Sacred Mundane: The Blog

So I couldn’t stay away.  My parents showed up at our house around 10:45am, and since the kids were happily occupied, I slapped on some lipstick and switched from sweats to skirt and hopped in the car to catch the 11am service at church.  I was late, so I knew I wouldn’t make it into the main sanctuary, but I joined Jeff in the Phase II overflow area, where more than 100 people were watching the message live-streamed onto the wall.  That may not sound appealing, but amazingly, it was still a powerful time.

What struck me from the Easter message was this:  Joel shared that 12% of confessing Christians do not believe in the bodily Resurrection of Christ.  Hmm…  And, 32% of self-identified Non-Christians DO believe in the bodily Resurrection of Christ.  Huh?  Apparently, about a quarter (22%) of our population have a major disconnect.  Why on earth would you be a Christian if you didn’t believe Jesus rose from the dead?  If He didn’t, then His message is not true, His disciples are liars, the Bible is false, and Jesus Himself is a lunatic.  Why would you identify yourself with that?   If you do believe in the resurrection, why on earth would you not be a Christian?  Conquering the grave, giving credibility to every claim He ever made, to deity, to His words about life and death.  Everything truly hinges on the resurrection of Christ.

Lastly, we see that the disciples, when faced with the miraculous reality that Jesus had risen from the dead, were “overjoyed.”  That is the proper response to what Christ has done.  Ultimately, we have no reason for depression or despair if we believe Christ.  He has conquered it all, made all things new, given us a new and living hope, and promised us eternal life with Him.  That’s reason to celebrate.

And celebrate we did.  For the last few songs of worship, I snuck in to the main sanctuary and stood in the back, just to watch the sea of people, hands raised, worshipping my beloved Savior.  It was a celebration to behold!  I love Easter! You can have your chocolate eggs and marshmallow peeps; give me Jesus!

You are stronger, You are stronger;

sin is broken; You have saved me.

It is written, Christ is risen;

Jesus, You are Lord of all!

It feels very odd to be home on Easter morning, lounging in my jammies instead of donning my Sunday best.  But no matter where we are He is Risen indeed!

I just had to write a few lines this Easter weekend, to wish you each a fabulous celebration of our Risen Savior.  We had a powerful Good Friday service, where we meditated on the cross, heard a message from Jeff on Barabbas, and worshipped God for His sacrifice for us.  Then last night, we attended our Easter celebration service (our church urged us to go Saturday night instead of Sunday to save space for guests—which is why I’m reluctantly home on Easter morning!), which was fabulous—praising God for the Greatest Day in History and hearing a message from Joel on why the resurrection changes everything.    A few things stood out to me, and are what I’m chewing on this Easter morning as I savor these last quiet moments before I hear the pitter patter of feet upstairs and it’s time to put our Resurrection Biscuits in the oven.

Barabbas: Jeff taught on the importance of entering ourselves into the story of Christ’s trial and crucifixion.  We are most powerfully moved by stories in which we are able to personally identify with one of the characters.  In the Passion story, we often want to identify with Christ, the hero, or at least John, the faithful disciple who stood at the cross, comforting Jesus’ mother. Or perhaps the more realistic of us identify with Peter, who loved Jesus and followed him, but denied him at the end out of fear.

But Jeff highlighted another character in the story—one who contributes no spoken lines, but who speaks volumes by what he does contribute.

Barabbas, if you read the gospel accounts, was the murderer, insurrectionist, and robber—basically a terrorist—who was also scheduled to be executed, and deservedly so.  He shows no remorse or repentance.  When Pilate finds Jesus innocent, and is desperately looking for a way to get out of executing Jesus while still appeasing the crowd, he offers this escape route—using the tradition of giving one prisoner back to the people, to be set free.  He offers to set Jesus free, but as you know they shout all the more, “No, crucify Him! Crucify Him!”  Instead who do they demand is set free?

Barabbas. The guilty.  The innocent is condemned so the guilty can be set free.  So Barabbas is set free and Jesus is delivered up to the crucified.  The innocent in place of the guilty.

The plot is even richer than we saw at first glance. Barabbas’ name.  Do you see it?  Bar-Abbas.  Bar-Abba.  Bar=son of, Abba= the father.   Son of the father.  The real and true Son of the Father, the Son of God, taking the place of the wicked, sinful son of the father.  Substitutionary atonement in its richest glorious splendor right there.

Here’s what got me.  It’s always seemed odd that Barabbas contributes so little to the story.  He isn’t repentant, doesn’t go and change his lifestyle (or at least we don’t know about it).  His life represents so much and yet he doesn’t seem to contribute that much to the actual gospel account.  But perhaps that’s just it.

The only thing Barabbas contributes to the work of redemption is his sin. The only thing Barabbas contributes to his own deliverance is the sin that makes it necessary.

And he, above all other characters, is the one who represents you and me.

All I contribute to my redemption is my sin which makes it necessary. And that, friends, is good news for you and for me.  Because,

“By grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”  Ephesians 2:8-9

And now, the Greatest Day in History, is possible, because Christ did it all.  He died. He rose. He conquered sin, death, and the grave. Nothing is the same.

O Happy Day; Happy day! You washed my sin away.

O Happy Day; Happy day! I’ll never be the same.

—

Thank you, Jesus.

I just turned the final page of So Long, Insecurity, and closed it with that exhale of satisfaction that comes from digesting a good meal, a good sermon, or a good book.  An exhale that says, “Amen! Let it be.”  What a worthwhile journey that book was. I wholeheartedly recommend it.  If you think you may in any way need it–you do.

