It Is Written

I guess I’ve always had a desire to write, or draw, or somehow leave my mark on my world. My earliest leaving a mark memories involve crayons and a wall—and then some kind of spray cleaner, a rag, and scrubbing. Seems like my mother didn’t appreciate me honing my artistic talents on the walls of our apartment. I resented the fact that my mother didn’t appreciate the genius on display. I suppose that was the first time I realized it mattered where you wrote almost as much as what you wrote.

The same is true of the writing that Jesus has done. The medium of the message adds so much to the actual message. Take the Ten Commandments, for instance. The content is pretty much straightforward—a list of commands outlining God’s basic expectations for his people. They were written (engraved) by the finger of God on stone tablets. Those stone tablets were made from the sturdiest, must enduring, material easily available to the people of that time. The not so subtle message: these commandments will last; they are basic, fundamental, to the character of God. These are not whimsical, temporary, suggestions, but foundational laws meant to last until the end of time.

Or consider the story of the woman caught in adultery and brought to Jesus as a trap (John 7:53-8:11). Remember how Jesus, in response to the accusations of the men who brought the woman to him, knelt down and began writing. After writing for a while, he paused and suggested that anyone present who had no sin cast the first stone, then he began writing again. The accusers began to disperse, and Jesus asked the woman who was left to condemn her. It’s a beautiful story made even more beautiful when we realize how Jesus even cared for the “villains” in the story. He wrote “in the dirt.” From the context, it seems clear he was listing the sins of those who had gathered to accuse, perhaps even their specific sins with this woman they were condemning. But he was writing those sins in the dirt, in the sand, where the record would easily blow away, with no more permanence than a thought. Again, the medium is the message. Laws in stone. Our sins in sand.

Or what about this: God tells his people he has written our names in the palm of his hand (Isaiah 49:16, NLT). Of course, our minds are immediately redirected to the image of Christ with the nail scars from his crucifixion, and we grasp the metaphor of metal nails engraving the names of the redeemed into the flesh of Christ. It’s a powerful image, and it never fails to move me when I think about it. There is a message in this medium, as well. Laws were written in stone, sins were inscribed in sand, but our names? They are written in the palm of God’s hand.

Mountains of stone will one day ,let and flow like wax before the Lord (Micah 1:4).

The sins of the redeemed are removed as far as the East is from the West, that’s how far our sins have been removed from us (Psalms 103:12).

But our names, our souls, our lives, have been written in the palm of the First and the Last, the Alpha and Omega (Revelation 21:6).

Laws in stone. Sins in sand. Our names in the palm of the Savior’s hand. The medium is the message. Let he who has ears to hear, hear.