My mother's kitchen is full of them. They are painted on wood. Molded from plaster. Printed on paper. All of them beautiful, and yet all of them unique. They are red birds, Cardinals to some, but I like to say red birds. For my mother, red birds are a symbol of hope. I wasn't quite sure how the two worked together, but I'm beginning to understand. You see, if you think about it, many people see red birds in the winter because they are, well, red. And the landscape outside, is not. It's dark, not much sunlight and in some places, a lot of snow. Therefore, a bright red, red bird will stick out. It's almost as if God is saying, "Don't worry about the cold, don't worry about the darkness, Spring is around the corner. Hope is around the corner!" This brings me to a story about this past winter. I was asked to be in a musical at my church called "I'll be Home for Christmas." I played the part of a geeky, love-struck mailman, Danny, who delivers packages to a family who has been greatly impacted by WWII. Most of my lines were silly and goofy which was ironic because I was not feeling that way in real life. You see, during the time of rehearsals for this musical, I had made a tough decision to leave my corporate job without any prospects for another one. It was kind of dark time, being that it was winter and I was not making the salary I needed to provide for my family. However, every time I would go to practice for my musical, the theme song would play. "Hope is just around the corner. Joy is knocking at your door...." Over and over again. This was a constant reminder that God was looking out for me and that He had a plan in mind.
In
one particular scene, I was to deliver a Bible to the girl in the play,
Angie, for whom my character had a crush, a love interest. One of my
fellow actors was providing me with props to use and she had found a box
and a Bible for me to use in this scene. She hadn't put the brown paper
around the box yet, needing to convey it was a delivery. When I opened
the lid, there was a Bible and then I looked at the lid again. There was
a red bird on the cover and just then I thought about my mother. Hope.
Then, while I was reflecting and waiting for my next scene, looking at
the red bird lid and the Bible(pictured below), the choir started singing the refrain
"Hope is just around the corner, Joy is knocking at your door..." God
has the perfect timing and it was definitely what I needed to hear that
day as I waited for what was around the corner.
Most
days, we are all waiting for what is around the next corner, we all
want to experience the next big thing and get out of the tough spot we
feel trapped in. It may be a loss of job which does not only equate to a
lack of income but also to having a sense of worth and being productive
member society as well as being surrounded by people. Not having a job
or a goal or something you are working toward can really affect someone,
it affected me. In all this, God was faithful and God provided (Jehovah
Jireh). For others, it could be a loss of a loved one or sickness or
disease. The road seems long and curvy and no end in sight, no light at
the end of the tunnel. You could be struggling right now, not believing
that there is something around the corner or that God is with you, but
I'm here to tell you, there is something around the corner and God is
with you. Jesus is called Immanuel, God with us. It wasn't just 2000
years in a manger that He was with us, He is with us now! He is always
here, holding us, helping us, hoping with us. Don't give up! Winston
Churchill said this in a great speech to rally his country and the
allied forces during WWII, "Never, Never, Never Give up!" We don't know
what is around the next corner, but we know who will be there with us,
Jesus. Immanuel. God with us.
Every
time I see a red bird, I think of my mom. I think of hope. I sing the
refrain from my musical, I'll be Home for Christmas. Even though I was in a dark spot, I had hope. Do you know that
the disciples were in dark spot once? They had seen their master, their
Rabbi raise others from the dead, feed the multitudes, preach that the
"Kingdom of Heaven is near.." and yet they were stricken with fear when
they saw Jesus taken away, out of the garden of peace, into the field of
death. They all deserted him, Peter denied him 3 times, one guy even
high-tailed it out of there in his "Birthday Suit!" So afraid, he left his clothes on
the ground!
It
reminds me of this house party I went to in college.. There was drinking, a
lot of underage drinking, sponsored by a fraternity, a drinking faternity. Loud music, people
dancing, having a good time, talking hanging out, meeting girls. I remember being in the backyard talking
with some of the members of the band I was managing at the time, we had returned that day from a gig the night before.
Suddenly, I saw people heading toward the back of the fence and then
jumping over. Others were fleeing from the side fences into the
neighbors yards. Then I heard someone say, "The cops are here, the cops
are here." Apparently, there was a "disturbing the peace" complaint and
they were called in to break up the disturbance. Nothing crazy was going
on, but it was loud and it was late, people wanted to sleep. I remember
not jumping the fence, I remember walking right back through the house
and down the sidewalk to my friends house a few blocks away. I was of the appropriate age. However, others
were not of age and they got caught. But everywhere you
looked, you saw college kids escaping, trying to get away from the
authority. This is the scene I imagine when I think about what happened
in the Garden of Gethsemane. Disciples and other followers of Christ
were out of there in a hurry. At my employer before last, we had an
expression for people who got fired. It was slang and it was rude. If
it was a girl, we would say "She Gone." A guy, "He gone." In this case
everyone had left and so you could say "They gone." There Jesus stood,
friends and disciples, gone. The only disciple that was left was His
betrayer, Judas. Everyone else there were His enemies. Not only were the
disciples in a dark spot, Jesus was too. People who had left their
families, their farms, their nets, their jobs....all disappeared. The
ones who promised to always be there and follow Him to the grave, ran
away in fear of grave danger. If I was honest, I'm not sure if I would
have stuck around. I might not have casually walked away like my house
party experience. I may have been jumping the fence too! You have to
understand, their whole world and what they had staked their lives and
livelihood for was now being arrested. As they were sprinting down the sloping rocky hill, sweating and panting, I'm sure they must have been thinking....What does this mean for me? I guess the Kingdom of Heaven is not coming after
all. What about all those promises, Jesus? What about mansions? What
about the angels? What about Divine Power? How can you let them take you
away? How can you leave us? Why can't you save yourself, you saved
others? Questions. Fear. Frustration. Darkness.
It's
funny how we define life by one day. I mean you can have a really good
day and be on top of the world. You have a really bad day, struggling to
make it through and you think the world has ended. The disciples
thought their world had ended, but it had only just begun. You see the
darkness only last a little while, a few days. Hope was around the
corner. It was around the corner of a hill called Calvary, where our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ died on a criminal's cross as a innocent
man to save guilty criminals like you and me. Our crimes, there are against God, not following His ways. Not having enough faith. Not trusting. Breaking the commandments. Being born into a sinful world. Having sin already in us. You see we were born with a sinful nature in our blood. Yet, His blood was pure and it washed our sins as
white a snow. Where are the red birds most red? In snow. When you see a
red bird, think of hope. When you see a red bird, think of blood. Think
of Jesus, He traded our past, our mistakes, our unfaithfulness, our
guilt, our criminal sentence for hope. We should have died, but He did instead. Grace. Love. Hope. Think of Good Friday, it was good
because God is good and because God is good, He gave good. "For God so loved the world that He gave
His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but
have everlasting life." Jesus said in the very next verse..."I have not
come to codemn the world but to save it." The Apostle Paul says, "There
is no condemnation in Christ!" The world wants to condemn us, but God
only wants to save us. We only have to acknowledge we need saving and
believe in Him. Hope is always around the corner because hope has always
been. The only true hope for our broken lives, is Jesus. He is the hope
of the world. He is the hope for today. He is the hope of yesterday.
He is the hope of tomorrow. May the love of Jesus Christ be in your
heart today. Amen.
