At the 2022 Rooted Conference in Kansas City, our friend and member of Rooted’s Steering Committee Isaiah Marshall blessed us by sharing his spoken word during three of the conference main sessions. In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, we wanted to share one of these powerful orations.
If you’d like to follow along with Isaiah, the text is below.
In the spring of 2006, on the campus of Mississippi State University, the Lord captured my heart. I went from misfit to miracle, from mess to masterpiece, which was interesting because I was told to go to college to find myself but that night was asked to come to the altar to deny myself. The Good News became good when I encountered the Great Physician who diagnosed this heart condition that I inherited from birth.
In the beginning, a Good God created good things and that includes each of us. But isn’t it interesting how, one man can represent the best and worst of creation. How creation’s “Very Good” turned to “deeply troubled,” how the very ground where the image-bearer was created from is the very ground cursed because of him.
He… He passively stood as his bride was deceived. Tempted by the one who deceives. On the Eve of our FALL she looked at the tree and its fruit was pleasing to her. They didn’t want to be LIKE God they wanted to be him, so they ate. As the forbidden fruit entered their mouths, they chewed the lie and digested sin. Hidden was their innocence as they tried to save themselves. What eventually led to them being discharged from the Garden first resulted in their separation from a Holy God.
They hid their shame. And he blamed, the bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. His Rib. At the prime of his life he traded God’s glory for man’s depravity.
And we thought it was gravity pulling us down. We are crabs in a barrel. And from the moment of consumption our lives have been in peril trying to dress ourselves in designer fig leaves. We try to play savior when we really need one. Our superhero-like efforts are idolatry. We hip-hop hooray, we celebrate, as we constantly turn our backs on the one who clothes it. A treach-erous act of betrayal. Naughty by nature. We came D.O.A. but God was proactive. He made a Way for humanity to be loosed from being captive to sin so we can be active with him.
Through one man sin entered the world but through the gift of another our wrongs have made right, the Way in Wentz the quarterback has overthrown sin so that death is defeated offering salvation, we Moss with the hands, if we receive it.
If we receive it. I received it. The Savior died cause he had something to die for. He rose, like the perfect gift you give to the one you love, because he had something to live for: to capture the hearts of those he truly adored.
