I woke up this morning to cold. After a beautiful day of seventy degree weather, snow piled back up at my door and freezing temperatures slipped back into my house.
We fired up the wood cookstove and since the oven was warm and ready, I felt obligated to bake taco pie and pineapple upside-down cake.
It’s the whole point, you know. All of everything.
Yesterday, as I drove home from music practice, singing Christ is Risen, I was caught up tight by the words. Christ is risen from the dead, trampling over death by death, Come awake! Come awake! Come and rise up from the grave!
And it hit me, the call to wake up.
We’re not singing, “Jesus wake up!” because, y’all, He’s already awake. We’re singing to ourselves: He is risen! Now, you, dearest one, wake up! Open your eyes, so long closed in death, and wake up to live.
Not the life you lived before. No, no. A new life. A new type of living.
Oh Church! Come stand in the light!
The glory of God has defeated the night!
I told the story not long ago. Whispered it to a little girl who has carried far too much of death and night in her few short years. “The enemy comes only to kill, steal, and destroy you,” I explained, “but there is hope.”
We look through the Scripture. Read the words about confessing to one another, praying for each other– not allowing any trace of darkness to take up residence in our hearts.
And the glory, the beauty. When we stand before God, our sin laid bare, He says the same thing to us as He did to the woman caught in adultery, all those years ago:
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared.
“Go now and leave your life of sin.”
Leave your life of sin. Leave the darkness that has consumed your heart. Come awake! Come awake! Come and rise up from the grave!
Death trampled death.
Don’t let it rule in your heart anymore.
Oh, Jesus, don’t let it rule in my heart anymore.
It’s cold outside. Spring seems to be lost. But it will come. It’s a promise.
And the brokenness of life won’t rule forever. There is something greater stirring from the depths of creation. A life that conquers death. Something greater, stronger, more beautiful than anything this world has ever known. So let us come awake, dear ones, and live awake.
