I have this beautiful Jasmine plant outside. You can imagine my delight when the small white blossoms opened up and filled the air with a heavenly scent.
It has been a frequent topic in my God conversations lately. I thanked the Lord for creating such beautiful expressions in nature. I marveled at Springtime and how the earth just cannot keep itself from declaring new life, life from that which seems dead.
I even shook my head at how this insignificant Jasmine plant was quietly and unassumingly taking over the fence line. With stretched-out tendrils and runners, it spreads its little domain, if you will.
Seriously, we have been talking about the parallels between this little plant and the Kingdom of God— it’s fragrant, relentless, and advancing.
But after looking at it multiple times a day for many days, today when I looked, it caught my breath.
I walked over to it to see what this red leaf was, maybe it blew into the fence from last night’s storm. No. It was very much a part of this thriving creation.
In the moment, the Lord whispered, the Blood is always in the middle of the Beauty.
Selah.
Holy Week is a pathway. From the Lord’s Supper, to the garden, to the trial, to the outrageous brutality, to the cross, to the tomb. Pause and reflect but don’t stop in any one of these places. Taste the wine, cry the tears, wince at the nails being driven in, feel the breath leave His body, and flinch as rock grinds on rock as they rolled the tomb closed with His body inside.
But don’t stop there.
Resurrection Sunday is the unspeakable joy as the Blood bursts into glorious song.
“He is not here! He has risen just as He said.”
The Blood is always in the middle of the Beauty. Celebrate the Beauty and remember the Blood.
And we have come to Jesus who established a new covenant
with his blood sprinkled upon the mercy seat;
blood that continues to speak from heaven, “forgiveness,”
a better message than Abel’s blood that cries from the earth, “justice.”
Hebrews 12:24 TPT