HE IS RISEN!

(This is a post I wrote two years ago.  However, my feelings are the same.  I have spent this week in a reverenced awe of what Good Friday and Easter will mean.  Specifically, what it means to me.  And in that reverence, I haven't had the desire to write a new post.  So, I will let this one speak.  It is a past writing, but the words are fresh -- as are the photographs, and you'll find the words still ring with emotion and meaning.  I pray you find that same emotion and meaning as you celebrate a most blessed day.)  

This year I've really felt my heart preparing for Easter.  I don't mean that the thought of aisles and aisles of stuffed rabbits, baskets, and chocolate were what were making me take pause.  Though I must be honest and say I did pause, and more than once, beside the chocolates and sniff the air...

This year, I felt my heart preparing itself for Christ's last days on earth.

I felt myself journeying to Calvary with my Savior.

It was not something I planned, nor something I was really quite sure what to do with.   I just knew that all I could think about was what Jesus was doing on that day many, many years ago. 

I began by recalling His triumphant entry into Jerusalem.  

     Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields.  Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, "Hosanna!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!"  Mark 11:8-9

The people hailed Him with palm branches, calling "Hosanna!  Hosanna in the highest!"   Hosanna means "save now," or "save now, I pray."  Seems fitting to call upon the Savior to save us.

Though many things occurred in Jesus' life the week before his death, I began to focus on His betrayal, arrest, beating, and crucifixion.

One of the things that struck me was, knowing what was to come, Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsamane that God's will be done.  He was God's only Son, and yet He didn't plead, beg, whine for God's plan to change, even knowing what horrible things lay ahead for Him.

     "Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you.  Take this cup from me.  Yet not what I will, but what you will."  Mark 14: 36

'Not what I will, but what You will.'  The prayer that never fails.  A good one for me to remember.

I watched The Passion of The Christ.  For the first time.  And the last.  Reading about our Savior's last days in the Bible is one thing.  Singing about them, another.  But watching it unfold dramatically in front of my own eyes was almost more than I could stand.  I shook.  I cried.  I hid my eyes.  I wept for the cruelty shown.  I felt physically ill.  I have a very hard time understanding how people can be so evil to one another.  And to the Savior?  Unspeakable.  I just kept thinking, "God will judge them.  They will get their just punishment."   But that didn't stop my tears or my trembling.  

And then it came to me.  Sin is sin is sin.  

Let me clarify.  If you are like me, you look around the world and think, "I'm not so bad.  I haven't killed anyone.  I'm honest -- most of the time.  I honor my parents.  I pray, go to church, serve God.  For the most part, I follow The Commandments.  There are people a LOT worse than me."  And on and on and on.

But, my friends, sin is sin is sin.

To God it is all sin.  Because He does not measure sin as we do.  God does not view sin as we do -- viewing and judging our sin against other people's sin.  No, God measures sin against His holiness.

Let me say that again, because I feel it's really important.

God measures our sin against His own holiness.  

And there, my friends, is where we all fall short.  Where we all are sinners.  

And as I watched the movie and let that all sink in, I realized that my sin is no "better" than those centurions who beat Jesus.  Than those who hurled insults upon Him, spat on Him, who nailed Him to a tree and mocked him.

And as He suffered, as He died, His one thought was of me.

Of me.

Of you.

That is the part of the story that breaks me.  Truly breaks me.  But that is not the end of the story.

     ... weeping may remain for a night,
         but rejoicing comes in the morning.   Psalm 30:5b

Because, three days later He rose.  As He said He would, He rose!   And here, in this part of the story, is the hope!  Ahhhh... the hope!!!

     On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' " Then they remembered his words.  Luke 24: 1-8

He lives, my friends, He lives!  And I, having been broken beside Him, am now sweetly surrendered to Him.  For He lives in me.  Forever and ever.  Amen.

I pray that amongst the bunnies, the plastic eggs, and the chocolate, that you find Him.  That you find the hope of His promises.  That you find everlasting life.   Happy Easter, dear ones. 

He is risen!

He is risen, indeed!