Throughout history gold has been a highly-valued commodity. During the Gold Rush, many people left everything...homes. families, some devoting their entire lives to the pursuit of it. God is a treasure far more precious than all the wealth on Earth, but unlike gold, He is not hard to find. He truly is a God who shows Himself. His truths are richly woven into the fabric of all creation. Our greatest insight into the very heart and mind are the Scriptures, but to find the real treasure, we must dig deep into the remote recesses of the Rock himself. One thing you will most certainly discover is the deeper you dig, the deeper He gets. In all eternity we will never be able to plumb the depths of God. It is my hope that perhaps through my own search for that 'Treasure above all Treasures' you will find something which will have some meaning for you. R.Whelan

Sunday, February 28, 2010

MARY (A SOLILOQUY)

Quite a few years ago now, a friend of mine asked me to write what Marys’ thoughts might have been in those first hours and days immediately after the death of her son, Jesus. Something that would help to convey the hopelessness that she, and all of His followers, must have felt at the time. This is the result of that request.


MARY (A Soliloquy)

Listen, it’s suddenly become so quiet . . . so deathly quiet.
Everyone must finally be asleep, everyone except me.
John keeps telling me that I should get some rest, but how can I rest?
Every time I even try to close my eyes, I can still see Him there.
It’s so cold . . . and dark.
Has it ever been so dark?
Oh, God, where are You?
Never in my life have You seemed so distant as You seem tonight.
Not even when my beloved Joseph died, did I feel this alone.
What happened?
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
You said He was to be the Messiah.
That one day He would sit upon the throne of David.
Instead, I watched them place my son in a tomb.
Why?
How could You let this happen?
There was nothing that I could do . . . but watch.
There was nothing that any of us could have done.
But You, Lord, You could have stopped them, and yet You did nothing.
At first, when He came into Jerusalem, and the people shouted His praises and laid palm branches before Him, I thought, at last . . .
At last I would see Your promises for my son fulfilled.
But something went wrong . . . terribly wrong.
Did He say or do something that displeased You so much that You would allow them to do this to Him?
Could it be that Joseph and I were both so wrong?
Did we somehow deceive ourselves and in doing so, deceive Him?
Oh, God, is it my fault . . . am I somehow to blame for my own son’s death?
Yet, I remember so clearly the night Your angel came to me . . . all the things He said.
Then there were the shepherds . . . and the wise men from the East.
Would they have traveled so far . . . would they have brought such gifts, if He were to be just an ordinary child.
And then there was Anna . . . and Simeon.
There were so many things that spoke to my heart,
Reassuring me that it was so much more than a dream.
But if not a dream, then what . . . a lie?
But God does not lie.
No!
I will not believe it.
He was the Messiah, just as You promised . . . wasn’t He?
Joseph said that the angel told him that His name should be Jesus, because He would save His people from their sins.
But He didn’t.
He didn’t even try to save Himself.
It was almost as though He willed it to happen, just as it did.
I don’t understand, but then I never understood what made Him do a lot of the things that He did.
He was so kind . . . so full of compassion . . . so wise for one so young.
And yet, there were times when He almost seemed to go out of His way to provoke the anger of our leaders.
He was my son, and I loved Him, but I don’t know that I ever truly understood Him.
There were a few times when I began to wonder if maybe His brothers were right, that maybe He had gone mad . . . but, in my heart, I knew.
Oh, why wouldn’t He just come home when I asked Him?
I should have found a way to make Him come home, then none of this would have happened.
But He would not be swayed, not by me, not by anyone.
He was determined to fulfill what He was sure was Your purpose for His life.
But, if He was truly the Messiah, then how could You have allowed Him to die before His work was finished?
God, I don’t understand any of this and I need so desperately to understand.
If only He were here . . . I need His strength.
But, I will never know His strength again, will I?
Nor His peace?
I will never hear His voice again . . . or feel the touch of His hand on mine.
I will never see His face . . .
Oh, God, when I close my eyes, I can still see the agony on His face.
I can still hear Him crying out.
God, help me!
Why did this have to happen?
Why did You let them do this to my son?
Why?


The Gospels don’t tell us much about what happened to Mary after Jesus’ death. We do know that our Lord committed her into Johns’ care, so I feel relatively certain that, in the days that immediately followed His death, she was nearby. I believe she must have been there to witness the commotion that ensued when it was discovered that her son’s body was missing. I also feel certain that Mary was one of the many hundreds to which He showed Himself following the resurrection. We cannot be certain, for the Bible doesn’t share any such private moment with us. Still, I feel, almost to a certainty, that Mary got an answer to her questions from that night. That she saw her son and His death on the cross in a whole new way as she looked back on it in the light of that resurrection morning, just as John and all the disciples did, just as we do now. I feel sure that not only was she given the answers to her questions, but that her hopes for her son and her hopes for a Savior were realized in ways she could never have imagined, looking at it from the other side of the cross.


Rae Holbrook (aka-Rachel Whelan)
© April 2, 1996

Saturday, February 13, 2010

THE ORIGINAL ARTIST

To the trained eye the telltale brushstrokes of the artist are in themselves enough to reveal the identity of the artist. Most of us, however, have to step back and look at the whole picture. Even then, we are often unsure, until we look at the signature in the bottom, right-hand corner. If we could just step back and look at the whole picture of creation, down in the bottom, right-hand corner, we would find the signature of God. - RWhelan