Roses have thorns, yet we don’t chuck the bushes from our gardens. The blooms are too magnificent. Instead, we find a way to handle the rosebushes in such a way that the thorns do as little damage to us as possible.
At times thick gloves are all we need. The thorns can prick us, but we don’t feel them. However, the gloves take away part of the enjoyment, because we can’t stroke the blooms to feel their magnificence.
Other times we choose to enjoy the roses from a distance, giving them a location at the furthest edges of the lawn. There, no one has to touch them. Yet, a rose is best enjoyed up close, and we lose much of our enjoyment in the beauty and aroma of the blooms.
There are thornless varieties out there. These, though, need to be babied, and somehow, it seems their blooms are never as bright or full as those that cut us when we handle them carelessly.
Coastal Maine is renowned for the beauty of its wild roses. They bloom in exuberant abundance in the summer months. They don’t have to be cultivated, no one coddles them, and their aroma is a heady sensation of outlandish proportions. Bring a bouquet into the house, and every time we walk near, we’ll catch a whiff of the wonderful outdoors.
Those Maine roses? They are covered with thorns. Fall into a patch, and we’ll be bloodied from head to toe.
Yet their beauty will remain undiminished.
Jesus walked among the wild roses in his time on earth. We, mankind, were the magnificent blossoms he cherished, yet our words of unbelief were the thorns he was forced to endure. Yet, when he chose to live among us, he threw away his gloves, because he wanted to feel our beauty skin to skin. He kept us close, because that’s how much he enjoyed us. And thornless? Maybe the angels, but not heady and arrogant humanity.
Jesus loved the wild roses, those people who struggled with life, who smelled most sweetly when blooming in a profusion of thorns.
Psalms 119:83 tells us:
“For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke, yet I have not forgotten your statutes.”
The references in this verse may be archaic, but the meaning is not. A wineskin among the flames dries out and is useless. The same wineskin thrown into the thorns will be punctured and left unable to serve its intended purpose.
The second half of the verse is what’s important. When we remember we are God’s creation, then even in the turmoil of our earthly lives, we will continue to find the beauty in one another that Christ saw in us.
What statute is so important that we cannot afford to forget it? Look to John 13:34:
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.”
Jesus did it. If we follow his example, we will love one another, and we will find the beauty of the wild Maine rose in every person we meet. We will handle them with care, for we will find the blooms to be far more important than the thorns we have to avoid. We will be like Jesus, even when the thorns pierce us and leave blood on our skin.
Love one another. That’s from Jesus. It’s the only way to live.
Jesus enjoyed the roses, and he never let the thorns get in his way.
Copyright © 2015 MyChurchNotes.net
Code: FGO.F.14.15.vp.esv
Originally Published 10-9-15 in Relationships