In his sermon on Luke 8:40-56, Christian George says, “In his commentary on the gospels, John Calvin posited that while this woman was walking toward Christ, Christ was pulling her to Himself. Now, I don’t know where God’s pulling starts and our pushing ends. I don’t know where God’s reeling begins and our swimming concludes. But I do know one thing. There is a salvific synergism at play in our passage, and the God who pulls us to Himself, joins us for the journey.
“It is not your grasp on God that saves you, but rather, it is God’s grasp on you. So fixed are you within those fingers that not a hand from the pit of hell can reach up and pull you into the flames. Because in the beginning, God reached into the blackness of time, grabbed hold of nothing, decided it should become something, altered absolutely everything so one day He could bless it with anything. Jesus Christ, the One who curls constellations with His biceps, the One who swirls galaxies with His triceps, the One who throws Saturns like Frisbees across the universe, bends down to our level, adopts us as children of a heavenly home, and accommodates Himself to our imperfect, superstitious, faulty, fragile faith.”
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PREACHING magazine, Sept/Oct 2008
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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #16609]