faith

The Cleft of His Heart

/ Morgan Grace Hart / Leave a comment

(Image courtesy of Jim Berry, www.cayman365.com)

In my mind’s eye, while I was praying, I saw myself coming up to Jesus on the cross, seeing Him bleeding and hurting, so indescribably torn up. I started to cry, and reached up to touch His injured feet with my hands. He smiled at me, as best He could with His face so beaten, and His voice was filled with affection for me. “If my hands were free to do so,” He told me, “I’d hug you right now.” I cried and cried, and finally said to Him, “Jesus, I care about You. It’s so painful to see You so…broken.” “Yes,” He said, “but the breaks are where you get in. They’re openings. Just like the cleft in the rock where you are held safe, so the fissures of my Heart are carved out for you, a place for you to be hidden.” [This was also in answer to some prayertime I had had with Him recently, about what to do if you really need a safe place to go for rest, but aren’t physically able to leave where you are.] He continued, “as an infant is safe inside its mother’s womb, so you can rest safe inside of Me.”

I kept imagining it, as my kind of peace-image: being at total peace in my Lord Christ, in the depths of His heart, in stasis in the warmth and nourishment of His Blood.

God bless you,

Morgan Grace Hart

Exodus 33:18-23; John 6:53-59; Romans 6:11

How Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade Totally Blew It

/ Morgan Grace Hart / 2 Comments

(SPOILERS ALERT!)

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, it was the 80’s, and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull did not exist.

Instead, we had the original trilogy of the Indiana Jones movies.

The last of these movies was aptly titled, “The Last Crusade”. It was the (for a while, at least) last Indiana Jones movie, and a movie about searching for religious artifacts.

The movie climaxes in an iconic scene where Indy and “bad guy” must locate the Holy Grail (AKA the cup Jesus used at the Last Supper) from among a room full up cups. Bad guy, knowing very little about Christ, chooses the biggest, most expensive chalice in the room. The guardian of the Grail replies, “you have chosen poorly,” and bad guy dies. (Ok, that’s a really oversimplified version, but stay with me here). Indy says to himself – correctly – that Jesus was a carpenter’s son. Thus, Indy chooses the very simplest, most humble cup in the room. The guardian says “you have chosen wisely,” and Indy doesn’t die (and whether or not this is a good thing depends on how you felt about the Crystal Skull).

But that’s not necessarily correct, because the Grail never belonged to Jesus! In the Bible it clearly says that Jesus, who had given up pretty much everything He owned by this point in His ministry, asked a complete stranger for use of an already set-up room for this meal. Now, to put this in perspective, crashing a Passover meal is about like showing up at someone’s house at Thanksgiving to say that you and your followers  have need of their spare room and entire meal. I don’t know who that guy was that lent Jesus the entire 2nd floor of his house and his entire 12-person meal, while he and his own family presumably sat in the kitchen eating sandwiches without plates, but that guy was AWESOME. Way to put God first.

So, getting back to Indiana Jones, we have no idea what the cups in the good stranger’s house looked like. They could have been plain, or, more likely, since he was able to spare food and room for thirteen spontaneous guests, they probably had at least a little swag going on.

So, if the day ever comes that someone invites you over to their house to watch a 20-year-old movie, you can pause it at the iconic climax, Google this entry, read it aloud, and feel confident in pointing out that Indiana Jones is not theologically accurate.

I never said this story had a really important point.
God Bless Ya,

Morgan Hart

(For the full account, read Matthew 26:17-19, or Mark 14:12-17, or Luke 22:7-14.)

For a free online Bible, try Biblegateway.com

For a free description of salvation and access to a 24/7 prayer partner, try peacewithgod.net

Embracing the Cross

/ Morgan Grace Hart / Leave a comment

Here is a journal entry from several years ago:

9-3-13
So today when I felt the need to pray at lunchtime:
I found myself thinking back to those images in The Passion of the Christ where He first sees the cross and embraces it. And I got this really moving thought in my imagination about Jesus first seeing the cross – a strange thought, since it will be the way He’s meant to die – that there was a moment there where God seemed to touch His shoulder and say, “take heart, Son, here it is!” and draw His eyes to it in the way that loving parents bring their children on Christmas morning into the room where they have lovingly laid out their gifts for them. Was there a moment, in His heart, where despite the horror, Jesus could see that, even though it was Punishment, even though it was Death, and His Curse… it was also His Life, the life that God had trustingly given Him to spend, full of good things and bad things, but a blessing nonetheless? – That He had been lovingly equipped with the strength to endure it, lovingly connected to the people He would save? That God had, at some point in Jesus’ life, begun to lovingly cultivate a living tree somewhere, knowing that it would be The Tree? That as some unknowing woodcutter felled that same tree, God was lovingly working through his hands to fashion the cross that His Son would be crucified to? That He had carefully orchestrated this, thinking lovingly of His Son, of what His Son was capable of?
Was it not just love for us coming from the Father, but also something He did because He loved Jesus, too, giving Him the greatest honor, though it came with such misery?

This thought was repeated to me three times. At the end came a thought closely related to a C.S.Lewis quote from The Screwtape Letters: “[sic] You fear this terrible thing happening to you or that terrible thing happening to you. You fear so many things, but all you actually have to do is the one cross that God has designed for you.” And I felt the Father tell me this: that the cross you bear every day is exquisitely hand-crafted for you by the Person who loves you most in the world…and once you fully grasp this idea, you will never be terrified of anything in life.

 

Dear friends, He was not only willing to die for you – He was grateful for it. His love for His saved ones runs so deep, I have no doubt that He constantly thanks the Father for allowing all these people to have a true relationship with Him, regardless of the cost to Himself to gain this kind of access to the human heart.

God bless you, and have a good day. And P.S. – I really recommend reading the Scripture references this time, if you’re unfamiliar with these verses.

-Morgan Grace Hart

SCRIPTURE REFERENCES:

Hebrews 12:2, Isaiah 53:11, Isaiah 53 (whole chapter), John 12:23-28, Hebrews 2:10-18, Luke 9:23, 1 Thessalonians 5:18.
For those without access to a Bible, a free online copy is available in multiple languages at biblegateway.com.