The Comeback Win

One thing I love about Easter is that it falls in springtime. Have you ever considered what it would be like if Easter came in the middle of summer, or as fall was descending? There's such beautiful, inescapable symbolism in that Easter takes place in spring. At this time of year - in fact, on this very year itself - we Midwesterners usually find ourselves being toyed with by a teeter-totter effect between wintry and spring-like weather, and depending on how March "came in" (i.e. like a lion, or like a lamb, as the old addage goes), we may have snow still on the ground at Easter, trying to make it look like spring is a ways off yet. 

But many years Easter is a triumphant display of spring winning out over the last fling of winter. Perennial flowers, green grass, and buds on tree branches are forcing their way forth from any lingering snow, bringing the landscape back to life after the deadness of winter that can seem to envelop our very spirits at times. It's as if the earth is coming back to life, and no amount of stubborn loitering by winter can prevent that resurgence. 

I love how well this dramatic phenomenon of life on earth symbolizes what my savior did on Easter. 

On the day Easter now commemorates, there were no such things as Christians yet. Only some Jews who had faithfully followed around a Jewish man from Nazareth who was the son of a carpenter turned celebrity and miracle worker, who, by the way, claimed to be the Son of God. It was the third day. He had said mysterious things in the years, months, weeks, and even days before last Friday...about knowing he would die, but that he would actually come back to life. And to their horror he was indeed taken prisoner by the religious leaders, put on trial overnight for blasphemy, and then executed by crucifixion on Friday morning. Their master and teacher, Jesus, was lain in a tomb and it was over. They might be the ones next to be slaughtered because they were witnesses of this man and might be a threat to carry on his blasphemous teachings. 

Now.....it was the third day....and still Jesus was dead. The jig was up. They had gotten their hopes up for nothing. The longing in their souls would never be answered.  The snow would never melt. The deadness of winter would never end. It was over...

And then it WASN'T over. 

Women who had also followed Jesus with the disciples came rushing back to their place of hiding with a shocking report, having just been at the tomb where Jesus' dead body was put to rest. They'd gone just to see if the Roman guards would let them go honor him with spices and embalming...

....But the guards were GONE, the tomb was EMPTY, and angelic beings were there saying Jesus was alive again!!! Could it be???

Later that day other followers of Jesus encountered the risen and living Jesus Christ, as did many others in weeks following, and the miracle was established as fact. Suddenly, instead of Jews hoping for freedom from Roman oppression, there were Christians from all surrounding regions who'd been set from from the ultimate oppression of sin and guilt. Instead of fearful hibernation in safe houses, there were people on fire spilling out into the streets of Jerusalem and beyond, with the message that God had kept his promise in the ancient prophecies, and Jesus had proven he was the Messiah and in the process, had proven the most important fact of all:

JESUS IS MORE POWERFUL THAN DEATH ITSELF. JESUS, AS HE SAID HE WAS, IS LIFE ITSELF. 

"I am the resurrection and the life," Jesus once told another good friend named Martha, when he visited after her brother Lazarus had died (immediately following this, by the way, he raised Lazarus back to life after four days in the grave). "The one who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die... (John 11:25-26)."

Winter eventually ends. No matter how much snow is on the ground today, no matter what cold winds blow... Winter eventually loses to spring. 

Life gets its comeback win.

I so often feel like I'll never escape the hold sin has on my life. I feel hemmed in on every side like I'm surrounded by a stealthy mob of assassins that lurk around every corner, waiting to slice me or hit me with a poison dart as I go by, until this dark life and even darker world eventually pull me down to the curb and my spirit ebbs out to nothing. 

Each year I feel like winter will never end. But each year, sooner or later, winter gives way and the snow and ice and cold and gray skies just can't hold down the verdant and colorful life that must burst out again!

The winter of this life lived in our bodies, tainted by sin and sadness, loss and grief, pain and frustration, sickness and addiction, WILL END. And when it does, death will immediately turn us right back over to life because of what God has done for us in Jesus. When Jesus stepped out of his opened tomb and out into the morning sunlight, greeted by angels from the Father, he was giving the mic drop to end the speech of truth and freedom that his whole life and death beforehand had started. He told the rest of mankind for the rest of history that the winter of our captivity to sin was over, and he was the vibrant shoot of a flower busting out from under the shroud of snow that covered the ground. 

