Stripping Rhubarb

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." 2 Corinthians 5:17

Just had a mini revelation concerning our marriage and what God has been doing in our marriage and life in Christ over the years. Someone commented that they wanted to hear more about "other things" we went through. To be honest there are quite a few things we have been through together. Not all bad. Not all good. You see life is a mess.

Back to my "aha" moment if you will...

I just received a large batch of rhubarb from my neighbor and decided to make some jam with it. Before hand I washed and then proceded to strip of peel if you will the top part of the skin (As I had been instructed). I thought, wow, this is like Christ when He makes a new creation. Take off the old, put on the new.

I have been reading to the children the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis to my kids at night (which sometimes I think maybe I am the only one interested in it). One might see it as just a children's book, but if you look closer you will find powerful illustrations of Christ in the character of the Lion, Aslan.

Anyway before preparing the rhubarb jam I was reading the chapter from the Dawn Trader, How the Adventure Ended. Eustace (the cousin of Susan,Peter Edmund, and Lucy) decided to get some rest and left the group after getting off the ship to survey the island. He had already been a real pain up to this point in the story and ends up finding a dead dragon near a cave. He enters a cave and finds massive treasure and decides to keep it himself. He puts on a bracelet and falls asleep only to wake-up as a dragon!

Let's fast forward to the part where he turns back into a dragon and tells Edmund how he got "un-dragoned" through Aslan, the Lion:

So at last we came to the top of a mountain I'd never seen before and on top of this mountain there was a garden - trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well. I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it...The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could in there and bathe, it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first...I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort or things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and , instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin just started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I sould see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. I t was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bath.

"But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I , it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went to the well for my bathe.

"Well, exacty the same thing happedned again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins Have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scrathded away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I know it had been not good.

Then the lion said-but I don't know if it spoke-'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desparate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone rightj into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know-if you ever picked a scab off a sore place. It hurts like belly-oh but it is fun to see it coming away."...

" Well he peeled the beastly stuff right off-just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt- and there it was, lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath not that I'd no skin - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are prettly moluldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them."

"After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me--"

"Dressed you? With his paws?"

"Well, I don't exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes - the same I've got on now, as a matter of fact..."

...

Is that not an amazing illustration of how God transforms a dead-live person and gives them new life through His son, Jesus Christ?! Eustace tries over and over again to make himself healed and new. But he can't. He just can't without the true power that comes from the Holy Spirit. Amazing. Aslo reminded me from the scriptures about the parable Jesus shares about "worthlessness of self-reformation":

"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wiked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked geration." (Matthew 12:43-45).

So nothing we do will makes us clean apart from Christ! The good things believers in Christ do take on is an overflow of Grace that God has given them. This is joy over flowing. The scales are taken off my back and the my outerskin has been stripped by Christ. He has given me a new heart, opened my eyes and put on new clothes so that I would be in no way ashamed on that day that I stand before Him!

Concerning marriage, I am grateful that both Mikko and I are alive in Christ. If we were unequally yoked (one a believer, the other not, or both not believers), our marriage would have been much more difficult with a lot less truer peace to restore us in bumpy times. Much more, it would have been less of a beautiful picture God intended to give: Christ and his love for his church shows when the Husband is faithfully loving and caring for his bride.

I know it seems I was cramming two messages in one. But dear reader who is considering marriage, or is dating . Don't consider, just believe me, your potential spouse needs to be sold out for Christ. Not perfect. Heh. But puts his priority need to be in the Lord and not Himself. Be blessed.