Wednesday, April 15, 2009

the unchanging fact of life

I know that this Easter post is very post-Easter, but the fact is unchanging--He is alive! The weekend was blessed with on-sale strawberries and opportunities to share the life of Jesus with people. On Friday night we had a "Last Supper Dinner" for everyone who wandered through the swinging glass doors of the Oasis. The whole week had been spent intensively fliering for the event and we received a few newcomer and many old faces. The evening was a time of feasting around whitely clothed tables, perfumed by vanilla candles, and being waited upon by the Oasis staff. Between the main course and dessert I was able to share a brief message on the night that Jesus lived and died, and that we remember with feasting. A night that none understood. The truth is that very few ever knew what to do with Jesus. One women knew what to do and worshipped with tears and burial perfume, but for the most part people just watched. They watched as he stood on mountains and preached, watched as he comforted the sick and raised the dead, they saw him concerned for people, and also confronting evil in all its visible and invisible forms, and continued to watch from afar when he beckoned them closer. "What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter," Jesus honestly said. So I talked about what the disciples had misundertsood. They had yet to understand the eternal mercy of God in the crushing of the cross and the worshipfullness of Jesus--"who being in very nature God." Please don't miss these things now: that with his death you can be killed, with his burial your sin and shame can be buried, and in newness and purity and clothed in blessed immortality you can be raised with him--with him! It cannot be done alone. We must become partakers in the events of that night, we cannot stand as strangers, we must be companions.

You hear stories that you do not expect when people have been loved with food and truth. Two were recently divorced. One was a woman who had been in an arranged marriage. She was a Sikh from India. She was quiet, but hungry to be heard. The other was a man who had lost everything, along with his mind (he claimed), when his wife had kicked him out and invited another man to live in their home. Another girl was trying to make it alone after being raised by parents who had sold her as a sex slave as a child. I continually thought, "Lord, we need the the reality of your cross tonight."

"Jesus hath now many lovers of His heavenly kingdom, but few bearers of His cross. He hath many who desire His consolation, few His tribulation; many who are willing to share His table, few His fasting. All are willing to rejoice with Him, few will endure anything for Him. Many follow Jesus into the breaking of bread, but few to drink the cup whereof He drank. Many glory in His miracles, few in the shame of His cross. To many it seems a hard speech, 'Deny thyself, take up thy cross, and follow Jesus.' But it will be much harder to hear that other word, 'Depart from me, ye cursed;' for only they who now hear and follow the word of the cross shall then have no fear of the word of condemnation. for the sign of the cross will be seen in the heaven when the Lord cometh to judgment, and all the servants of the cross, who in their lifetime have been conformed to Christ crucified, will then draw near to Christ their judge with great confidence. Why, then, dost thou fear to take up the cross which fitteth thee for the kingdom? In the cross is life, in the cross is salvation; the cross defends against all enemies; in the cross there is the infusion of all heavenly sweetness; in the cross is strength of mind, joy of spirit; the cross is the height of virtue and the perfection of sanctity. There is no happiness for the soul but in the cross. Take up, therefore, thy cross and follow Jesus, and thou shalt live forever....Know for certain thou oughtest to lead a dying life, for the more any man dieth unto himself, the more he liveth unto God. Surely, if there had been any better things, and more profitable to man's salvation, than bearing the cross, Christ would have showed it us by word and example. But now He calleth all who would follow Him plainly to do this one thing, daily to bear the cross."
- Thomas a Kempis

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