The Vernal Equinox. Light overtakes darkness. New life. New year. Rebirth. Resurrection. Night retreats. Days lengthen. Snow melts, rivers swell, farmers plant, flowers bloom.
Only two days into the month my dear friend who had suffered so much including the seizure last September was quite unexpectedly and suddenly released from jail! He was sent home on house arrest and work release when such things that we had so prayerfully hoped for at his sentencing seemed entirely off the table. He was home before letters i sent were able to get to him. He was in only long enough to develop a heart for the men inside and sense a new calling on his life: prison ministry. Though he'll wear an anklet and be severely limited in his freedoms, he will gladly serve his time knowing when this ends, the sword that had been hanging over his head for years, incarceration, uncertainty, a chain around every plan he made, every dream he dreamed, every hope he had, will be gone. The prisoner was called out of the dark dungeon into new life! Glory be to God!
The following week my wife and i celebrated our thirtieth wedding anniversary. We didn't do anything special. We had a good meal in a nice restaurant but otherwise it was just a day off. But what the day represented, the fact that we were still married to see it at all is a miracle only the God of Grace could pull off! Behind us are years, YEARS of strife and anger and tears and talk of divorce and pain and misery. But God being rich in mercy and according to his great love for us is able to do more than we ask or imagine, and here we are, not just together but in love! The sweetness being all the more dear for the long dark years we have walked, limped, crawled through. i cannot thank the God of redemption enough!
The very next week, still days away from the equinox, my eldest son and his lovely wife welcomed into the world their baby girl! My very first grandchild had to be cut out of her mother but God is good and mother and baby are doing great and we are overjoyed! We could not love her more and just the image of her every time i open my phone is enough to set my heart to skipping over mountains. New life! New joys! New loves! Thank You, Father!
What does it all mean? i surely don't know. i have no great theological points to draw from these two months and these events. i just feel like God was drawing my attention to them in the ways they were ordered and clumped together. Drawing attention to what He was doing. He was faithful and true and good in the dark, he was near, we sought him in our tears and in our laments and in our confusion and storms and He was there, He was our Rock and our Refuge and our Comfort and at times even lessened the blows from what they could have been. i am reminded we have no right to expect good from this world or this life, we have not earned it, nor do we deserve it. Death comes to us all and sometimes before it does we get tastes of it, glimpses, previews. Sin has made all darkness and unless the Light come into the world, the dark would swallow all.
But the Light has come! And built right into the rhythm of the seasons and the rhythm of life are the story line of the Gospel! Redemption and forgiveness not in spite of death, not as a consolation alongside death, but right through death itself! Christ used his own undeserved death, the only man who did have a right to expect nothing but good from God, took the wrath we deserve so we would not have to! So we could enjoy the good things He deserves and expect even more! And here we are, coming up on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox, the time of Passover, the time when the Lamb of God without blemish, His only begotten Son, was sacrificed for us and then rose again to show us who He is and what He's doing, making all things new! Come Lord Jesus, Come!
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