April 07, 2007
Revelation
Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Matthew 28:5-6
When I think about Calvary, when I picture Him there, his blood flowing out, covering me, covering my sins…when I picture him hanging there, the warrant for MY arrest and MY death nailed to the cross through his hands…when I think of what it will be like to kneel at that throne, to stand with the angels and cry "HOLY HOLY HOLY is the Lord Almighty!" (Isaiah 6:2-3) it's both unbelievable and the purest truth ever revealed.
If I covet any place on earth but the dust at the foot of the cross, then I know nothing of Calvary love. – Amy Carmichael
Sometimes I think our frustration with the Word is that it is the infinite, it is the unfathomable, recorded for our finite minds, for us who can barely fathom the beauty of a sunset or the vast expanse of the desert. I certainly believe that my doubt blooms out of such a frustration.
He reveals His glory to us in so many amazing ways. In the ocean. In the smattering of stars across an unknown universe. In a baby's cry. In flowers that push up from the dirt each spring, renewing renewing renewing. In thousands of penguins who travel to exact spot of their own birth, across hundreds of miles of frozen ice, to give birth. In the way we are capable of loving one another, despite how broken and dangerous we are.
But the clearest way He revealed His glory was on a wooden cross, on the Hill of Golgotha at a time in history when the record of it could only be spoken. He could have waited till there were cameras. Till the golden age of radio. Until Ed Sullivan. Until the wide web of the Internet, when his death and resurrection would have been beamed all over the world in a matter of seconds to every phone, every laptop, every PDA.
Instead he was born in a manager to a teenage mother. Lived in a tiny fishing town. Spread his ministry across an area that was smaller than Atlanta. He ministered to the untouchable: the diseased, the sinful, the criminal. He allowed himself to be wrongly accused, beaten, bloodied, humiliated. And then he died on a cross, between two crooks, and the only witnesses were His followers and a bunch of Roman guards.
I don't know why He did it that way. I don't understand it at all. Sometimes when I think about it, it seems illogical, crazy even. Why would God do that? Why would He even bother with us? Most people would consider me a pretty decent person, but I know my heart, and I know how evil and ugly and unworthy I really am. But he longs for me, just as he longs for every person He created, regardless of how good or bad the world thinks they are. (After all, the world is a pretty shoddy judge of character.) He died for Sadaam. He died for O.J. He died for Hilter. He died for me. He died for you.
I'll never be the same, cause I know that you're alive. You came to fix my broken life, and I'll sing to glorify the holy name of Jesus Christ. “Fire Fall Down,” Hillsong United
It is easier to tell people to come to church and live a good life, but that is not the gospel. The gospel is about words that can make us uncomfortable: creation, Jesus, sin, repentance, forgiveness, and transformation, to name just a few. Hard words, but harder still to forget them. To share Christ, we have to go beyond formulas that fit on napkins. The Gospel is not a doodle. Isn't God's story of redemption and reconciliation for His creation bigger than what can fit on a napkin? People are searching—but they are searching for something more than fire insurance or "five steps to financial freedom."
Posted by hannah at 10:20 AM
