Chapter 25 - The Story
As I'm watching the ice pile up on the branches that are just now starting to bud outside my colleague's window, I feel sick. I am so over the cold. I mean, really over. I don't even hate snow, but it's April, and my bare toes are getting stir crazy. Please, Jesus...sandal weather NOW!
But after a week of above freezing temps, both day and night, times of sunshine, and people just hacking away at what's left, there are still significant snow piles in random neighborhoods that I've driven through. And now, because of the quasi-warm weather, they're dingy, exhaust-fume crusted craggy domes. But they are still there. What in the world?! How's THAT for resilience?
Here we are in the winding story of Jesus and he's facing people who don't get it. Any of it. He's healing. He's teaching. He's setting people free. He's fulfilling prophecy. He's being who He said he was. And in the quasi-clearing of the truth of the law being fulfilled, the pharisees are hanging on, diminished and covered in the fumes of their doubt and unbelief. Resilient.
It's easy to look at the Pharisees during the time of Jesus and say, "How could you not see Him for who He is?! I wouldn't miss Him if He was here. There's no way I would have killed Him if I would have been there!" They're the hateful bad guys, right? They're the ones that didn't believe!
But if I peek under the rug of my spiritual life, I see small left over snow piles too - little mounds of unbelief that are dirty and gross that stubbornly hang on even though I know Jesus. I am no exception.
Doubt and unbelief have a way of resiliency. There's a stubbornness in how it waits out everything else. It will cling to every other thought in the hopes of living a bit longer - staying around just a tad more time. And the truth is, it gets ugly.
This Spring, this Easter, pull back your own rugs a little bit. Put all your little mounds, all your things right out into the awesomely warm light of the truth of who Jesus is. Let that melt down to nothing your fears, worries, and wondering if he's really going to come through. Because as long as that junk stays out of the light, it will stick around a lot longer than you want or need it to.
Eliza Cortés Bast
