Defends.

May is my favorite.

~~~
I have played piano for a long time, some of you may know.
And while I don't do it nearly as often as I should, or not by any stretch of the imagination nearly as often as I used to---well----actually----that's exactly the problem.
So then the other day when a situation happened that made me feel like a terrible human being and subsequently had me feeling a little overwhelmed, as I sat down to play the piano (Claude Debussy to be exact) to try to figure things out, to my chagrin it didn't solve any problems.
No.
Rather, I was just made very aware of how I don't play piano all that well anymore. And I don't do Debussy justice anymore.
Because, like I said, I don't play often.
And all of the sudden all that skill, all those 13 some plus years of weekly lessons, all those hours and hours practicing for all of those competitions mean virtually nothing and I feel like I have nothing to show for it.

Yes, I realize that is not entirely true.
But that's how it feels.
It feels like my skills are terribly ruined.

Since I was then in really no mood to be at the piano (because remember, I was going there for some semblance of comfort, not to be reminded of my own startling inabilities I am all too familiar with), I went and continued in my devotions, which that day found me in a place I more often than not am not in: the New Testament.
But for whatever reason I was in I John. A good little book, I have known this for years, but admittedly it's not one I frequent.
And since I can't give you the book's outline from memory, I was walking through it's sentences and phrases and truths rather slowly that morning, wanting to grasp what maybe I have missed before or taken for granted.

Isn't the Holy Spirit really good? Making it so that I can be reading a book I have read numerous times and all of the sudden I can see it differently? All of the sudden the Holy Spirit connects His words to my current life.
What a good God.

Because there in I John is this little bitty verse that says, "But if anyone does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One" (I John 2:1b)

As I sat there, struck with those words, all I could think was, "But I don't think I am much that's worth defending." After all, hadn't I just had a morning of feeling like a terrible person and hadn't I been made aware that I am squandering years and years of practice and honing of skill, and wasn't I even more acutely aware of a less than perky attitude that was then residing in my heart?

So what, I wondered, could really be worth defending? Why does he, this great God who cares enough to speak directly to me, want to defend me? Of all people? Surely there are better candidates.

Francis Schaeffer refers to human beings as "Glorious Ruins." Created in the image of God, we are more glorious than we could ever imagine. Yet, having fallen, we are more ruined than we might ever comprehend.

Kind of like my piano playing skills these days, I thought.
Glorious Ruins.

Listen, Claude Debussy is up there with the best of them; his works are masterpieces. They deserve someone to do them justice.
Not someone like me with ruined fingers.

But that's when it hit me. That's why he defends me. Because I am the ruined one. I am his gloriously {ruined} masterpiece (Eph 2:10) and he, like any artist who would still defend his vandalized work of art, making his correct claim that he can fix it, restore it, put it back to the way it was supposed to be, defends me before the Holy Father

Whoa.
He thinks I am worth defending.
He, the Righteous One.
Me, the Ruined One.
And he looks at me as his masterpiece that has only been played by ruined fingers and says, "I can make that ruin glorious again, but let me play the tune; I know what her life is supposed to sound like."
See Wolfies, that's why he defends us. He saw us before we were ruined. And he can see how we will be restored. He thinks you are worth restoring.
He thinks you are worth defending.
So he does.

Passed Over.

So something like a week (ish) ago I said, "Yeah, yeah, next week I will write something to you about Easter"
I know you never thought it was coming but today, babies, it's coming.

I am sure none of you care to remember, but I was not in the Christmas spirit this past winter holiday season, and with that memory still raw in my mind, I prayed all that Easter week that I would be impacted by Easter this year. For certainly I needed one holiday to resonate inside of me.

Which leads me to a thought: Why in the world don't we make nearly as big of a to-do about Easter as we do Christmas?
Think long and hard about it. And then be comforted knowing that I am going to make a big to-do from now on.

But anyway. I wanted to be impacted by this holiday, really get into the whole meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ.

Which, to a woman like me, that can only mean one thing: I spent some time reading about the first Passover in Exodus.
: )
Yes, it's true. I just can't get over this feeling I hold strongly to that if you don't know your Old Testament then your New Testament won't have nearly the same bang for its buck (and I wanted Easter to have bang for it's buck, remember). Because just reading the New Testament is like starting a book half way through. Characters don't really make sense, you have no idea about past histories between people, and you're totally left guessing as to why in the world they keep going on and on about that time they were in Budapest.

Wait, what?!?

Nevermind.

