There’s
a beauty in restoration that a thing unbroken will never know.
Page
after page of the Bible is littered with stories of people and nations tearing
down their kingdoms with their own hands. They are not the heroes one would
expect from a book often accused of being nothing more than a well-intentioned
fairy tale. These tales are not of
infallible warriors whose lives can be lifted up as examples of perfect
obedience or moral fortitude. For every
good choice, several bad ones flank either side, revealing characters who are
less legendary and more painfully human than we may want to believe.
The
beauty comes, however, when no matter how terribly ruined a life has become−no
matter how miserable, no matter how broken−when the ruined one lifts the shattered pieces of
their life up to God, something magical happens: restoration. Redemption. Spiritual
gold.
God
takes broken things and puts them right again.
It’s what He does.
It is the theme of every story in the Bible, both the
small ones filling chapters and books and the great Big Story, the overarching
history of mankind. God’s ability to do
so is not limited to any culture, time period, socioeconomic status, or
disposition. As singer Rich Mullins put
it, “There ain’t nobody so bad that the Lord can’t save ‘em; ain’t nobody so
good that they don’t need God’s love.”
Setting
things right again after they have gone wrong is Ahavi’s story, too. Building
the Wooden City was not an act of surrender to the wickweed–it was a bridge by
which he planned to bring the Mud Men back to the Golden City and to
himself. Just as Ahavi left hints of
their true home scattered throughout their temporary home, God has sewn hints
of Himself into the fabric of our world:
A desire for equality. Human rights.
Peace as a result of forgiveness, guilt as a result of wrongdoing. A
sneaking suspicion that life goes on long after our bodies stop breathing.
Such
hints brought Nyssa to the point of daring to dream that her suspicions were correct
and based on something legitimate and real, something that was more than just a
story. She pushed past the idea that
Ahavi might be myth and legend and took the risk of actually reaching out to
him.
By
doing so, she activated the only power she had at her disposal–faith. She was
unable to pull the wickweed out by herself. She could not bring back the grace
of dance on her own. Her only hope was
in believing that Ahavi was real and in asking him to do it for her.
Many
have accused Christianity of being a weak religion. While other religions are robust with demands
on behavior, finance management, times and duties and traditions and rituals,
Christians claim God offers salvation simply for the price of belief.
Apparently, once you believe, He just gives
heaven away for free.
“For God so loved the world that He gave his one
and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal
life” (John 3:16)
“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised
Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
(Romans 10:9)
“…But for that very reason I was shown mercy so
that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display His immense patience as an example for those
who would believe in Him and
receive eternal life.” (1 Timothy 1:16)
Of
course, just because we don’t pay for
salvation
doesn’t mean it came free.
Ahavi
knew from the beginning what pain it would cost him to free his children from
the wickweed. God knew, as well, the cost of setting His children free from sin–He
would pay with His own life.
The
mechanics of it all require lengthy explanation, but the simple fact of the
matter is that just as the blood of Ahavi’s sacrifice mingled with his original
drop of life when Nyssa asked him to intervene, the blood of Christ’s sacrifice
mixes with our souls when we, by faith, surrender those souls to Him. The
result for both the Mud Men and mankind is something that did not exist there
before. For Nyssa, it was gold. For
humans, it is righteousness. When we
acknowledge our powerlessness over the sin in our lives and ask God to pull it
out of us, the great gulf of separation is crossed and light blasts away the
darkness. The door to heaven is opened
and no hand can ever close it to us again.
“We are made right with God by placing our faith in
Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s
glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are
righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty
for our sins.” (Romans 3:22-24)
You
see, heaven could not be heaven any other way. If we desire a home that is
safe, populated solely by those who want to be there, who not only value one
another but love one other, who have freedom but willingly surrender that
freedom to the head of the household, no other process could yield
the same result. When Jesus was on earth
He spoke repeatedly of the Kingdom of Heaven and I suspect this is what He was talking about.
The
whole plan makes beautiful sense:
How
do you establish a home where everyone is equal?
Citizenship
in the Kingdom of Heaven cannot be earned, so no one can lord their right to be
there over anyone else. Every citizen enters on a ticket received only by the
kindness of the King; it is the same ticket bought for the same price for every
member so, again, none can claim a higher status than another.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
How
do you establish a home where everyone respects the leader?
The
King of this kingdom demonstrated His commitment to humanity by dying to bring
us home. How could we do anything but love and respect Him? Freedom was given so that we might use it to
freely follow the One who earned our trust.
"May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to His people, who live in the light. For He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.
Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,
for through Him God created everything
in the heavenly realms and on earth.
He made the things we can see
and the things we can’t see—
such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.
Everything was created through Him and for Him.
He existed before anything else,
and He holds all creation together.
Christ is also the head of the church,
which is his body.
He is the beginning,
supreme over all who rise from the dead.
So He is first in everything.
For God in all His fullness
was pleased to live in Christ,
and through Him God reconciled
everything to Himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.
This includes you who were once far away from God. You were His enemies, separated from Him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now He has reconciled you to Himself through the death of Christ in His physical body. As a result, He has brought you into His own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before Him without a single fault." (Colossians 1:11-22)
How
do you establish a home where everyone follows the rules?
Those
who surrender their souls to God become immediate citizens of His Kingdom and
are therefore subject to its laws. The
Bible lays them out pretty clearly and spending a lifetime living by them on
earth is just practice.
How
do you establish a home where everyone is safe and loved and known?
When
all of the previous questions have been answered, the result is free beings who
trust their King, recognize their equality with one another, and who value and
love one another out of habit. The wickweed is withered, the stone table
blueprints are restored, and the Golden City is populated as it was always
meant to be.
God
is a genius.
The
only question, now, is who believes it? Do you?
Belief is the root by which all other thoughts and behaviors grow. To believe is not a passive activity–it is the
source of every action, it both costs more and produces more than any religious activity touting mere rituals and requirements.
“Believe
in the Lord Jesus and you will
be saved” (Acts 16:31)
It's a big step. Think about it, reason through it, research it, consider your life - what you have to gain and what you have to lose. Don't let brokenness be a barrier. Remember that those who were broken and restored now bear a beauty that a thing unbroken will never
know.
And after all has been considered, the story of Ahavi and the story of mankind as described in the Bible, the hints of Heaven woven into your experience of earth, will you dare to test the limits of what you believe? Will you take the risk of reaching out the the One who has known you since the stone table? The One in whom you are safe, you are loved, and you are known, the One who built the home where you belong.
The Golden City awaits.
Are you coming in or aren't you?
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