A New Thing

  See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:19

Last year during Easter if you had told me where I would be this year I would not have believed you. God took me on a journey, a wilderness wandering. One where I left my Egypt, a place of bondage and pain, to wander a bit.  I can't say that I have arrived.  Maybe I never will this side of heaven, but for the time being I am where I need to be. God made a way in that wilderness even though much of the journey was bewildering. He left me wondering what He was up to, then He ended up doing a totally new thing!  While painful and perplexing in the process there is now peace.

Isn't that the way of God? A Christ on a cross. In a pit of pain. All because God was doing a new thing...to bring us peace.  Peace with God.  Peace with ourselves.  Peace with others.  Peace comes at a price and normally involves pain. Many times it involves a lack of understanding.  The new thing just doesn't make sense.

The newly risen Savior didn't make sense...

Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened. Luke 24:12

The dead don't walk off. They aren't escape artists. A three-day-old dead person doesn't pull off his own resurrection. Or does He? Peter left wondering. Mary confused. The disciples dumbfounded. That's what happens when God decides to do a new thing.  A thing to bring us peace. A thing to make a way in the wilderness so we can reach Him. A thing that brings us into relationship with the One that is all about resurrection.

This Easter? I am thanking that Escape Artist. The Wilderness Way Maker. The One who can pull off His own resurrection.  The One who made a new thing!