Month: April 2019

I’m curious. What do you think of when you hear the word “Easter”? Does that word conjure up thoughts that are all things bunnies and baskets, Easter egg hunts, lilies, and family dinners? Is Easter one of a handful of times you attend a church every year, more out of duty because you have been hurt by the church, or someone in it? Is Easter just another day on the calendar? Is it a genuine celebration of an empty tomb? What does that word mean to you?

When I was a little girl, we attended an annual Easter egg hunt sponsored by our little country  church, usually held the Saturday before Easter Sunday. Coloring eggs and writing our names on the eggs with a white crayon was thrilling. I can still smell the vinegar in the bowls that contained all of those beautiful dyes used to turn our ordinary eggs into unique works of art. On Easter morning, the Easter Bunny prepared baskets and then hid them somewhere in our living room. Because the Easter Bunny knew I was the oldest, he always hid mine in such a way that it was a little harder to find than my younger siblings. Their baskets always seemed to be in plain sight, while I searched. After all of the baskets were found, we ate jelly beans and chocolate bunnies for breakfast and then dressed up in our Easter finery for church. Very often, because my mom and grandma sewed some of our clothes, my dress matched my sister’s dress, and maybe even my mom’s. There were photo sessions and singing and stories of Jesus no longer being dead, but alive….so alive! Finally we all headed to a relative’s house to spend the afternoon with our extended family. Our family is big. There were a lot of us crowded into that little house. We ate until we could eat no more. We played outside, watched football games and took naps. It was glorious.

Here’s the thing. I have a tendency during Passion Week to place all of my attention on the excitement of Sunday. I have grown out of the Easter bunny phase. So have my kids. I truly love celebrating the wonder of Jesus’ resurrection. But the reality is that a lot happened in those seven days between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. This year, I have felt challenged to not just look at the events of that first Easter Sunday morning at the tomb, but at what also happened in the days leading up to the resurrection that many of us are preparing to celebrate.

My church has just completed a 7-week series called, “Last Words”. Each week we have focused on one of the seven statements that Jesus spoke on the cross before he died. This study has been so enlightening. It’s been brutal. It’s been sobering. I am reminded that very often I tend to jump over the agony of the cross and go straight to the Easter “party.” I don’t want to make that mistake this year.

Tomorrow is Good Friday, the day that Jesus was crucified on the cross. The Romans did not invent crucifixion as a form of  capital punishment. The Assyrians did that. But the Romans borrowed this method and perfected the art of crucifixion torture. I have been told by a bible teacher that the average person who was crucified lived on his cross, naked, for three days before dying. The Roman soldiers stayed on guard as the sentence was carried out. Most crucifixions occurred at ground level, near a road, so travelers who passed by could jeer and taunt those awaiting death. The Roman soldiers were there not to guard the convicted, but to prevent the loved ones present at the cross from comforting those who had been condemned.

So Jesus hung there on his cross, between two convicted criminals, in both emotional and physical agony. Never had he felt such physical torture. Never had he felt such rejection by his Heavenly Father. The intensity of his emotional pain was simply off the charts.

The crucifixion, although brutal, was timed so perfectly by God. In Jerusalem, at the time of Jesus, two offerings were made daily to God by the priests in the temple. These sacrifices were called the Tamid sacrifices, and they involved the blood sacrifice of a spotless lamb, perfect and without blemish. The morning sacrifice took place each day at the 3rd hour (9 am) and the evening sacrifice took place at the 9th hour (3 pm). Two lambs were slain in the temple daily to account for the forgiveness of the peoples’ sins.

Do you know what time the bible very specifically says Jesus was nailed to the cross? 9 am!

Do you know what time the bible very specifically says that Jesus died on the cross? 3 pm!

The perfect, spotless, and blameless Lamb of God fulfilled, once and for all, the Tamid sacrifice for all people – past, present and future. This means me and it means you. When Jesus said, “It is finished”, he meant exactly that. His blood paid the forever price for us. Jesus hung on the cross for only 6 hours before he cried, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Then he died. The one who was instrumental from the beginning in creation, the one who could have used his supernatural power to call down heaven’s army to save him, stayed on that cross…not for three days like the average criminal…but long enough to become our forever sacrifice.