She finished by looking at the rest of the verse we mentioned earlier–Proverbs 31:25.  Earlier we looked at how God’s valiant woman is clothed with strength and dignity. I’m still camped out on the profound impact of recovering true dignity.  I remind myself of it a dozen times a day when I see the ways I have been tempted to respond to things through insecurity. (Last night as Jeff and I sat in bed I listed to him all the ways I responded differently to situations throughout my day, responding in dignity and security rather than insecurity–it was amazing to recount the differences in just one day!)

Today we looked at the other part of this verse:

She smiles at the time to come.

I wrote about this verse more than a year ago, in this post on Becky’s Smile, and hearing it again brought back those memories and reminded me afresh of the joy and confidence that comes from true trust in God.

The real root of all our insecurity is fear, right? Fear of something. Fear of rejection or failure, or being unloved or forgotten. It’s all fear.  So in her discussion on fear she recounted a conversation she’d had with God where she has wrestling through her own fear issues.  She very distinctly sensed Him asking her to tell Him her greatest, deepest fears.  So she did.  Then, surprisingly, she sensed Him saying, “Let’s say those things did happen.”  Then, “Picture yourself going through the whole process of one of your worst fears becoming a reality. Get all the way to the other side of it. What do you see there?”

Strangely, often we fantasize about fears but only up until the really bad moment, then we just let them dangle.  She was saying, go ahead and face them–what is the very worst that can happen, and then what?  Then what?  When she did this, with her own worst fear, she realized that while it would truly be horrific, all that she knew of God reassured her that He would still restore her, use her, love her, and carry her through, even if she lost all else.

So I tried.  Ugh. I knew as soon as I started that I was going to lose it.  My very worst fear is that God would take me home before my children are grown.  Or, to get at the real core haunting fear, that God would take me home before they are old enough to remember me and know the bursting-at-the-seams torrent of love that I have for them.  That they would never remember hearing me say, “I love you.”  ACK! I want to scream right now as I write that.  I remember one of my seminary professors sharing that his mother had died when he was 6-months old, and so his dad had raised him.  He talked about his dad,and mentioned that he never really felt a loss of his mom because he didn’t remember her at all.  I remember sitting there with my heart about to burst and tears threatening to spill thinking, “But she must have ADORED you. She must have wept with joy over you and prayed for you and kissed every inch of your infant face and inhaled your breath and watched your breath while you slept.  She must have prayed like mad for you, that you would be godly and wise and marry a good woman. She must have poured life into you.  She must have adored you.”  And it just seemed like too much.  Too much, that a person would be robbed of the chance of knowing that love from his mom. Even if he didn’t feel the loss. And too much that that mother, with her undying affection, would never see her son grow up.

Ok there it is! So I walked through Beth’s process though, and though still bawling my eyes out, I reminded myself: Who is taking care of my children right now? God is.  Who desires them to be saved and committed to the Kingdom of God more than anyone else? God does. Who loves all of us more than anyone in the world? God does.  And I have to trust and believe that one day, in heaven, all those broken and lost relationships, that seem so unthinkably tragic and horrible, will be restored.   And then, by grace, I smiled.

I also realized that  that mother of my seminary professor must have prayed, and though she wasn’t there to teach her son the Bible–there he was, a full-time Pastor, teacher of the Word, a seminary professor, a might man of Scripture.  She wasn’t there to teach him about girls–but there he was, happily married to a wonderful woman, with several children of his own.  She wasn’t there to teach him manners and gracious living–but that professor was one of my favorites from my whole seminary experience, wise, humble, funny, gracious, down-to-earth.  Interestingly, as well, he just finished his Ph.D in studying how Movies Move Us. He’s fascinated by cinema and loves to use mainstream culture to illustrate God’s truths (and he’s good at it!).  The reason he’s so passionate about this?  He says that all growing up, his dad would be working, taking care of the kids (he didn’t remarry), and exhausted.  Often times he’d be so exhausted he would round up the kids and they’d all go to the movies on weekends or evenings.  Then they’d use the movie to talk about truth, culture, God, anything.  That dad, though greatly handicapped by the loss of his wife, used what he had to impact his sons.

All that to say that I realized that precious mom’s prayers were answered in her stellar son.  I have no idea how it all works, but I know that God is the healer, the restorer.  And even in the worst possible tragedy, He would turn it on its head for good. Isn’t that the story of our faith?  In a week we will celebrate the how God turned the Darkest Day in History to the Greatest Day in History.  The worst evil turned to the greatest good.

Now I suppose that particular fear of mine doesn’t necessarily fuel my daily insecurity. On a day-to-day level I don’t really think about that, I spend much more time being insecure about–or being fearful of–not being taken seriously, merely tolerated rather than truly valued, being considered shallow or silly rather than substantial, being foolish rather than wise, looking dumb.  You know, a garden variety of things that all surface from a root of pride. 🙂  But somehow facing our greatest fears, and realizing that God would still be good and make all things work together for good, makes us able to smile at the future and face those little daily insecurities with the same bright smile, knowing our ultimate confidence is found in Him. Does that make sense?

Let’s smile at the time to come, our best, brightest, most confident smile–resting in the promises of God, not asking “What would I do if…?”  but asking, “What would God do if…?”  And here’s the answer:

He will:

perfect everything that concerns you (Ps. 138:8)

work all things together for your good (romans 8:28)

contend with those who contend with you (Is. 49:25)

fight this battle for you (2 Chron 20:15)

equip you with divine power (2 Cor. 10:4)

delight to show you mercy (Micah 7:18)

meet all your needs according to My glorious riches in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:19)

give you grace that is perfectly sufficient (2 Cor 12:9)

be your power in weakness (2 Cor 12:9)

do immeasurably more than all you could ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work within you (Eph 3:20).

—

Now that’s something to smile about.