Easter Lily

As I walked out to the garden shed, I noticed my bedding of Easter lilies had broken ground and were preparing to bloom, right on time, right near Easter. I wondered why the early church had attached the name of a pagan fertility goddess, Ishtar, to the holiest day of Christianity.  Well, whatever the reason, I do like that these flowering plants burst out of the ground and bloom just in time for Passover. 

Jesus rising from the grave, springing back to life is paramount to a Christian’s faith. It’s our great hope and God’s promise to us all that we too will be reborn.  By studying prophecy, recorded hundreds of years before Jesus Christ was born, you will begin to see how the Messiah fulfilled Passover by becoming “the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” 

Five hundred and some odd years before Jesus of Nazareth rode into Jerusalem on a barrowed donkey, the prophet Zechariah wrote in Zechariah chapter nine “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

In the book of Daniel chapter nine the angel Gabriel gives Daniel a prophecy about when the Messiah would appear. “And after sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself;” What is utterly striking is that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday on the exact day predicted by Gabriel. 

If you combine the sixty-two weeks (of years), from the book of Daniel chapter nine, with the command to rebuild Jerusalem by King Artaxerxes, the date given in Nehemiah chapter two, it predicted the exact day Jesus rode into Jerusalem. We now call that day Palm Sunday which would have coincided with the 10^th of Abib, four days later on the 14^th of Abib Jesus was crucified.

Upon further study, the gospel accounts of the Messiah’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem described how  a large crowd had showed up to lay palm branches and cloaks on the road before the donkey. As they lay their branches on the road, not only were they making straight the way for the coming King, they were also shouting “Hosanna” or “save now!” which was prophesied in psalm one hundred-eighteen.

It is tragic how many Christians don’t understand these truths of scripture. What is more tragic is the fact the people of Jesus’ day didn’t recognize the full extent of what Jesus was coming to do. Even the religious leaders didn’t recognize that the Lord was fulfilling the feast of Passover which devout Jews had been celebrating every year since their exodus from Egypt. 

As Jesus rode into the Temple He was declaring and presenting Himself for inspection as the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. Jesus was without spot or blemish. He arrived on the 10th day of Abib and would be slain on the 14th day as was outlined in the book of Exodus chapter twelve. Unfortunately, the religious Jewish leaders were blind to this dispensation of God’s plan to redeem mankind through the Messiah’s death on a Roman cross.  

The last four days of Jesus’ life culminates on Wednesday at sundown on the Jewish feast of Passover. It is recorded in the gospel of Luke chapter twenty-two that Jesus said “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”

Then after the cup was passed and the bread broken Jesus washed the feet of all the disciples. He did this to quench an on-going dispute, among His disciples, as to who was the greatest. 

It was a dark night indeed as the Son of God was arrested, beaten, falsely accused and illegally tried at night. The Messiah, Son of God would be nailed to a cross and left to die a slow, agonizing death. As horrible as it sounds the crucifixion of Jesus was actually God’s greatest triumph that redeemed mankind once and for all. However, the story doesn’t end at His death, for three days later the lifeless body of Jesus would return with life!

So there I am, standing looking at how striking my Easter lilies are as they push their way up and out of the ground. They were so beautifully adorned in their new spring clothes and looked as if they were stretching up towards the Sun thanking God for their new life. As several thoughts dawned on me, I offered up a smile in thankfulness for my new life in Jesus Christ. He is risen!

Patience

 “Life is change” said the elderly woman who sat across from me at the Volvo dealership. “That’s what you can count on! Life will not remain the same but is always changing.”  

So there I was sitting, waiting for my car to be repaired, listening to a complete stranger complain about last year’s service on her car. She was nice enough alright but I really hate waiting for anything especially unwanted car service while having to sit patiently trying to think up something intelligent to say. 

 “I hate waiting.” I thought to myself as Mandy Patinkin’s character, Inigo Montoya, almost compelled me to shout out “You killed my father, prepare to die!”

As I looked around the waiting room I noticed several others also nervously waiting. There was an older gentleman who had on “Farmer John” overalls without any shirt underneath, sporting a mass of hair. I tried to imagine him driving his Volvo to the farm to milk the cows when he notices his check engine light is on. Making a snap decision, with no time to run home to change, he drives sixty miles to the nearest Volvo dealership. 

 “Are these cars costly to repair?” I had asked timidly to the valet who grabs my keys and was preparing to take my car around back.  I remembered he hesitated for a moment then turned and said “Oh, yea!” with a smile and smug voice and then just sort of chuckled as my car disappeared around the corner.

Everyone seated with me, in the waiting area, were all trying their hardest to keep it together. I imagined what the service writers and mechanics were plotting behind closed doors. Have you ever taken notice that every single service writer has the title of assistant manager on the nameplate of his kiosk? 

Bored, you Google the part they said you needed and found they had doubled the actual cost on your estimate? In a panic you want to leave but realize that your car is somewhere in back in a thousand little pieces. Helplessly you stare out the service room window wondering if the “new guy” got your car.

