The God of Resurrections

…they took palm branches and went out to meet Him. They kept shouting.”Hosanna! He who comes in the name of The Lord is the Blessed One—the King of Israel!”

Several years ago, I found an article about a scientist who was given three 2000 year old date palm seeds that were found in the 1970’s at a dig at Masada. She worked with them, and one of them germinated and is thriving. It’s an ancient Judean Date palm, extinct for almost two thousand years! Extinct! At the time that article was written, it was the only one of its kind in the world, and was the oldest seed of its size to ever be successfully germinated–ever!

The Romans clear-cut the date palm forests, obliterating them, due to their significance to the Jews–religiously and culturally. The parent of the little palm was a mature tree at the time of Christ! I wonder… did someone climb that tree, cut some fronds, and wave them, crying out, “Hosanna” when Jesus entered Jerusalem, so very long ago? The dates from that palm tree were taken to Masada, where they lay buried for millennia.

God has a relationship with all of His creation—en masse to the minutia. He spoke of rocks having the potential to worship him, He shared His heart regarding falling sparrows, He reminded us that He’s the one who adorns the flowers… He even cursed a fig tree when it didn’t bear fruit during the harvest season.

Pondering this, I can’t help but wonder if God remembered the palms that gave their branches to be waved in worship as Jesus entered Jerusalem on the back of a young donkey, just days before Calvary. Did God bless them for it, and after all knowledge of Judean Date Palms had passed away, after all possibility of life was long gone, did He arrange for them to be found? To be resurrected?  

In this season of commemorating the death and burial of Christ… of worship and celebration of His resurrection, I’m reminded that God can and does do the impossible—even raising the dead. Because with God, nothing is impossible! He is a God of resurrection… even regarding the details of our lives. He can bring to life what has lain “dead” beyond memory or hope!

If He’s interested in the plants and rocks, causing history to work itself around His will regarding them, won’t He cause history to work around His will regarding you? Hopes, dreams, relationships, callings… they may seem dead, but underneath the daily dirt, perhaps there’s life, after all. And like the ancient Judean Date Palm named, Methuselah, at the right moment, God will bring a resurrection. May it be so. Amen

Who Do You Say Jesus Is?

Have you ever been found guilty by association? Lumped in with the wrong crowd, slandered, gossiped about? Have your motives and convictions been maligned? Maybe you’ve been misunderstood and misrepresented because people thought that you’re someone you’re not. If so, maybe you wondered what they said when you weren’t around to hear it. Behind your back, who’d they say you are, anyway? I’ve certainly wondered at times. Surprisingly, Jesus did, too. Walking along a dusty road one day, accompanied by his closest friends, He asked, 

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

Without missing a step, his friends repeated the latest gossip-gone-viral… “John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets…”

“But who do you say I am?” Jesus returned.

Well now.

That brought them up short–stopped all but one of them right in their tracks. For all the world, it looks like Jesus’ best friends were stumped and couldn’t answer the question. What was running through their minds? Did they hesitate, fearing it was a trick question, or had they never really given it any serious thought–who is Jesus, anyway? Maybe, like us, they were more accustomed to asking, “Who do you think you are?” than “Who do I think you are?”

It’s the ultimate question, really. Eternal destinies hinge on the answer. So let me ask it of you: Who do you say Jesus is? Do you know? Or do you think you know because of what you’ve seen on TV, or because an unbelieving scholar with an agenda wrote a book you took as gospel? Do you think you know who Jesus is (or isn’t) because you’ve seen hypocrisy, pain, and evil in this world? Does your answer parrot the popular gossip and myth… He’s a wise man, a great teacher, the reincarnated so and so, one of the prophets…  Or, like Peter, can you answer, “You are the Christ, the son of The Living God.” Matthew 16:16

Behold the Kindness and Severity of God

Written: JULY 10, 2015 ~ 

I live in a place that’s tucked up against the east side of a steep mountain range. On the other side of the mountains it’s green and lush… on my side? Desert. The sun shines 300 plus days a year. I like the sun, but the rain is something that I long for. It doesn’t rain often, but I know when it’s coming… Almost always. It must be related to barometric pressure because, twenty four to forty eight hours out, I get a particular type of headache and I’m not often wrong. There won’t be a cloud in the sky, the meteorologists might not even know it’s going to rain, but I know. Rain is coming.

Something is stirring in my spirit that reminds me of my weather headaches. I close my eyes and scan the the horizon. I can’t see a thing, yet, I know something’s coming, just out of sight. I can feel it… a sort of barometric pressure in my soul. And just like the wind that barrels down before the rain, a thundering Scripture precedes this storm:

“Behold then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off.” Romans11:22  

I wonder… Does anybody else feel it coming?

Addendum: Funny how one of the most prevalent phrases in the last few years has been, “The storm is upon us,” and so it is. Best take stock of things and decide on which side of that Scripture we’re going to land.

Manna For The Day

“He humbled you by letting you go hungry; then He gave you manna to eat, which you and your fathers had not known, so that you might learn that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of The LORD.” Deut 8:3

Recently, I discovered some old journal entries from years, even decades ago–testimonies of God reaching down from Heaven, with provision for desperate times. Reading those accounts with fresh eyes remind me that God has always been faithful. It’s good to remember the things God has done for us… individually and corporately.

