Not Enough

Dear Reader,

You are not enough, will never be enough, and that’s okay, because Jesus came to be enough.

For the past week everything has been a reminder of Easter: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and of course, Resurrection Sunday. The kind of church that I go to doesn’t observe every day of Holy week, but I like the reminders of what Jesus was going through each day and sometimes I imagine what he was feeling.

Of course, my imagining could not come close to what a mighty God in the flesh of man could feel, but since he was also human, I think I could get a glimpse.

Imagine you are coming into the royal city of Jerusalem, being led on an unbroken donkey, knowing that you are fulfilling the words that were spoken to your prophets hundreds of years before. Here you are entering the city among elated, roaring cheers of the people that your heart literally beats for, knowing that the same crowd will turn on you before the end of the week. Yet Jesus still rode over the carpet of cloaks and palm branches like the King He was.

Imagine you come into the temple that your people built for you, knowing that you could stride into the inner room of the temple and touch the Ark of the Covenant because you are the one who makes it holy just as you have come to make humans holy. Yet, when Jesus enters the temple, He sees greedy people making money off of people who are trying to make themselves acceptable to God. In His righteous anger He turns over tables and declares that His House will be a house of prayer, NOT a den of thieves.

Imagine you are spending the last week with your disciples, teaching them the final things that they need to know, trying to prepare them for when you leave, knowing they still don’t understand the gravity of the coming events. You want them to be prepared, but you know that in their humanness, they will not be fully prepared for what is about to happen. I like to imagine Jesus trying to enjoy the last few moments that his disciples are all together, despite the knot growing in His stomach because He knows in perfect detail what is coming next.

Imagine asking your disciples to stay up and pray with you, because even though you are God, you are also man and need the support. You are so agonized by what you are about to face that you are sweating blood, and you ask your Father if there is some way that this cup can pass from you, but when the answer is no, you take the cup in both hands and drink it whole.

Jesus drank your sins. He drank the most horrible thing you have thought or done. He drank your deepest, darkest secret that you have pushed to the depths of your soul.

He drank your shame and your guilt, and the heaviness of your burdened soul.

He drank the rejection of the Father and the mockery of the people He was trying to save.

He drank Death and Hell so that you wouldn’t have to.

When He said, “It is finished,” Dear Reader, it was finished. Your salvation is in the bag, all you have to do is reach in and grab it. 

Sincerely Yours and His,

The Rancher’s Daughter