Like Watermelon in Summer

Summer mornings on the lake.  Sitting on my parent’s back deck in the quiet, absorbing the gentle heat of the early sun, sipping coffee, listening to the water lap against the sea wall.  Walks on the beach with my friends.  Letting our feet dig deep into the wet sand, feeling the salt water against our ankles, and laughing so hard it hurts.  The fellowship and peace of knowing I’m with girls I love who know me inside and out and love me too.  Movie nights at home with my husband.  Cuddled on the couch underneath the same blanket, feeling his heartbeat, and being forever thankful that God put him in my life.  Family dinners.  The eight of us wrapped around Mom and Dad’s big dining room table.  My dad’s boisterous laughter, the love in my mom’s eyes to see us all in the same place, Casey’s brilliant cooking, JT’s animated stories, the adoration in the eyes of my sisters-in-law as they watch my brothers, Andy’s hand holding mine under the table.  The two year old giggles and baby coos from my best friend’s children…Aliye and Jace and James.  Frozen yogurt on summer nights.  Snowy afternoons spent reading on my couch, a cup of hot chocolate in hand.  These are memories that I want to always cherish.  Experiences that hold absolute beauty for me in a world that is not always beautiful. I’m sure you have your own moments of beauty.  Before reading any further, I ask that you take a moment to think of a few memories that equal beauty for you. 

 

Now, let’s both hold our moments in our hand.  Cherish them, but hear me when I say, they are ugliness compared to the beauty of the gospel.  These moments, these times when we know more loveliness than we’ve ever known, are soiled rags compared to the exquisite wonder of Jesus coming to earth, to live as a human, and die as God for our sins.  To pay the price we should have paid. 

 

I’ve thought about this blog for days.  I wanted to write it on Good Friday, but I couldn’t form the words.  I still can’t.  There are no words to describe the Gospel.  I can explain it, sure.  I know the Bible verses and the formula.  I know the church answer.  But I don’t know how to put into words the magnificence of Jesus’ sacrifice.  I don’t know how to make you feel it.  It is like trying to describe the texture and feel and taste of eating sweet watermelon at a 4^th of July cookout.  You just have to experience it.  You have to be there. You have to hold the chunky slice in your hand and feel the sticky juice run down your wrists.  You have to bite into the pink flesh of the fruit and feel the sweetness explode in your mouth.  You have to experience the mess and magic and goodness of watermelon yourself before you will ever understand me when I say there is nothing else like watermelon in summer.

 

The Gospel is the same way.  It is beautiful and messy and magical and life changing.  It is an enigma and at the same time, it is clearer than the bluest ocean.  It makes no sense, and is the only answer.  I want to make you feel it, and I’m going to try. 

 

The Gospel is a baby.  A crying, squirming, wiggling baby on a cool night in a cave, surrounded by livestock and cuddled in his young mother’s arms.  Her dark hair, falling on his little cheeks, the tears in her eyes, and the conflicting emotions in her heart as she knows she is holding heaven – and won’t hold him for long.

 

The Gospel is a boy, running into the Temple.  Sitting at the feet of the Rabbis – asking and answering questions, amazing the people with his depth of knowledge and insight.  A boy who has found his way to his Father’s house.

 

The Gospel is man.  Standing in the Jordan being baptized by his cousin.  A man, whose baptism brings a voice from God himself.  “This is my son, whom I love.  With him I am well pleased.”  The Gospel is a man who calls out to the poor, and the lonely, and the downtrodden.  A man who holds out his rough hands to the least of these and tells them they are loved and wanted and adored.  Who cuddles children in his lap, and feeds the hungry, and opens the eyes of the blind, and walks for miles on dirty feet to wrap his arms around the grieving and dry their tears. 

 

The Gospel is God who kneels in the Garden in prayer, knowing the suffering he will endure.  The Gospel is God who is spit upon and beaten and stripped naked and bloodied.  The Gospel is God who is abandoned by those he loved and cursed by those for whom he is sacrificing.  The Gospel is God who carries a cross, who feels the indescribable pain of nails piercing his hands and feet and the digging thorns in his forehead.  The Gospel is God who dies on a hillside, crucified, without sin.  A God, who rises again from the dead.  Who beats death.  Who walks again in Jerusalem, glorified.  The Gospel holds out his hands to Mary in the garden and calls her by name and tells her not to cry.  The Gospel allows Thomas to put his hands in the nail marks and eases his doubts before returning to heaven.  The Gospel is Jesus.

 

Jesus – the God of the universe – who knows we are not even close to good enough, and never will be. Who knows that even the best of us are poor and pitiful and selfish wretches.  Who knows that on our own, we can never pay for the mounds of God sized sin in our lives.  Jesus, who knows that only he is ever enough to cover our mess.  And what could ever be more beautiful than God, looking down and seeing all we need and all we don’t deserve and giving it to us – freely and asking nothing in return?  Offering us his son and knowing, all the while, that some of us will never accept him.  Will never acknowledge the gift, the sacrifice.  Will never have reverence for the price he paid.  Knowing all that, and still loving us enough to give us a chance.

 

This is the Gospel.  And it must be felt because it can never be understood.  You can know the church answer and the Roman Road verses and the formula of the gospel, but if you haven’t felt it, you don’t know it.  Accepting the Gospel as truth is allowing it to sink into your heart.  It is feeling the wonder of the indescribable, ridiculously beautiful gift God gave.  It is those times when you sit in silence and you know that Jesus’ arms are wrapped around your frail body.  Knowing that he is more than enough.  It is standing in a worship service and being unable to stop your hands from rising in praise to God because you can’t imagine anything more wonderful than who he is.  It is feeling peace in your heart when nothing about life is peaceful.  It is hearing his whispered voice in your ear and knowing that you’ve received a promise from God.  The Gospel is not understood.  It is never understood.  It is beyond understanding, so today, I won’t tell you the verses.  I won’t walk you down the “Roman Road.”  Today, I am praying, that you can see the beauty in your moments – in the faces of your loved ones, in the sunrise, in the spring flowers, in the chirping birds – and know that none of those moments can ever compare to the cross and the empty tomb and the open arms of Jesus Christ.  And that when you know all that, you’ll feel compelled to experience for yourself a Gospel you can’t understand.