Flowers in a Lei – Strung Together with Love

Photo by Janine, Hawaii, 2007

At our lovely Ladies’ Fellowship Luau I described last week, I spoke about the symbolism of the luau and the lei, and their parallels to Christian symbolism. As members of the church, or body of Christ, we can be thought of as a lei, bound together in love as a family (Romans 12: 5).

My devotional continued on the theme of the lei, which is made from various kinds of decorative plants . Some of the names of Christ refer to plants that are highly valued for their fragrance, taste, or medicinal qualities, and that reflect different aspects of His character. Jesus is our role model, and in our Christian walk we should become more like Him (Galatians 5:25; Ephesians 5:2,8).. So, ideally, plants that describe Him should also describe us.

Each born-again believer is like a flower, each different, but more beautiful and fragrant to God when we come to together in unity of spirit than we would be separately. To illustrate this, I made a flower arrangement and a lei of different plants representing different names of Christ, as well as other plants with special meanings in Scripture.

Lily of the Valleys (Song of Solomon 2:1) Jesus is the Lily and Lord of the valley, because His most beautiful fragrance is in the valley of sadness or trials (Psalm 23:4). The Syrians, enemies of Israel, knew that the God of Israel was the God of the mountain top, but they thought He would abandon them in the valley. But God proved them wrong, giving the victory to Israel, and showing that He was not only God of the hills but also of the valleys (1 Kings 20:28).

Although the Lily of the valleys is a delicate flower, the Day Lily, or Easter Lily, which grows in sunny places such as the mountain top, is showy, and we use it at Easter as a symbol of Christ rising from the dead. It is even more stunning than the royal robes of King Solomon (Matthew 6: 28-33), just as Christ outshines any earthly King.

God designed and maintained the lily like this without the lily having to work for its beauty in any way. Similarly, in Christ, we are saved by His grace and clothed in His righteousness without having to work for it (Isaiah. 61:10; Ephesians. 2:8-9).

Like the Lily of the Valleys, the Rose of Sharon described in Song of Solomon (2:1) may refer either to Christ as the Bridegroom or His beloved, the Church. The Hebrew flower is more like a crocus or a tulip than a typical rose. Nonetheless, the rose is the most glorious flower, just as Christ in His second coming will be the most majestic Being ever seen (2 Peter 1:16).

The most popular colors for the rose are red, symbolizing His blood, shed for us to wash away our sins, and white, symbolizing His purity and holiness (Revelation 1:5; Matthew 28:3). The rose is also a symbol for God’s chosen nation of Israel, which will bloom joyfully like a rose when Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, rules over it in the Millennial Kingdom (Isaiah 35:1).

But the rose not only has a gorgeous blossom, it also has cruel thorns. The thorns in Christ’s crown were much longer and sharper than those of the garden rose, and pierced far deeper than His skin. He is the true King Who will rule over Israel in His second coming, but in His first coming, the Jews rejected Him as Messiah and King and gave Him a crown of thorns to humiliate and torture Him (Mark 15:17).

Flax, a plant bearing a blue flower with five petals, is of great Biblical significance. The prostitute Rahab used flax stalks to hide Joshua’s men (Joshua 2:6), once she realized they served the only true God, and her faith earned her not only salvation for her household but a place in Hebrews’ “Hall of Faith” (Hebrews 11:31) Burning flax is a symbol of tenderness and weakness, as when the ropes chaining Samson gave way like flax that was burnt with fire (Judges 15:14) It also describes Christ’s mercy to those who realize their helplessness and need of Him: the smoking flax shall He not quench: He shall bring forth judgment unto truth (Isaiah 42:3).

Fibers in the flax stem are spun into thread used to weave linen (Proverbs 31:13), one of the finest fabrics and a symbol of great wealth (Ezekiel 27:7; Proverbs 7:16; Luke 16:19; Revelation 18:12,16, etc.). Linen fabric was used to adorn the temple (Exodus 26:1,31.36, etc.), to clothe the priests (Leviticus 16:4, 20, 32, etc.), and to wrap the precious body of Jesus Christ after He suffered and died to pay the price for all our sins (Matthew 27:59; Mark 15:46, John 19:40).

In Heaven, linen clothes the angels (Revelation 15:6); the army of saints accompanying Christ in His triumphant second coming (Revelation 19:14); and the bride of Christ (Revelation 19:8), for it symbolizes the righteousness of saints imparted to them by Christ Himself.

Spikenard, a small blue flower that looks like forget-me-not, was made into very expensive ointment used by Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus, in a great example of true worship (John 4:23). She lavishly poured out her heartfelt adoration for Jesus by anointing His feet with this precious ointment and wiping His feet with her hair (John 12:3-8). The spikenard ointment may have represented her most valuable treasure in the world – it may even have been her dowry.

Judas was critical of her because he thought this was wasteful, but Jesus praised her, saying that she was anointing Him in preparation for His burial. He said that wherever the Gospel was preached, she would be remembered for her complete devotion, holding nothing back from her Lord (Matthew 26:13). We should never forget to give our very best to Jesus – our time, treasure and talents – for He gave His all for us.

We can worship from the heart, giving back to Him what He has given us, only if we have faith that God is Who He says He is and will do what He has said He will do (Hebrews 11:6). The mustard plant, which has a very tiny seed and grows into a huge bush with yellow flowers, reminds me of faith.

Jesus said that if we have faith as small as a mustard seed, we would able to move mountains and uproot huge trees just by asking them to move (Matthew 17:20; Luke 17:6). He compared the kingdom of heaven to a mustard seed, grown from a tiny seed into a huge tree that shelters all the birds (Matthew 13:31-32).

