There Are Thorns

 I have a routine for my mornings, my disciplined approach to keeping myself saturated in Scripture I would say, my wife and some others who know me well would likely joke that my personality is just far enough across the OCD line to demand it.  After serving my wife and myself coffee and allergy/decongestants it goes something like this: I pray asking God to open His word to me and begin reading in Psalms, the day of the month (for example today is the 22nd of December) determines my stepping off point.  I read the first Psalm, then read the chapter in Proverbs for that calendar day, then a chapter from the other Wisdom books (Job, Ecclesiastes, Song), then return to read the 2nd of the days Psalms by adding thirty to the first number (today's second Psalm is 52) - I then have a track that takes me through the Torah/Pentateuch, the History books, the Prophets, the Gospels/Acts, and the Epistles/Revelation alternating through the days five Psalms by adding 30 each time (22, 52, 82, 112, 142 would be today's five Psalms).  That puts me into at least 13 chapters a day if I stay on task.  Some days I do, and some days I begin chasing tie ins OT to NT, following rabbit trails that the Holy Spirit illuminates, some days I'm so overwhelmed by something I read that I begin praying for a situation I have on my heart realizing how that Scripture speaks directly to a life situation someone in my sphere of influence is facing.  I guess that confirms I haven't really crossed the OCD border given numerous alternative outcomes.  Regardless, it provides a much wider perspective on the whole Gospel message as I see it reiterated again and again from beginning to end and am able to clearly see that the mental divide most Christians have of OT/NT doesn't really apply as stringently as they would like to think.

That's the stage setting for this morning's blog.  As I sat down for my morning devotional readings I started in the first of today's five Psalms, 22.  I didn't make it through my regular track afterward though.  Instead I found myself in the Gospels reading Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, and John 19.  Here's the verses from Psalm 22 that put me there:

1 My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people.
7 All those who see Me ridicule Me; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
8 "He trusted in the LORD, let Him rescue Him; let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!"

16 For dogs have surrounded Me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me.  They pierced my hands and My feet;
17 I can count all My bones.  They look and stare at Me.
18 They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.

All prophetic words written hundreds of years before their literal fulfillment in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah who would save His people, not just Israel, but the nations of humanity who would come to knowledge of Him and call on the one true God to save them, for faith in that God is accounted to us as righteousness and we are taught that there is no other name on earth, given among men whereby we must be saved.  So we find that not only our calendar, but all history truly revolves around the name of Jesus, born to a virgin, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

But beyond those words so literally fulfilled as you read the four Gospel accounts of the crucifixion, are the words of comfort and encouragement recorded in Psalm 22, also quite literally fulfilled for some forty days after the painful verses above.  These verses make my walk worth walking (emphases mine):

21b ...You have answered Me.
22 I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise You.
23 You who fear the LORD, praise Him!  All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, and fear Him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; nor has He hidden His face from Him; but when He cried to Him, He heard.

You see, it wasn't a cake walk for which Jesus was born.  It was the Via Dolorosa (Latin for "the way of grief") for which the baby whose birth we celebrate in just a few short days came.  And yet for the pain set before Him, He endured the Cross, despising its shame, so that He could make a way out of no way, so that you and I could be restored to right relationship, indeed fellowship with God.  The King of the universe set aside His celestial coronet to have a cruel crown of mocking thorns crested painfully on his brow.  So that those words could be fulfilled:  YOU HAVE ANSWERED ME... HE HAS NOT DESPISED THE AFFLICTION OF THE AFFLICTED... WHEN HE CRIED TO HIM, HE HEARD. 

And yet to those looking on and even for Jesus (who knew the full plan) in the midst of the actual pain of the event, it seemed as if God had forsaken Him...

Beloved friends, just as it didn't look like what everyone thought it ought to look like the day Jesus was crucified, so there will be thorns and trials and pains and catastrophes in your life brought about many times by the thoughtless cruelties dealt like so many cards from the hands of our fellow sinful humanity.  I write this after the tragedy of Newtown Connecticut, Sandy Hook Elementary knowing that dozens of lives will find little to celebrate not only this Christmas, but from here on out as the overwhelming senselessness and void left in their life wells up with irrepressible grief beyond what most of us can imagine -- and yet we have this promise made sure that when we cry, He hears.  He redeems the most horrible things dealt out by the hands of sinful humanity, rarely though is it the way we think it ought to look - and therefore many have had their love grow cold and they willfully look away from the One they blame.  They miss the Sunday resurrection and all that it means because for them the event was laid to rest on Friday and they think they have moved on bearing one more disappointment in a string of disappointments that has come to reflect their dreary trudge through life.  It's just not right they scream, and then resign their hearts to the continued weariness of disappointment.

So about two thousand years ago, with all the attendant joy that accompanies such events - God in the flesh cried out after cresting the birth canal of a simple girl who had surrendered her heart and her life to a God whom she had not yet seen.  For about 33 confusing, hard, joyful, rewarding years afterward she saw Him most every day.  She remembered and pondered those first confusing days and angelic messengers; and the subsequent birth pain and joy combined; and early childhood events and anticipated a joyous resolution to her nation's struggles -- only to have it seemingly end in infinite shame and confusion.  And just when resignation had cleared a comfortable seat in the hearts of His closest followers and the disappointed heart of His confused mother she once again witnessed His rebirth as He burst forth from the grave clothes and walked again among them showing them the fulfillment of numerous promises recorded in places like Psalm 22.  Perhaps in the end Mary finally understood that God does indeed hear us when we cry because nothing is working out the way we planned, things are just not right, and yet with Him things are more than right.

He hears us when we cry, and as He redeemed Christ from the grave, He will redeem you - IF you will hear Him cry, from the manger, from the hills overlooking your broken circumstances, from the bedside of your broken moments.  He is Immanuel, God with us, and we celebrate His living to face the thorns alongside us.