Lent Day 14
by Hannah Nester
Psalm 16
Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”
As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
in whom is all my delight.[b]
The sorrows of those who run after[c] another god shall multiply;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names on my lips.
The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.[d]
I have set the Lord always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being[e] rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.[f]
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Romans 8:31-39,
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be[i] against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.[j] 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“The message of Christ isn’t that you can’t kill me. The message of Christ is that you can kill me, and that’s not death.” -Stephen Colbert in Vanity Fair
I’ve seen too much death this past year. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that we all have. Maybe it was through the collective shock of COVID, the final cries of George Floyd and the attack on DC played on repeat, or tragedies too personal to ever make the news. For many of us it was all of the above. Sometimes it feels like the end. It’s hard to hold onto hope when everything is falling apart around you. “What then, shall we say in response to these things?”
I recently heard a poet reflecting on last summer’s wildfires. She shared about a type of Western pine tree whose cones release their seeds in response to heat. “And immediately before the tree is consumed, they open up and the seeds drop before the fire has even started to run. So before those trees are consumed, the seeds have already been dropped and have already been placed in the ground.” How many moments of 2020 did I spend feeling buried like a seed? How often did the light at the end of the tunnel turn out to be a wildfire? I have felt consumed.
Still, it was in rooms full of death I saw God most clearly. After everything that’s gone wrong looking forward to this year feels a bit risky. But if God can grow a new forest from the ashes of an old one, he can bring new life in my heart too. Maybe the ashes are a road to resurrection. Death is not the end and we can repeat this poet’s words for ourselves: “I will never write your obituary because even as you burn, you are throwing down seeds that will sprout and flower…I will mark my heart with an ‘X’ made of ash that says, ‘the power to restore life resides here.’” God’s power resides here, in us, and He will not abandon us to the grave.
The Daily Podcast: An Obituary for the Land
Hannah Nester is a Nashville resident. When not teaching English or hunting down the best diamond deals for her customers, she enjoys reading, cooking, and dreaming of the day dinner parties and international travel become normal again.