Thorns of the Flesh

Have you ever had a splinter? I am sure you have. My children are constantly getting them. Brent and I have very different approaches at the removal of these pesky, painful things. He slowly preps the kids, explaining everything that is about to proceed, preparing them for the "operation". He then sanitizes the needle with alcohol, gets out the triple antibiotic ointment, the band-aids. Then he asks that the afflicted child come forward to have the menace removed. By this time the child is terrified, but knows that this is a way to remove the painful thing. I on the other hand am less informative and more aggressive. I look at the splinter and assess the situation: Is is deep or just below the surface, will using a needle require excessive and needless digging, or is the splinter lodged deep, is it thick and easily grabbed or is it tiny or worse yet has it broken into more pieces and is it deeply lodged. I simply tell the child I am going to get the splinter, it is going to hurt, and they can let me get it or they can get an infection or hope it works it's way out. I let them know I will not wrestle with them in order to help them. I then grab the tools of choice: the needle if it is close to the surface and easily grabber, the clippers (cleaned with alcohol)if it is deep or broken into pieces and cut the whole thing out. Quickly apply the ointment, press on the bandage, kiss the child, and tell them "stay off the wood next time", and I turn them loose.

I taught over the Passion of Christ to our youth this past week. A very generous lady of our church provided a crown of thorns for our example.

I had only seen these thorns one other time in my life. My husband and I had visited a conservatory in San Antonio several years back and there was a tree that had terrible, ugly, thorny branches. The tree itself was nothing beautiful to look at. Underneath it was a sign giving it's proper name and origin and a brief description. In the description it was noted that this was the very type of tree from which the crown of thorns was fashioned. A weeping tree, created in the beginning of time to be a representation of the terrible, blackness of the sins of man. It would be the tree that a crown of torture was fashioned, that would cause the precious life-giving blood to flow from a torn head to be the forgiveness of man.

As I passed this crude and terrible thing around I asked that the children look closely at each giant, sharp, treacherous thorn. Each thorn had thorns on it, protruding in every direction.

You see sin and the lies of the enemy are like the splinters my kids pick up in the world and they are like the thorns of this terrible tree entering into our lives at different angles and times. Sometimes they are like the splinter sliding in unnoticed until afterwards only making one entry wound. They are small or big, they may break into tiny pieces upon entering or they may stay together, they may be close to the surface or they may be deeply lodged within. Sin and the lies of the enemy are also like the thorns of the crown. They can cause terrible life altering implications as they enter ripping to shreds a life, a testimony, dreams, marriages, families. Once there they hook in and blood and pain flow freely and with great abundance. The pain, the injury is undeniable, and can't be hid: everyone can see it. Unlike the splinter you can not close your hand over it, wrap it up, hide it, or ignore it until the infection is too bad to deny it.

The wonderful, magnificent thing is that God chose not a small splinter to be the crown of thorns. God did not make the rose bush to be the thing from which this was fashioned. Instead he chose the most terrible thorn, the best representation of the ultimate implications of sin in our lives. He wanted us to know that it was not just the small seemingly unnoticed sins that he was interested in, but also the big ugly ones. God does not distinguish sins, he does not categorize or minimize or say one thing is greater than the other. He understands in his infinite wisdom that ALL sin, even the ones we keep hidden from the world cause pain, infection, and ultimately death if left untreated. However, he chose the greatest thorns to give us a picture that he was willing to forgive it all. He chose the thorns that would cause the life-giving, bondage-breaking, wall shattering, life-altering, chain-breaking, prison-freeing, precious blood of Christ to flow freely.

God is interested in it ALL!!! He wants us to come to him, call on him, ask forgiveness let him become Lord of our lives. He wants to remove our sins.

He may explain the process, loving take us in his arms, expose the sin to us and gently remove it. Or he may show it to us and give us little explanation as to how it will be removed and aggressively cut it out of our lives. There may be a wound left, and healing to be done, or there may be little left as a reminder. Always he applies an ointment of forgiveness, love and grace to our lives, and he wraps the wound (great or small) in grace and love, with forgiveness. He kisses away our tears and steers away from the things that might cause us to fall again into this terrible thing that inflicted pain.

He redeems us! We are set free! We are no longer flawed by the pain of our sin - - His son wore the crown that we would not have to.

"For God so loved the world that he sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not come into this world to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed on the Lord...." John 3:16-18