A Revelation

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Margaret

The word “revelation” means to discover something new, something striking or arresting. Today I had a revelation.

During these weeks leading up to Easter, my thoughts have been riveted on the magnitude of Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary, the single purpose of which was to help those of us who would be doomed without him, which is everyone.

Yesterday I blogged about my worst fear, that of seeing my children suffer without being able to help. Mel Gibson’s movie, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, depicts Christ’s last torturous hours, including the responses of his closest friends and relatives. His mother’s horror at having to witness the extreme abuse of her son, the one she bore and raised, was an emotion I completely understood, and I wept with her, during the movie.

Today God revealed another facet of those hours of severe torment, a revelation to me of his deepest heart. He, too, experienced the same terrible circumstance I wrote on my 3×5 card during my Bible study. He watched his own Son undergo horrendous torture without being able to help him. The one thing I fear most, he did.

Of course God could have helped Jesus. It was within his power to abort the crucifixion at any point during those awful 12 hours. As Jesus said to Pilate, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.” (John 19:11) But by withholding that power, by allowing the abuse, the beatings, the torture and the murder of his Son, God facilitated Jesus being able to open heaven to anyone who believes in him.

But how could God have possibly stayed his hand? How could he have watched it happen without stepping in to severely punish the ones hurting his guiltless Son? What possible gain could have outweighed such massive loss?

The fact that our names might appear anywhere in the answers to those questions is absurd. And yet they do. Despite the fact that we are corrupt, selfish, prideful, riddled with filthy sin, he loves us. He wants us. He could destroy us all and begin again with a pure people, unspotted by disobedience and disregard for him.

And yet, he wants… us. And that’s the reason he watched his Son suffer without stepping in, without stopping it when he could have.

The most famous verse in the Bible has a word in it most people gloss over. In John 3:16, Jesus is speaking and describes himself as “the only begotten Son” of God the Father, not just the “only” one but the only “begotten” one. That word “begotten” means “born of a father.”

Jesus was the born Son of God his Father, just as my seven children were born to me. God the Father chose to suffer through watching his Son lay down his life without stopping it, for my sake…and yours.

…an awesome revelation to me today.

“[Jesus said,] ‘For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative’.” (John 10:17,18)

A Torturous Thought

Posted on March 13, 2011 by Margaret

In our ladies Bible study we’re looking at the biblical Job and his response to massive losses. A couple of weeks ago our leader asked, “What’s the worst loss you can imagine in your life? What one thing do you fear the most?”

She passed out 3×5 cards and asked us to write it down. I thought about Job’s losses, wondering which one caused him the most anguish. It had to be the death of his 10 children. Scripture describes his deep love for them, his concern for their souls, his consistency in offering sacrifices on their behalf.

By the end of the book, Job’s health and possessions were restored. He was twice as wealthy, except in one category: his family.

Yes, he fathered 10 more children, but what about the first 10? No one child can take the place of another. I wonder if Job ever quit mourning those 10 losses.

With the 3×5 card in my lap, I tried to imagine how I’d feel if all seven of my kids died in an accident. Was this the one fear, the one loss to write down? As I thought about it, an even worse scenario came to mind. What if my children had to suffer intensely, and I couldn’t help them?

I wrote it on the card: “to see my children suffer.” Our leader then asked whether or not we could entrust God with what we’d written down.

Last night Birgitta and I, in talking about Christ and the crucifixion, thought maybe we should view the movie PASSION OF THE CHRIST. We’d seen it seven years ago when it came out, but not since. Both of us remembered the raw torture inflicted on an innocent Jesus as shown in the film. It had been difficult to watch. But we decided to do it as one small way to participate in the Lord’s suffering.

The two-hour plot detailed Jesus’ last 12 hours and was just as wrenching as we’d remembered. This time through, I also noticed the secondary storyline of his mother, Mary. Although Scripture doesn’t describe her emotions on that last day, it does tell us she was there, focusing on her son and grieving.

In the movie, as Mary watches Jesus suffer physical torture, she endures emotional torture. Of course there was no comparison between the intensity of the two, and we’ll never know the extent of Jesus’ pain as he bore the sins of the world. But on the sidelines, Mary’s mother-anguish looked much like the fear I’d written on my 3×5 card.

She’d always known something terrible was going to happen to her Spirit-conceived firstborn, since he was the God-son whose name meant “to save the people from their sins.” And yet she stood at the base of the cross looking up at this precious one in such terrible pain and bore her own pain with courage.

She entrusted it to God for his purposes, and I must do the same.

“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene… Jesus saw his mother there…” (John 19:25,26)

Cravings

Posted on March 13, 2011 by Margaret

I’ve battled the bulge my whole life. Even in childhood photos I was the “pleasantly plump” one, but once I reached high school, plump wasn’t pleasant.

Before college, I dreaded gaining the “freshman 15” but fell in line with the averages, finding those 15 and a few more. Transferring schools the next year must have given me unconscious permission to do it again, because I found another 15 at my new college.

Senior year I got serious about my eating habits, trying one fad diet after another: grapefruit and eggs, meat only, cabbage soup. Then came food-substitutes in the form of drinks, cookies and frozen bars. And when I got desperate, there was fasting.

But each diet was just a stepping stone to binging, because all that deprivation led to craving comfort. And what better comfort than food? The lost pounds always came piling back, and by graduation, 200 pounds was in my not-too-distant future.

I thought about food non-stop, what I should or shouldn’t eat, how long since I last ate, when I could eat next, what I would eat that I shouldn’t, and on and on the mental dialog raged.

Marriage and seven babies didn’t help. After each pregnancy and birth, stress-eating packed on another 10 pounds during the baby’s first year.

Eventually it was, “Welcome to menopause,” when a woman’s hormones go through a second adolescence, but backwards. It’s fruit-basket-upset time, and nothing that worked before, worked then.

Sometimes I think about Eve (of Adam-and-Eve fame). When God put them in his garden, food was abundant, and they ate as much as they wanted. They’d never tasted Krispy Kremes, biscuit gravy or Snickers bars and had unspoiled natural appetites for the fruits and veggies around them.

God gave them taste buds, a sense of smell, and eyes to appreciate the food available to them. They probably oooh-ed and ahhh-ed as they discovered the tartness of a pineapple, the scent of a strawberry and the green of a kiwi. The fact that eating was made to be a thrill for the senses was God’s special gift to us, although it came with the caution to be self-controlled.

But anything good can be made bad by taking it to an extreme. We can spend too much time, money, energy and focus on behavior not meant to dominate us. It isn’t God’s fault. We’re the ones who turn blessings into curses.

Although I’m thinner now than in past years, it’s probably a byproduct of Nate’s absence. Because he’s not coming home to share dinner as he used to, I don’t cook much. Even so, I still play endless mental games with food and must repeatedly submit to God’s headship in this area. None of it is easy.

For all of us who have to wage war against appetites that are difficult to control, serenity will one day come. God will defy the odds and make all things good again, including our appetites. And from what I hear, the all-you-can-eat heavenly banquet table is going to be absolutely sumptuous!