A Preposterous Tale of a Boy, a Claim and an Empty Tomb

The story sounds so completely preposterous. 

A boy grows up like any other boy.  Only this boy would teach in the synagogues, and with such authority the priests would be seized with jealousy.  They would obsess over plotting to kill Him.

The boy grows up into adolescence like any other young man.  Only He would not look for a wife, but instead devote Himself to carpentry and to prayer.

The adolescent grows up like any other man, only He changes water to wine.

And He claims to be the Son of God.  The I Am.

Twelve men would leave their families and their lives in an instant because He called them.

It doesn’t make sense. 

In an ordinary place among ordinary people, a Man walks among them.  A Man who, on the outset, would seem ordinary, too.  But He isn’t.

He heals the blind, He touches the leper, He raises the dead.

In a time when women are property, He defends them.

In a place where there is no food, He feeds multitudes with a boy’s lunch.

How can that be?

To some religious leaders He boldly states, “The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.” Luke 6:5

Time and time again He shows His power, His authority.

Except one night when soldiers have come to take Him.  Still, His authority overwhelms them and they fall helpless to the ground.  He gives them strength again and as His disciples look on, they stand to their feet and seize Him.  A soldier loses an ear in the melee and He heals him.  

Why?  Why doesn’t He run while He can?

He stands before men in four separate mock trials.

He is sentenced to die in the place of a murderer who is set free.

He is beaten beyond recognition as a man.

But some begin to recognize Him as more than a man.

He is nailed to a cross to die among thieves, and promises one of them who asks that he will have a place with Him in Paradise that day.

How can He make that promise?

“But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, ‘He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God.’” Luke 23:35

Why didn’t He?

He calls to His Father in heaven, asking Him to forgive all who have sinned against Him.

He dies and is buried in a tomb with armed guards standing watch.

The disciples scatter. Judas is dead. Peter hides in his shame. Hope is lost.  A man is dead.

Was it all too good to be true? Were His claims preposterous? Were His promises empty?

Three years had come and gone like a dream and now they were awake.  It’s over.  The Sabbath comes and goes.

And it’s morning on the third day.

Some disciples journey to the tomb. Some take spices for burial.

Photo by Ferrell Jenkins

But the stone is already rolled away and  He’s gone.

How?  Where were the soldiers? 

In her grief, Mary Magdalene begs a man she supposes to be the gardener, “Sir, if You have carried Him away, tell me where You have laid Him, and I will take Him away.” John 20:15

If only she could have one more moment with Him.

The Man calls her name.

“Mary!”

That voice, she knows that voice!

“Teacher!”

And she clings to Him.

She clings to Him Who is hope, to Him Who is the resurrection and the life, to Him Who is the Lord of the Sabbath, the Lord of the universe, the King of heaven.

It was all true!  It sounded preposterous, ludicrous, absurd. A boy born to a virgin who claimed to be God and came to die for the sins of the world?  To human ears, human reasoning, it seemed insane.

It was beyond their comprehension.

It’s a story so elaborate, so perfectly designed, so extraordinary, so humble and so powerful at the same time that only God could dream it.

From the very beginning, everything He said would happen did.

He’s still dreaming dreams for us.  He’s still making promises that seem completely contrary to anything we can understand.  He’ll heal the marriage, He’ll bring home the child, He’ll provide the need.  He’ll forgive the sin,  He’ll make us new creations.  He’ll love us and be by our side no matter what.

He’ll prepare a home for us and come back to take us there.

And He’ll seal the promise by filling us with His Holy Spirit.

It seems preposterous.  Impossible.  Almost unbelievable.

But the stone is rolled away and He is alive.

 

May the joy of Jesus’ Resurrection fill you this day and every day!

 

 

 

 

The Rescue

I walked through his apartment in a daze, sifting methodically through his keepsakes, his memories, his life, trying to decide what I dared throw away, what I gave away and what I kept.  I was on a time crunch and for the most part I resisted leaning back to read the slew of papers left everywhere with his private thoughts, his struggles, his journey.

