The Eternal Weight of Glory

"We do not lose heart.  Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.  For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."  2 Corinthians 4:16-18.

Sitting on my desk is this aptly framed treasure written by my mom almost 40 years ago.  

Take an Oak of some 100 years growth. 

How was that Oak born?  IN A GRAVE.

The acorn was planted in the ground; a grave was made for it that the acorn might die.  It died and disappeared, casting its roots downward and shoots upward, and now that tree has been standing a hundred years.   

Where is it standing?  IN ITS OWN GRAVE. 

All the time, in the very grave where the acorn died, it has stood there stretching its roots deeper and deeper into that earth in which its grave was made, and yet, all the time, though it stood in the very grave where it had died, it had been growing higher, and stronger, and broader, and more beautiful.  All the fruit it ever bore, all the foliage that adorned it year by year, it owed to that grave in which its roots are cast and kept. 

Even so, Christ owed everything to his death and his grave.  And we, too, owe everything to that grave of Jesus. 

Oh, let us live every day rooted in the death of Jesus.  To my own will, will I die; to human wisdom and strength and to the world, will I die.  For it is in the grave of my Lord that his life has its beginning, its strength, and its glory. 

CHRIST IS THE ACORN THAT WENT DOWN INTO THE GRAVE. 

And waited for his father, trusting in him to give him new life.  His roots bore fruitful branches and, in death, was his true life...to go back to the Father so that we could copy him and do the same.  God gave him life back 10,000 times more glorious than his life or ours on earth.  Jesus was born twice, the first time in Bethlehem, a life born into weakness, and the second time, from the Grave.  He is the "firstborn" from the Grave. 

Copyright Mary Blanchette 1977