Respite for the Remnant

Have you noticed that it’s not always something wicked that’s coming this way by way of false doctrines and teachings infesting the Church, rather, just some new and more seductive show-and-shine iterations of the same old manipulations –that is, when you look behind the stained glass as many are doing today.

As my mother would say, “It’s easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar.”

But, whether by stick or by (honey-glazed) carrot the sheep are compelled or lured away from the sheep gate and into the wilderness, each new iteration of what my father used to call “Church of What’s Happening Now” involves some apparently leftover works, you might say, or new experiences and Bible translations (that may not be bona fide translations) that we have to participate in or study in order to join the current Spiritual In-Crowd, thus rendering Jesus’ declaration “It is finished” a lie.

Whoa! Kind of harsh?

But what about…

“It Is Finished”

I was born into the single most complex, compound religious system, one of the oldest, richest, most populous, politically-enmeshed–and powerful–of all such systems and there I was spiritually marinated for the first 23 years of my life before receiving Christ alone as both Savior and Lord, I am still unpacking what I call one of Jesus’ most powerful “one-liners”.

“It is finished”–my flagship verse–still brings me to kneel at the foot of the cross, pause the kindergarten of my mind for a few minutes; it compels me to lean in further to what exactly Jesus bled out for, as in my salvation, a once, and for all time, sacrifice, sans anything else needful.

Yours as well, if you so choose.

Most of all, however, this one-liner has increased my trust in, and my love for, God.

Those words also prompt me to think moments beyond the torturous last hours of Jesus’ sacrifice for us when His executioners, having finished flogging, piercing and impaling Him on the rough beams–the last of His blood trickling down to join the rest already gelling on the ground–heard Him say: “It is finished,” His purpose and mission complete.

And then, only then, did Jesus commend His soul to the Father.

But there was a lot more that happened just then, a powerful witness to Who He really was, events and phenomena we don’t often read or hear about.

This is St. Matthew’s account:

⁵⁰ And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.

⁵¹ Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, ⁵² and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; ⁵³ and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

⁵⁴ So when the centurion and those with him, who were guarding Jesus, saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, “Truly this was the Son of God!” (chapter 27)

Ya think?

My lively imagination and modern vernacular would add: “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”–of real prophecy, promise, and power.   

Shown and Told

It has been said that hundreds of specific prophecies in the Old Testament regarding Jesus’ earthly ministry were fulfilled by the events of His life. Here is one summary:  How many prophecies did Jesus fulfill?

But apparently, according to the false spiritual headliners of today and some from my yester-year, it still wasn’t enough. There are added fees, sur-charges, other hidden costs for their goods. And the curious, hungry–broken–gather around. Hoping…

“Bring your troubled minds, your hungry souls, your infirm bodies to us,” they bark, “and we can give you some miracles and wonders better than even Jesus did, not to mention brand new prophecies and revelations!”

They determine, decree (and declare) their own brand of newer, better–the best yet to come–phenomena, voices a-quiver, often staged in front of Marshall stacks blaring emotion-grabbing music laced with their brand of theology… (the better to entice the young, notes one of the new Pied Pipers).

But it’s just new merchandise from an ancient line first marketed in the Garden of good and evil.

Me, I had my fill of trinkets and idols in my old days, that, over time, have joined, one by one, that old Ozymandias broken and sinking in the sand.  

A few reminders occasionally surface from my mind and psyche, like leftover spiritual shrapnel, but I can freely, now, lay them at that cross, too—where Jesus paid my price of admittance to eternal redemption.

Selah.

There, at the foot of the cross, I cannot hear Him say it enough:

IT.

IS.

FINISHED.

I invite you to pause for a while there, too, when the cacophony of little gods with their big lies wait just outside the gate with their seductive wares—and price lists–and/or worrisome if not fearsome tales of the conseqences if you deny or delay them…

I invite you instead to hear Jesus’ voice.

Ponder His words.

He is the only Way, Truth, and Life, His body the only–and priceless–coin of our admission to the everlasting realm.

Paid in full.

I am still in awe of this.

…..

Read more about Jesus’ life and ministry in the accounting of His life in the Bible.  

For those yet to come into His welcoming–and safe–pasture, consider this presentation.