Good Friday.
A week ago from today, this Good Friday, my family and I came together to mourn the death of a four-month-old baby girl. A baby girl whose place in our family bore many names: daughter, niece, and granddaughter. Her little casket a painful reminder of what will never be. That day death’s sting was real.
Baby Elaina wasn’t just a part of any family but MY family.
My parents have been divorced for well over a decade. Years after they divorced my mom eventually married my step-dad Keith and my dad married my step-mom Lisa. And from then on the dynamics of my family would forever change. I would learn to love this new family and see God use what was heartbreaking and broken become beautiful and for his glory.
My brother, sister and I haven’t lived near each other in almost twenty years. I left for college at the age of eighteen and never came back. And from then on, although separated by miles, we have continued to share so much life together both in the good, the bad and the unimaginably hard.
Our family has had seasons where we haven’t gotten along. We’ve had seasons where misunderstanding took its toll. Seasons where our “and from then on” was more about standing-up for our rights rather than standing up for each other. This is my family.
In the book of John we are given this tender yet unimaginable scene. Jesus has spent hours hanging on a cross, held up by nails in his hands and feet. His path to the cross began with betrayal by those he loved, mocking by those he fed and beatings by soldiers for a crime he never committed. YET… in this moment when Jesus had every right to stand-up for himself, to hold those who betrayed him accountable, to literally call fire from heaven to annihilate them… his response was only one of love.
Jesus, hanging on the cross, musters up just enough breath to speak to John and his mother.
26 When Jesus saw his mother standing there beside the disciple he loved, he said to her, “Dear woman, here is your son.” 27 And he said to this disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from then on this disciple took her into his home.
Even nearing death Jesus was fighting for reconciliation, moments before the ultimate reconciliation would take place. And in his death, Jesus, has forever changed how we can be reconciled with a Holy God.
The picture below represents what its like to live a “and from then on” messy life. It’s a picture of what Jesus taught us on the cross. Life was going to be different for his mother Mary and his disciple John and life would be different for us too. From now on we get to live in this messy, broken world with forgiveness, humility, grace and LOVE. A love, which brings a very broken family together, to mourn the death of a baby girl, united in a deep irreplaceable love only found in Jesus.
Wherever you find yourself this Good Friday, I pray you will choose this new life. Where you get to experience life and relationships to the fullest even in the most unbearable hard parts of life. BECAUSE SUNDAY IS COMING! Jesus didn’t stay on the cross. Three days later he would bring new life and life to its fullest. Not a life without heartache or pain but a life of FREEDOM bought on the cross so that “from then on” LOVE WINS!
