Category: Spiritual

Enslaved or Redeemed?

When the Israelites saw the Egyptian horses, chariots, and warriors bearing down upon them in the hollow of the mountain with the sea at their side, they forgot everything they had seen over the previous year. They forgot the devastation wrought in Egypt, devastation that had never been seen in a thousand years of Egyptian history. They forgot how their masters had voluntary enriched them as they exited the land, overflowing their baggage with gifts of gold and silver. They forgot that God had so impressed a heathen nation with His sovereignty that many joined themselves to the Israelites in exodus.

In that moment of panicked forgetfulness God’s power to save them never even occurred to them. All they could see was death ahead of them. In that moment the future was too hard, too frightening. They considered even the soul-crushing slavery of Egypt easier than the promise of redemption. They rejected the payment for salvation.

Fortunately for them, God had a long plan for them. On that occasion the moment of redemption would be what taught them to trust the Redeemer. All they had to do was “stand” and “be quiet” while the flood that revealed their road to freedom drowned their enslavers. It was an undeniable lesson, the first of many.

A thousand years later, the remnant of Israel would be offered a different kind of redemption. Jesus would tell them to know truth, the truth of Him, and they would be truly free. Their response was to deny their enslavement, deny the long plan promised by that flood that freed them the first time, and create a new flood of the Savior’s blood to crash down in judgment over their own heads. Only afterward would they understand the redemption of that flood, the redemption they could have seen so easily if only they had remembered to “stand” and “be quiet.”

Today God’s people have been redeemed. The long plan is accomplished, and we are no longer enslaved. Yet time and again when given the opportunity we so easily slip back into those chains of doubt, fear, misplaced reliance on fickle masters and cheap promises. Like the Israelites, we face an uncertain present and decide that at least when we were enslaved we knew what we were getting. It may not have been fun, but it was familiar and we didn’t have to think about it. It felt safe.

What if the Israelites had refused to stand and be quiet? What if they had flown the flag of surrender and allowed Pharaoh to reclaim them? What if they had returned to the uncomfortable security of slavery? What if they hadn’t endured the deprivation and difficulty of the wilderness road? What if they had never stepped across the river into the land of promise? What if they had never allowed themselves to be redeemed?

Moment of Truth

It was three in the afternoon. The hilltop and city walls were lit with torches that smoked and sputtered. The sun had disappeared at noon and not even a single star could be seen in the unnaturally dark sky. Crowds of people shoved against a perimeter of Roman shields, shouts and raucous laughter filling the eery darkness. Behind the crowd near the city, desperate weeping could just barely be heard by a careful listener, but went unheeded by anyone. A stern-faced centurion stood within the perimeter at the base of three rough posts on which hung three men. Their bodies dripped sweat and blood from uncountable wounds, and their labored breathing and cries of pain could be heard even above the crowd.

Though one of the crucified men railed furiously at the crowd and echoed their taunts, and another hung limp and unresponsive, the crowds attention seemed to be focused on the man hanging on the center pole. His body was so badly mauled as to be barely recognizable, and sticky blood oozed from the thorny crown shoved deep into his skull. A moment before he had uttered a single cry of abandonment, his voice filled with pain. It was that cry that had riled the crowd and prompted the weeping.

As the mob began to quiet once more, the man shouted in a voice not weakened by hours of torture, a voice that echoed from the city walls and left a hush hovering over the hilltop. His head fell forward in the silence, his agonized breathing as still as the mob.

Immediately the mountain shook, throwing many in the throng to the ground. Despite the quaking of the earth, a wild shout went up from the mountain, a hideous celebration of death. The weeping women had fallen on their faces and lay wailing in despair, held by a few men who gazed at the dead man with stricken eyes. Only the centurion and his soldiers, fighting to maintain their footing at the top of the rocky hill overlooking the valley, saw what happened beyond the frenzied crowd.

The earthquake had shaken open the many sealed tombs in the hillside, leaving gaping holes out of which walked living figures trailing strips of burial linen. The figures left the tombs and made their way up the mountain into the city, leavimg the centurion gaping in terrified fascination. His eyes travelled to the drooping figure hanging above him, and his trembling knees gave out. He fell against the pole, shaking hands gripping its trunk, forehead resting against lifeless feet. He glanced over his shoulder at the people, who no longer tried to break the shield line now that their hated enemy was dead. No one seemed to have noticed anything that had just happened. Jewish leaders, their meticulously groomed beards stiff over their embroidered robes, haggled with an officer over their approaching holy day almost as loudly as they had mocked the dead man a few moments before.

An old woman, staggering in the arms of a man whose face was drawn and set, approached the crosses through a gap in the gradually dispersing crowd. The centurion rose quickly and stepped away, waving to silence the indignant officers attempting to stop such unlawful proceedings. The woman took his own place at the victim’s feet, stroking them with her fingers and laying her wet cheek in the blood stains. Her companion stared at the lifeless face above, swallowing repeatedly.

The centurion moved hastily away to the edge of the embankment, removing his helmet and running fingers over his closely cropped hair. His eyes went to the sign above the victim’s head and his mind played the man’s last words over and over. He had chosen to die, the centurion realized with shock. He watched more of the dead leaving the tombs, understanding that somehow this man who had behaved so strangely on the cross had been responsible. With sudden conviction, he strode back to the cross and rested his hand on the waiting man’s shoulder. “This man raised the dead but chose to die,” he said simply as the man nodded mute agreement. “He could only have been the son of God.”

What If…

In the book of Mark we read about a man who was deathly ill, plagued with leprosy. This man had nothing left to lose, and threw himself at Jesus feet with a poignant faith born of desperate need. “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

What if Jesus had practiced social distancing? It was the law, after all. The law He had given, in fact. Those who were sick with leprosy (a death sentence at the time and highly contagious) were unclean and anyone who came in contact with them became unclean. Lepers were cast out of society to die a slow, painful, lonely, poverty-stricken death.

What if when the leper fell on his face before Jesus and begged for healing, Jesus had stepped away to a safe distance? What if He had covered his face? What if He had demanded the leper follow the law to be examined by a priest and ritually cleansed before coming into His presence? What if He had ordered every other person nearby to declare themselves unclean from contact with the leper and be ritually cleansed by a priest before allowing them to interact with others, even their own families? What if He didn’t reach out and touch the leper with His own hand, didn’t look into his eyes and say, “I am willing?”

What if the law He had given was not about physical sickness at all? What if it was an object lesson about the importance of separating ourselves from the attitudes and behaviors of those who do not acknowledge God? What if it was about the corruption of a fearful and unbelieving heart? What if it was a reminder to look to Him for heart healing? What if God’s people got it wrong?

What if Jesus had stayed in Heaven? What if He kept His distance from all the corruption of men? What if He didn’t show His face on Earth so that men could know Him? What if He avoided the diseased and the outcasts to appease the misguided and self-absorbed people and to escape their constant verbal abuse? What if He didn’t speak about the depth and the wonder of His covenant, of the Kingdom which is not of this world, and fulfilled the Satan-driven desire of mankind for a perfect and safe physical life? What if He avoided the anger and rejection that tortured His body and broke His heart, that nailed His physical body to a cross and lifted His love so high that no one could avoid seeing it?

What if He didn’t come to be safe or comfortable or admired? What if being saved is not about being safe? What if following His example means I will look different, that I will never be accepted, that I will face misunderstanding and abuse at the hands of other humans? What if I stand beneath His cross, facing the world maskless, fearless, limitless, reaching out to hold the hands of the hopeless and lift them out of the pit?

What if?