Lessons from a Stingless Stingray

What lessons can we learn from a stingless stingray? God often uses His creation to teach us about Himself. Consider the following story.  

On a recent trip to the Caribbean, I encountered sting rays for the first time. I had read about them and seen videos, but I had never seen one up close. Like a lot of us, I associated sting rays  with Steve Irwin, the Australian adventurer who met his demise when a large ray punctured his heart with its long stinger.  https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna14663786

A Stingless Stingray

Sting rays are odd-looking marine creatures, squarish in shape and very flat with a long barbed tail. They are docile most of the time, not often a threat unless provoked. A dozen of us followed a guide into the shallow pool. He dived under the water and returned carrying one of the creatures. While he instructed us on the finer points of sting ray care, the captive animal got irritated and slapped him in the face with her long tail. He was startled, but uninjured. That’s when he revealed that the rays we would be handling were de-barbed. They looked imposing and dangerous. But they had no venom.  They had no sting. 

The rest of the day, that image of a stingless sting ray stayed in my mind. I thought about the difference in what is fact and what is truth. It was a fact that the sting rays can hurt you. But the truth is, the sting ray that I held was harmless. 

“And he died…”

Humans weren’t created to die. God made us in His image and He is eternal. When He formed Adam from the dirt, He breathed life into him. But we know the story all too well. Adam and Eve disobeyed the one command God gave them and they became  mortal, and took the rest of creation with them.   I’m reading through the Bible this year. I’m always impressed with the ages of those early patriarchs. Most lived over 800 years.But again and again we read the words, “and he died.” 

In the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God’s commandment, God promised that there would be a “redo”. In the earliest prophecy of Messiah, He declares that Eve will have a descendant crush the head of the serpent. The Messiah would step on the head of the serpent and allow the serpent to inject dose after dose of venom until it was all spent. He would endure all that Satan could throw at Him. Every temptation He overcame. And all of my sin, and yours, He absorbed and destroyed. 

God set in motion the plan He had formed long before He formed man and woman. He chose to become human, just like us. But He would choose obedience, not disobedience. He lived a perfect life. When the serpent offered Him choices, He chose God’s plan, not His own. Scripture tells us that Jesus was tempted in all ways like we are, yet without sin. Like the stingless stingray, Satan cannot harm us since Jesus made the right choice. 

The cross. A painful choice. 

He wasn’t ignorant of the cost of His choice. And in the last hours before His arrest, Jesus had to struggle with His final act of obedience. His final battle lay ahead. And He begged His Father to allow Him to escape.  He sweat blood in the garden, repulsed by what He must endure. But He submitted and made the only choice that could bring salvation to us, and to creation itself. https://www.christianity.com/jesus/death-and-resurrection/holy-week-and-passion/what-can-we-learn-from-the-prayer-in-the-garden.html

I cannot imagine the vile venom was hurled at Jesus when He submitted to the Father’s will and endured the cross.  Paul said that He became sin. He took all of our sin, every act of disobedience from the dawn of creation until its culmination. And somehow there was a divine exchange. He suffered Because He had paid the penalty, I don’t have to pay what I don’t have the resources to pay.

Where is your sting?

He took the stinger from Death. In I Corinthians 15, Paul declared “Death where is your sting? Where is your victory?”.Death was now a stingless stingray. Paul knew that many who read his letters would die for their faith. He knew they were fearful of what happened next. But he assured them that Death no longer had any venom. The stinger was empty. Jesus took it all at the cross. https://inspireafire.com/rites-of-sting-handling-death/Their death was now only a passage to the next world. 

An Unexpected End

A few days after I played with the sting rays, I returned to Fort Lauderdale. I turned my phone on and scrolled through a hodgepodge of text messages that popped up on the screen. I ignored most of them, deleted others.  But then my eyes rested on a text stream from my brother. I blinked and re-read the words several times. My 88 year old father had been hospitalized with what we believed was a routine illness. I thought he would surely recover, even if it took a while. But not this time. He was tired, and his body didn’t have what it took to shake off the infection. He had died the previous day. 

I felt like the air had been sucked from my lungs as I struggled to make sense of what I was reading. Once again, Death invaded paradise. I had spent a week relaxing, eating good food, seeing beautiful sights, worshipping God with good friends. But I had to face the reality that we still live in a fallen world. Death still reigns, for now. Death is a defeated foe, but that doesn’t keep it from slapping us in the face. The stingless stingray has no venom, but it it still hurts.. The enemy still taunts us, and tempts us to doubt God’s faithfulness, to question His love.

 While not exactly unexpected (he was 88, after all)  the news took me by surprise. I knew that Dad’s body was failing him. I knew he was weary and frustrated. But I thought he had more time.

Embraced by Peace

After the initial shock, an indescribable peace enveloped me.  I’m sure that a lot of people had been praying for me in the previous few hours. https://inspireafire.com/in-peace-i-will-lie-down-and-sleep/And God’s Holy Spirit settled on me, and I knew the Comforter in a brand new way. https://openthebible.org/article/gods-peace-different-worlds-peace/Instead of being paralyzed by grief, I took care of the details I needed to manage so that we could head home. It was a 2-day trip by car, and I decided that there was no rush. No need to try to catch a flight to Asheville. 

My brother and I did all things you do when someone dies: we picked out a casket, and clothes for Dad to wear. We chose appropriate music and called ministers to speak. We greeted friends and relatives and reminisced about his life.

Saying “yes”

And all the while, I knew that Death hadn’t won. Dad had confronted Death, and it tried to sting him. But there was no venom in that sting. Like the stingless sting ray, Death is no longer something to be feared. 

For those of us who have said “yes” to Jesus, like my father had done as a young boy, Death is a harmless enemy, a defeated foe. He looks fearsome, but he has no sting! He expended every bit of his venom at the cross, and there will be no more.

The last time I saw my Dad, I kissed him and told him “I’m going to be gone a little while. But I’ll talk to you when I get home.” Turns out, he took a longer vacation than I did. but I’m still going to talk to him when I get home. 

 

 

 

Lisa Crowe

Lisa recently retired from the State of NC where she served families of children with disabilities, and now spends her time writing and serving missionaries as Partner Services Advocate for MAP Global, an international mission sending agency. She serves as Prayer Team Director for her local church and leads a Ladies Bible Study. Lisa loves to travel, read, and hike the beautiful Appalachian Mountains. She shares her Canton NC home with her two dogs Daisy and Bernie. You can connect with Lisa on Facebook or Instagram where she microblogs.

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