Pastor Jerry McGhee
There is a museum in Rome that contains many of Michelangelo’s works… but perhaps the most interesting is the fact that the museum contains several unfinished works of Michelangelo. In one room, there are several large chunks of stone displayed, originally intended to be used in a monument on the tomb of Pope Julius… but midway in the project, he decided not to use those particular pieces of stone.
The thing that makes those pieces of stone interesting is that there is a “hand” protruding from one, part of a man’s torsi from another, a leg from another, but none are finished.
Nearly everyone who looks at this exhibit senses the turmoil, the struggle embodied in each figure. It is as though they are crying out to break free from their prison of stone… crying out to become what they were intended to be… but have never fully realized.
Author Theodore Roder looked on those figures which Michelangelo called “The Captives” and he wrote, “When I looked at those partial figures, they stirred up in me a deep longing to be completed — an ache to be set free from that which distorts or disguises, imprisons and inhibits my humanness, my wholeness. But as with those statues, I cannot liberate myself. For that I need the hand of Another.”
I believe Mr. Roder is correct. No matter how hard we try to set ourselves free, we cannot quite pull it off. Like those stone figures of Michelangelo’s, we cannot break the chains that bind us and experience the fullness that can be found only in Jesus Christ. We, too, need the hand of Another.
The Sun Lakes Community Church believes that its primary reason for existence is to point anyone and all who will hear to the One who can set men free from the bondage and penalty of sin which separates us from God. We welcome you to come and experience God’s presence as we worship Him each Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m. at the Sun Lakes Chapel on Sun Lakes Blvd. located across the street from the Sun Lakes Country Clubhouse.