Good Friday

It’s not easy to look at Jesus on the Cross. It would be so much easier to just remember him walking on water or feeding the crowds.  

And yet the Cross is at the very center of our faith. It stands at the center of many churches and hangs on the wall in many homes. Because we need to look at the Cross in order to know how much Jesus loves us.

Jesus keeps on showing us – he keeps on showing up for us – even to his final moments on earth.

From the Cross, Jesus actually prays for the people who have sentenced him to death. He asks God to forgive them. 

From the Cross, Jesus comforts the criminals who are dying beside him. He promises one of them that they will be together this very day in heaven.

From the Cross, Jesus looks after his followers and his family, who stand watching, weeping. He tells them to be each other’s family now that he will be gone.

There is a reason we call this day “Good Friday.” After all, this is the day that makes Easter possible. This is the day in which we learn that Jesus loves us all the way, even all the way to dying for us. He dies on the Cross to save us from death.

What do you see when you look at the cross?

Thank Jesus, who gave all.

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Tree of Life

Walking in the forest, you find a fallen tree. The roots have ripped out of the ground, and dirt dangles from them.  The trunk has splintered in some places from the fall. Bark is breaking away. Branches that once made a proud canopy now lie shattered on the ground.  

Is the tree dead?

No more leaves will grow on its limbs. No more sunshine will draw sap up its trunk. No more branches will sprout; no more buds. And yet this fallen tree is not finished with life. 

Even now, mushrooms are beginning to find their way into the wood, which softens as it begins to break down, to spread out in a network of mycelium that will grow more mushrooms. A family of chipmunks is making a home in one of its hollows. How many beetles and worms and millipedes have squiggled under the wood? Nutrients in the leaves and wood will break down and make the soil rich for other plants to grow.

The death of this tree has meant the life, safety, and thriving of so many other living things.  Just so, the Cross of Jesus is the Tree of Life for us.

“I am the True Vine,” Jesus taught. If we stay rooted in him, we will be linked to the very source of Life, who is God. Through Jesus, life comes again in a new form we could never have predicted.

Where have you seen life come out of death?