A Change Of Season

THURS., MAR. 26, 1998, 7:07 AM
FARM, STUDY

Almost suddenly you feel the change in season. You lit the stove in this room around 5 o’clock, and two hours later it is like a Spring day in here. The wind is both steady and gusting. The clouds scud, and the sun is brilliant when it has moments to shine through… and you can feel the warmth. The trees are still bare, but you now can notice the leaf buds on the branches. There is a good chance that winter, mild as it was, has given way to Spring, the season of promise.

In the church year it is the season of Lent, a season that brings forth a mixture of feelings. As Jesus, I knew My life on earth would end soon. As God, the Father, I knew it was The Way. Could there have been another way? Yes, of course… and No, this was right. It had to be “arranged”, including the contrast. Palm Sunday, you call it now, was the wonderful, triumphant ride into Jerusalem. It was a season of acceptance and adulation. Was I the Messiah these Jews had expected for so long? It could be, and they honored Me.

But the leaders were threatened, as leaders often are by changes that are not of their origin. Yet by My plan as Almighty God this was necessary. The accepting people had to be turned against Me, being acclaimed as the Messiah. Roman authorities saw no reason to take My life… and, you’re right, I did not act in ways that would save My life. I abetted the process, and My sentence came, not because I was guilty under Roman law, but because I did not defend Myself and in order to pacify the Jewish mob. The season of being a revered celebrity changed to one of being a dangerous threat to law and order.

And so it was a mystical season, the mystery of both/and. I was both giving up My life, for the sins of the world, and it was being taken from Me. I was consenting… and… I was to be executed unjustly. Both represent truth, even as it may seem that if one is true the other can’t be.

Were the Jews, under their leadership at that time, destined to reject their Messiah? That’s a combination of Yes and No that is mystical and can’t be stated clearly. Historically, there was the loss of one Life, in earthly form, which resulted in Christianity, the most dominant of the world’s religions. In your lifetime millions of Jews had their lives taken in the Holocaust, which resulted in the Jews being given back their Holy Land, Israel. And then those who suffered were the followers of Islam. Each season offers something new, at the expense of what has been.

You have gone through seasons of pain and loss of function in your back, legs, and feet. That season is seemingly past, with no pain and only minor loss. Now it is the season of loss in your left hand, and the loss seems progressive. Yes, you can be thankful that it is your left hand, and not your right, but you are now more aware of how your left hand was a useful companion to your dominant right. Will this be a continuing season… or… ? You have to see it as an opportunity for your spirit to grow.

To you, personally, and also a product of your dominant culture, this can seem pollyanish, a giving up. Is My example relevant? Shouldn’t I have tried to save My physical life? Why did I give up? On the cross, in agony, I cried out “Why have you forsaken Me?” I did die. I did “lose it all”. But in a few hours I was back, in an even better form. How shall it be, with you?