The King is Coming

                                         

   
     We had just been to the actual site where Jesus would have entered the city walls on a donkey.  Soon after we went to the Holocaust museum of Israel.  It may not be Palm Sunday yet, but I've been hearing those words, "The King is Coming" in my mind since our guide in Israel took us to the entrance to the Holocaust Museum and shrugged his shoulders.  A Jewish Christian, he talked about how we must remember history and know that it repeats itself.  That we must do what we can to avoid that, but to know that whatever happens on earth, to know that the King is Coming.

     In the museum, where there were no pictures allowed, I saw an inscription taken from a Holocaust survivor, saying something to the effect of, "Though there was so much suffering, there was a certain happiness even there among us who follow the Christ."  They knew the King is coming and that they had Him with them even there.  Yes, even there.

     I read an article lately that pierced my soul about how a huge number of German Christians supported Hitler and how there was no uprising among Christians as the horrors of the concentration camps became known.  Of course there was the media blitz whitewashing the truth, and there was probably the element of fear if they spoke out.   But the fact remains.

     Today, I see Christians take views of today's political situation from all points of view - protect unborn babies on one side, protect the minorities and refugees on the other.  What can we do about the state of the world?  What should we do?   I saw layers upon layers of civilizations in Israel.  Here today, gone tomorrow.  Ancient opulent fortresses, remains of cities once flourishing,  those kings and subjects long gone.  The sermon series of Ecclesiastes we're in brings to mind the lament of Solomon describing life as "Meaningless, meaningless, " though he had everything under the sun.  In one of these sermons we learned  that meaningless can actually be translated as fleeting.  I'm studying Isaiah, with whole peoples being warned, but then destroyed.

     I've been pondering all this for days,  and I think about the traveling we've been so fortunate to be able to do.  Who would have thought it - two schoolteachers traveling the world?  Is it because we have been blessed - why us? - when my friend is in the hospital facing maybe her 30th or so surgery? Why us when refugees are fleeing persecution in far parts of the world that I come near in a tour bus?

    But in the quiet of this morning, the King came to me once again.  He whispered through the words of one of my favorite writers, Anne Voskamp.  In the journey of her devotional, Abundant Life, she also ponders some of these type of thoughts.  She writes about the second time in the Story of the Bible, where we see Jesus weep, where pain breaks Him, and "as the palm branches wave, our God weeps:  when Jesus approached Jerusalem, He wept over it and said, 'If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace'..."  And I think surely He is looking down from heaven saying the same thing even now.

     Anne Voskamp writes and I piece together sentences that jump off the page of her book, The Abundant Life:  "If only you had known what would bring you peace...We want more comfort, and He offers us a cross. We want more position, and He offers us purpose.  We want more ease, and He offers us eternity...Don't believe things can change?  Just look at Palm Sunday, to Good Friday, to Resurrection Sunday.  Always believe, always keep hoping things can change....There are days when Christ comes to me in ways that look as lowly as coming on a donkey, and I'm the fool who doesn't recognize how God comes.  He enters every moment the way He chooses and this is always the choice:  wave a palm or a hammer...Maybe the call of Holy Week is simply about carrying your own daily cross...The cosmic truth sealed in the wounds of the broken God is that the greatest brokers of abundance know an unspoken broken...What makes us feel the most disqualified for the abundant life is actually what makes us feel most qualified.  It's the broken and the limping, the wounded and the scarred...that may know best where to run with wounds.  It's only the broken who know how our broken wounds can be the very best cracked, thin places that reveal God...and allow us to feel safe holding His hand.  Those who've known an unspoken broken can speak the most real healing.  Stay weak and dependent.  This is how you stay strong with God. "

     She then brings Romans 8:28 alive, how God can miraculously us ALL things, even the bad and the suffering for good:  " and this Holy Week, there's the woman who wipes the drool from her father's chin and carries him down the hall to the toliet.  And the mothers who lays down bit of her life to wash the bowls and underwear of the teenager calling her a whore.  And the missionary in the jungle, in a brothel, in slum, and nobody applauds.... Maybel the realest sacrifices of praise are not the ones shouted at the beginning of Holy Week, but the secret, sacred rites that are gifts of praise given back to Him, gifts to Him and the world, offered with no thought of return on the investment, just given where the only spotlight is His light, and your one flaming heart."

    And she ends the chapter on Palm Sunday with this bit of pure poetry: "The way to worship Christ is more than raising your hands like you're waving palm branches:  it's stretching your arms like you're formed like a cross."

