Arrival.

Jesus arrived to
temptation, testing, trial.
rejection, ridicule.

So he healed.
delivered.
prayed.

Did any one dream
that this babe would overcome
and save us all?


Luke 4.

Obedience. The ultimate example.

Today is Good Friday. As I walk through 1 Peter, I arrive, today, at the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy. Who would have thought it, those hundreds of years earlier, that THIS description would be that of the longed-for king. The leader who would come and restore Israel to its former glory and rescue the people from oppression and slavery.

But "The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.
We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,
on him, on him."

This is what Peter says: "They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content to let God set things right. He used his servant body to carry our sins to the Cross so we could be rid of sin, free to live the right way. His wounds became your healing. You were lost sheep with no idea who you were or where you were going. Now you’re named and kept for good by the Shepherd of your souls."

"Although he was abused, he never tried to get even.
And when he suffered,
he made no threats.
Instead, he had faith in God,
who judges fairly.

When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats."
He said nothing back.
He suffered in silence.
He LET GOD be in charge.

My example. Sin often takes over, directing my ungodly responses to difficulty and 'suffering' far more often than I would like, but I am always brought back to this day, to Jesus and what HE suffered.

My difficulties are nothing in proportion to that.
My forgiveness and obedience is called to be everything in response.

Extraordinary

I tend to think of Mark's gospel as being the one which rattles along at breakneck speed: first Jesus did this, immediately he did that... but chapter 17 in Matthew is also breathtaking.

The disciples have the supernatural experience of seeing Jesus completely changed in front of them, talking to people who had been dead for centuries; they even heard God's voice coming out of a glorious cloud of light.

Then Jesus tells them that his cousin John  is the Elijah who would foretell of the coming of the Messiah and starts to tell of the suffering and death he himself would endure.

Mix in an astounding healing where a boy "possessed by evil spirits" (evidently suffering from severe epilepsy) is completely healed, and then the extraordinary story of Jesus telling Peter to catch a fish which will have exactly the right amount of money in its mouth with which to pay the temple taxes and keep the authorities quiet.

And Jesus says: ' “What a generation! No sense of God! No focus to your lives! How many times do I have to go over these things? How much longer do I have to put up with this? Bring the boy here.” He ordered the afflicting demon out—and it was out, gone. From that moment on the boy was well.

When the disciples had Jesus off to themselves, they asked, “Why couldn’t we throw it out?”

“Because you’re not yet taking God seriously,” said Jesus. “The simple truth is that if you had a mere kernel of faith, a poppy seed, say, you would tell this mountain, ‘Move!’ and it would move. There is nothing you wouldn’t be able to tackle.” '

Faith. Faith the size of a poppy seed. This seems impossible: how can you quantify faith as something physical, tangible?

Extraordinary.

Finding Spiritual Whitespace: The Review

Bonnie Gray is the writer behind Faith Barista.com, a lovely blog on spiritual topics themed to all things coffee: quirky and imaginative. She has written the book Finding Spiritual Whitespace about her inspiring, heart-breaking journey to find rest, which garnered Publisher’s Weekly starred review. You can get a copy HERE. I have just finished it, but this is not a book to read quickly: quite the contrary.

I need to start over. I need to re-read - especially the pages, the many many places,  I have pencilled in notes and underlinings and reminders to stop. and think. and revisit. 

Bonnie's book is a journey she has taken involving revisiting painful events in her life. She bravely shares the messiness, the pain and the subsequent healing of memories buried so deep that she didn't know they were there. 

But her body did. She carried those hurtful words and experiences for four decades before she realised how they were affecting her. She became so broken, afflicted by post-traumatic stress disorder, that she could no longer function normally. In the hurt and pain, she rediscovered Jesus' spirit deep within her.

This book, however, isn't just show and tell. Bonnie speaks as friend, inviting the reader in to discover healing and wholeness with her. She speaks of reawakening the soul through stillness and rest and discovering Jesus in new and deeper ways. Facing questions of desire and loss; feelings of desolation; going beyond the obvious.

Bonnie writes tenderly from many different perspectives as she draws us into discovering Jesus in fresh new ways. She encourages the reader to take time to rest; to listen for Jesus' voice; to rediscover innate creativity; and above all, to revisit painful memories in the loving companionship of the Spirit of God. This is not self-indulgent, but healthy. We all need to face those things we have buried long before, learning to cope, to live with shame and hurt that has been buried but affects us without our realising it.

Words cannot do justice to this gem of a book. I found myself sinking in, like drinking a frothy cappuccino through the cream to find the strength of the coffee beneath. This book IS strong: its words offer hope and healing and an invitation to a deeper, more intimate spiritual life.

Beautiful, poetic words. Words to retain, words to inspire, words to encourage. A gift and a jewel from a brave heart.