Some
things I don’t understand. If a dear
church lady was still with us today, she would be happy that her husband came
back to trusting Jesus and her son is seeking Him also, but why did it take her
dying to make it happen? One of the quietest men in our congregation was one of
our greatest supporters. A son who took care of his mom for 15+
years is left to find a job after her death. Hours of time are spent on people who
lie about their financial situation, begging and trying to steal money. My Dad
spent his life being away from us, but then at the end begged me to be by him. I’ve
spent months now asking myself why she had to die. I never imagined myself
looking at a painting in my living room of my child who wasn’t living. I don’t understand.
When
we read scripture we realize that even the disciples didn’t understand what
Jesus was about to do those days leading up to His death & resurrection. When
I’m in the middle of struggling with personal sin, it doesn’t make sense to me
what is happening or why I’m being attacked. So often we want to put life in compartments that
have meaning - this is happening because of… or this will happen as a result
of… It is one way we try to make sense out of it all.
Our life
was never meant to be confusing or not understandable. The life we were
supposed to have – what God originally planned for us – was so much greater
than what we get. What we get is a life stained by sin. We can mourn the life we were supposed to
have, but then we have to move into the place of accepting that this life is
different, and find out what God intends for it now. Make sense? Not really,
because no one understands what life was supposed to look like before we sinned.
Honestly, most days we spend so much time on the sin in front of us – the poor
behavior, illness, or pain – that we forget about what God truly intended.
Now
we are at Easter. For me as a kid, Easter
was new suits and egg hunts. It was a 5 am wake up call and a service where the
sun blinded my eyes. As a pastor, Easter is a reminder of what I can’t fix –
the sin, the hurts, and the pains. It is
a reminder that no matter what happened this year that I couldn’t understand,
God does. He knows. He understands. In that there is peace. I know I talk about
peace all the time, but truly, is there any other way to deal with this world?
I can’t make sense of all these crazy things that happen every year, and then I
get to Easter and it reminds me that I don’t have to because Jesus does. He
loves me through the toughest things in life and provides the answer. The
answer is Him. The answer then was an empty tomb that nobody quite understood. The answer today is the same empty tomb – a
tomb meant for death that instead signifies life.
This
year Easter seems a little more meaningful to me. Though I still don’t understand Maddy’s
death, I know that Jesus came to die, and rise again, so that my daughter can
live! Christ is risen! He is risen,
indeed! Alleluia!
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