From our Pastors...

  

There is a Kwanza Cherry tree that lives just out my study window. Its splendid pink-purple blossoms are in full eruption even as I sit writing. There is also a bitter cold wind driving the rain down steeply upon an already saturated earth. I sense a certain tension in this. Unfolding beauty awash in violent winds. As my years accumulate, I seem to encounter tension more and more frequently in life. Situations in which opposing elements seem to coexist in conflict and disturbing cross purpose.

Hidden thorns on a rose stem or the odd smells and scratches that attend the friendly, furry company of my cat. The vast carnal bounty of Costco encircled by the worst parking on the planet (though Trader Joe's could give them a run for that trophy). Electric light marred by the possibility of electrocution. Fine art and filth, both from the same Internet. The endless suck of gravity and time upon the determined stirrings of life in this place. Even my desire to do good vs. my meager success in actually achieving that end is a good example. Tension seems rampant, like a dark and muffled soundtrack for life.

Nowhere is such tension felt more thickly, or with more force, than upon the crown of a modest hill outside ancient Jerusalem almost 2000 years ago...some soldiers, a few condemned criminals, their grieving families and a scattering of curious onlookers. The common brutality of that age would have done little to soften the horror as the criminals were stretched out and impaled upon the crosses that would support their final earthly hours. Screams of agony and cries of unutterable grief would have filled the small space there on Calvary.

Even the callous legionnaires might have sensed the depth of wrong and betrayal being wrought in Rome's name at the goading of the priests. Light waned and hearts grew weak as a most unnatural darkness began to eat away the midday sun. Tremors and the shuddering groans of the earth itself brought new terror to the souls there assembled, as the tension of struggle between life and death, good and evil, played out in a grievous miscarriage of justice unparalleled in human history.

Yet only one man present was aware of the true tension in that moment; that the agony of crucifixion...the unimaginable weight and pain of the world's sin...the tearing of Self that marked the Divine Spirit turned away in loathing...the most terrible day in the history of God's creation...was actually the best day in the history of God's creation. It was for this reason He finally whispered "It is finished" and released His spirit to the Father waiting above. Perhaps even the centurion nearby began to understand as well.

Things are not always what they appear, dear believer. Our earthly senses are ill-equipped to perceive the spiritual realities that undergird this shallow reality we know and experience as physical life. The horror and the pain of that day was real...but the hurt that such deep evil poured out, was soon to be dwarfed by an event so powerful and far-reaching, that the universe itself would be changed forever. The mindless violent wind was to release a beauty beyond imagination. We need not fear tension friend... "Cross purposes" can easily take one by surprise, for we walk by faith and not by sight. Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus.

  

Pastor Matt

photo: Karen Holberton

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