The redemption story God was writing had come full circle. Think about it. Jesus was born at night in Bethlehem, but the sky was filled with light from the chorus of angels who heralded his birth. Jesus was crucified at Golgotha during the day, but at noon, the sky became dark as night and stayed that way for 3 hours. In the book of Genesis, it is recounted that after eating fruit from the tree that they had been forbidden by God to eat, Adam and Eve stood behind a tree, naked, cowering in shame. Fast forward to the old rock quarry named Golgotha and we see Jesus, hanging on a tree, naked, conquering our shame. What better illustration of God’s love for all of us. “God does some of his best work through death. While Jesus was being crushed on the cross, he was doing some crushing of his own”. (Quote by Kristi McLelland)

So don’t be afraid to ponder the cross as Easter approaches. Don’t be afraid to explore the intimate death of Jesus. It may not feel like a Good Friday, but without that heart-breaking, horrible act, there would be no Resurrection Sunday. So in my book, that makes Friday pretty great.

I studied nursing in college. One of the first things the nursing program professors taught us was the importance of assessing a patient’s “ABCs”, which stood for Airway, Breathing and Circulation. When assessing patients, we had to determine quickly if they had an open Airway, one that would allow the passage of air into, and back out of, their lungs. Next, we had to ascertain if they were Breathing. Could we see their chest rise and fall with each breath? Could we feel or hear the air moving in and out of their nose or mouth? Third, we had to confirm that the patients had adequate Circulation, or in other words, a Pulse. You can gain a wealth of information by assessing the quality of a person’s pulse. Is it fast or slow? Is it strong or thready? Is the pulse regular or beating in a wildly erratic rhythm? The only observation a nurse doesn’t want to make is that there is no pulse. A heart that stops beating is a heart that is incompatible with life.

I am a TODAY SHOW fan. It is very rare that I am afforded the opportunity to watch an entire morning of TODAY news, special interest stories, cooking segments, and surprise audience makeovers. But I watch when I can. I have grown to love the personalities that greet me from my TV in the morning as I get ready for work. Last Friday, I watched with interest as TODAY said good-bye to Kathie Lee Gifford, one of their fourth hour co-hosts. Kathie Lee had made the decision to move on from her morning TV hosting duties to pursue her dream of making music and movies. I was fascinated as a proverbial list of who‘s who in celebrities was paraded through that final show hour. Each guest wished Kathie well via surprise appearances and video packages. But the most touching of all was a video interview segment of Kathie’s two children, Cody and Cassidy. They spoke of their mom with such love and respect. Cody said that they were often asked what it was like to have such a legend as a mom. His response was, “We didn’t know her as Kathie Lee, the legend. We just knew her as a legendary mom.” But the standout quote of the morning came from Cassidy, Kathie Lee’s daughter and youngest child with former football great, Frank Gifford. When questioned about the best advice that her mom had ever given her, Cassidy responded without missing a beat, “If you still have a pulse, you have a purpose.”

Those words! They took my breath away. Who hasn’t felt adrift in the sea of “What is my purpose”? I think we all have asked ourselves this question at various times in our lives: High School Graduation. College Graduation. Post-Divorce. Post-Job Loss. Widows and Widowers. Empty-Nesters. Post-Retirement. Mark Twain very wisely once said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born, and the day you find out why.”

My thoughts about purpose have changed over the years. When I was younger, I used to think that there was one singular thing, one clearly-defined purpose that I was created to accomplish or contribute to this world.  Early on, I struggled to define that one thing. As the years have passed, my understanding about purpose has evolved. What if, just as the seasons of our lives change, perhaps our purpose for those seasons change with them? The dictionary defines the term “purpose” as the reason that someone or something exists. Ann Voskamp has been quoted as saying “You were made for the place where your real passion meets compassion, because there lies your real purpose.”

But what about when our purpose gets tangled in comparison with someone else’s? What if their purpose seems more exciting, more noble, more high-profile or more worthwhile than mine?

I don’t enjoy running. As a matter of fact, if you ever see me running it is going to be because someone or something dangerous is chasing me. But I have several friends who are runners. Much of their time is spent focusing on 5Ks, 10Ks, half-marathons, full marathons, and training runs. Most of them never win the races they enter. But that fact doesn’t discourage them because they aren’t running to compete against the other runners. They are focused on running THEIR race, beating their own personal record set in their prior race outings. Hebrews 12:1 references runners in a race. It urges these runners to throw off all of the extra weight that may slow them down, and encourages the athletes to run THEIR race with the endurance of a marathon athlete.

Purpose is like that. Bob Goff says, “We won’t be distracted by comparison if we are captivated by purpose.” Figure out where your passion and your compassion meet, and your purpose will be right around the corner. Maybe your purpose is to be a stay-at-home-mom. Maybe your purpose is to open your home to at-risk kids. Maybe your purpose is to foster abused animals, or coach a kids’ baseball team, or volunteer at a local food bank. Maybe your purpose is to always be the kindest person in the room, or to simply love people…all people. You get to decide. But if you have a pulse, you have a purpose. Don’t waste another heartbeat.