When I was younger and a very zealous Christian, I use to pray for patients. Now that I am older and wiser I no longer ask God for that particular virtue. However God, in His unfathomable wisdom, has decided that He needs to bombard me with situations that will aid me in my developing more patience.

You know those days when all the traffic lights turn green just as you approach, you find five dollars on the ground or you receive a letter, with a check, from the IRS admitting they made a mistake on last year’s filing? Unfortunately, for me lately, life has been filled with long waits at red lights, endless searches for parking spaces downtown and long waits for procedures that involve allot of unwanted poking and prodding in some very personal areas.

Several weeks ago my doctor told me I needed an MRI of my brain. Being a cynic I casually mentioned “I hope they find something” to which he immediately looked at me puzzled? “Something filling the empty space between my ears” I clarified. He smiled shook my hand and I left to go find my car. When I finally remembered where I had parked I noticed the parking meter expired and the meter maid just finishing up placing a ticket under my windshield wiper. 

Two days later I found myself sitting in another waiting room watching a totally different group of people waiting. Their ages ranged from small children to older adults like me. Medical waiting rooms are much more sullen and quiet than car dealerships. Here they charge even larger sums of money for their services so you had better have health insurance or you will soon find yourself homeless. Then they insist on making you fill out a plethora of paperwork and sign papers that state “although the test I’m about to take is safe there is always the possibility I could die.”

Well, all this to say that God is teaching me patients. So as I age, God is reminding me that my life has always been in His hands and that He is still in control. He also wants me to change the way I treat the people He puts in my life. He especially wants me to be kind to elderly ladies at car dealerships. “Life is change” said the elderly woman who sat across from me at the Volvo dealership. “That’s what you can count on! Life will not remain the same but is always changing.”  So you better have patients.

Forgetfulness

 As I sat there, glancing out at the rain in the stillness of the early morning, I suddenly remembered that I had unfailingly forgotten to set my clock forward an hour. So when I looked at the clock, which digitally and joyfully lit up red proclaiming it was eight o’ clock it was in fact nine.  I detest having to reset all the clocks in my house twice a year and think that whoever came up with the idea of daylight savings time should be keelhauled, that is if a ship of considerable enough breadth can be located.

Usually, the realization that I had forgotten this small, seemly insignificant fact and now would be late for church wasn’t such an immense problem. The whole slipup just meant I could just lie around in bed for a few more hours and enjoy a book, catch up on the news or finish a crossword, however, as the main speaker who was suppose to be standing behind the pulpit in an hour I was immediately gripped with fear. 

Forgetting to do some things like take out the trash, make my bed or squirt WD-40 on the bathroom door hinges doesn’t usually make me panic and run for the trashcan but when a hundred or so people are sitting in a church somewhere staring blankly at the front wall, well, you get the idea.

I still had time to get there, if I could just change into my clothes as fast as Superman. Quickly, while shoving my leg into my trousers, I began to go over the calculations in my head; five minutes to dress, three minutes to brush my hair and teeth allowing twenty-five minutes to drive to church just as the musicians and singers were finishing up with worship. 

Around the same time my blood pressure was beginning to subside I realized my lovely wife had straightened up the house and was now punishing me for being a slob by hiding my sermon notes somewhere in the house.

Reworking my calculations I discovered that I had not anticipated this latest turn of events allotting extra time to complete a search and rescue mission for my missing papers. As I frantically hunted for my notes I managed to step on the cat’s tail, bump into the dog and run into the corner of a poorly positioned living room coffee table. 

As I stood there throbbing with pain, half dressed, I thought that if the daylight savings time guy or girl was still alive and could be found I might have to haul them over the keel twice. 

Forgetfulness is no laughing matter, especially when it comes to leaving a pan on the stove with hot oil. Next on the list would be forgetting to pick someone up from somewhere which comes in at a close third but the absolute worst thing to forget about is spending time with God.

Life today is so busy that at lunch time we often either hastily pull in for fast food or skip it altogether. We have so many diversions to distract us that many times neglect to pray, read our bibles or attend a weekly study. Spending time with our Creator has unfortunately fallen to the bottom of our lists and if you’re anything like me then you don’t even have a bottom to your list. 

King Solomon once stated “Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the well. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.” 

Our days here on earth are numbered and there are only so many breaths we will take in. Therefore, we should make the most of our time for the years are destructive and corrosive. Too many of us continue to throw caution to the winds of time blatantly ignoring the warnings God continually puts in front of us. 

He has set us in this world for only a short time. We are merely pilgrims passing through on our way to eternity. Our lives are like vapor which is seen one moment then gone the next. Where we will spend eternity depends on what we do with our time we spend with our Creator. Putting God first in our lives, making time with Him a priority is a great place to start.

 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever should believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.” 

So while forgetting to set the clock forward might make you late for an appointment, forgetting about God and His Son Jesus Christ will make you miss eternity.