Meditation 9

Recently a friend of mine gave birth to her first child. The atmosphere was pure joy, a real celebration! There were balloons outside the hospital room and a myriad of gifts inside. The happy new parents were nearly overwhelmed by the number of food-bearing visitors who came to celebrate the birth of the baby. In Ezekiel we find an obscure passage about the birth of a child. But at this child's birth there was no celebration, no balloons, no visitors and no gifts. In fact, the parents of this child hated it. Before the baby was washed with water, wrapped in a blanket or even had its cord removed, it's mother despised it and throw the child into a ditch. Abandoned and left to die. The story doesn't end there however; we find the Lord Himself coming to this wretched child. We pick up the narrative in chapter 16, verse six, “‘And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, 'Live!' I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’"

Dear reader, you and I are that wretched and disposed child. Even the best of us, the most successful of us, know the state we were in before our rescue; lost with no hope, grouping in darkness, sick without a salve to comfort our open sores. But at some point in time, while we were dead in our trespasses and sins, while our blood was still unwashed, our cord still uncut, while we were unloved and cast off, Christ found us by the road and said, “Live! You shall not die!” 

If you are in Christ, than you are, even now, an object of God’s favor and pleasure. Though you were wretched, dirty and lost, He has gently loved you and cared for you, bringing you into a position of honor and nobility. The King of kings has become your Father and has tenderly washed, wrapped and healed you. 

“Fatherlike He tends and spares us; 

Well our feeble frame He knows. 

In His hands He gently bears us, 

Rescues us from all our foes.”

Father, I stand amazed at this reality; that I am able to know you as Father, and be known by you as your son. Such a privilege is too wonderful for me to take in - You, the King of Glory, have looked upon me and loved me.