How do you manage to process such an exceptional story? How can the mortal brain even begin to understand a masterfully planned out saga written by the ultimate storyteller? What heart can accept that kind of love fully? Many, including myself, take the story for granted. That monumental act of love? Or can it even be described as love, because that word is, too, taken for granted. It's become so overused that it hardly carries meaning for us. With this one word we can describe our love for an article of clothing or for our favorite food to the unconditional love Christ portrayed by his sacrifice. Sometimes that image of Jesus hanging on a cross gets distorted in our minds. Sometimes when you hear that phrase 'Jesus on the cross,' you picture this cutsy Precious Moments Jesus. The cartoon of Jesus hanging on a crossbeam, a minimal amount of blood on his wrists and ankles. And the story becomes ordinary to you. This story you've heard over and over and over again. You become immune to its power. You've been numbed.
Just stop and think for a moment about the profound meaning behind this extraordinary true story. It doesn't start where might think, at Jesus birth. It doesn't even start at the beginning of time, but before then. When there was no world. When there was no stars or planets of a universe. Just God and his perfection and his angel armies. And they worshiped him. The most powerful angel, Lucifer, gathered one third of the angels and rebelled against God. He believed he should be in charge and so attempted to throw God down from his throne. He was banished from heaven and sent to dwell on earth. In time, God decided to create a masterpiece. He formed man, with the ability to think, discern and feel. The environment he designed was paradise, unshattered by anything evil or unpure. Lucifer, ever the one to try and destroy God's plan, tempted God's created and tainted the beautiful, perfect world. Time went on, and Lucifer continued to push the world closer and closer to destruction, relishing the power it gave him. Finally, God made laws for his people, to avoid the evils Lucifer plan. Since God could not dwell with evil, he gave his people a way to atone for their sins and be with him. Justice called that something blameless must die to make up for your sin. So, people regularly went to the temple to sacrifice pure, innocent animals to once again have fellowship with God. Years went on and the world got worse and God sent prophets who declared that one day there would be a messiah to save them. And finally, he did come, but not in the way everyone thought he would. People expected a king to come and victoriously claim the Jews and rescue them from the Romans. But he came in a stable to a young mother and only a select few knew of his birth. He grew and became a rabbi and had followers. No one had anyone speak about God the way he had, because even the law God had provided for his people had become different. People tended to focus on the actions, rather than God himself, and Jesus brought that out and taught about God's true nature. He never sinned. A perfect, blameless man. And no one expected him to die. He was arrested, beaten and crucified out of jealousy. The most horrible death, for the worst of criminals. And an innocent man was killed. Lucifer believed he was defeating God. Killing his only son. Corrupting the minds of the people to kill the Messiah. God knew, though, that in sending Jesus to the earth, he would act as the blameless lamb. The ultimate sacrifice to atone all sins and reconcile God's people with himself. To erase that barrier that was constantly erected and torn down by an animal's sacrifice and once again erected. It was finished. God turned his face away from his son, unable to be with sin. And the messiah died. The people's hope for a savior perished along with him. The world fell into darkness and Lucifer thought he had won. To be continued on Easter...
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About Me!Hannah writes to satisfy her imagination. She's written six books so far--five of which need to be rewritten--and is working on a seventh. She ranges through a variety of genres, but favors contemporary YA, fixing broken characters. She wants to use her writing to change people and bring hope. She's currently going to college for Nursing and that takes up most of her writing time. She's a rather stereotypical writer, talking to imaginary friends, eavesdropping on people at the store, secretly being nosy, stashing herself away in her room with a paper and pen and chocolate and her teddy bear. She loves Jesus, the way the morning smells, her family of seven (four siblings), old movies, fairy tales, candles at night and helping people. She writes on another blog at nerdywriter.blogspot.com to hopefully build her chances of publication. My Author Site:Archives
December 2016
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