A Blood Stained Piece of Wood

I’m reading the BEST book for my #hellomornings. It’s called Treasured by Leigh McLeroy. It’s actually a book I got to review and uhm…never did. But here I am a few weeks months years later reading it and lovin’ it!

{Note to PR folks: Do not give me books.}

Every chapter is about an object in the Bible–Joseph’s Technicolor Dream Coat, Adam and Eve’s fig leaf clothes, Hagar’s waterskin and more.

Today’s object was a “blood stained piece of wood”.

And just that gets me.

She began talking about the Virginia Tech massacre.

And then the Passover where every firstborn in Egypt was killed…except the Israelites who spread lamb’s blood on their door posts.

And her sister sick with cancer and facing death.

And even about Harry Potter when he gave his life to save his friends.

And all that DEATH? It made realize remember how very tenuous the link between life and death is. I couldn’t help but think about how quickly death could come to me and my loved ones. I thought about how my kids are so fragile that even a small fall could harm them fatally. I thought about the hepatitis C that is trying to ravage my dad’s body. I thought about car wrecks and heart disease and cancer and all the things we see every. single. day. Death is real.

But oh! OH!

Life.

Frederick Buechner says, “What’s lost is nothing to what’s found and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.”

Does that feel right to you? Do you look at the death and consider it SMALL in comparison to your life? If you are a Christian, I hope you do. Because it’s exactly why Jesus came.

Leigh McLeroy paints a beautiful picture with these words, “The perfect Son of God bled on wood, stretched out top to bottom and side to side like the stained door frame of the ancient Jews’ thresholds the night the death angel raided Egypt. He became our Passover lamb, offered once for all time.” (see Hebrews 10:11-12, 14)

Jesus’ death became OUR death. Or rather HE experienced OUR death. John Piper says, “Death is now a transition from life to better life, from faith to seeing, from groaning to glory, from good fellowship with Jesus to far better fellowship with Jesus, from mixtures of pain and pleasure to all pleasure, from struggles with sin to perfect affection for Jesus. We have [already] passed from death to life.“

Are you hearing this? Holding on to it?

Death is dead.

When Jesus died he really did destroy death.

You can fear death, you can hide from it. You can be saddened by another’s death. But your death? As a Chrsitian, it does not exist. When you placed your faith in Christ, when you put your life in His and made His life your own–you gave your death away.

And when your peanut-shell of a body gives out on this earth, you will just continue on in the life God created for you. I love CS Lewis’ description of moving into the “afterlife”:

The term is over; the holidays have begun. The dream is ended; this is the morning…All their life in this world…had only been the cover and title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

Jesus offers life. Rather, he offered up HIS life so that you can keep your life. An eternal life with Him.

Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 
But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:54-57

{this post was inspired by–and has quotes from Leigh McLeroy’s book, Treasured. Yes, I received it for free. No, this post was not because I got it as a review. I just LOVED reading God’s truth in it today. And wanted to share it with you.}