| \u201cI love that He chose to keep his scars when He came back\u201d, my Dad\u2019s voice hardly carried as it hit the brisk air filled with frigid ocean mist. We were trekking all along the rugged Maine coastline, etching it with our footsteps. Thunderous waves slapped the rocky fortresses again and again, the jagged coast unwilling to give in. Standing eye to eye with the ocean, we were looking death in the face at what seemed like the edge of the earth as we hiked around, but at the same time \u2013 it felt as steady as could be. Those scars, a reminder of who Jesus is to us \u2013 and that wild untamed landscape, a reminder of what life with Him is like. It\u2019s one of my favorite parts of the Easter story. And something I\u2019ve spent more time thinking about this year than others. The way Jesus chose to come back to different people, namely his disciples. The big picture is important, sure. Yet sometimes I find that the details get glazed over and left out..and when that happens I feel like I miss out on Him. It\u2019s those details of His personality and who He is that make the story great. The clues of His personality are everywhere, and it\u2019s those that I want to soak in so badly to understand Him and his love for me even more. His unimaginable sacrifice. His fierce love. Even His sense of humor. The more I get to know Jesus, the more I \u201cget\u201d about His personality and what he\u2019s like, and what He was like as a man. That\u2019s the part I love. Knowing that He\u2019s \u2018been there too\u2019. He\u2019s had friends walk away. He\u2019s felt pain \u2013 even sweat blood. Anything \u2013 whether it\u2019s a feeling, a relationship, a circumstance, He has been there and knows where I am. I think when we look a little closer at who He is and wade slightly deeper than the thousand-foot view of the resurrection \u2013 we\u2019ll find things that draw us to Him even more. On the shore of the Sea of Galilee, there Jesus stood as Peter, Thomas and some of the other disciples were out fishing. \u201cFriends, haven\u2019t you any fish?\u201d Jesus calls out to them. Yet, none of them realize it is Him at the time. Then He tells them to \u201ccast their net on the right side of the boat and they will find some\u201d. Immediately, they haul in a BOAT LOAD of fish. Peter then knows it\u2019s Jesus and leaps out of the boat frantically swimming to Him. How incredible is that..Jesus doesn\u2019t run up to them and say, \u201cHey guys, it\u2019s me!\u201d and yet this is one of the first times He appears to them after his death. No..far too easy for Jesus. Instead He calls out to them and has them haul in more fish than they can handle, in the SAME exact way He met them originally when they became His disciples. It all comes full circle. It\u2019s not an accident that He decides to meet them and appear to them again this way. Oh..and when they finally drag all the fish in that the nets are practically bursting at the seams, the verse says there were \u201c153\u201d of them. 153? Where the heck did that number come from? If you ask me, the disciples were probably so astonished at the number of fish that they began to count them \u2013 only to be stopped by Jesus. \u201c153\u201d, Jesus could have said. \u201cWhat?\u201d, I imagine the disciples murmured back. \u201cThere\u2019s 153 of them\u201d Jesus says while smirking. It makes sense to me..a key detail like that one mentioned and He\u2019s out on the shore again with his best friends, fishermen mind you, warming them up with his humor. \u201cYeah, by the way, there\u2019s 153 of those. Good to see you guys again.\u201d Why not? That Holy Saturday before he rose again..I wonder what it was like. The Messiah was brutalized and crucified. Darkness fell over the land. His friends scattered. Hope was lost. And none of them could have known what was to come next. I try and put myself in their shoes on that Saturday. What was Peter thinking\u2026? It\u2019s easy to celebrate and feel joy when we know the great ending (or should I say beginning?) of the story. But to be there, in that moment on that day, I can\u2019t imagine the darkness and loss of hope that had taken all who knew him under it\u2019s shadowed wing. \u201cIt\u2019s a day to sit in the tension of faith and doubt\u2026honoring any deconstruction you might be going through. It\u2019s a day for stark, deafening silence.\u201d as Stephen Proctor puts it. He goes on to say that he doesn\u2019t like to rush into Easter too quickly\u2026because it alleviates the tension and causes you to miss out on the present moment of the story. There is something tragically beautiful to behold on that day. The sacrifice He paid and the scars He kept..that\u2019s where I\u2019m at this Easter. He could\u2019ve came back with an unblemished body, He could\u2019ve come back with an army of angels and struck down his foes, He could have thrown a massive party, He could\u2019ve ran right up to each of his close friends and beloved mother and hugged them right away shouting, \u201cI\u2019m alive! I\u2019m alive!\u201d. But He didn\u2019t..that\u2019s just not him. He had fun with it..you can tell. And it unfolded the way it was meant to. His way. I love that He kept his scars because it reminds me that He settled the score and paid the ultimate debt. That His flesh bled and tore just like mine is capable of doing \u2013 but doesn\u2019t have to because of him. I love that He kept his scars because it\u2019s what made Jesus fully human. And to believe that, that He was truly human \u2013 is the beginning of realizing his great personality. It\u2019s the ones with the scars that he uses to do his work. Seeing that he wore his after he could\u2019ve gotten rid of them, why should I hide mine?<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI love that He chose to keep his scars when He came back\u201d, my Dad\u2019s voice hardly carried as it hit the brisk air filled with frigid ocean mist. We were trekking all along the rugged Maine coastline, etching it with our footsteps. Thunderous waves slapped the rocky fortresses again and again, the jagged coast…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=516"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":517,"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions\/517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |