Redeeming the Generations

Chad, a dear friend and spiritual son, texted me some photos the other day. One prompted a mixed-emotion smile. When the second photo came through, I immediately began to cry.  The imagery too confronting, too powerful, and too tender.

He had been asked to make a cross for the Resurrection Sunday Celebration at New Wine Church. Chad explained how he had looked at his lumber options. He considered a beautiful piece of seasoned oak or a lovely piece of planed cedar. But the Lord directed him to a more humble offering. Here is the first photo:

This plank of wood is from my parent’s house and my childhood home. It was a shelf in my mother’s pantry that held all manner of kitchen goods. Mom was ever cooking wonderful meals for her family.  And, like every good Depression-surviving woman, she had to have ample supplies in her pantry.  “Just in case,” she would say.

Chad remarked about the shelf, “Under all the multiple layers of paint, dust, grease, and preservatives there was this beautiful slab of wood. It just took a little work to get there.” Selah.

This is sweet. Special, even. A symbol of my mother’s hard work and wisdom. However. Before it was a pantry, this small space was my bedroom. And before that, this small space housed both of my brothers in a narrow bunk.

In one moment, all kinds of memories blitzed my heart and head. Wonderful meals, cramped spaces, poverty as a child.

For reference, this is the room once the shelves were removed and the house was  “all dolled up” to put on the market.

My heart was in a blender already when Chad’s second photo came through.

I still can’t look at this picture without choking up. (Thanks, Chad.) The transformation is stunning. The metaphor is wrenching. It was the Cross that redeemed all that poverty, brokenness, and lack. God took my parent’s best efforts and worst frailties and shaped their offering into something beyond their wildest dreams.

It’s a prayer every parent can relate to. I can relate to.  Oh God, make us aware of our inheritance to our children, good or bad, and may the Cross transform it all.

God breaks very real generational curses, redeems relationships, and restores fortunes lost or squandered. But wait there is so very much more.

Look at where Chad placed the cross. All greater things are grown out of the cross.

Greater Things is literally grown out of God’s relentless love as well as the love of those who have raised us in the faith. It’s our joy and honor now to continue to multiply all that we have been given.

Don’t miss this.

All of us, and I mean ALL of us, are ALWAYS climbing on the root system of someone before us. Someone else sacrificed and persevered and believed to the point of tears.  Jesus himself believed to the point of blood.

The belief that God will bring beauty from our ashes, joy from our mourning, a double portion for our shame, and freedom from captivity is our unending anthem.  In a word, transformation.

One final kiss. On Resurrection Sunday, the families each brought a flower and adorned the cross. Not that we could ever add to God’s glory — but we celebrate the power and beauty of our Life-giving, Chain-breaking, Death-defying King Jesus.

His Blood Speaks a Better Word

I have this beautiful Jasmine plant outside.  You can imagine my delight when the small white blossoms opened up and filled the air with a heavenly scent.

It has been a frequent topic in my God conversations lately. I thanked the Lord for creating such beautiful expressions in nature. I marveled at Springtime and how the earth just cannot keep itself from declaring new life, life from that which seems dead.

I even shook my head at how this insignificant Jasmine plant was quietly and unassumingly taking over the fence line. With stretched-out tendrils and runners, it spreads its little domain, if you will.

Seriously, we have been talking about the parallels between this little plant and the Kingdom of God— it’s fragrant, relentless, and advancing.

But after looking at it multiple times a day for many days, today when I looked, it caught my breath.

I walked over to it to see what this red leaf was, maybe it blew into the fence from last night’s storm. No. It was very much a part of this thriving creation.

In the moment, the Lord whispered, the Blood is always in the middle of the Beauty.

Selah.

Holy Week is a pathway. From the Lord’s Supper, to the garden, to the trial, to the outrageous brutality, to the cross, to the tomb.  Pause and reflect but don’t stop in any one of these places. Taste the wine, cry the tears, wince at the nails being driven in, feel the breath leave His body, and flinch as rock grinds on rock as they rolled the tomb closed with His body inside.

But don’t stop there.

Resurrection Sunday is the unspeakable joy as the Blood bursts into glorious song.

“He is not here! He has risen just as He said.”

