“I’ll keep rolling along
Deep in my heart is a song,
Here on the range I belong,
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds”.
Roy Rogers and his Sons of the
Pioneers used something like that to close their TV shows. And it gave us a
picture of the wind drifting some tumbleweeds idly along the range.
The WSJ brought this to mind when it reported
that in Clovis, N.M. recently an 80-year old retiree was trapped in his 1600
square foot home by tumbleweeds. Evidently this was a good year for growing tumbleweeds,
and when they died, the wind tore them lose and they ended up in tangled masses
that closed school doors, shutting down businesses, stuff like that. In rural Rush, Colorado, they resorted to calling road graders so their buses could get children to school.
And the problem is invasive. Tumbleweeds
are not native to the Southwest, but come from Eurasia. It’s a problem they need
to deal with.
We are in the season of lent, so the problem
of tumbleweeds brought to mind the problem we all have to deal with, sin. The
Lenten Devotion offered by the Lutheran Hour and available in our Church
reminds us the terrible price Jesus paid on the cross to pay for the sins of
the world. He hangs there, suffering wave after wave of the Father ‘s righteous
anger, till finally He cries in anguish, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken
me?” It is not a cry of despair, for he calls on God His Father. He trusts
completely, and is willing to pay the price for us. The pain borne willingly.
The hymn (LSB 451,3) reminds us:
“Ye who think of sin but lightly,
Nor suppose the evil great.
Here may view its nature rightly,
Here its guilt ,may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed,
See Who bears the awful load,
‘Tis the Word, the Lord’s Anointed,
Son of man, and Son of God.”
May this season enrich our understanding
of the cost of our salvation. Now, for us, “It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast”. Ephesians 2.
GPD 3/19/2014
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