Basically it's like this: Have you ever been enjoying dinner with people and all of the sudden a handful of them start telling stories about people you have never met (but apparently everyone else knows), having adventures you were not a part of (but apparently everyone else was), and you just sit there and think, "I don't have the foggiest idea what you are talking about right now, but gee, it sure sounds fun; wish I had been there..."
Yeah.
That's basically what happens when you just read the New Testament.

But I will get off my soap box (for this post) (maybe) (doubtful).
Just read the Old Testament...

And in this conviction, spurred on by my desire to see Easter differently, there I was. With Moses. In Exodus. In Egypt. Watching the whole place fall apart.
If you are not familiar with the story, go read it right now (Exodus 11 and 12).
At this point in the story we enter in to find everything in commotion. God has just brought all kinds of plagues on the people and lands of Egypt because of their ruthless oppression of the Israelites and because of their worship of false gods.
The place is a mess, I can only imagine.
Yet God is not finished. There is still one more thing to be done; judgment had to be exacted upon those false gods Egypt clung to (12:12). So the only true God sends a curse upon the firstborns. Firstborn sons, that is.
And if there is anything we know as Christians, it should be this: When God says it, it happens.
So the curse was placed and it was going to come to fruition. The oldest sons in all the land were condemned because the people had followed gods that were not God.

In the very essence of God's character, though, there is always a protection offered. For those who called upon his name, God gave instructions for how to remain in his covering. The Israelites were told to "take a lamb for his family....Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs...The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you..." (12:3,7,13)

Whoa.
Whoa whoa whoa.
This kind of language should make the buzzers and alarms and bright flashing lights in your mind go bonkers.

Because it did mine (and who wants to be alone when your brain is going off like a pinball machine?).

False gods.
Judgments.
First born.
Curse.
Condemned.
Lamb.
Blood.
Pass over.

See, if I had just skipped more than half of the story and gone straight to when Jesus comes on the scene in the New Testament, I would have missed more than half of the story.
Because there in the New Testament I see all this language; phrases and words that can make you go, "Yeah, I live two thousand years after all this happened, I wish it talked about stuff that could cross time and space and generations and mean something to me today," UNLESS of course, you knew that language like that had already crossed time and space and generations to get to the time of Jesus, and Wolfies, let me tell you, language like that is still crossing time and space and generations, and--get this-- it still means something to us today.
It meant something to me this Easter.

Because, see, here is the deal. That morning as I read this story again, Jesus made more sense. His story, and all this Easter talk about death and resurrection and something we call Salvation was not just a stand-alone event that happened out of nowhere, was based on nothing, and has no personal significance to us anymore today. Jesus is the continuation (and final completion) of what God has been doing for thousands of years.

A completion of what God did in Egypt that day when the plague came.

Because it's the same story. If you read the Bible, as well as any history in general, you will find out that it's been the same song and dance since Adam and Eve.
Since the Fall there have always been false gods, because there has been a lack of trust in the one true God. And since there are false gods there have always needed to be judgments. And there have always been firstborns and curses and condemnations...

...And therefore we have always needed lambs and blood and passovers.


Bingo.

Suddenly it's all clearer to me. Jesus is the "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," (John 1:29) because we have always needed the blood of spotless lambs to cover over sin, for "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins" (Hebrews 9:22).  And in Egypt that day God struck down all of the firstborns because upon them the curse had been placed. But in Jerusalem that good Friday God turned things on their head and struck down HIS firstborn....
Why?
Because upon ME the curse had been placed (Romans 3:23). And so the second person of the Trinity took that curse upon himself, to reconcile us back to God (II Cor. 5:19). "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.' He redeemed us..." (Galatians 3:13-14a).
And salvation came to those Israelites that night in Egypt, why?
Because they had covered their homes with the blood of a spotless lamb.
And salvation still comes to me, to you, to whoever receives it, why?
Because we cover ourselves in the blood of the perfect, spotless Lamb of God.
And just like that dark night in Egypt, when God sees that blood he still passes over us...

I wish I could convey these in words more eloquent than what I just typed. I wish I could put into phrases the way it works in my brain, but tonight I can't.
All I know is that this Easter I saw Jesus twice. I saw in Exodus how he made a way for salvation, and I saw in all those New Testament passages we read in church how he is STILL making a way for salvation.
Because it's what he does, Wolfies. He is the God who saves. It's his blood and his alone. That's how it was 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem, 6,000 years ago in Egypt, and today the same wherever you are; it's his blood, still crossing all that time, space, and generations, still passing over all of our sin.