continuous celebration of dying and rising, with Christ.

The Three Holy Days of Christendom continue on Good Friday with a service that focuses our attention on the words Christ spoke while on the cross. In these words we see the depth of our Savior’s suffering as well as the depth of His love for us.

When we feel that the world is against us, it is easy to feel self-pity. We make ourselves the victims and wallow in our trouble. Jesus refused to do that, though. Rather, He felt compassion for those He knew would suffer after Him and even forgave those crucifying Him. Likewise, rather than pitying ourselves, we feel pity for those who have no idea of the destruction that awaits them and want them to know the Father’s forgiveness.

Religious sociologists sometimes divide Christians into two groups: committed Christians and cultural Christians. The former are usually defined as those who are active in a congregation, who pray regularly, who read Scripture, etc. The latter are those individuals who call themselves Christian and perhaps have some Christian beliefs. Yet, they do not strive to live a Christian life. They are not interested in church involvement.

Those definitions are interesting when trying to understand shifts in American Christianity. However, they demonstrate a false assumption about the Christian religion. There is indeed a devoted commitment at the center of Christianity, but it is not man’s commitment to God. Even believers will at times demonstrate lukewarm commitment at best. Instead, at the heart of Christianity we find God’s devotion and commitment to us. It is a devoted commitment so strong that it put God on the cross.

Whether Pilate’s tone was sincere or sneering or something else, he expressed what may be the most important question in our day: What is truth? Pilate clearly was not on the side of truth, at least not Jesus’ truth. We can be tempted to question God’s truth, especially with the seeming uncertainty of everything going on around us. However, God has given us truth in a person: His only Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus stood before Pilate as a real flesh and blood person. He gave His real life as a payment for sin, and His empty tomb is proof of God’s truth that life overcomes death!

Misconceptions. Lord, keep us safe in the refuge of your anointed Son, so that when the nations rage against Him, we are not terrified. You have begotten Him from eternity and have seated Him on your throne in heaven. Let us see Him as He truly is, the One who lives and rules with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.