Upside-down: not just for cakes anymore...

First of all, it has been a while. And for that, I do apologize... however, if I feel no inspiration to write, I usually don't write. Who wants to be bored by MY drivel? Not me. So tonight, I am moved. Inspired. Pregnant with a pondering, and thankfully nothing more...

Have you ever just laid down on a bench and looked at the world around you with your head upside-down? I used to do this in college. Quite frequently, actually. I would notice the intricacies of the trees, how the branches looked more gnarly from the underside... How the leaves seemed to simply hover above my eyes... How the canopy was like the underside of an umbrella, and it was breathtaking. People walking down the sidewalk took on a much more comical appearance. They sort of bounced along, like little dwarves on the moon. It was always fun to explore from a new perspective.

I was standing at church one Sunday, during worship, singing along to a truly great worship song, when I got this amazingly cool picture of myself, along with many others, standing before the throne of God, with Jesus entering the room. And the pondering began.

Have you ever noticed that everyone bows before royalty? If you’ve ever watched one of those movies from the medieval times, you would see peasants falling face-down before a prince (thank you Everafter...), or even the aristocracy bowing very low and averting their eyes before the king and queen. This was customary. This was law. If you didn’t do it, you could be beaten, thrown into prison, left for dead. It was a serious matter. You bowed before the king. His heralds went ahead of him to warn you that he was making his way through the streets so you could get your head down and genuflect before him.

I started thinking about how when Jesus, the King of Glory and our Redeemer, came into the room in my vision, we all remained standing. And it was right. It was fitting and holy and amazing. It got me to pondering about why it was good and proper that we should remain upright before the King of Kings. And the world turned upside-down. You see, we are not only redeemed, bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus, the Messiah, but we are also credited with His righteousness! When God looks upon Lauren, He doesn’t see Lauren, in her flesh and stupidity. He doesn’t see her faults and sins. What He sees, when He looks at Lauren (or anyone who is born again), is Jesus. 

This may be a tough one to grasp, but let’s think on this together for a moment... Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice. He was crucified for our sins. The sins of the world could never be covered by all the lambs, goats, oxen, and doves from ancient history to our modern day. It just wasn’t enough. It was like applying pressure to the horrific gash until the paramedics arrived. God’s plan was never to allow the sacrifices to continue forever, because He knew full well that it wasn’t really good enough. With that mindset, we would go on, in our own strength, sinning and sacrificing till the day we died. It wasn’t enough. 

Enter Jesus. The truly perfect, pure and spotless Lamb. His sacrifice bought and paid for every single sin, and it was good enough because He was perfect. He was God and man, and chose to deny His divinity for 33 short years, to walk and live and breathe among His creation. To be tempted as we are tempted. To eat and sleep just like the rest of us. To be mocked and scoffed at because of His radical way of teaching, thinking, living. I mean, who ever heard of such crazy talk? In order to be first, you must be last. In order to be the greatest, you must be the least. It’s upside-down, and much of the world doesn’t understand it. And for this reason, much of the world doesn’t want to have anything to do with it. If they only knew... 

So this Jesus: spotless, blameless, sinless, comes onto the scene, and lives an amazingly sin-free life. Not only did he not sin, but he also did many wonderful things while here. He healed people all over the land. Blind men saw, deaf men heard, bleeding women were made whole, dead people rose and lived again! Lame men walked, demon-possessed children were set free, the list goes on and on. He taught with more wisdom and knowledge of the scriptures than any rabbi ever had. He unlocked mysteries to men and women, yet confounded the pharisees. He told the rich that in order to follow Him, they needed to become poor (sell all they had). Hmm... to be rich, you have to be poor. More inversion...

Okay, so we have this amazing man in Jesus... but wait, there’s more... and I’m not talking about a set of Ginsu knives, folks. I’m talking about the ultimate sacrifice: Jesus, living a perfect life, decided that He would go to bat for us, a sinful and truly depraved people. HE died so that I might live... truly live. When I understood this next thing, my life flipped faster than grandma’s Pineapple Upside-down Cake. 

The life we live, as born again believers, is full and rich and glorious. Why? Because Jesus’ blood paid the price for all our sins. Every last one of ‘em. Past, present, future. They’re history. Actually, they’re no more. And what He did then is just astonishing. He gave us His righteousness! We aren’t walking around with a blank slate, so to speak. We are (or we should be) walking around this earth, carrying the righteousness of Christ!! All His purity, all His love, all His sinlessness... It’s ours, by way of His blood covering us. We “put on Christ,” as Paul writes in Galatians 3:27. No, this doesn’t mean life’s a bunch of sunshine and roses... but it does mean that we, being covered by the blood of Jesus, don’t have to walk in defeat ever again. 

And this is why we are allowed to stand upright when we enter in, to the most amazing and holy place, and worship our Lord Jesus Christ. We can stand boldly before the throne of God and shout and dance and sing before our God in worship to Him. And of course, we can also bow low and fall on our face before Him, too. Sometimes that’s the way to go. But know that Jesus came to turn this place upside-down. And know that the view this way is much better.