But, the last couple of years have felt hostile, as if I’ve been led into a wilderness desert existence, what with the plague, collapsed economy, shut-downs and shut-ins, deaths, ice storms, fires, political extremes, family break-ups, moves, shuttered churches…While it’s true that God has led me to the occasional oasis in this desert, I confess, sometimes I miss the way things used to be, even though they weren’t perfect. I hunger for the assurance that God is present in this desert and guiding me forward on this path I’ve not taken before.

Once upon a time, The Children of Israel were led out into a desert, too. Even though that journey was leading them to the promised land, they didn’t like it. Not one bit. They missed the old, familiar things. They’re appetites grew, and they were hungry for the old, familiar things. In fact, they threw a national temper-tantrum, demanding the old, familiar things (please don’t be offended… I’ve thrown a few of my own temper-tantrums, so I can recognize one when I see it). Though they grumbled and murmured, God responded in mercy and gave them manna to eat.

Years ago, my four year old granddaughter and I went out to play in the backyard. As I was going to pick up a ball, she suddenly exclaimed, “What the heck?!” I spun on my heels, surprised by her outburst. Wonder filled her tiny face as she watched an unknown species of bug flutter from the sky and land at her feet. Pure delight sparkled in her eyes and washed over me like a wave. Did you know that, according to Strong’s Lexicon, the literal meaning of manna is: “What is it?!” A question followed with an exclamation point? Sometimes, when unexpected blessings fall from heaven and land at our feet we don’t have the vocabulary to describe them!

Yes, God provides– it’s just that sometimes His provision looks like something we’ve never seen before. I guess the next question would be, how is God providing for us today? Physically? Spiritually, as in equipping us? Perhaps His provision today looks different than it did in the past.

Finally, The Children of Israel were instructed to collect just enough manna for the day’s needs. But some tried to save extra… just in case. No matter if fear of lack, or if greed prompted them–they didn’t trust God to provide for their daily needs and so what they thought they’d been saving up for a rainy day turned into maggots and stench.

Maybe, sometimes, we do that, too–try and save up and hoard God’s provisions, blessings, and encounters from the past just in case He doesn’t show up to provide for us today. It’s a blessing to re-visit the testimonies from the past, but best not to plan on them getting us through the journey… We need fresh manna each day, no matter what it looks like. .

Jesus, The Unpredictable

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD. Isa:55:8

Life as a follower of Christ is many things, but one thing for sure it is not: predictable. Why? Because Jesus is unpredictable. He just does the unthinkable, the impossible, the unexpected, the outrageous. You know what I mean? Stuff like taking a coin from a fish to pay the taxes… spitting in the dirt and then smearing the gooey mud onto the eyes of a blind man to give him sight…  Stuff like delivering a demoniac and then sending the demons into pigs because they asked Him to…  stuff like touching the untouchable, feeding multitudes with a boy’s sack lunch, turning water into wine. He called out the hypocrites, slept like a baby in a swamped boat, walked on water in the middle of a storm, and stood there and took it when all of hell’s fury and God’s absolute justice nailed Him to a cross. He died so that others could live. Nobody saw that coming.

This One I follow? The One by Whom all of the elements are held together? White-hot holiness embodied in flesh? He hung out with a ragamuffin scrabble of nobodies–fishermen, prostitutes, tax collectors, and me.

Not exactly the way you’d expect The Son of God to behave. But He did. And He does. Because He’s like that , you know? Unpredictable. Uncontrollable.

And Wonderful. 

There’s just no telling what He’ll do next.

The Runaway Train

A few years ago, the evening news was filled with the terrifying story of a passenger train that inexplicably accelerated so severely that it jumped the tracks and derailed. Tragically, scores were injured and lives were lost.

“It is an absolute, disastrous mess,” the local mayor remarked. “We do not know what happened here. We do not know why it happened.”

His words are haunting to me. Prophetic even, because lately, I’ve been feeling like I’m on a runaway train, too. Buckled up with me? My nation… my culture. Hurtling towards catastrophe, we’re passengers on the freight-train of demonic deception and it’s accelerating exponentially. Surely, derailment is just around the bend. I’m afraid when we come to a full stop, we’ll be an unrecognizable, disastrous mess. In shock, people will wonder what happened, and ask themselves, “Why?”.

Yet, we’ve been warned. The Bible clearly describes a time of run-away trains, so to speak.

A time when truth is exchanged for lies, when good is called evil and evil, good. When people are filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice… envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity. A time of gossips, slanderers, haters of God… those who are insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless… a time of scoffers, stress, persecution… of doctrines of demons, and seared consciences.

Sound familiar? It does to me. I knew the day was coming, but the lightning-speed arrival of our moral devolution? It sucks the breath right out of me.

The Bible also says, “…evil men and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” 2 Timothy 3:13

If that doesn’t describe a runaway train, I don’t know what does. Once in motion, evil, impostors, deceivers, and the deceived, go from bad to worse.

So, as is often heard these days, “buckle up” Christian. Like it or not, you’re along for the ride. Counter-culture though you be, cultures aren’t the only thing heading for disaster. The entire creation groans in anticipation of the appearance of Christ and the unveiling of His own. Unless and until He intervenes, I fear there’s no stopping this train.

Knowing this, what are we to do? Watch. Pray. Love. Serve. Speak the truth. Stand.