At the Threshold
Do you ever feel as if you are about to walk through a portal
on the edge of entering something new?
These days we stand at the threshold
At the edge of a kingdom we cannot grasp.
We long for a kingdom of justice and peace.
as we trod upon a broken earth.
The Sunday before Easter
Jesus rode into the great city of Jerusalem on the back of a colt
as the people waved palms, shouting “Hosanna!”
They called on him to save them from their oppression.
They waved palm branches, a symbol of victory,
anticipating he would usher in a new kingdom.
One of freedom from injustice and oppression.
Save us, save us, they cried.
The very word “Hosanna” that they shouted means: a cry to save, a cry of praise
The people were longing for a new kingdom,
one of hope and freedom.
The people were longing for a new world
tired and weary of the one surrounding them.
My parents experienced this type of longing in their home country of the Philippines
Decades ago they longed for, they dreamed of a better life in America.
This dream kept them moving forward.
Pushing forward even through war, loss, grief, and setbacks.
After landing here for a season.
they were able to build a home.
A small split-level home in a little neighborhood
where many others like them had settled, like them, chasing the American dream: a house, a home, a Buick in the driveway,
symbols of safety, security, and shelter from the past
and hope for the future they hoped to build.
Their double doors opened onto a landing
that became a threshold for many others to pass through.
Others in my family… aunties, cousins, friends who came to America for the first time.
to refuge for a moment, in the home, in the kitchen,
passersbys on their journey towards a new life.
This is the picture of a longing and the dream that my parents instilled in me.
These days, as my parents did, I long for a different country.
One that is not my own.
We trod a path towards the threshold of a different world,
a changing world.
In this current world of brokenness, pain
uncertainty, fear,
our longings for new world
drive us closer
into the presence of the One
who will usher in the new Kingdom.
He himself is the One
who breaks down barriers..
The walls of division that define this current world.
were broken down on Good Friday, the day
His life hung from a tree, the beams of a cross.
When he entered the portals of death that we were meant to enter, he broke the chains, the power that death and sin had over us.
His life, the root of Jesse, became the leaf, the sprout that would offer healing and wholeness to all.
to the nations.
Will we be the ones who usher in a new kingdom of peace,
who call “Hosanna, Lord save us!”
Who wave high the palm branches of the tree of life offered for the healing of the nations?
He alone is the one who will save us.
He himself is our peace.
Ephesians 2:14
In a world where breath cries out against injustice and hate
and blood is shed randomly and mercilessly.
In this land that beckoned others like my parents immigrate to this country.
to escape their own injustices.
Will we press forward in His hope?
Will we live in His love?
Will we walk in His peace?
Will we walk face to face with Him, as we were designed to do from the very beginning.
It is only in our very own
face to face walk with Him
that we will be able to walk face to face with those He created to walk alongside us.
He wove us together in a secret place. Psalm 139:15
The wombs of our mothers.
And in that secret place we were woven together by threads of variegated colors
Yellow, brown, black, white.
Woven together into images that reflect
the glory and mercy and compassion of the Creator God.
We entered this world
from the secret place
with a cry.
A voice.
Let us use that voice
to reflect the mercy and compassion of the God who created that voice within us.
We are the leaves, the life givers of the tree of life
The leaves that are meant for the healing of the nations that is described in the very last book, in Revelation 22:2.
Prepare us now, Lord.
For that healing.
For that kingdom.
As we stand at the threshold.