And now, because he beat his own death with his own life, you and me and every other follower of this risen, invincible Jesus can look forward to beating our own deaths too. 

Winter may come and take us all for a season. But there WILL BE SPRING!! There will be a comeback. 

Jesus' resurrection is OUR comeback win. 

"Death has been swallowed up in victory.

 'Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?'

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory

through our Lord Jesus Christ."

- 1 Corinthians 15:54b-57

Heavy Love

There I sat, my confession still lingering in the air, its words too saturated with meaning and pain to be absorbed as quickly as a funny joke or piece of daily news. My tears squeezed out with the confession, but now there were tears from us both. I knew God had already forgiven me and wiped away my guilt, but now it was her forgiveness that I had to ponder and savor. 

See, what I'd just done was get the deceit out of my spirit. On Sunday morning this week we had heard a guest pastor speak about Psalm 32 and how we can become truly happy.

He read: "Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the LORD does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit (emphasis added)." - Psalm 32:1-2

Repentance is a common idea among those who follow Jesus. Yet confession, especially to another human being, is almost taboo. It certainly can be terrifying, to say the least. Especially if that confession is meant to dismiss some "deceit" that has been in your heart as a result of keeping sin from someone who needs to know. You're probably like me, in that you feel pretty brave about many things in life, until it comes time to decide whether to make confession to another. But it's something God invites - nay, commands us to do in our lives as his followers. There's necessary therapy that's meant to come from it.

That Psalm 32 passage was somehow unpacked more powerfully than I'd ever heard it. Line by line, that pastor read and elaborated each part with a smile on his face for the liberation that each part carries...

"Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven..."  

"Yes, awesome!" I thought in response.

"...whose sins are covered..."  

"Amen! Covered so God can't even look upon them!" I thought in jubilation.

"...whose sins the LORD does not count against them..." 

"Yes, Jesus," I responded, "THANK YOU! What a relief that you and I don't have to talk about it anymore!"

"...AND in whose spirit is no deceit."

"............"

"Wait, what?...The clincher on all that is that I don't have ANY hiding or lies about it?"

Yes. 

"So I have to confess it and get it out in the open?"

Yes. 

This is where it gets painstakingly hard, doesn't it brothers and sisters? And I can talk openly about this because we all have something to confess. Know how I know that? Because we're all sinners. We all have our buttons Satan pushes. Our vices. Our addictions. Our weak spots. Call it what you will....unless you're spiritually blind to every flaw you carry, you KNOW where you could stand to get that deceit out of your spirit. 

The point our preacher for the day made next was this: "If you don't sing a "sad song" (the confession part), you won't be happy for long."

The sad song reference to confession comes from the fact that this very Psalm 32 was itself a sad song King David had written as he confronted, confessed, and found full absolution for the horrible sins he had committed (adultery, murder, false witness, lies - quite the list). 

But then Psalm 32 goes on to describe that this deceit that needs to get out to complete the picture of blessedness and happiness is something that won't be forced out of us until we realize how God is trying to show us his desire for repentance. 

"When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer."   - Psalm 32:3-4

Have you ever just felt like there's a weight you're living under in life that you simply cannot get out from? It may take on other labels at times, or be interwoven into another diagnoses, like stress, anxiety, depression even. But do you know what I mean? It's as if the world is just holding you down and something isn't right. It's God's hand, actually. He's laying it right on you, refusing to lift it until you come out of your heart-fog and accept that you have something that's chipping away at your soul that needs release. 

I have felt that way for a long time. Certain things here and there were fine. The "dailies" would come and go, but each and every night I put my head on my pillow, I knew "that one thing" has crossed my mind and plagued my conscience at some point or another. I could run but not hide. God's hand had been heavy upon me. 