God will grow even the tiniest seed of our faith, but without faith, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). We can inherit the kingdom of heaven, because we are saved by His grace through faith (Ephesians 2:6-9) in His death, burial and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) as the only Way to Heaven (John 14:6).

All these flowers representing different qualities of Christ remind me that we are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), so we can be like flowers also, growing in God’s garden to encourage one another and glorify Him. The Bible tells us that our prayers rise up to Him like a sweet-smelling incense (Psalm 141:2; Revelation 8:3-4).

But in our earthly bodies, we will not last forever – our time on earth is short to glorify God with our lives (Job 14:1; James 4:14). Flowers fade, yet our eternal soul lasts forever, like God and His Word, which are unchanging (Isaiah 40:7-8). By spreading the Good News of the Gospel, we will bring the sweet fragrance of salvation to those who accept it, but those who reject Christ will be reminded of the eternal death they face (2 Corinthians 2:14-16).

We honor and remember Christ’s sacrifice every time we celebrate the communion of the Lord’s Supper. And whenever we notice the sweet fragrance of flowers in our garden, may we also remember the beautiful, perfect sacrifice Christ made to save us and to give us eternal life.

© 2014 Laurie Collett

 

Arrest, Trials, Denials: Triplets of Betrayal

As we continue our study of triplets in Scripture, echoing God’s Triune nature, we find the same pattern repeated in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. All of Christian doctrine, and our blessed hope of eternal life and of His glorious reappearing (Titus 2:13; 1 Peter 1:3), hinges on the sacred triplet of His death, burial, and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

The road to Calvary where Jesus was crucified was paved with betrayal by His chosen disciples, by the leaders and commoners of the Jewish people He was sent to deliver, and by the Roman rulers that occupied His birth nation of Israel. His betrayals by these three groups resulted in His arrest and trials and in denials of His divinity.

Events of the crucifixion were set in motion when Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver (Matthew 27:3), which was the going rate for a bondservant. How fitting, in light of God the Son taking on human flesh and coming to earth the first time not as King, but as a humble servant. Not only did He come to teach us how to serve, but to offer Himself as the perfect sacrifice to redeem us from our sins.

At the Lord’s Supper on the eve of His crucifixion, Jesus performed three sacred acts with the bread that symbolized His body:.He blessed it, and brake it, and gave to them (Mark 14: 22). The blessing was an act of worship thanking the Father not only for His provision of physical sustenance, but for giving Him the opportunity to save the souls of all who trust in Him.

Breaking the bread symbolized how His precious body would be battered beyond recognition, as He paid in full the punishment every one of us owes for all our sins, past, present and future. Giving the bread to the disciples signifies how He gives eternal life to all who trust in His death, burial and resurrection as the only way to Heaven.

After supper, Jesus and His disciples went to the garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32), where He prayed a threefold prayer. He asked that God’s will be done as He prepared Himself for the unimaginable spiritual as well as physical ordeal He would face. He prayed for those disciples who were present, and He prayed for every believer who trusts Him as Savior (John 17).

As Jesus removed Himself further into the garden, He took with Him His inner circle, Peter, James, and John (Mark 14:33). Three times He begged them to stay awake with Him and pray, but all three times they fell asleep (Mark 14:41).

As Judas betrayed Christ with a kiss that let His captors know His identity, Jesus was surrounded by a hostile crowd of chief priests, scribes and elders (Mark 14:43) armed with lanterns, torches and weapons (John 18:3). He was then subjected to three mock trials by Caiaphas (Matthew 26:57-67), Pilate (Matthew. 27:2; Mark 15:1-15) and Herod: (Luke 23:7-11).

At the trial led by the high priest Caiaphas, the chief priests, elders, and all the council looked for false witness against Jesus so that He would be sentenced to death (Matthew 26:59; Mark 14:53). Having accomplished their heinous objective, they spit in His face, beat Him, and struck Him with the palms of their hands (Matthew 26 67).

Then they stripped Him naked, kneeled before Him, and mocked Him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! They adorned Him with three mock symbols of a king: a scarlet robe, a crown of thorns, and a reed in his right hand (Matthew.27:28-29).

Not only was Jesus scorned by His captors, He was denied three times by Peter, who had pridefully boasted that he would follow His Master to the death Matthew 26:75; Mark 14:30

Despite this humiliating and painful ordeal, the Scripture here records three titles of Jesus revealing His true nature as Messiah, fully divine yet fully man: the Christ, the,Son of the Blessed, and the Son of man (Mark 14:61-62).

After Pilate determined that he could find no fault in Jesus, the people cried out three times that Jesus be put to death:

Matthew 27: 22 Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified.

23 And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified.

24 When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.

25 Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.

Throughout history, there has always been a small remnant of those who remain true to God even though the multitudes reject Him.

As Christ took the final steps down Calvary’s road where His suffering and death would culminate in our redemption and eternal life, even His closest friends and followers scattered in the face of what seemed to be sure defeat. Far from being thankful that their Messiah was delivering them, the Jews and their religious leaders failed to recognize who He was and clamored for His death.

Yet to the faithful Old Testament saints (Hebrews 11), such as Abraham and Noah, can be added the faithful remnant of those who did not desert Christ as He died for us. Among His closest circle these were His mother Mary, His beloved disciple John, and Mary Magdalene (John 19:25-26). Also in the faithful remnant were the occasional Jew such as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea: (John 19:38-39) and even the Roman centurion who glorified God as realized Jesus was righteous (Luke 23:47). ‘

May each of us be numbered with the faithful remnant honoring God and loving Christ even when the world dishonors and rejects Him.

© 2012 Laurie Collett