   And I get my answer to my churning heart this morning, though it is still Lent, though the air is still cold, though the birds are just beginning to know it's spring:  to simply be the light in my little circle of the world.  To choose to wave palm branches instead of a hammer.  And know that maybe I don't have to have politics and world affairs all figured out.  That unlike Ahaz in the 7th chapter of Isaiah who refused to trust even though God had promised Him safety and in story after story in the bible, that we can trust Him...the King is coming.  That He wants our dependence, not our self-reliance in having everything figured out.  That righteousness comes not from being perfect or knowing how to save the world as we know it, but it comes from just walking with Him - taking our daily marching order to love where we can, make a difference where we can - but doing it always knowing He will place those opportunities like palm branches before us - and that no matter what suffering we are riding into on our own lowly donkeys of potential or present suffering. we can know...THE KING IS COMING!

Re-membering

         

     Yes, He does still speak.  Maybe not audibly.  But He speaks clearly in the sunrise, the silent snowfall, the smile of a friend, in His promises in the Word, and in the lives of His saints. Yes, He speaks.   

     Often I sit in the early morning light and read His Word.  And sometimes there is a subtle shift in my heart, or even an a-ha when the ears of my heart suddenly open.  It's beyond explanation but this morning I heard these words:  He remembers His covenant forever, the promise He made for a thousand generations.  Ps. 105:8.  

     Yes, sometimes I just read His Word, but today I heard these words in my heart.  I am drawn up short as I read that verse  in the middle of a devotional by Anne Voskamp from the Way of Abundance.  I breathe in the meaning.  And then I grieve for those whose have encountered those promises - maybe in a church service, or when scanning the radio stations in the car - but who haven't breathed them in - who may have considered them as part of their culture, even their Sunday routine, but haven't made them theirs - who, as they meet the things in life that break us all, forget them as they desperately try to hold themselves together on their own.  

    As a little girl sitting in Catholic church, I believe I heard the whisper of His Word even though I couldn't really make out the full message.   I loved church and took the bible off the shelf where it sat at home and tried to make sense of the directives in the Proverbs even as an early reader.  But it wasn't until a Young Life meeting in high school where I began to hear the Word preached by a young college student leader who applied them in a way that high schoolers could understand...and they they suddenly came alive to me.  I'll never forget the first prayer I prayed that wasn't a pre-written one for me, where I really talked to God and said, "Let my life be a prayer."  Over the years, there have been times where I got in the way of hearing them, looking more at my circumstances  horizontally so that I didn't spend enough time reaching up vertically.  But even when my own self-talk drowned out a message He had for me - and still does oftentimes - I can honestly say, He has never left me.  I know if I but wait He will speak to me again and my heart will be whole. 

     This morning He speaks to me further in words from Anne Voskamp's experience that suddenly shout at me in the dim light:    When life breaks our hearts, goes ahead and breaks parts and members of us - there are moments that can re-member us, that can put the parts and members of bits of our hearts back together again.  

     This psalm I read at the brink of day re-members me and arms me for the journey.  No matter what the day, the month, the year holds for me - whatever joy or sorrow - He remembers me.  He has kept His promises to me on my small journey on this planet - just as He did to the Israelites, and to Mary when stunned by her virgin pregnancy, and to the Ephesians, and the Corinthians, and to any of us today who will still themselves long enough to listen.  

    As I re-member this morning, I think back to times when His promises to never leave me were all I had to cling to.  And He brought me through, every time.  And I became better, not bitter, as was once my tendency.  Remembering this morning truly does re-member me - and  the chips of my heart that are broken even now are glued back into place with the gentle touch of trust and hope.

     And then I read these words as I continue on in my reading:  The great challenge of faith is holding onto hope after you've lost your naivete... The art of living lies in the balance of holding on - and letting go because He's holding on to you.  He's holding on to everything... Hold on to His promises.  Let go into His plan.  

    And, despite the state of the world, and the aches of unanswered prayers, and the ache in my back, I go into this day re-membered.  

Re-membering

Take heart, I have overcome the world,

Though in this world there will be trouble.

These words come to me once more

Forming like a vaporous bubble...

That slows me in my random thoughts

Clawing to make sense

Of the suffering of this world,

Sometimes vague, sometimes intense.

And in the remembering of all the times

He has come to me in the dark,

When prayer was all I had

And He empowered me to embark...

On a journey back to wholeness, 

Putting the pieces of my heart

Back together in the re-membering,

He's done this from the start...

From when I first started listening

Not just holding Him as a belief,

But heard His words as a promise,

A place to go for relief.

And I pray now for those

Who might not yet know this hope,

Who are struggling with the things of life,

Trying on their own to cope.

With the recent diagnosis,

Or the heartache of abuse,

Or the fear of tomorrow's bills

Or anxiety tightening like a noose.

I pray that their ears 

Might be opened to His Word,

That they will recognize them

As the best they've ever heard.

And my heart slows its throbbing 

Ache for for those who ache,

And rests in the assurance

He will keep offering til they take. 

For I stop and still to think

Of all my prayers that have been heard,

And I remember now and trust

That I can take Him at His word.