April 2015 5
Fringes {The Longing for Acceptance}
Freckle Face. Carrot Top. Shrimp. Two by Four. Trailer Trash. These were all labels I received as a child.
I have always felt like the odd one out. Look at me and you'd say that is rediculous. I am not a minority (though I have lived in a country where I was, in race, language, and religion). I come from a loving family, have parents that are still together. Middle class, white Christian living in the Bible belt. Outsider. That is crazy.
But growing up I never felt like I fit in. I wasn't one of those "cool kids" and I struggled to belong, my freckled face, red hair and skinny legs screaming, "pick on me!" I bounced from trying to fit in to trying to stand out, anything to be noticed and accepted. I had this gnawing emptiness inside of me, always searching to belong somewhere. Having not grown up in the church, I discovered both Jesus and His Church when I was in high school. Finally, a place to belong...or so I thought.
I didn't know all the right "church" words, didn't know all the Bible stories and songs the kids grew up learning. I didn't know how to say and do all the right things that made me a good youth group kid, but I sure did try. In the process I alienated my family who didn't share my beliefs or desire to belong to the church. I tried so hard to fit into one world that I walked away from the family I did belong to all along. I started dating a guy who was in the group of the "real" youth group kids and I thought I was in...until that relationship went south and I was the pariah of the group I tried to so hard to belong to.[pullquote]
We all have this intimate cry in our hearts for belonging.
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It was the end of summer and I was getting ready to start my senior year, still as lost as ever. I sat on the fringes of the youth group at an outside event we were having. I don't remember any teaching or songs from that night. I just remember the people who called me friend a few short weeks ago sitting together and laughing, excluding me. Every bit of laughter felt like a slight, like it was directed at me.
I walked away from church that night and it would be three years before I returned to the body of Christ, finding a new home at a campus ministry in college. I looked at the people who talked about love on the weekends and walked into school and showed nothing of the love of Christ to the people around them. If that was Christianity, I wanted nothing to do with it.
You Came to Us {Easter}
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The door into the Garden Tomb, one of the two possible locations of Jesus' resurrection
Every bit of Jesus' life was for us. He gave up the glory of Heaven for us. He came as a helpless babe to know the life of we know. He was tempted in every way so that we would have a High Priest who knows are weakness. He was sinless so He could be out spotless lamb. He healed, He fed, He had compassion, He calmed storms...He did it all for us. But nothing says more clearly how much He loves us than His resurrection. He was willing to die for us but had he stayed dead, we would have nothing more than another great teacher. He overcame death for us so that we do not have to die.
He came to us. He came FOR us. And we wait until He comes again...
You Came to Us
You came to us, a towel in your hands,
Ready to sink to your knees and wash our feet.
When the waters rose and the wind ravaged us,
You only cared about calming our fearful hearts.
When the world pressed in on every side,
You welcomed the children, the weak, the dying.
You came willing to deny yourself,
the will of your Father driving your life.
You came to us, with holes in your hands,
from the nails we drove through your hands and feet.
When the people rose against you, all of us,
You only cared about redeeming our hearts.
When the mob pressed in on every side,
You welcomed us even as you hung there dying.
You came willing to sacrifice yourself,
the souls of your Children worth your very life.
You Died For Us {Holy Week: Saturday}
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A stone like that which covered the Garden Tomb
The Saturday of Holy Week must have been heart wrenching for the disciples and family of Jesus. Their dreams of the Messiah were crushed with His death and they hid in fear or the same fate. Though He had told them of His resurrection, they didn't yet understand. The stone in front of His tomb sealed their fates....or so they thought.
That Day on the Cross {Good Friday}
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The "pit" in Caiphas' House where Jesus was kept during questioning.
One of the most profound moments on my trip to Israel was standing inside the pit where Jesus stood after arrested. These little details aren't in Scripture. You have to stand in the actual place to know that He would have been hauled underground in Caiphas' house and chained in a holding cell until ready to be questioned.
Then, because of the High Priest readying Himself to go to the temple, Caiaphas couldn't risk being around a murderer with blood on His hands. that would make Him unclean.
That is where the pit comes in. On the bottom floor, the prisoners were placed in a small room (about 20 of us fit in it at once). In the middle of the room is a tunnel that connects the bottom floor with the top floor (the middle floor with the holding cells is enclosed so they cannot hear what is being said). The priest would stand at the top and shout down, questioning the criminals.
So, there Jesus stood, in the cold dark room that had no light except from the small opening door floors up (in the picture you will see there are windows cut out. Those are new and didn't exist then). He had just been betrayed by one closest to Him and another was in the courtyard upstairs denying Him. he knew what lie ahead of Him and He was utterly alone, faced with the reality that soon His Father would, too, have to turn His face away as not to look upon the sin He would take upon Himself.
We focus so much on the cross on Friday and it was a brutal, inhumane was for anyone to die, especially the sinless Son of God. But standing there in that pit what struck me was how utterly abandoned Jesus must have felt and how we cannot even begin to comprehend what being separated from the Father on the cross meant to Him. He was completely one with the Father from the beginning of time in a way we cannot understand until eternity. And He knew that darkness was coming and separation. The striking thing is, because He was abandoned and separated from the Father, we never have to be....
You Turn Our Grieving Into Joy {Maundy Thursday}
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The Garden of Gethsemane
After a day of rest, Thursday of Holy Week was a full, pivotal day in the life and death of Jesus. The Gospel of John summarizes the beginning of Holy Week in one chapter (John 12) but devotes five and a half chapters to Thursday. Jesus shared the Passover (the Last Supper) with His Disciples, taught a lesson on servanthood by washing their feet, predicted His betrayal and denial, and teaches on the way to the Father, the Holy Spirit, abiding, trials and perseverance. After teaching, He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, was betrayed and arrested, and was denied by Peter.
Today on the side of the Mount of Olives lies a church and a beautiful garden in the place where Jesus prayed right before His arrest. The word Gethsemane literally means "olive press" and was literally a place where the olives were harvested. The olives were pressed into oil by being crushed under the great weight of a stone press. It was in this place where the Lord was crushed under the weight of the sins of the world He would have to bear hours later.
Hours before this Jesus had told His disciples, "I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn over what is going to happen to me, but the world will rejoice. You will grieve, but your grief will suddenly turn to wonderful joy." (John 16:20, NLT) Though there was agony for Jesus that night and for the disciples in the coming days, grief would be turned to joy. And there may be crushing weight of our own Gethsemanes but we will, with the rest of the world, rejoice. It took the garden to get to the cross and it took the cross to give us the empty tomb....
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