THE CHRONICLES OF
HAITI… pt 5
Living in This Tent
Exodus 12 and 2
Corinthians 5
During each church service, Haitians LOVE to oblige their
guests with a chance to fill the pulpit with God’s word. One such Sunday, as I walked to the
church past the tent community, God laid a heavy word on my heart that ties
Haitian life, the blood of Jesus, and the unity of the body all together. I delivered this word to the
congregation the following morning.
Since the earthquake, tent communities have become a major
part of the Haiti landscape. The
typical tent house is made with a heavy-duty tarp around a small wooden frame.
They are simple “A” framed houses with dirt floors. Some choose to cut a fancy
design in the draping tarp that hangs from the roof. Others cut windows. Each
house is lined up touching the next.
(Now, I’m not a Bible scholar or a historian. But in my
head, I figured that the structure and simplicity of the Israelites’ houses and
Haiti’s tent houses would be very similar. Maybe I’m way off… but make believe
with me.)
As I walked to church, passing tent after tent, my mind wandered
back to a reading from the morning. When God plagued Egypt with divine curses
to free His people, He ended with a symbolic plague that called for Israel’s
obedience and future blood covenant of His son. He warned Israel that He would pass over the land, taking
the first male from all the livestock and families that did not cover their
door-post with sacrificial lamb’s blood.
All that did not abide by God’s warning paid a great price for their
sin. It cost them their first-born son.
God did all these things to fight for His people and to show Israel that
they were in fact His chosen children.
God used the blood of a lamb to cover the blood of His own.
Today, this is still true. The same God that fought for His
people hundreds of years ago STILL fights for His people today. Many generations after the Passover,
God made a new covenant with His people.
He did not make a covenant with any chosen group, He did not require any
sacrifice of His people. Instead, He sent HIS OWN BLOOD through His son to pay
for the blood of His people… our blood.
Earlier that morning, as I tried to clean my toenails with
my knife, I accidentally cut my big toe and it bled REALLY badly. I noticed how deep the color of blood was, mostly because Kameron just
about passed out at the sight of it.
But it made me realize something… The blood that covered the cross is
the same color as the blood that came from my big toe. That blood is the same
color as the blood of Haitians, Americans, Israelies, Turks, Africans, Asians,
Eskimos, Jesus… WE ALL BLEED THE SAME COLOR BLOOD.
God sent himself to embody the word and to die for us all
because we are all of ONE BODY. Although we praise Him in different languages,
our skin are different colors, and the way we live is not the same… we serve
ONE God as ONE body with ONE love.
After God sent us His son, the “tent” from the old testament
became each breathing person’s body.
If we take His son’s blood and choose to cover ourselves in His
sacrifice like Israel did their door post, we will taste the promise of His
heavenly dwelling!
2 Corinthians 5:1-5
“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is
destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, but
eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our
heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For
while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened- not that we would be
unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be
swallowed up by life. He who has
prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a
guarantee. “
One love.
One body.
One God.
