Holy Week this week.
Lent has been different this year for me. Not as intentional as I’ve been in the past. Honestly, I tried to give up facebook for the entire 46 days, just to have some extra focus. Then it turned into just checking it if I needed to, and then just not wasting my time on there.
There are more important things going on around in the world than what your friends are saying on facebook. That’s for sure. I value my friends greatly, but more importantly, I value my REAL friends, the ones who are in my life and who pursue me as a friend, and that usually is distinct from facebook.
So much more I COULD say. But I won’t.
This week is interesting, because it’s so full of the ancient, but also the new. This goes in the realm of good, and of evil. It seems the deceiver works extra hard these leading up to Easter days too. Thinking he still has victory, somehow, someway.
But we have the victory.
Because HE lives.
It’s beautiful.
I’ve often thought about this, but I wondered, why is it that I’ve come to embrace and love the cross so much more as I’ve grown older? The answer is simple: because I know I need it. When I was younger, I didn’t see my need for it. I was “good enough”. I didn’t really do anything that bad. But now I know.
Now I know I’m lost without the cross. Without the sacrifice.
This morning I read Matthew’s account of the crucifixion. And cried. Matthew 27. Just the thought of Jesus bearing all the sin of the whole world on his shoulders still makes me weep. I’m not being overly spiritual here. Think about it. The weight of everything we’ve ever done or will do weighing on him. Pulling down on perfection. White becoming black with no reason, no cause. Just love.
Humbling.
Why do we still slap him in the face and hurl insults at him today? We do this through our actions and thoughts. Every moment. We are non-holy beings. How could we ever deserve to be called holy? Righteous? Loved?
I plead with you my friends, can we strive to seek him? Serve him? Turn away from darkness into light?
Through his grace. Through his grace alone.
Isaiah 53:3-6
(emphasis mine)
3 He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.
4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
5 But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all.
somehow beautiful 