Life Out of Death

It was a grueling process these last few days as I uploaded pictures from my recent trip to Haiti.  It seemed to take the internet forever to upload them and my patience grew thin as memory after memory flooded over my soul.  I have always preferred to pack things up and put them away rather than to deal with the very raw and real emotions that I feel regarding those things, but delayed upload after delayed upload led to a reliving of perhaps one of the greatest weeks of my life.  As I scrolled through and tagged people and added captions, I found one picture in particular that I remember distinctly taking while whizzing by in the van, but I didn't know why.  It was some graffiti with children putting words on a wall, of course in Creole and I had no idea what it said until I looked it up the other day.  Now I sit here amazed and perplexed as words seemingly fail me yet again.

"Haiti pap peri"...Haiti will not die.  This may be one of the most beautiful, prophetic pieces of graffiti I've ever seen.  In this picture you have an older woman stitching together what appears to be their national flag.  And then there are 3 children, reaching up to scribble these words on the wall.  Why does this piece move me so much?  What is it about this simple picture and 3 words tagged on a wall that changes everything?  Because in this mural I see Jesus, and I feel Easter...but in a different way.

Haiti faced an enormous earthquake, the devastation is still everywhere.  Hundreds of thousands of people crammed into "tents", mere torn and tattered tarps attached to wooden sticks that take a beating daily due to natural elements.  The children play with kites made of trash found on the streets, the mother's heart breaks as she cannot feed her child, let alone herself.  An economy that seems to be broken beyond repair, there is much work to be done.  There is no reversing of the quake, no chance to go back and do it differently.  And the people of Haiti are left with the broken pieces to pick up and rebuild with.

I've always said that Jesus didn't have to die, He could have climbed down from the cross.  And yet, it was the great love of the Father that compelled Him to do so.  There was no changing of the scenario, we were the Plan A and the Plan B and the Plan C of Jesus while on that cross...the Father would have no other way.  Love compelled.  And while Jesus hung there on that cross, His body broken and spilled out for us, the finger of Father God was inscribing on the hearts of His people everywhere, "Jezi pap peri!"  I find a striking parallel here between the Easter account and the people of Haiti.

Out of the greatest brokenness can spring forth the most radiant beauty.  Out of great despair can spring forth unspeakable joy.  And yes, out of death itself can spring forth life and life abundantly!  There is a spirit of conquering that is rising up all over God's Kingdom...children of the King everywhere are rising up out of the ashes and declaring to be and to walk in the fullness of what God has called them to be.  Rather than living in the natural realm in which they live and having been overcome by what faces them, they dance in the supernatural and laugh at all they have overcome through the blood of Christ Jesus.  I have no doubt that if these same Haitian children went to the tomb that glorious morning thousands of years ago, they would have tagged it too with "Jezi pap peri!"

So yes, this weekend we celebrate life!  We dance in the empty tomb of our Savior!  We tag walls everywhere with the incredible news that there is life out of death!  And we continue to overcome...moment by moment and day by day...by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony (Romans 12:11)!!  Jezi pap peri!!!!