The month of March draws to a close. Early mornings are increasingly crisp and when the afternoon shadows grow long, one can hear the reedy voice of Winter calling. It is a time of gathering in firewood and making hearty, strengthening meals. This is also the time of year in which we first arrived in the mountains, our new life still so thrilling and unfamiliar. The daunting task of building our wooden home on a wild and forrested hillside, was tempered by the beauty of Autumn unfolding around us. The scent of Wattle fires, the changing moods of the mountains, bejeweled spiderwebs, Knysna Loeries in flight, the call of a Jackle Buzzard, deep silence, star-spangled night skies... These, and so much more, have all become so part of our existence here, that it is strange to imagine that it was ever different.
3 April
After a warm weekend filled with laughter and sweet togetherness, Monday dawns grey, wet and muddy. Distant rumbles and flashes of lightning cause the dogs to cower and the cats to curl up tight against each other. On days like this, with the mist closing in around us, the world and it's woes can feel very distant. The cocoon of our home a ship becalmed on the clouds.
Celebrating Palm Sunday and the triumphal entry of our humble King Jesus into Jerusalem, reminded me of all the prophesies that were fulfilled and all the promises that God has kept. While it seems so clear to us now, I wondered if there was even one in the jubilant crowd waving their palm branches and shouting "Hosanna!", who knew what was to come for this God-man whom they were hailing as their earthly King. And what it would accomplish, how all of history up to that moment, had been pointing to, and leading up to what was unfolding before their eyes.
On that day, the Passover Sunday before He was crucified, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a borrowed donkey’s colt, one that had never been ridden before. The disciples spread their cloaks on the donkey for Jesus to sit on, and the multitudes came out to welcome Him, laying before Him their cloaks and the young branches of palm trees. They hailed and praised Him as the “King who comes in the name of the Lord” as He rode to the temple, where He taught the people, healed them; the same people who would condemn Him three days later...
Jesus’ main purpose in riding into Jerusalem, was to make public His claim to be their Messiah and King of Israel in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. In Matthew we read that the King coming on the foal of a donkey was an exact fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9, “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Jesus rides into His capital city as a conquering King and is hailed by the people as such, in the manner of the day. The streets of Jerusalem, the royal city, are open to Him. No longer does He tell His disciples to be quiet about Him, even when the Pharisees ask him to do so. (Matthew 12:16, 16:20) Instead, His response to the Pharisees is: "if these were silent, the very stones would cry out!"
Sadly, the praise lavished on Jesus was not because they recognized Him as their Saviour from sin. They welcomed Him out of their hunger for a messianic deliverer, someone who would lead them in a revolt against Rome. And even though they did not believe in Jesus as their Saviour, they nevertheless hoped that perhaps He would be a great temporal deliverer. So they hailed Him as King with their many hosannas, still recognizing Him as the Son of David, who came in the name of the Lord. But when He failed in their expectations, when He refused to be their champion against the Roman occupiers, the crowds turned on Him. Within just a few days, their hosannas would change to cries of “Crucify Him!” (Luke 23:20-21). Those who hailed Him as their King would soon reject and abandon Him. And our Lord, who knows the hearts of men, suffered and died for them still.
He saw me, before I was formed in the secret in my mother's womb, and He knew... He saw all the times I would turn away from Him, all my selfish pursuits, all my defiance, my oft-hardened heart, my busyness, my pride, my cowerdice. And still...
4 April
The busyness and distractions of this time of year can easily reduce what Jesus suffered to a formula rather than an event. A method for dispensing forgiveness rather than the horrors my Saviour endured so that I could be free. There is a poem that was written by Christina Rosetti in 1866**, that really speaks to the heart that fears or feels coldness or indifference:
"Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter, weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon –
I, only I.
Yet give not o’er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock."
But through Ezekiel 36:26 God promised: "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh."
Yes, I am sinful, broken, flawed, but through and with Jesus I too, have passed from death to life, a new creation. And even as I, with pangs of guilt, think that I should "feel" more at this time, I hear Jesus' anguished last words on the cross echo through the ages: "It is done". All He asks of me is that I love and follow Him, submit to Him, be faithful to Him until death. And even if that sounds hard, even impossible to do, just listen to the next verse in Ezekiel 36:27 "And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes..."
May you also be encouraged by knowing that this precious blood-bought gift of forgiveness and grace was and is sufficient. Our King and Lord Jesus has paid it all, all to Him we owe. But that does not mean that there is a debt to be paid from our side. All God asks from us is that we love Him, with all our hearts, all our minds and all our strength. And to let our obedience stem from a heartfelt desire to please Him. True service and holiness are the outworking of the Holy Spirit, the overflowing of a life dedicated to the glory of God. Every day of the year.
David understood what God wanted when he prayed: "You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it, you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, you God, will not despise." ~ Psalm 51:16-17
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** The poem's title is "Good Friday", and the reason why I omitted it, is that the reasoning behind saying that Jesus died on Friday and was resurrected on Sunday, doesn't add up. Even though it does not change our salvation, it is important to me to hold to the biblical explanation of timelines, and to test what we've accepted to be right and true against God's Word. Please feel free to research this for yourself, this is one good resource to use:
https://www.christianity.com/jesus/death-and-resurrection/the-crucifixion/on-what-day-did-jesus-die.html
Resources: desiringgod.org
gotquestions.org
