Remembering

With the school closures and "social distancing" I have spent a lot of time painting in my house.  A task that allows my mind to wander and a "pressing in" to happen.  As I slapped on thick white brush strokes around the doorways, the thought of the Passover struck me.  Of imagining what it was like to use those strokes of bright red to visually show a setting apart of your family from the world around you.  I thought about how God commanded His people that night to set themselves apart and then simply rest in that place. 

Once they had done that, it was God who performed miracles.  He was the one that set His people free from Egypt.  It wasn't in a way His children would have ever imagined--witnessing plague after plague first, but He did it.  He freed His people in power and showed the world that He is mightier than any plague that could ever spread through the earth.  We are told in Exodus 12:

"Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their father's houses, a lamb for a household...Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old...and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.

Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it...

For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both men and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgements: I am the Lord.  The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are.  And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt."  Verses 3, 5a, 6-7, 12-13

As I put that white paint over my doorway I thought about the Israelites covering theirs in thick, red blood.  When God saw it--when He saw the blood of a sacrifice over each doorway--He passed over it.  He remembered His promise to His people and He kept it. 

And in that moment my heart flooded with a "remembering":

The blood that covers me?  That protects me and sets me apart?  You might not see it, but its there.  It's Jesus.  Jesus Christ came and shed His blood, poured out His heart, so that He could purify ours.  Those red strokes around the doors of our hearts turn white as snow.  He has made a promise to His children. 

The truth is, my heart was sin-soaked.  Black and dead, but He poured new life.  He transformed me from the inside out and He's still in the transforming business. 

Everything around us in this season feels so shaky--so uncertain.  The truth is when the Lord of lords and King of kinds stepped down from His thrown in heaven and walked this sin-stained world there was no uncertainty.  He had set it in His heart to face the cross for me.  For you.  Jesus Christ the unblemished lamb laid down His life as a sacrifice once for all.  As a setting apart for His children.  He covers us in His blood and eternal death passes over us.  We are all in need of a savior.  We are all in need of The Savior.  Let this be a season of remembering. 

"Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God.  Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.  Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them.  We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.  For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp.  So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.  Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear reproach he endured.  For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.  Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.  Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God." Hebrews 13: 7-16

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.  So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.  For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.   

All promises.  All declarations of truth.  Declarations of hope.  Let us press into what is true in this season.  And let us remember what is commanded of us--even through circumstances where we might not always "feel" like it: Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.  Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

After the first Passover in Egypt God commanded His people to continue to hold Passover--it became a holiday and a time of remembering what God had done to free His people.  In Exodus 12 we are told:

"You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever.  And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service.  And when your children say to you, 'What do you mean by this service?' you shall say, 'It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.'  And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.  

Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did." Verses 24-28

I just wonder what we are allowing to mark us in this season of social distancing.  This season of extreme health consciousness.  This season of realizing that we truly don't have control of what happens around us.  When future generations ask us about that time the world shut down from COVID-19 what will we tell them?  How will we mark all of the things God is surly doing around the world?  Will children remember this as a time their family unified or as a time of panic?  

I just believe with my whole heart that God is working in the midst of this.  That we will hear story after story of miracles.  

I believe that God wants to tell His children, "I have marked you.  You are set apart.  When I look at you I see the blood of The Lamb.  The blood of my Son poured out for you.  Hold fast to the truth that I am moving in this.  That I am near and I am speaking to you.  I want you to find rest.  To worship.  To help those that you can.  And to know that I am working."

God is so kind.  He is so faithful.  Press into Him in this season.  If you have never truly met Jesus, this could be the season you remember as the time Jesus brought your heart to life.  The time that you actually knew real hope for the first time.  Seek and you will find Him.

"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.  And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor (meaning trouble) a door of hope.  And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt." Hosea 2:14-15

I will...make the Valley of Trouble a door of hope.

These thick brush strokes of white paint over my door remind me that the Lord is turning this Valley of Trouble into a door of hope.  Hold fast to what He is reminding you of in this season.