Day 3710 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Mark 16:6 NIV

Where were we?

Well, where we were isn’t where we have to be now that He isn’t where He was but is rather where He went to lead us from both what and where and thus too who we used to be. And thus it’s we, you and me, who are now not to be what we’ve been as a result of both where we’ve been and thus who we’ve become as having become like those who’ve too been what we’ve been thanks to what this world’s become. Rather all of us have now in Jesus that freedom that frees us to be what we’ve not ever been able to be but can now finally become:

Free.

Because until this day, as achieved roughly some 730,000 days or so ago, freedom is something we’d not have had the ability to know. Because until that day when He emptied that grave, to so grow into what we’ve now the chance to know was something we didn’t know how to do as it was something that came only at the loss of a life lived to lose. And this is something of still such a confused controversy that even still today we all likely know not always how to respond to it.

For to live a life seems a contrarian to the idea of losing one. Because if we’re alive then we’re living life, and thus to lose a life means to not be living one anymore. And this seems, to us, as great a loss as any might know in life for to lose a life is to stop living said life. And this just doesn’t make any sense that can be in any way even mistakenly seen as something of a good thing.

Because we’ve become of this shared understanding that says our lives are good things only if/when every day’s filled with only good things that we believe great things that become then things that we thus dither upon the decision as to their denial. For who among us would dare deny themselves any of the good things we can see, hear, feel or otherwise fancy? No, such is not the life we’ve known to live in what is a life lived to love all that looks nice or feels the same.

Thus we stay the same as those we’ve been who’ve become quite betraying in regard to anything that asks anything in the way of self-denial or sacrifice or suffering or any other thing that’s come to scare us so crooked as to remain all but cooked in what are lives lived in love of the flame as opposed to the fire.

And that is a rather dire distinction to be sure.

For the flame we feel as felt in our feet which fight to flee both from that of which we’re afraid and thus forever toward that of which we feel no such fear, it’s one felt in the feeling of fun and enjoyment and excitement and other such elations as lauded and applauded by those lost and looking only to lust to lead their way to there being still nothing different. And thus nothing more.

And thus is we’re to be something more we’ve to do as He did and lay down the less that is this flesh that is so lost as to live by either sight or sound, feeling or fun as all of which are quite readily found upon this ground from which we came and yet into which He went so as to get us back from both where and thus who we’ve been.

Meaning then the meeting of the consuming fire who fought to find us within the flame of our fighting only to make a name in a place in which we are but can neither stay nor thus have any reason to so desire.

Yet we do.

All the time. Even today within what is an almost 2,000 year anniversary of His coming to die saving you and me. Yes, we still struggle to both understand salvation and thus too to welcome the sacrifice that it means in even our own lives. Simply because while we may understand the standing necessity of our laying down a life as done in our behalf but only to from there lead the way of our then doing the same, we also stand often within the contrarian understanding which says that our stance should be one of ease and comfort and safety and such.

Leaving us looking still for a life to live as found within this middle ground caught perpetually in between what it means to be lost and to have been found.

And that simply because a part of us will perhaps always know only to doubt in the divine design that defined the grave as not the place we’ve come to all but know it to be.

Rather in He it is but a false fear of the fading kind. For in Him death has lost its sting, meaning then it now not even barely a thing that we should spend any time so worried about as we’ve long been and are at grave risk of still coming to become. And that only because still we walk along with and talk along with and stalk along with and thus balk along with those who themselves delight to deny themselves the divine design that overcame such a lost state of mind as to imagine that the only possible outcomes in life are those we’ve already witnessed a few billion times.

Where’s the fun in that?

Alas, we’re a people who prefer to only play the odds, and thus refuse those which may seem or suggest anything at all ever stacked against us.

Leaving us likely still as lost, at least some days, as to the ways of the Way which came to leave a life lain both in a tomb and yet then that same tomb barren and defeated.

It just doesn’t make any sense.

For even within Scripture we read of a rather dramatic few who’ve managed to evade the way of all mankind. Can count them all on one hand in fact. And when measured like that, fewer than five who’ve made it out of this alive over against the billions who’ve not, well, it makes far more sense to stand in that same shared suspense as suspended from a life upended as considered of all who find their way to where odds say all of us will stay.

But friends, such is the indefinable beauty of this Resurrection Day!

It’s that which seems to say that where we were going at what was the promised end for who we’d lived this life becoming, as become against the desire and design of God for His mankind, it’s now in His Son not where we need anymore fear of going. Because if He’s not there, and if we’re His, and thus He in us, then we’ve now no reason to imagine that we’ll end where He didn’t.

For as much as it makes no sense for us to imagine a life lived after death, it makes even less sense to imagine that He who fathomed the way to overcome the grave would be then the same as the One who left lost those for whom He himself said He came to save. Yes, why would the One who began such a great and loving work prove then the same as the One who would leave it so unfinished as to leave lost any of the 99 which perhaps together thought themselves left behind by the Good Shepherd who went away to find those few who’d gone astray?

No, rather, as again He himself has said, He will lose none of those that the Father has given into His care.

So then why not now cast all of our cares unto Him who asks that we put them in the grave where, yes, certain things are still meant to stay?

