"O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those
who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a
hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Matthew_23:37
My daughter reminded me
Lord of confusion surrounding this week. This week? Yes of all weeks, this is
the most conflicting. I want to skip it all together, passing go and collecting the benefits without
the pain. And so did Jerusalem. They had traditions and rituals—taking Your
feast of Passover and turning it into a spectacle—just as we have turned this
week into little more than a Spring fashion show and food fest.
Holy as the week was
and is, they forgot…and I am prone to forget that this time is not about us. It
is all about You. What You God had done in ancient times; what You were about
to do. How could I forget…ignore or overlook how all Your moments connect through
the ages? Why am I tempted to minimize past connections to this week and to days
yet to come, all in the fullness of time?
But my daughter
remembers why. Thank you Shay. She
pointed out to me a passage from my book, The Singularity. At one point in the
narrative, the main character and his friend narrowly escape death in an
underground earthquake while exploring Mammoth Caves in Kentucky. When they
emerge into daylight, they see a cliff with a large sign that reads. Golgotha
Family Fun Park. The sign and the park are real places, written into the story
to emphasize how bizarre a world we live in, where such a morbid part of
spiritual history would be turned into an circus concept.
Of course there may be
some reading this to whom the term Golgotha may be foreign. Indeed I’ve found
people in various Christian Worship services I’ve attended, have scant
understanding that it is the descriptive name used in Jerusalem for the hill on
which Jesus was crucified. Golgotha
means Skull and the cliff face assumed to be the site of Your crucifixion Lord,
indeed resembles a skull face when seen from certain angles. 
What does this strange
story and description have to do with this week? Absolutely nothing: But the
world has gone out of its way, Christians included, to tie importance, even
sick entertainment value to the site in order to obscure the real purpose for
this week. The real events are an advent unto themselves, a prophecy lived out
like no other before or after.
To walk through the
significance of Passover, The feast of Unleavened Bread and First Fruits, along
with their ties to the Persecution, Death and Resurrection of You, Jesus would
take volumes (perhaps its own book?). Lord, please help me help others
understand that the real story is not in the “if” or the “how” of the benefit
we are offered from Your sacrifice. The real tale is in Your decision to make
and carry out such an extraordinary plan. No man, not even Hollywood’s finest
would have imagined it without the original inspiration.
I’m
not writing this to convince those who don’t believe. Nor am I trying to
criticize we followers (including myself) who treat these times so casually and
irreverently. Instead, I want to encourage all of us to take one significant
moment away from the business of life to simply read a small portion of a book
called by some, the New Testament. I
know, lots of you have probably skimmed through it or had someone read it to
you years ago. Please, if just for one more time or the first time, read or
re-read just a few chapters, 26-28 in a sub-book called Matthew. If that
catches your interest, also read a few chapters in a book called by some, the Old Testament. In it is a portion of
a sub-book titled Exodus. Here read just chapters 11-12. You’ll probably ask,
“What is the connection between the two readings.” Read each a second time and
the picture will start coming together.
Why would I take the
time to ask others to do this, Lord? Because You have asked me to do the same
and I can ask no less of others I love. It may be a futile effort, but that’s
my doubt speaking. My faith says it’s Your will for me to invite others to
remember why the story is told The rest is up to You and the rest…everyone
else.
Simple as that Lord, a
strange real life testimony can turn into an amazing story not meant to
entertain, but to change the life of anyone willing to be changed. I don’t even
have to explain how the story ends, because it doesn’t. That’s the wonder of
it; new life offered to anyone willing to look beyond a broken world’s wretched
attempts to explain away the never-ending love of a God longing to redeem His
people. The Why of remembering is all
wrapped up in one beautiful statement that both begins and completes Your
relationship with Your creation…
Mark C.
