LADY ANNE'S TREES

Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”    (John 12: 24, 25)

Lady Anne Grimston, born to nobility and married to a Baron, died in 1713 and was buried in St. Peter’s churchyard in Herfordshire County, England; but the wealth she’d enjoyed was dwarfed by the tragedy she’d endured.  Both of her children died in childhood.  Her husband died at 57 with no heir to carry on his hereditary title.  The story goes that on her deathbed Lady Anne declared, “I shall not continue to live. It is as unlikely that I shall continue to live as that a tree will grow out of my body.  If, indeed, there is life hereafter, trees will render asunder my tomb.”

Here’s a 1908 picture of her grave.

Today, 4 large trees sharing one root grow out of Lady Anne’s marble tomb.   

You may not be British nobility, but if you’re a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, then your body is more than the fleshy mortal consequence of a merger between sperm and egg.  If you are a Christian in the genuine spiritual sense of the word, then your body will not just be a corpse; it will be a seed. 

So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. (1 Corinthians 15: 42-43)

Like Lady Anne’s trees, one day in the sweet by-and-by, you will rise from your grave, but as Jesus explained to Lazarus’ sisters, there is a real sense in which the resurrection is now. (John 11: 23-25)

Without Jesus our sins become our lives.  Our lusts for things, our greed for stuff, the forgiveness we refuse to give, the wounds we nurture: they come to define us.  They become our lives.

God bids us die to that life.  Nail it all to the cross with Jesus (Galatians 2:20; 5:24).  Give up those ghosts.  Be buried with Christ “that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4)

Jesus’ Resurrection gives His followers the promise of a personal, bodily resurrection from the dead one day.   The Resurrection also delivers the opportunity for new life right now. 

From the broken shell of whatever is sucking the life out of you, God can bring forth life as abundant as 4 great trees in a cemetery.

But you have to confess your sins and trust in Jesus.  Then believe that you shall continue to live.  Believe that it is as certain that you shall continue to live as it is that trees grow from that body in Herfordshire County, England.   Live that faith and today --- not just hereafter, but today --- you can render asunder the issues that have entombed you and break forth into new life.

God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2: 4-6)

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

IMPOSSIBLE CHRISTMAS (part 1)

And God said to the serpent, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed.  He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” (Genesis 3: 15)

We can’t be sure how well our proto-parents understood human reproductive biology, after all, at this point in history, there had not been any human reproduction.  Well, except for that one time God used Adam’s bone tissue to clone a female version of him (Genesis 2:21, 22).  But Adam was unconscious when that happened, so anyway.

Adam and Eve may or may not have realized what we do: that  Genesis 3:15 is impossible.  Biologically and legally a woman can’t produce the prophesied male “Seed.”  

Biologically impossible

In the non-scientific vocabulary of the Bible, the seed is a euphemism for either offspring or sperm.  Women don’t mthe former alone, and they don’t produce the latter at all .  For a woman to bring forth a male seed to the serpent’s head, you’d have to have a pregnant virgin. 

And that, as everybody well knows, is impossible.

Legally impossible

One of the conditions of mankind’s punishment for Adam’s and Eve’s sin was patriarchy.  God declared that part of the woman’s/ women’s sorrow would be that “Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.”  (Genesis 3:16)

Generally speaking the Paradise of gender equality (equality, not equivalence) in Eden was replaced by a hierarchy in which women wanted but never quite achieved the same level of authority their husbands enjoyed.”

That’s why the line of inheritance was traced through male descendants.  (By the way, if you’re looking for an example of Divine reprieve from that clause in the Curse, read about the daughters of Zelophedad in Numbers 27 & 36). 

The point is that even if a virgin did miraculously conceive and give birth to a male seed, the son still wouldn’t have had the legal right to fulfill his destiny.  The law only recognized the rights passed on through the male line.

Genesis 3:15 calls for a virgin-born child whose “father” isn’t his biological father but is from the same genetic line as his mother.

That’s freakin’ impossible.

Except, there was this one time.

Biologically (im)possible

One day the angel Gabriel appeared to an betrothed but unmarried virgin named Mary.  He  told Mary that she would conceive asexually and have a son who would be named Jesus, and “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke 1:32, 33)

“Then Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I do not know a man?’ “ (Luke 1:34)  Basically Mary said, “That’s impossible, Gabriel.  I’m a virgin, and that ain’t about to change.”

Gabriel’s responded,  “For with God nothing will be impossible.”  (Luke 2:37)

The same God who formed Adam directly from African dust and Eve from Adam’s tissue sample, formed a body for Jesus in the unfertilized womb  of a Jewish virgin.

“For with God nothing will be impossible.”

Legally (im)possible

Matthew 1 and Luke 3 list two different genealogies for Jesus.   Matthew gave us the line of Jesus adopted (i.e. legal) father, Joseph.   Luke gave the lineage of Mary, Jesus’ biological mother.  If, as traditional history maintains, Mary was an only child or the oldest of only daughters, then her husband would have been her dad’s legal heir.  Which is why Luke 3:23 calls Joseph the son of Heli, even though Heli was Mary’s dad.

So legally, in accordance with the culture of the times, Jesus was the proper heir of the Davidic line of promise going all the way back to Adam and Eve and that impossible prophesy in Genesis 3:15.

“For with God nothing will be impossible.”

The impossibility of impossibility in God became the theme of Mary’s life and perhaps the family’s motto.   Surely she taught that motto to her eldest son, her miracle baby.    We can hear echoes of that theme in Jesus’ teaching.

In Matthew 17: 20, when the disciples began to doubt because they’d failed to cast out a demon, Jesus said to them, “if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

In Matthew 19: 25, when the disciples worried that Jesus’ they would not be able to live up to Jesus Divinely high expectations, they asked “Who then can be saved?”  But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

From the very beginning, when mankind first begin to screw up God’s directions, the Lord made a point of showing that He could do the undoable.

Your biological, medical, or physical situation may be actually be impossible.

But with God nothing is impossible.

Your situation under the law, in the culture, according to the social expectations may be genuinely impossible.

But with God nothing is impossible.

You may be in a state of absolute spiritual darkness and lostness with no possible outcome but despair.

But if God can make a virgin conceive without losing her virginity, then God can bring your lost soul back into fellowship with Him.

If God can make two lines of genealogy meet at just the right moment to fulfill the impossible requirements of a fallen world AND a prophetic destiny spoken when the world was freshly fallen, then God can save even you and me when we know that it’s impossible for us to be saved.

You see, with God nothing is impossible.

Merry CHRISTmas.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

SEED, SOIL, & SOWING

In church you don’t always get the return that you expected.  You invest time, energy, and yes---- money in church stuff, and you expect to see blessing come back to you.  But, it doesn’t always work that way.  Why?

The answer to that question, and the solution to that concern are all wrapped up in the foundational parable of  Jesus’, the Parable of the 4 Soils.

The message is called SEED, SOIL, and SOWING.

Listen Well.

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---Anderson T. Graves II

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is the pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church

Call/ fax: 334-288-0577
Email us at hallmemorialcme1@aol.com  
Friend Pastor Graves at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves
If you want to be a blessing to this ministry, contributions may be made by check or money order.

Mail all contributions to:

Hall Memorial CME Church
541 Seibles Road
Montgomery, AL 36116