But sometimes the words called out to me from the pages and I gave in.  Faces from black and white Polaroids stared at me and I stared back, wondering just who they were.  How had my dad known them?

As I made my way around his bedroom, I looked up and there in a relatively dark corner was a survivor, a cutting from a Pothos.  A rescue with one or two small leaves in a clay pot.

My dad liked to rescue plants.  He was always taking cuttings from plants and giving them a fresh start.  I think in his heart of hearts he wanted to rescue something. He wanted to do something good.  He couldn’t rescue my mother, or my sister or me, or even himself.  So he rescued plants.

I lifted it from its place and laid it aside in the pile of things I would keep.

I brought home my little adopted friend and tried to find just the right spot where it would get enough light to grow.  It’s been all over the house in the years since.  Right now it has a cozy home by a sunny window in my bathroom.

For a long time I put off transplanting it into a bigger pot with new soil, even though it desperately needed both.  Still, it held on.  Every once in a while a leaf would turn yellow and drop off and I’d be afraid I was watching my dad’s plant die.  But another leaf would soon take its place.  It didn’t really grow, though.  It just held steady with those two or three leaves.

After scouring brick-and-mortars and the internet for a pot deserving of a plant my dad had taken the time to nurture during its teenage years, I finally found just the right pot for it and replanted it with some fresh new soil.  And what do you know, it began to grow like crazy.

Still, it only had the one stem.  And it just kept getting longer and longer.  Somewhere along the way I had developed my dad’s love of gardening and I’d learned a thing or two about it.  I knew that if I wanted the plant to be healthy, to develop multiple stems and bush out rather than remain leggy, I’d have to prune it.  I’d have to cut some off the end of the one stem it had so that the energy would be redirected to the roots and it would grow a new stem.

I put it off for a while.  It wasn’t just a stem I’d be cutting.  It was my dad’s rescue. Strangely it seemed part of him.  But I wanted it to grow into a healthy, beautiful, thriving plant, so I went to the drawer for some scissors, stood in front of it, told it I was sorry, and cut a few inches off the end.

And within a few weeks it began to grow another leafy stem.

Recently those two leafy stems with their big, shiny leaves had grown so long they were hanging on the floor.  Still, there were only two stems.  I knew it was time to prune it again.  And I dreaded it.

I went to the drawer for the scissors and stood in front of it with slightly bated breath.  This is silly! I thought.  It’s just a plant.  Again, I told it I was sorry, and I snipped off several inches this time, just adjacent to where a leaf emerged from the stem.

And suddenly something occurred to me.  Does the Lord feel this way when He prunes us?  He knows it’s for our good.  He knows just where to cut and how much to develop healthy, new growth in our lives.  Still, He knows it’s going to hurt us.

I wonder if He stands for a moment with slightly bated breath before He allows us to hear that diagnosis.  Before we hear the news about our loved one.  Before we find out we’ve lost a job or a home, or a child.

Jesus wept.

John 11:35

Of all the times the New Testament tells us of someone crying, this instance of Jesus weeping with those who wept over Lazarus’s death is the only time the word dakruo is used to describe it.  It means to weep silently or to shed tears. All other instances were of people crying out loud.

Jesus knew in just moments He would give Lazarus new life and still, His compassion for Mary and Martha and the rest was overwhelming, because He is not an uncompassionate God.  Our pain is His pain. He wept for their immediate suffering, but also for the sin nature they were caught in which ultimately brought death–the sin nature He came to overcome.

My plant is not the only rescue in this house.  I am God’s rescue.  When He plucked me out of my dark corner of the world, I was barely alive, barely growing.  Since then God’s pruned me back many times.  And I’m not always as compliant as my plant.  I’ll argue He’s taken too much or it’s too soon to take more.  And there are times I’ve wondered if He cares how much the pruning hurts.

And I look at my plant, and I know He does.

Somehow that makes going through the pruning, the struggle of it all, just a little bit easier.  Knowing God isn’t at all cavalier about the pain He must allow in my life, knowing He has a purpose beyond what I can see, knowing He’s right beside me, weeping when I weep, makes it all just a little bit easier.

