Soak It All In

This is my favorite time of year. Spring brings with it a sense of anticipation as buds stand ready to burst open at any moment. It’s also the time of the most sacred week in our calendar. In one week, my kids will wave palm branches to announce the coming King and the beginning of Holy Week. Sometimes, I wonder what it was like for Jesus to experience this world. How did it feel when His power evaporated at the touch of the bleeding woman? What was it like when the crowds, with loud voices, shouted "Hosanna in the highest!" and then, "Crucify Him!"? Were His feet calloused and dusty from the miles of walking? Did He feel a certain joy when He multiplied the wine and the bread? I imagine that Jesus, a master at being present, soaked in this earthly life with all its experiences—both the encouraging and the heart-wrenching.

I moved to Liberia just as the country was picking up the pieces from years of civil war. The first female president, Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, was inaugurated the month I arrived, inheriting a country in shambles. For two years before her presidency, the country was governed by a transitional government and protected by 15,000 UN peacekeeping troops. I struggled to describe my experiences because life there was so different from home.

For example, the port was guarded by UN officials. They sat behind barricades and barbed wire, dressed in fatigues, helmets, bulletproof vests, and boots, with AK-47s strapped across their backs. Bullet holes pierced numerous lampposts and buildings. Sunken ships were left to rust in the harbor, and trash piled up along the riverbanks and marketplaces. The roads, filled with potholes and puddles, looked more like dried-up creek beds than streets.

Yet, there was also beauty. I served at an orphanage nestled between rubber trees and mud huts. Children pumped clean water from a well, women cooked over fires, and monkeys nibbled on bananas. I visited a farm where pineapples and cashews grew. The rainy season brought lush foliage and vibrant flowers. I couldn’t stop soaking it all in—the beautiful and the broken, the encouraging and the heart-wrenching.

Jesus soaked it in. He came to a world and soaked it all in. We see this when He, the Word, became flesh. He left the glory of His home to embrace the brokenness and beauty of this earth. He came to adopt us, for we were orphans. He gave us an inheritance so that we could leave behind a world filled with potholes, barbed wire, bullet holes, and trash, and embrace a world liberated from its bondage to decay.

This Easter season, may we never stop soaking Him in.