The Strength to Rise

I always considered my dad to be the strongest man I knew.  I have often referred to him as a stalwart oak or my own version of John Wayne, and he was very much those pictures of a quiet, unmoving presence in my life.  I will never forget the day that I got a taste of where his strength came from because it had to be my strength.  On the day that would mark the beginning of my dad’s last battle with cancer he was scheduled for surgery to remove parts of his jawbone where a tumor was growing and to begin the next fight against this disease.  The surgeon returned to inform us that the cancer had spread and was more extensive than expected and more invasive surgery would need to be performed.  It all started to blur together at that point, nothing even seemed real.  Words that seemed Latin and courses of treatment and more surgery came like a rolling tide that never seemed to ebb.  At one point, dad ended up in the ICU because of the extent of his surgery and my mom, my sister and I where the first three people to see him. 

None of us were prepared for the sight of our much weakened father lying in that hospital bed.  We all said hello, talked to him in his unconscious state, and my mom and sister quietly cried behind a curtain out of his hearing and sight.  I couldn’t cry.  At that moment I knew I had to be strong, I don’t even know for what now, but I didn’t shed a tear.  Now many would say, no big deal, right?  Except I am a cry baby, always have been.  Every time something overwhelming would happen in my life, I cried and my dad would say “Steph, why are you crying over something you can’t change?  Crying won’t fix anything.”  I remember thinking, with teenage attitude of course, that if crying wouldn’t fix it then what would?  Those words reverberated in my head, standing in that cold white room staring at the strongest man I knew wage the battle for his life.

Yesterday, my family was invited to attend a Resurrection Pageant that followed Jesus’ walk in Jerusalem to his crucifixion.  It started out traversing through a busy marketplace to an outdoor message and miraculous healings from the actor portraying Jesus.  As the pageant progressed it reminded me of an important example to us all of stalwart strength and unmoving spirit.  In an age where political correctness and fairness reign above all, we often forget the pain Christ suffered to the cross.  Imagine, knowing you are the Son of the most Almighty, that you have legions of angels that with one word would destroy earth to rescue you and yet you remain to be beaten with leather straps laced with barbs that tore away flesh; a crown of long, sharp thistles was pushed deep into your scalp.  After being weakened from these beatings, you are brought to bear an impossibly heavy cross up a hill to your death, falling under its weight, only to be beaten to continue.  Once atop that hill spikes are pounded, with each drive of a hammer, further into your wrists and ankles, as the full weight of your body bears down on these already tender wounds.  People stand to ridicule you as you wait for the end, for Christ to bear all our transgressions and become so hideous his Father forsook him. 

It is too much for this Cry Baby to bear.  Only Christ had the strength to bear that kind of fear, that kind of humiliation, that kind of pain.  He knew ME in ALL of my sin and chose to selflessly and blamelessly bear the stupid things I do upon his body.  Each drive of that spike was for something not worthy of that suffering, but HE felt the need to offer me salvation.  Each of us bear unbelievable sin, we bear the guilt of things past and present, and Christ, in the most selfless of love, bore all of it for us that we may be worthy to look on God’s face when we die.  This Cry Baby figured out where that strength came from, it came from God.  Only God can take the most impossible of situations and turn it into something beautiful.  It is not in our own strength as humans that we bear the weight of what the world asks us to carry.

Something even more miraculous happened three days later, Christ AROSE!  As a symbol of God’s victory over our sin, he allowed victory over death and Christ was risen.  When we, in all of our sin, come to Christ for forgiveness and ask for his salvation, our souls rise out of the darkness and into the light of God’s love.  Today, as you travel to Easter service or hunt eggs or gather around family, remember that this entire weekend is symbolic of God’s love for you, even in the most darkened corners of your life, God can shine his light and make you whole.  The strength I found when I lost my dad was that he was seeing God’s face, that he was whole and rejoicing in Heaven. 

I leave you with a chapter, I couldn’t choose a verse because each part is so important, Isaiah 53 (KJV):

1Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

2For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

3He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

5But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

8He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

9And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

10Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

11He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

12Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.