Faith and Values: Resurrection of spring brings another, more important, resurrection to mind

Not too long ago, a single white crocus pushed through the thawing ground right next to our front door.

Incredibly, this bloom has survived the last of spring’s snow, the UPS guy, my own careless footfalls, even the hungry deer who share our address.

Yes, I know, this stuff happens every year. I’ll come back to that.

This year, I’ve purposed to slow down and gaze at that single blossom – and enjoy how its color wears the texture of velvety ice cream, how its vibrant life reaches relentlessly from still-cold soil.

Again, this flowers-bloom-in-the-springtime-business is hardly news. But in all our busyness, in all our preoccupation with this thing, and pining after that other thing, we often miss what God our Creator has put right under our noses.

Don’t you think?

Christians are on the cusp of remembering the most important week in human history, and we do well to battle the busyness, familiarity, and distractions that rob us of its wonder.

The days between Palm Sunday and next Sunday’s Easter are cues from our very calendars to slow down and marvel at God’s great love for people like us.

In your mind’s eye, can you see the Jerusalem crowds on that first Palm Sunday? Can you hear the people’s ironic cheers for a Jesus of their own imagining, a Jesus they assumed had come to be who they wanted him to be, to make their lives easier?

Gaze long enough at Palm Sunday through the lens of Scripture and you’ll be confronted with the harsh reality that Jesus did not come to establish a booster club, a group of weekend enthusiasts.

Jesus, God in a human body, came not to be admired, but to die. For people like us.

That’s what gives us the good in Good Friday. Jesus’ gruesome death, as one religious leader at the time unwittingly surmised, would “gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad.”

What’s that all about?

Its broadest meaning is this: sin scatters us from the intimate fellowship with God we were created to enjoy. Jesus is God, who came to live a perfect, sinless life for us as our substitute, and then to further serve as our substitute on Calvary’s cross.

Jesus took upon himself sin’s curse: physical death, yes, but of infinitely more importance, condemnation from God for sin. Our sin.

This sacrifice for sinners like us is proven by the empty tomb. Easter reminds us of this: “You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen!”

Scattered people like us are gathered back to God by trusting in Jesus’ substitutionary life, death and resurrection. The Bible puts it this way: “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.”

Hundreds of people saw and interacted with Jesus after his resurrection for many days, and believed him to be exactly who he declared himself to be – the Son of God come to save sinners from hell, to give them eternal life.

Through eyes of faith, do you see Jesus his way?

The challenges for some of us church people this time of year are the same things that had kept me from really appreciating the season’s first blossom: busyness and familiarity distract us from the person at the center of our celebration: Jesus.

As we enjoy Easter’s colors and candies, its baskets and bunnies, even its beloved liturgy, let’s purpose to marvel afresh at the wonder of it all.

Let’s slow down enough to savor our savior.

Steve Massey is pastor of Hayden Bible Church (www.haydenbible.org). He can be reached at (208) 772-2511 or steve@haydenbible.org.