Looking for a fixer.

Have you ever felt defeated?  Depressed? Heavy with the burdens and concerns of life? Have you ever felt like the curtain was closing in on all your hopes and dreams?  You long for someone to come and solve all the problems?

Those who followed Jesus were looking for a revolutionary. They were under the Roman regime that oppressed them. They wanted to overthrow the Roman government and throw off the political shackles and chains. They wanted freedom.

They were looking for a leader, someone who could do the work for them, a solution to their problems.

Can you imagine the disappointment of the crowd who had followed Jesus as they saw him hanging on the cross. The confusion. The disillusionment. As they saw the man who all their hopes and dreams were wrapped up in, they saw him beaten beyond recognition, struggling to breathe as he hung heavy on the wooden beams.

To think they had been so close… Just one week prior they were hailing him as the One as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. Hosanna they had shouted. “Save us now” they had cried, waving palm branches and singing. They were celebrating his arrival. They could feel something in the air. It was time!!

As they stood there on that dark day to say they were disheartened is an understatement. They were defeated. Defeated!

Sound familiar?

Sometimes I want someone to swoop in and fix everything for me. How about you? I fear we think that person is Jesus. We think if we recognize our need for forgiveness or faith or a higher being – if we do our part- then Jesus should do his part. He should fix it all. That’s his job, is it not?

So we pray and plead and do good works. But sometimes, sometimes our problems don’t go away. Sometimes our marriages are still hard. They fall apart and people walk away.

Sometimes we lose our job and look for another and it takes much longer than we think it should or it moves us to a new town away from our network and friends and everything we hold dear.

Sometimes our kids are still as messed up as we never thought they would be.

Sometimes we are chronically sick. Still battling our body and consulting experts who can only shake their heads and try the only thing they know even if it’s not working.

Sometimes our son still has his heart beating outside his chest.

Guys, we…. I…. I am so much like those early believers confused, disoriented and disillusioned.

I watch as the hero I looked to is taken off the cross and buried in a tomb and a big stone is laid at the entrance. And sometimes I feel hopeless.

But Jesus says, wait. Wait for it. There can’t be grace without the cross. There can’t be life without death.  There can’t be peace without a storm.

Wait for it because I am coming. I didn’t come to condemn I came to save. I didn’t come to be your fairy godmother, Santa clause, or your eccentric rich uncle. I came to be your friend.  I came to be your savior. I came to show you there is something greater than your problems and the things of this earth. I came to conquer death.

You’re focused on the bruises, the crown of thorns, and the burial clothes.

I’m focused on you. I’m dying for you. And I rose again for you. Not for comfort. Not so you would cover your true self in fig leaves or hide your face in shame. I made you so I could be with you. YOU.