Good Friday – Dayenu

Good Friday – Dayenu

by | Apr 1, 2021 | Holidays, Thoughtful Thursdays

Today is the Thursday before Resurrection Day. The day before Good Friday. A day I’ll be spending in part making unleavened bread and apple clay . . . we’re not having an official seder this year, but eating these familiar, symbolic foods will help me get my head out of “prepare for book launch!” mode and into “focus solely on Christ” mode. As I pondered what to post for these holiest of days, I decided that I’d actually share a portion of a post from 5 years ago. Originally, this was part of a Bible study I did on my blog during Lent. Which means the passage below was buried at the end of a very long post with a lot of scripture. I recently recorded it for my podcast, and I think it bears repeating here in general. I don’t know what you do or don’t do to observe Good Friday…but it’s always been an important day for me, in my own faith journey. Good Friday was the day I wrote the short story that inspired A Stray Drop of Blood. Good Friday was the day when it really hit me what my Jesus did for me. Good Friday stirs the depths of my heart each time I pause to really dwell in it. And so, here it is. My reflections on the day…and why “it is sufficient.”

~*~

I never understood, as a child, why this day was called Good Friday, when it seemed pretty darn bad to me. My Jesus was killed on this day. He was mocked, he was beaten, he was reviled. He was hung upon a cross. My Lord, my King suffered on this day like on no other. Why, if I love Him, would I call such a day Good?

There’s a very thorough look into the origins of it in this blog post. (German actually calls it “Sorrowful Friday,” just FYI.) But the one all linguistics experts agree on is that good used to mean holy. And we can certainly agree it’s a holy day without the more modern connotation of “happy” getting put on it.

Let’s dwell today on this sorrowful, holy day that we commemorate on this Friday before the Resurrection. Part of the Seder meal we observe the night before Good Friday has a traditional Jewish responsive reading called “Dayenu”–it would have been sufficient. In it, they go through the events of the Exodus, proclaiming after each one that if God had, for instance, led them out of Egypt but not parted the Red Sea, “It would have been sufficient.” Dayenu. It would have shown His glory still. The Messianic portion of the seder goes on to add Jesus into it in a way that I find so striking.

“If He had come but not died –
dayenu.

If He had died but not risen –
dayenu.”

He came. He came to earth for no reason other than his love for us. He came to live among us, to teach us how to approach the Father. He came, and when he walked this earth, it was sufficient. Those who believed him to be the Savior before his death, before his resurrection, tasted of the faith that leads to Heaven. If any of them died while he still walked the Earth, I’m confident that faith in him saved them.

But coming wasn’t all Jesus did. He didn’t only show us how to live, how to approach the throne. He died for us too. He died for our sins, like the passover lamb. That was enough to cleanse us. Just as the sin offering always did, but more. Once, for all. Forever. Had he only died, it would have washed us clean.

But He rose again to prove that death would not have the final victory even over our mortal bodies. He rose again because he wasn’t just a sin offering, he was the Passover Lamb. The lamb whose blood saves us from death.

Oh, my Jesus. Every year it strikes me anew. The things you suffered. The things you did. For me. And this year, like every year, I lack the words to thank you. So I walk that path with you in my mind. And I no doubt fail to picture it fully. But my eyes burn with tears for you. My heart aches. And my soul weeps out its thanks. Because your sacrifice on this day all those years ago saved me.

Dayenu.

Word of the Week – Dauntless

Word of the Week – Dauntless

by | Mar 29, 2021 | Word of the Week

Words that Shakespeare Coined

Dauntless. To understand the evolution of this word, we actually have to begin with daunt. This verb dates to the 14th century, taken from French (which is taken from Latin), meaning “to subdue or tame.” It was a word generally used for breaking or domesticating animals. An undaunted horse would be a wild, unbroken horse. In the 16th century, the word began to take on a metaphorical sense, and undaunted was applied to people who were “courageously resolute, undiscouraged.” Shakespeare was the first to add the -less suffix instead of the un- prefix. Dauntless appears for the first time in print in Henry VI, Part 3.

Do you know anyone who proves themselves dauntless?

Walking Worthy

Walking Worthy

by | Mar 25, 2021 | Thoughtful Thursdays

“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called.”
~ Ephesians 4:1 (NKJV)

 

Walk worthy of the calling.

This is a phrase that’s been lingering in my heart and mind for the last year, ever since I really began studying those opening verses of Ephesians 4. How do we do that? How do we walk worthy of the calling of being a Christ-follower?