For in Him we can now see through a heart learning to look for its every hope as if finally a true treasure as to thus be stored in that place He’s said He’s made inside of forever that forever is thus to what we’ve been called by the same who’s called the Way. And we know that upon this day in which we celebrate what is death defeated that this Way is one won over the death which was proven disappointed within that grave emptied out is thus the same as He who came to lead our way, sure at first to but also (and more importantly) through that same outcome.

Because He said that He would lose none who are His. But friends, unto those who are His He also said that we would have trouble in what is a life that we’re called to lay down via the taking up of crosses such as those sufferings into which His way and will will lead. Not to just watch us bleed but to help us see that His blood was shed for us, and thus, that there is nothing whatever that He won’t readily do if it means our making it through to that place He’s prepared.

Even if to get there means our going to, but along the way there also through, a great many graves of a great many things that will ask we forget what He’s done, been, become as He overcame those many things that we’ve still to endure along the way to who, what and where we’ve never been while here.

Yes, we will face a great many fearful falls, fails, fears as found within our facing down of those dances with defeat and danger, disaster and doubt. But friends, if it were on us alone to make it out then sure we’d have something to still be worried about.

But that grave is gone cold as opposed to the body we’d have likely, and rightly, believed to do the same instead.

Indeed, to a people who’ve known so many people who’ve died, and that we’ve since then not seen them again, we have every reason to rightly imagine that death is simply the end of life. And granted, I suppose it could be for we who believe could be wrong. But I doubt it. In fact, in light of this faith that’s found me and finds me even further every day, both as having now came away from the way(s) in which my life has gone and thus been lived astray and also through the help of my seeing those many more misunderstandings and mistakes I make from which I’m still in need of finding His freeing, such is about the only doubt I have.

For I don’t Him, not anymore. Because while it may in fact seem entirely too good to be true, this message of the Good News that is the Gospel of Christ Jesus, I just can’t help but imagine that that which is entirely too good to be true might well be the same as that which is eternally too good not to. After all, what we have to lose that we’ll not lose either way? For if the greatest loss any of us can find is that of this life, well then it seems that the grave will be entered one way or another.

I just happen to then prefer the idea that it can also be exited.

Why not?

Because again, where were we? Where are we? Who are we? And is who we are as what we are living where we are really all we hope to be or see, find or feel? Is the greatest conception of life we can possibly allow ourselves to perceive, believe merely that which lasts at best 70-80, 105 if we’re lucky? Yes, is life truly nothing more than our inability to hope in anything other than luck?

Or is it better to live a life in love?

I think so. And granted, I’d imagine that nobody probably cares what I think. And that’s why I invite you to think for yourself. Truly, I beg you to take some time, and this day is perhaps the best place to start as to the thinking of what life is, what it means, where it goes and what that means. And in this undertaking, as undertaken by all of us anyway, I dare you to consider some of those things which the world says are impossible, illogical, absolutely idiotic in fact.

For what if they aren’t?

What if the grave does go somewhere? What if His grace gets us there? What if whatever that wherever is is but the only hope we can really have? For what if hope is something doesn’t end? Why believe in any hope that does? Seems kind of counterproductive doesn’t it?

Much the same as that idea that the Name who came to save would both endure so much and yet leave us, lose us, forget us, forsake us.

No, He’s said plain that He will do no such thing. And so while it may seem strange, silly or stupid to believe in something so special as salvation, the weird thing is that I don’t struggle to see that I need it. I don’t wrestle with the fact that I’ve made mistakes. I don’t have to convince myself to confess the things I’ve messed up by myself. Don’t even have to argue that I’ve in fact tried to do most things in life by myself.

None of us do.

Why then do we struggle with the idea that we need help? And if we don’t really struggle with that idea, why then that which says He came to help? And if we don’t struggle with that, why then do we struggle with the idea that the way in which He helped is by the shedding of the flesh in what was a truly gruesome death? And if we don’t struggle to imagine the horror of someone being crucified, as He said He would be, why then would we imagine that His having been so tortured would be any different than His promising to overcome it?

For if we believe that we have sinned and fallen short, something most commonly referred to as having made mistakes, then why not follow that same line of belief into the grave to see if we can there see what our eyes can’t? Why not give our hearts a chance? Our lives the same? Yes, why not take the chance that He really did live, really did die, and yet then flipped the ultimate table in the coming back to life?

Again, what do we have to lose?

No, friends we’ve been lost long enough, which was kind of the point. It has nothing much to do with fear, failure, folly or foolishness. For His work was to overcome all of this. And today we get to celebrate the fact that He did. Because He did live, and thus did die, and thus was dead.

But that tomb’s still empty.

Why then should we remain the same when He left so as to send forth the Spirit in order to fill up those barren places inside of us?

Sure, it may be hard to believe. But when you fail to find any other hope of living forever, well, you eventually run out of reasons not to.

And so, where were we? And how amazing is it to realize that we either aren’t there anymore, or that, through Him, we don’t even have to stay where or who we are right now? No, in Him there’s always better, because in Him is life forever. And if that’s the case, why then should we live putting a limit on it when the grave says He didn’t?

Rather He’s back, and because of that we can now begin to become and thus eventually be what we’ve never been thus far.

Which is free.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold