Recently
I’ve been thinking of those myrrh bearing women who were the first to see Jesus
raised from the dead. These women, who
loved Jesus so intimately and only left His side when their obedience to God
demanded it, were resolute about doing the next right thing even when their
world has been turned upside down.
In
the same way, I see the women whose homes and families were scattered by the
horrific tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma.
Their faith made them steel
magnolias as they steadied themselves against the horror that entered their
lives. There has been great faith in the
men, too, but the mothers and grandmothers have claimed my attention and
admiration. They remind me of the women
who followed Jesus so closely, supporting Him through good times and bad.
Both
sets of women become unencumbered with blaming God, falling to pieces quite
yet, or running away. Rather like the
Oklahoma women who rushed back to the storm to find their children, accepted
their losses and praised God for His protection, the myrrh bearing women gathered
their spices and rushed to the grave as early as they were able to give a
proper burial to Jesus. They could not
tear Him off the cross, but they could do what was in their power. The Scripture is very specific that they
watched carefully the actions of Joseph and Nicodemus, who brought linens,
spices of their own and a brand new tomb in which to lay Jesus’ body. It seems to me these good hearted men tried
their best to care for Jesus’ body in a dignified way; perhaps it didn’t seem
dignified enough to these women. There
were more spices that needed to be administered, and perhaps the linens were
not laid on the body quite right. The
men’s actions were a good effort, but the women could not be detoured from
their purpose. There was only one
problem as they saw it: there was a very large stone too heavy for them to move
alone.
What
they didn’t know was that the stone would not be a problem; in fact, the myrrh
they brought would not be necessary. God
had done something they did not expect.
Rather than tears and lament, they were going to find angels and be the
first to learn and then to see that Jesus was risen from the dead.
A
mother was told to expect to find her daughter dead when she got to the school
in Oklahoma. She couldn’t turn
back. She had to find her child dead or
alive. She was one of the blessed moms
who found that her daughter had been spared from death. Another woman had accepted that God had answered
only her prayer that she be spared through the great winds and not the dog she
held on her lap. While she was telling
the story to a reporter, her dog whimpered underneath the debris. She gave glory to God for answering both her
prayers in the midst of her totally demolished home.
It’s
always right to do the next right thing.
Pick up your myrrh and go about your sad business. When you are walking with God, never be
surprised when what you expect is not what you experience or when you are
blessed to take home your myrrh knowing you will need it for another day, but
this is not that day. As Isaiah reminds
us: For as the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your
thoughts (Isaiah 55:9).
Fifth Monday in Lent: Righteousness Needed Jesus is all about bringing us righteousness yet we are too worldly focused to think we have much of a need for righteousness. Most of us think we need healing or exciting miracles. We might try to get a little righteousness by going to church on Sunday and giving some spare change to a beggar. God sees the bigger picture and knows that there is nothing which we are more bankrupt than righteousness. He sees that we are totally incapable of getting the righteousness we need through our own actions, so He sent Jesus to give us His righteousness through His sacrificial work on the cross. Lent is a season of repentance and preparation for the Easter celebration. No matter how sacrificial your Lenten fast, it could never be enough to earn your righteousness. I have been practicing Lent for years, and every year at the end of my fast I come face to face with how far I am from righteousness. Some of the first recorded words of Jesus in th
Comments
Post a Comment