Something Happened

The world is broken, shattered, rebellious, unkind and seeped in violence and evil.  The news is so bleak and seems bleaker by the day.  Does God care?  O God, do something!

And as I sat in the early evening shadows last night, a nail in my hand in a silent church service, the answer came to me. 

And I realized yes, He already did.  Good Friday.

Jesus did not just enter our suffering or share in it, He suffered for us.  On the cross, He whispered, "I love you too much to let you live that way."  That is the gospel.

Christmas declares that He came.  Good Friday shows us why.

Because of Good Friday, we can live forever.  Easter just underlines that.  Because there would be no Easter, if not for Good Friday.

Good Friday is not celebrated to remind us of our wrongdoing, wrong being, and guilt.  God forgave us through the sacrifice of His Son.  The debt has been paid.  

The cross was not an accident.  Or Plan B.  But the sacrifice of Jesus was foretold from almost 800 years before Christ -- proclaimed not just predicted by the prophet Isaiah.

Surely he has borne our griefs,

    and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

    smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his stripes we are haled.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned --everyone-- to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

         the iniquity of us all.

                    Isaiah 53. 4-6

It is a humbling truth that Jesus died not because of my goodness, but for my wrongdoing. That is not something we can grasp.  "Oh, you didn't have to do that for me."

"Yes, I did," He replies.

Something happened that day that changed the world.  That changes -- present tense-- everything about each one of us.

God says, "I love you more than you can know."

Lions and Tigers and Big Spiders

Finally, after torrential rains, a sunny spring day emerged, and a great time to take the grandkids to the zoo.  Apparently, everyone else had the same idea.  I have never seen so many people there.  And having come through the past two years of covid, I have not seen so many people. Period.

In some crowded sections, I did not call out "Stay where I can see you," because somehow in their minds, grandmothers have super-powered vision that can see through walls.   And so, I advised, "Stay where you can see me." 

There have been many times in my life, distracted by so much, overwhelmed by all that is going on, that I feel like God has said the same to me.  Go.  Enjoy.  But be aware of My Presence.  "Stay where you can see Me."  And sometimes even  go where you can see Me. And that gives me immeasurable freedom.  

Don't get too far ahead.  Don't lag behind.  Run with Him.

There were crowded areas in this river of people where I would suddenly feel a small familiar hand reaching for mine, one of our little ones realizing his need for someone safe.  And then, we entered the reptile house -- which always gives me the creeps.  Not because of the scaly reptiles, bats, and enormous arachnids all in thick glass shelters there, but because it is really dark inside.  And it was there that I reached for their hands, not to hold them back, but to keep them with me.  At one point, one of our five-year-olds looked up.  "Oh, you are here."  In that shadowy place, it is easy to forget.

And often in those really dark places which we ALL find ourselves at one point or another -- those unexpected bottomless pits,  dark and stormy nights, power out, no batteries in the flashlight, the sound of intruders down the hallway, where in the world am I? --we forget that we are not alone and Who has a stronghold on us.  

God has reminded His people over thousands of years in a billion different situations on foreign lands, places where we are oblivious of His Presence,  in the familiar on the most ordinary days, and right here in the crisis:

 

For I, the LORD your God,

      hold your right hand.

It is I who say to you,

"Fear not,

   I am the One who helps you."

                       Isaiah 41. 13

 

Take My hand

    and trust Me in this. 

Right here with you.

God changes what we see.

    And that would be His faithfulness.

 

 

 

Because sometimes it looks like a mess

 

Two of our grandsons were coloring the other day.  They did not want coloring books with clear cut images defined for them by heavy dark lines.  They wanted blank sheets on which they could freely imagine.

When they were done, one had carefully drawn an identifiable object.  "Good job," I said.

But the other presented me with this picture.  "Tell me about it," I asked.

And for what appeared as a mess, there was an elaborate story woven into every strand.  Nothing random, even down to the colors and to what initially looked like scribbles.

Sometimes life looks like that.

But always, God calls us to follow Him into His narrative, no matter the erratic lines, no matter the circumstances, right into His designs that we don't often recognize without the story behind it, or the story about it,  or how it all fits together.  Sometimes we just live with the temporal mystery that one day will make all the sense in the world.  We just can't see it yet from where we are standing.

But we can trust Him in it.

The naturalist John Muir explored wilderness areas his entire life more than a hundred years ago.  He not only observed the seamless weaving together of God's creation, he sought out the wonders, and lived fully in the midst of it.  He once said, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe."

There will always be a lot of stuff we don't get, because we have finite vision.  Whether we understand something or not, even if it looks like a mess, sometimes that is what God's faithfulness looks like in His grand narrative, far beyond our lifetimes.  We don't have to grasp it all, but we can follow God into it and trust Him in it, one strand and one squiggly line at a time.  And one day on the other side of life, we will gasp, "So that's why...."

Not just mystery, but the intricate beauty of His designs.

And He is before all things, 

and in Him

all things hold together.

                   Colossians 1. 17

What late fine?

 In 2017, the Nashville Public Library did the unthinkable.  They eliminated overdue fines on library materials, not from that date forward, but retroactively, no matter how long ago it was borrowed.  Other urban libraries watched closely, sticking to their hard and fast rules.  The historical and ongoing attitude was that if there were no consequences, borrowers would never return books ever again.  

But this act of grace had an opposite effect.  As grace always does.

This past October, five years after Nashville, the New York City public library system resorted to the same protocol.  And while the income from late fines disappeared, treasures suddenly came to the surface.  The skeptical, rule-following librarians were astounded.  Books were returned, suddenly appearing at every library branch, floods of them.  Boxes of very late books were left on the doorstep, some books anonymously slid one by one through the return slot, some even with attached notes of apology and sentiments of how much that volume meant dearly to them over the years.  One book in particular had been borrowed in 1965.  In the Brooklyn branch alone, in the first four months, an incredible 51,000 books were returned, some so old and dated that they were no longer listed in the library collection.

But books were not the only things that returned.  With the fines absolved and patrons now forgiven --no longer feeling guilty and judged and shamed-- people returned to the library.  Whereas usage of public libraries had dipped some 20 percent in the past several years, patrons were now flocking back.  People were not getting away with negligence or rebellion or even thievery.  They were coming back into relationship.

In a recent article, the New York Times interviewed a young single mom with an eight year old daughter.  She was too ashamed to cross the threshold, banished and unable to check out any more materials due to the rules.  Forgiven of the burden of her accumulated $50 overdue fine, the librarian at the desk cheerfully welcomed her and her little girl back. 

Grace has a way of doing that.  When we let go of "you owe me," whatever the transgression or wounded pride or unreturned possession, the door to relationship opens again.  Grace is not getting away with anything.  Grace changes the world.  Grace says, "You are more important to me than that."

And that is the story of the Bible woven from cover to cover.

We cannot make up for lost time, but we don't have to live with regrets or grudges that multiply over time.  We still have a relationship.  Forgiveness presses delete.  What late fine?  Grace empowers us to do so.  

And as the New York Times article stated, "the treasures came pouring in."  In tens of thousands of ways. 

As grace always does.

 

Forgive us our debts

as we have also

     forgiven our debtors. 

                     Matthew 6. 12  

And you, who were dead in your trespasses...

God made alive together with Him,

having forgiven us all our trespasses,

by canceling the record of debt

that stood against us

          with its legal demands.

This He set aside,

            nailing it to the cross.

                         Colossians 2. 13-14