The Blood is always in the middle of the Beauty. Celebrate the Beauty and remember the Blood.

And we have come to Jesus who established a new covenant
with his blood sprinkled upon the mercy seat;
blood that continues to speak from heaven, “forgiveness,”
a better message than Abel’s blood that cries from the earth, “justice.”
Hebrews 12:24 TPT

Too Good To Be True?

If I am being really honest…I mean shockingly honest…the story of the cross sounds crazy to me. I’ve heard different iterations of it all my life. 

One man. A world of Sin. My debt. His sacrifice.

Then there is the part about rising from the dead. I mean, what even?

And then I met Him. Really met this Beautiful King. Heart to heart and Spirit to spirit.

 

 

Suddenly,  all of the pieces of this God sized, crazy-to-my-brain puzzle came in to place. I was reshaped. Or maybe, I became uncontorted by the world. Either way I found home and peace and this deep satisfying love.

The unbelievers say it’s a religion and a weakness of the masses.
The unbelieving believers say He is confined to a book and put in a box.

But the believing believers, the ones who “yāḏa” Him, who know Him intimately, are surely aliens in this world. Transformed by His love, we pour out our lives advancing an Eternal Kingdom and living for an Unseen King.

We are supernaturally alive in a natural world. Just like the power of love raised Jesus, He has raised us.

We have been raised to life again. Sound crazy? There are millions of witnesses, millions of miracles, millions of redemption stories that make crazy look like the sanest, truest thing ever.

“You will know the truth and truth will set you free.”

We celebrate you today Beautiful Jesus. Be honored in our hearts this Resurrection Sunday.

Singing, how marvelous! how wonderful!
And my song shall ever be
How marvelous! how wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!

Prepare the Way

I have a deep call from my spirit to yours. This Holy Day season, don’t get lost in the bunnies and eggs, and spring flings, proms and Final Four.

Instead, remember the call of Mary and Joseph to make room in the inn. Take to heart the call of John the Baptist to “prepare the way of the Lord.”  Now. Today. This moment is the moment to see the Coming King.  Prepare your heart for His embrace, His affection—bow in reverence for His sacrifice. Point your families in the direction of  Mercy poured out on an unprepared, unaware, and even unwilling world.

How great the Father’s love for us…

This is no religious or political dictator. There is no gold star for pious duty.

This is His Holy eyes locked on mine, and yours, so that all our sin is washed in His love. But we are not just free of sin, but we are finally free to be all that He created us to be. How creation groans under the weight our slow revealing.

 

 

To know and be known by Eternal Love is the true meaning of Resurrection Sunday.

The Veil was rent. For me. For you.

Will you prepare your heart, your attention and step into this True Living with a Loving God?

All Creation Sings…Literally!

To state the obvious, it is spring.  And yet— it is so much more.  We are witnessing the natural world sing “Hosanna!” to the Risen King.  Every year, no matter when Easter Sunday falls, early in March, or late in April, the trees and flowers come to life to celebrate, to declare, to remember Jesus. They welcome Him as much as we do. It is good for me to remember that He is not just our Savior but  all of creation’s hope too.

I am simply star-struck this year. The beauty that will not be denied.  The buds that winter cannot hold back. The praise that can not be silenced.  Even this morning reading Isaiah, I see it again and again.  We dare not we miss this obvious awakening.

Remember these things, O Jacob,
and Israel, for you are my servant;
I formed you; you are my servant;
O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.
22 I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud
and your sins like mist;
return to me, for I have redeemed you.

23 Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it;
shout, O depths of the earth;
break forth into singing, O mountains,
O forest, and every tree in it!
For the Lord has redeemed Jacob,
and will be glorified in Israel.  Isaiah 44 ESV

 

And what of us?  Do we see it? Do we regard the displays of beauty as a Holy Conversation? Does this grateful Creation song of worship move us to worship as well?  I don’t mean, “oh that tree is beautiful.”

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I mean.  “I see your praise for the  Resurrected King and I join you. Thank you Jesus for coming!”

Maybe I have been reading too much Narnia. Or maybe we are lulled to a sleep by selfishness.  But if the trees sing, and the rocks  cry out, how can we stay silent?

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.

Let us glorify the Lord of Lords.