day no. 16,477: look to where Christ is and to where Christ looked

"We may no longer stay: go, waken Eve;

Her also I with gentle dreams have calmed

Portending good, and all her spirits composed

To meek submission: thou, at season fit,

Let her with thee partake what thou hast heard;

Chiefly what may concern her faith to know,

The great deliverance by her seed to come

(For by the Woman's seed) on all mankind:

That ye may live, which will be many days,

Both in one faith unanimous, though sad,

With cause, for evils past; yet much more cheered

With meditation on the happy end."

-- John Milton, Paradise Lost

The sorrow of the Fall is only eclipsed by the promise of the Savior. Nothing is more tragic than the fall of man and nothing is more dynamic than his deliverance. Let not our meditations fall short. May godly salve always be applied to godly grief. May Gospel hope never be abandoned by sinful sorrow. In Him, we have reason to bemoan our sin, but even greater reason to boast of our Savior.

Let us in one faith unanimous see the vicious tragedy of our sin and the victorious comedy of the Christ who for the happiness set before Him was harangued by heathen before being hung on a tree by them.

Let us look to where Christ is and let us look to where Christ looked, that is, to the joy set before us.