After this confession was made, and all remaining hiding games and deceit had been let go of from my spirit, I began to step towards a true happiness. There's the kind of happiness we wear like a mask before others, not letting on what's really wrong. Then there's THIS. Not only had an immediate weight been lifted, but my relationship with that person who needed to hear my confession was given a deposit of improvement. And best of all, my relationship with my God began brightening again. With his hand freshly lifted, I saw it, like a light bulb brightening in my mind and heart. And that's when the tears changed from tension and sorrow and release.....to an almost indescribable joy and gratitude. 

I got it. It made sense. Once again, it was as if I had JUST BEEN SAVED by the Lord, for the very first time. 

I realized that the Lord, my God, the maker of the universe and my savior, who has 7 billion other people to attend to that he loves, had been making sure to specifically hold his hand upon me like a weight, until I would awaken to what he was doing, hear exactly the sermon message I needed, and then remove the deceit from my spirit so I could be blessed and happy. 

He did that not because he likes to nag. He did that not because he's an obsessive enforcer and wants the power trip of wringing guilt out of human beings. 

No, he did that because he loves me so much that he'd rather I live awhile (however long I chose to, really) under the discomfort of his heavy hand on top of me than lose me forever because of what sin and impenitence can do to a person if left for too long. We go through life downplaying the sins we live with, telling ourselves that as long as we can say today that our faith is still in the Lord, we'll be fine no matter what's wrong with us. But when God lets his hand, his presence, weigh heavily on us, he's trying to remind us that he knows better. He knows the foe, and our own sinful weakness, far better than we do. He knows he HAS TO hold on to us, even if with a heavy hand rather than a gentle one, lest we're torn away from him bit by bit and then lost to the separation and ugliness of hell for all eternity. It can happen to Christians, and it does happen all the time, when the heavy hand is run from with a hardened heart.

But - praise the Lord! - that will NOT be my fate, because I somehow finally heard God's spirit, through the speaking of that Scripture, whisper loudly enough that his hand was upon me too, like it had been on David's life. And now, having obeyed his call to repentance and confession, the healing could begin. And the reminder of his astounding love for me was blaring like a Newsboys worship concert over the quiet dirge of the sad song I'd just sung. God loves me that much!! He has to keep me from getting away!! He wants to bless me and make my life happy, and now I no longer stand in his way with my hiding and deceit! Praise the LORD!!

Today I read a verse of the day in an email, and it too was from the book of Psalms. Psalm 105:1 (NLT translation) said, "Give thanks to the LORD and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done."

So that's exactly what I'm doing! It's only too bad that the reaches of my blog site and Facebook account don't extend throughout the actual whole world. But God's goodness to me is certainly worth trying to shout out to as many as I can. 

My blog page's theme is "Mission: Possible." I like to discuss things in terms of what's possible, where we often perceive impossibility. The Christian truths can re-program our minds to see possible (with God's help) where mankind only can see impossible. Normally that centers on what's possible or impossible for me and you. But today's lesson of possible conquering the impossible has entirely to do with GOD himself. It's simply this:

It's impossible for God's love to let me down. 

When it seems impossible that I should deserve a love that goes to all lengths and trouble, that blows the mind of man in its lack of conditions and demands, God loves me anyway. He forgives me anyway. He pursues me; follows me around everywhere I go with his hand lying heavy on me, until I wake up again from my sin and deceit.

I hope folks read every one of my posts. I hope that every piece of what I put into this blog can speak truth into someone's life, lead them to God, convict them of something to change, provoke thought, etc. But THIS one I really hope everyone reads. Because when God's love is needing a spotlight, EVERYONE should see that love illuminated. My life is meant to be all about bringing him glory. So I hope every last one of you sees how my sin led to my confession and that led me back to the foot of the cross, where Jesus Christ's blood ran down that wood and my sins were forgiven for all time. I hope you all see that and rejoice. This is my Lenten testimony to God's greatness.

And I pray, for the sake of your true happiness, that you let this same thing happen to you. Dear Christians, don't hide. Let go of all deceit, bleed out your own confession. Then watch as God's mercy and unbelievable love bandage your wounded spirit and wash you clean. You will be blessed like nothing else can!