When I grow up, I want to be like my plant.  I want to allow the cutting without a peep.  I want to bounce back and quickly begin to produce new growth.  I want to be content and even flourish where the Lord sees fit to put me.

Today would have been my dad’s 75th birthday.  If he were here I’d give him a jar full of jelly beans and a trip to the Desert Botanical Gardens.  Maybe a new fishing pole. Nah.  He’d rather keep the one he’d broken in.

Happy Birthday, Dad.  You rescued me more than you know.

Love and Blessings,

 

Addicted to Unforgiveness

One of the first things God put on my heart shortly after I accepted Christ 23 years ago was to forgive a man who had maliciously intruded into my life several years before.

But why did I need to?  I hadn’t thought about him, much, in years. I was married now.  I had a child.  Why did I need to revisit such a nightmarish memory?  Couldn’t I just forget it? 

The truth is God knew I hadn’t forgotten.  The memory and all its pain was buried deep in my heart.  And that pain was leaking poison.  And if I was honest, those painful memories were more at the surface than I’d like to have led on, even to myself.  

And God knew that if I didn’t let go of that poison, it would contaminate my heart, my life, my relationships with my husband, people and even with God.

The only way to rid a body of that kind of poison is to accept the antidote: forgiveness.

After months of praying and choosing to forgive the man, God supernaturally moved that forgiveness from my head to my heart.  And suddenly I felt forgiveness toward him. 

One down, 3,563 people and circumstances to go.  Roughly.  And that didn’t even count the things I needed to forgive myself for. 

Still, God had set me on the path to freedom.

Recently the Lord has shown me some awesome truths about unforgiveness. 

It can become a habit that’s as poisonous as alcoholism or drug addiction. You start off holding onto unforgiveness as a coping mechanism.  A balm to soothe the pain of the hurt.

But unforgiveness is liar.

The sin of unforgiveness goes much further than the unforgiveness itself.  There’s a certain self-righteousness that comes with it.  An earned anger.  And loneliness. And they’re all wrapped up in pride.

The truth is there is no balm in unforgiveness. There is no soothing of the pain.  There is only poison. 

Before the man, I’d already had a lifetime of pain.  I’d already learned to use unforgiveness as a crutch, an excuse, a way to steel my heart from any future pain.  My coping mechanism was set, my walls built, my heart scabbed over.  And every day that went by, the poison contaminated my heart.

But there was a war going on inside my heart that only God could see.  Behind that wall of pain and unforgiveness lay a heart that wanted so badly to be tender and sensitive and loving. 

The Lord saw my heart, the heart behind the wall.  And with that one act of obedience to forgive a man I’d see only once in my lifetime, the Lord had broken through that crusty heart.  And the poison I’d held there was gone.

Still, in the years since there’s been much more pain.  And I’ve had my coping mechanism. My habit. And time and time again it was proven to me that I had a reason to keep that heart walled and secret and safe.  Fresh wounds gave me a right to hold onto unforgiveness, or so I thought.  I was still dealing with pain the way I had since I was a little girl.

But now I’m learning to let go of old habits.  And instead, I’m learning to trust the Lord. 

Because that’s what it all comes down to.  Trust. 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
 in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust that He sees your pain.

Trust that He is a good and fair God.

Trust that He is using every situation for your good.

Trust that He will make it all right in the end.

Trust that He loves you.

Forgive.  And let His peace fill your heart.

I wouldn’t have thought that being assaulted thirty years ago would be used for my good.  But God is that kind of God.  The kind that can take a twisted, depraved act chosen by a sinful man and turn it around to make me a better person.  To teach me forgiveness.  And mercy. 

And to allow the life of Jesus—the One who has shown me an unknowable amount of forgiveness and mercy—to flow through me. 

And every day, with every circumstance, I have a choice to make.

Am I going to fall back on old habits or am I going to choose to lay down my pride, trust God and forgive?

Today I choose forgiveness. 

Will you?