Day #2

The unique state of vacuous morality in which our world spins creates paradoxes that elevate greater truths out of the presence of the divine.

Or, in other words, God seems to get a kick out of letting all of the bad and weird in the world prove all of the good.

That was, in essence, the purpose of the cross, right? Jesus took the most intense torture and death upon Himself to let evil, basically, run itself out. Don Miller talks about this; Evil is a self sustaining entity, and thrives of the fact that as wickedness is committed, more wickedness will result. It fuels it's own fire as long as the provoked retaliates to his provocateur.

Jesus, however, did not retaliate. Instead, he let evil run itself out by destroying what was completely good and innocent. Without the intended result, there was nothing more that darkness could possibly do. Evil was spent, and God now has the power over death. So...the best offense was to throw the fight...in a very strange and provocative and beautifully noble kind of way.

To everyone who expected their savior to be a conquering hero, this must have seemed completely absurd, but this is not at all unlike God. He never seems to take the obvious route to achieve his ends. Those who He has chosen throughout history have all had a unique quality about them that makes it seemingly foolish that they would be fit for the enormous responsibilities before them.

Without being to overbearing and philosophical, I'm reminded at Easter that the world is fallen, which is why all of the bad happens. It's not God that orders earthquakes and tsunamis, or allows men's hearts to go to such dark places that lives are destroyed to sickeningly no end, but it's Him that compels us to be the strong, strange, surprising counterbalance to all of this heartache. Our sadness and pain needs to compel us to seek out our greatest joy. Us believers are strangers in the world, so let's act like it.

The Shadow Proves The Sunshine.