Can I speak in normal dramatic fashion and say "This past winter lasted FOR.EVER…"? When I say this past winter, I'm not just talking about the earth's season. I'm talking about my soul's winter season. This past winter, with many of you, I experienced loss. It was a icy cold winter. And it clinged to my soul though I tried to rid myself of it. I found myself stuck in a mopey depressed-like state . I was negative; grumpy as a matter of fact. I lacked general motivation and my fervor for serving. But as I mentioned it was winter.
Easter is next week.
The last couple of days Pandora has been playing the Easter "Jesus songs". This Sunday in church we sang one of my favorites-When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. Such a powerful song. Simply listening to its words I was reminded of the gift of the cross.
Through the cross we receive forgiveness for our sin, forgiveness for our wretchedness.
Through the cross we receive the gift of life
The gift of hope
The gift of a future winterless forever
What could possibly be an appropriate response to the ultimate gift of the cross?
"Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small"......
As the song goes, if I were able to lay all of nature at God's feet it would still be an unmatched gift to the life Christ brings through the cross. And, of course, the whole realm of nature isn't mine to offer.
I don't control the changing winds and seasons.
In fact, there's not a speck of nature under my control. I'm rather glad too. I'm pretty sure things would go badly if I controlled any portion of nature. I'm thinking of Queen Elsa from the new Disney hit Frozen. Like Elsa, the exposure of my ungloved hand would be enough to send all of nature in a tizzy.
No. Thankfully nature isn't mine.
But a thought struck my tender heart while singing.
There is a realm of nature that is my very own. -My human nature. The complicated emotions are mine. And the ill responses are all mine too. My sorrow and my guilt and my tendency to hang on to each, my hope that is too easily dashed when my feet have taken two steps backward, my fears, my fatigue and my restlessness all originate in my realm of nature. Those things are all mine.
And though the whole realm of earth's nature would be too small a gift, God allows us to offer up a nature (our nature), something rather the opposite to a gift. He allows us rid ourselves of our filthy soul by offering it up to the cross. And then again and again, he bids us come and lay down our long wintery mood, our consumed with trouble, consumed with self, nature.
Newness in Nature.
Not only when I became a child of God, but always the cross stands ready for the offering of my humble gift, my nature. Over and Over.
Can't explain it better than these lyrics by Rend Collective-
My future hangs on this
You made preciousness from dust
Please don't stop creating me
Your blood offers the chance
To rewind to innocence
Reborn, perfect as a child
Oh Your cross, it changes everything
There my world begins again with You
Oh Your cross, it's where my hope restarts
A second chance is Heaven's heart
When sin and ugliness
Collide with redemption's kiss
Beauty awakens by romance
Oh Your cross, it changes everything
There my world begins again with You
Oh Your cross, it's where my hope restarts
A second chance is Heaven's heart
Listen to the song here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6RNJ6HDTpU