A Cuppa Kim: Hope San Mateo: Easter Sunday 2011

A few weeks ago, I was going through the book of James. Slowly. Repetitively. Meditating on just one passage a week.

God was teaching me about days like today.

Easter Sunday, 2011.

A day that did not go as planned.

As I lay in bed this morning, I could hear the whooshing of the cars on the street.
I only hear the whooshing when the roads are wet.
Like on rainy days. Today was not supposed to be a rainy day.

Despite checking the weather app on my iPhone and seeing a cloudy day (but no rain) in the forecast before bed, I woke up to raindrops on my window. And on the weather app.

[13] Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—[14] yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. [15] Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” [16] As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. [17] So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

(James 4:13-17 ESV)

Despite our best efforts, we never know what tomorrow holds. Yesterday, we had no clue that today held rain. Whoops!

Anyway, rain or shine, we worship our Risen Lord! Unsure of what the rest of the day would hold, I met up with the set up peeps at Starbucks at 7:45am. And it was decided that we would relocate from the very scenic, yet very outdoors "Hinky Delinky" to the very INDOOR, very cozy, Grandmum's House.

God provides.

We have been back a few times since the official "launch" on 10.10.10, and it is always nice, and grounding, to get back to our roots.

We set up 37 chairs. (Cause that's all we had).

At around 9:05, people started filing in.

While sitting around waiting for service to start, I heard Kimo whoop with joy, and saw out the window as Jesse came up the walk. A total surprise for her parents and sisters was that she was going to be joining us this Easter Sunday! (I got to be in on the secret, and kept her updated on the location and time change, phew!). She even brought two friends (love meeting more Masters kids!).

By the time 9:30 rolled around Grandmum's house was packed. And people were still trickling in.

S.R.O.

Sitting Room Only.

All 37 seats were full. So was the floor. And I think there may have been a few stragglers standing in back.

Camilla and I had the priveledge of hanging with the kidlets in the back room.

Before I headed out to be with them, I shared a devotional that I read last night in Spurgeon's Evening by Evening.

Easter changes dates ever year, but this year, last night's devotional lined up perfectly with celebrating the risen Lord - honestly, I love this. Jesus' wounds aren't gross, or shameful, they are beauty. They are his rewards, his badges of honor, and love.

April 23 - Evening

"Lo, in the midst of the throne . . . stood a Lamb as it had been slain." Revelation 5:6

Why should our exalted Lord appear in His wounds in glory? The wounds of Jesus are His glories, His jewels, His sacred ornaments. To the eye of the believer, Jesus is passing fair because He is 'white and ruddy' white with innocence, and ruddy with His own blood. We see Him as the lily of matchless purity, and as the rose crimsoned with His own gore.

Christ is lovely upon Olivet and Tabor, and by the sea, but oh! there never was such a matchless Christ as He that did hang upon the cross. There we beheld all His beauties in perfection, all His attributes developed, all His love drawn out, all His character expressed. Beloved, the wounds of Jesus are far more fair in our eyes than all the splendour and pomp of kings.

The thorny crown is more than an imperial diadem. It is true that He bears not now the sceptre of reed, but there was a glory in it that never flashed from sceptre of gold. Jesus wears the appearance of a slain Lamb as His court dress in which He wooed our souls, and redeemed them by His complete atonement. Nor are these only the ornaments of Christ: they are the trophies of His love and of His victory.

He has divided the spoil with the strong. He has redeemed for Himself a great multitude whom no man can number, and these scars are the memorials of the fight. Ah! if Christ thus loves to retain the thought of His sufferings for His people, how precious should his wounds be to us!

'Behold how every wound of His

A precious balm distils,

Which heals the scars that sin had made,

And cures all mortal ills.

'Those wounds are mouths that preach His grace;

The ensigns of His love;

The seals of our expected bliss

In paradise above.'

In the back room, Camilla taught the (very well behaved) kids the story of Thomas (while they sat on the giant polar bear of course). How he was so sad to see Jesus die on the cross. But, three days later, Thomas was hearing rumors that Jesus had risen. But he could not believe until he saw with his own eyes, and felt with his own hands, those precious wounds in Jesus' hands and side.

[29] Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
(John 20:29 ESV)

I love this. I love that God reminded me over and over today of the beauty in Jesus' pain, his wounds,
his SCARS.

He is risen.
He is risen, indeed!