strong and kind

I'm not sure why the school calendar also goes crazy the week of Easter, but it did, and we've all been hanging in there by a thread! National Honor Society induction, Spring prom, two trips to the pediatrician this week, Maundy Thursday services, Good Friday services, and the normal school, Wednesday night Bible study, etc...it's been FULL. 

Far heavier was the shocking news Monday morning that one of our fellow pastor's daughter was killed instantly in a car accident on her way to school in Jackson that morning. Beautiful, blond, 23. How full the week was of tears and prayers for that precious family, how heavy and different the weight and glory of Easter. Add a gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, hope-clinging funeral to the week. 

I was assigned in the middle to share a short devotional at church on one of Jesus' last phrases, "Woman, behold your son...Behold your mother!" and at first glance, I really did not know what else to say about that. 

'Till I took a breath and stopped. Till I took the kiddos all outside with my Bible and notebook and got them playing so I could pray...Lord, show me something.

Instead He brought instantly to my mind a song Ben and Nora sing every year at their Friday homeschool co-op. Jesus, strong and kind.

He here was, suffering greatly, agony, doing what He came to DO. He'd been on divine mission and was at the end, and He was doing it. Gasping. Agonizing. Strong.

And He stepped out of His dying focus for a minute with tender eyes...on human relationships. ALSO a part of His divine mission : community.

And there at the cross, literally at the foot, he took two people who did NOT share blood, and made them family. By HIS blood. There in the middle of His suffering, He anticipated the CHURCH, and made family through HIS blood two people who were not. 

A different family.

A family who shared His blood. A family marked by self-sacrifice. A family marked by mutual responsibility. A family centered on Christ.

This is what He does, strong and kind....takes away the sins of the world AND plants entirely different kinds of community, different kinds of family.

I couldn't help but think of my mom, suffering those last weeks in the hospital, praying endlessly for the future gaps she would be leaving, almost unaware in her suffering that I was in the room listening. I heard her pray for the gaps in my dad's life. I heard her pray for the Lord to send a mother to watch my sister play softball, to sit where she should be sitting. I heard her pray for the Lord to fill the gap she was leaving at my future wedding, at my brother and sister's future weddings. I heard her pray for the Lord to send men and women to fill the gaps she was leaving for future grand-babies. In her suffering, she focused on relationships in a totally self-sacrificing and Christ-centered way.

It's why we can't just be individual Christians who don't go to church. It's why we can't live as monks on poles, worshipping God and focusing on Him but entirely neglecting mutual-care and relationship. It's why it doesn't MATTER how broken the church is! We've gotta be it, in it, a part of it, Woman, behold your son! Friend, behold your mother!

It says at the end of that passage in John that from that moment on, John took her home with him and lived as if she were his mother. From that moment, Jesus said HIS blood made them TRUE family.

What did He NOT do that Good Friday?? What good work did He NOT complete with Easter? Not just saving us from our sins...not just redeeming pain...not just defeating death...not just making heaven possible...not just atoning for us...not just filling all the gaps...not just paying the price...not just laying in the beds that WE'VE made...not just drinking the cups of God's wrath WE've absolutely poured for ourselves...He also showed us what HIS family looks like...and led the way.

man. 

the richness.

Mallory, my sister because of JESUS blood, is whole and with Him and finally complete, no more crying, no more pain. Her parents, my family because of Jesus' tenderness, can be carried again and again to His throne, tears in His eyes with them, by me. My parents, whole and free and His name on their foreheads are not missing out on anything, but the Lord has filled their gaps again and again with Himself....

Again and again the Lord has been on His mighty throne doing important work in my life and in yours, and looks down at us with tenderness and love, and moves His people into place to be JESUS in our lives.

Oh Easter.

I needed you today.  King Jesus, strong and kind.