Well first there’s the idea of walking. Walking is an ACTION. More, it’s one of the most common actions we take. It’s something we do every day. We walk. We walk to each thing we’re doing, through each thing we’re doing. We walk out our faith, our beliefs. But walking is still WORK. It uses up energy. It involves the whole body. Walking with God means that we’re working alongside Him, engaged in active communication with Him. Much like in the opening chapters of Genesis, right? Adam and Eve walked with God. Enoch walked with God before he was taken up to haven.

But Paul doesn’t just instruct us here to walk. He qualifies it. We need to walk in a particular way: worthy. Like, we can all walk, stride along, living out what we think is good. Everyone does that, whether Christian or not. What’s special about our walk? What makes it worthy?

The calling. We’re not just called to do our own thing. We’re not just called to have our own opinions. We’re not just called to make money or accomplish what we dream of. We’re called to be Christ to the world. 

In church, we’ve been reading through I Clement (not part of the cannon but one of the earliest Christian writings; a letter from the leaders of the Church in Rome to the Church in Corinth). In the chapter we read last week, Clement drew on this same phrase. He calls out the Corinthians, who had been pursuing selfish ambitions and had ejected good men from leadership for these ambitious reasons, not because of any actual complaint against them, that they were proving themselves “unworthy of their Christian profession.”

Now, profession here means that they have professed Christ–they’ve claimed Him. But I think our modern idea of a profession being a vocation or job actually adds some interesting understanding. Because the thing we profess to do or be becomes a huge part of our lives, right? We introduce ourselves with it. We think in terms of it. It defines quite a lot about us. Christ need to be what we profess most. We need to be Christian above and before writer, homemaker, lawyer, accountant, teacher, engineer, farmer, vet, dentist, driver, or whatever. Because whether we put it first or not, others know we have claimed it. And they judge CHRIST according to what WE do.

Yep, lots of pressure there. WE are how the world sees Jesus. WE give Christianity a good or bad name. So if we’re more concerned with how we’re treated than in how we’re treating other…if we spend more time serving ourselves than them…if we only love our own and not our enemies…then we are giving Jesus a bad name. We’re unworthy of that profession of being His. We’re not walking worthy of the calling.

Now, HOW we walk out that greater calling is going to look different for each of us…and it’s going to get into the particulars that each of us are called to do. Whatever you’re called to do–to teach or create or make music or minister to the poor or encourage others, etc–you’re called to do in a way that’s worthy of Him. A way that glorifies Him. A way that points to Him.

So are we? Are we living out our callings in a way that’s worthy of Him? 

This is something we tend to notice pretty quickly in others…let’s take some time to examine the question for us. 

I’d love to hear what everyone here is called to do! What calling are you walking out now, and what dreams do you hold in your heart?

Word of the Week – Cold-hearted

Word of the Week – Cold-hearted

by | Mar 22, 2021 | Word of the Week

This week begins a fun series on words that Shakespeare coined! The words themselves may or may not have a lot of interesting etymology otherwise…but they’re making this list simply because they were introduced to us by the Bard. 😉

Cold-hearted is one such word, first appearing in Shakespeare around 1600. Just a decade or so before this we saw the introduction of cold-blooded, as in “someone without emotion, lacking the usual sympathies,” to which cold-hearted is clearly related. The belief at the time was that our blood literally warmed up as we got more excited (rather understandable given that we feel flushed and hot). So naturally, words and phrases were created to capture the opposite too.

Word of the Week – Scavenge and Scavenger

Word of the Week – Scavenge and Scavenger

by | Mar 15, 2021 | Word of the Week

Scavenge and scavenger are another example of words whose progression surprised me. Back-formations do that to me a lot. 😉 I guess I always assumed the verb came first–first there was scavenging and then the one who did it became known as a scavenger. Nope. And in this case, I think I always assumed that the primary meaning would be applied to animals who scavenge for food. Also nope.

So apparently the noun came first, dating from the 1540s as “a person hired to remove trash from the streets.” Interestingly, though, it’s from a Middle English word for a tax collector. It traces its roots first to an Anglo-French word for “tax” and back even further to the Old English sceawian “to look at, inspect.”

The verb form didn’t come along until 1640…which is still old, of course, but not nearly so old as the noun in all its forms.

Scavenger hunt is very new to the game, not joining the fun until the 1930s.

But they ARE fun, aren’t they? Which is why I chose this word for this week. 😉 The 2021 Spring Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt will begin on 3/18! I’ll be sharing a fun post about how to wear a hoop skirt, and there will as always be a ton of amazing giveaways in the hunt! Mark your calendars!

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