Altar of Propitiation

Today is the day we celebrate and remember a death.

Today is the day we fight to see clearly.

Today is the day we remember blood and gore.

Today we look at brutality and murder.

Today we look at lying and slander.

Today we look at our own hands covered in blood.

Today our hearts are pure.

Flogged, to the point of unrecognizable. Nailed to a piece of wood like a hunk of meat. Left to die in agony. This is the scene of salvation.

It’s not beautiful. It’s dirty.

It’s not cute. It’s hideous.

You don’t want to hug it.

You don’t want it on your carpet.

Yet it is the supreme center of all of our reality. Hope of all our lives. The salvation of our souls.

It’s more important than our clothes, and more impactful than our friends. It’s more gorgeous than the stars, and more empowering than positive thinking.

While breaking it makes whole.

While turning upside down it turns us right side up.

While making us weep it makes us laugh.

While showing our failure it shows us our righteousness.

Here, on the Alter of Propitiation, the Lamb is slaughtered. All his blood is poured out until his veins run dry. Everything he ever was, all his perfection and goodness is extravagantly spilled to assuage the right wrath against sin.

Messiah, the longed for Deliverer.

Christ, the coming King.

Jesus, the Son of God.

Today, he is publically portrayed as crucified.

20-somethings

I went on my first walk in a long time last night (I also candied pecans and cooked myself a steak dinner. Bam, domestic!). Walks are therapy.

Quite honestly when I walked out the door I didn’t know which way I’d go, where I’d walk to, or how long I’d go for; I just meandered about until I ended up back on my front porch.

But mostly I walked along the river while the trees cast eerie shadows in the light of the moon. The voices of people far away carrying in the still air, the high thin clouds making the dark darker here and there all of it bursting through the seams of my mind to whisper, “Christ is King.”

Now-a-days weeks feel like years and days feel like months. Hours aren’t enough to measure things by (‘cept college algebra) and minutes might as well not exist. Is this growing up? Continually loosing track of time until so much of it has slipped through your fingers there’s no more left to hold.

I’m still just a kid.

But that’s a lie too. Kids are intrepid little devils who are fascinated by fireflies, clouds, and summer nights (or snow fights). The life of a twenty-something is the life of a wondering dreamer, wanting more to life but facing the constant reality of loosing track.

Yet this too is pointing us back to the whisper of the eerie shadow of the trees, “Christ is King.” We, we bunch of almost-kids who dream big and act small, we bunch of semi-adults who fight hard and believe little, we are part of a story much bigger than ourselves.

The beauty of reality is equal to the wonder of our imaginations. With complications, adventures, and the boring all of it is the story of our lives. And this story is intertwined with the story of Christ is King that we, we rag-tag individuals, ought never to look for more than the wonder of Jesus, because in him is enough to see the world changed and our lives made both whole and worth while.

At least that's the hope. Yet the mind of the cynic will always see the flaws, the failures. Indeed, I rarely get far from Lewis, "We are far too easily pleased."