My entire Church was away yesterday (Easter Sunday). Everyone except me and my 1 year old daughter.
I had options but I elected to stay at home and worship with my daughter and with the use of youtube videos.
After my daughter went down for a nap, I sat down and searched for some of my favorite Easter hymns – Christ the Lord is Risen Today, Up From the Grave He Arose etc and had the strangest problem:
As soon as I started watching videos of these wonderful songs, the tears welled up and I started choking and my voice cracked up whenever I tried to sing along.
This has never happened to me before with such potency so I stopped to work out why I was crying.
The answer? A mixture of grief and joy.
Joy
I don’t have to explain the joy of Easter day, it’s obvious. Jesus has overcome, he’s alive for ever more. Death has lost it’s sting and we are now children of the promise, heirs of the kingdom of God. Easter day is quite possibly the most wonderful day of the year for all Christians.
But why was I grieving?
Robin Hood
It may seem strange for me to grieve on such a joyful day. The day of grieving, if there is one, should surely be ‘good’ Friday. But my grief was not for Jesus or what we did to him but rather for my reaction to what he did for me and what I’m continuing to do to him.
The character Azeem from Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves came to mind. Azeem, played by Morgan Freeman is a Moor, an enemy of the English, yet Robin Hood frees him from jail, thus saving his life.
What is Azeem’s reaction?
Instead of thanking his savior and disappearing into the night, he vows to stay with Robin, following him wherever he may go, until his debt is repaid by saving Robin’s life.
He just dropped everything and went with him, wherever the path took him he went there, never pausing to raise a family or go to work to earn money for food and shelter for his loved ones, he just followed.
Why? because he knew that there is no greater gift than the gift of life and there is no way to repay it except to reciprocate.
My Grief
As I thought about what Azeem did, the example he showed, I realized that I was grieving because I have been in the same position as Azeem and have not been faithful in repaying the debt.
You see, I was saved once too. I was heading for absolutely certain death and my Savior stepped in and gave me the gift of life.
My savior’s name is Jesus – and I have done little to repay him apart from pay lip-service to his greatness.
There is, of course, no way that I can ever fully repay the gift. I cannot save him from death, but that should not stop me from doing as Azeem did and giving every moment of my life to work toward repaying it.
It’s almost like I know I can’t ever repay it so I don’t even bother trying.
In many ways, I’m like one of the nine lepers who got healed by Jesus but didn’t come back to thank him.
That’s not how I want to be. I want to be like Azeem. I no longer wish to grieve over my apathy but rather to truly give my life to my savior.
How about you? Does your life reflect the incalculable value of the gift you have been given?
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Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
Peter,
I understand how you feel. I experience the same and the tears welled yesterday at Sunrise Service when we sang, "How Great Thou Art". Sometimes, I'm sure it is the beauty of the music, but mostly it is either because of the Grace God showed me or the sacrifice Jesus made or my own failure to be all I should be as a Christian. Frankly, I am glad such things make me cry, becaaue we cry over things with matter to us.
Funny, I wrote a post once because Robin Hood came to mind. http://www.nitewrit.com/2008/11/this-band-of-merr… That is the link in case you'd ever care to read it.
Thanks Larry.
I checked out your Robin Hood post today. Great way to link God and RH! 🙂
I know what you mean, Peter. How gracious is our God that we can make a choice today to live a surrendered life and no matter what we've done or not done in the past, He will receive us and fill us up.
Reminds me of the parable of the talents. Jesus says, "after a long time, the master returned." It hit me one day that this was God's mercy, the wicked and lazy servant had day after day, opportunity after opportunity to dig up his talent and do something with it. He never did. I can't go back, but I do have today!
Thanks for the great analogy and reminder, Peter.
Every day I seem to keep it buried!
Great connection there with that parable.
Thanks, Jason. I appreciate you.
I often wonder about what I hold on to for too long…fears, insecurities, my comfort. Then the grace of the Lord reminds me to let go and follow Him, it's such a better journey that way. Thanks for sharing you heart!
Peace,
Jay
Thanks, Jay.
I get what you are saying. I often feel the same way.
Let's do something about it and stop feeling that way together!
"How about you? Does your life reflect the incalculable value of the gift you have been given?"
No. And honestly, I don't know what to do about it. I'm in this cycle of depression and confession over what a woefully terrible disciple I am. But shh — don't tell anyone. I'm pretending to be okay.
You and me both. Except I decided a long time ago I wouldn't keep quiet about how I was feeling, no matter what the consequences.
My guess is that you're not as woefully terrible a disciple as Satan wants to make you think you are, but we in the Church do too much pandering to each other and saying everything is fine when it's not so I will say this:
I think we could all do more. All (or at least virtually all) of us get lured away by the things of this world more often than we'd like to admit so, OK, maybe you could do more. Let's work out how you could do more but also let's not ignore the things you do do, the victories you have, the faithfulness that's evident in you life!
All anyone ever does is tell me to stop beating myself up — so I talk about it less. But, it's true, and I'm stuck.
Yeah, the 'stop beating yourself up' mentality is so endemic in the Church – and it's people who aren't prepared to admit their own failings who say it.
So, what are we going to do? What's the solution?
I have no idea. Keep our fingers crossed and our faces smiling? I'm just so tired of the well-meaning bad advice and the worried looks. I tried being honest… really admitting that I was having a hard time. Then, every time I showed up to any gathering, I got all of these sad, sympathetic looks. "Aw, she doesn't realize how much Jesus loves her. Poor dear." It was unbearable, so I got better. Apparently.
Oooo, maybe the problem is that you don't use Twitter 🙂
Yeah — it could be that I need yet another distraction from Jesus. I guess I should think about that… 😛
I have to admit, I won't be working for Christ in any effort to pay Him back for all He has done for me. What He did in saving me was all grace, and I can't pay any of that back.
However, I can do what the one thankful leper did though. He didn't start following Jesus around working for Him. No….he simply thanked Him. I too, will remain thankful and express that thankfulness to my Lord continually. I will serve him as an expression of my love for Him.
But I won't be trying to pay a debt…even a minuscule piece of one. For me, God does and always will get all the glory for my salvation, for all eternity. I know what my best act of righteousness is like (Isaiah tells me), so I know even on my very best day I'm unworthy. All praise to our glorious God !!!
Very good perspective, Michael.
Thank you!