Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Shelley Schurch
Sunday and Monday, April 6 and 7, 2025
Every spring I hang this big, beautiful, bright banner from a slim rod on our front porch. It’s our traditional good-bye to winter and hello to longer days, more sunshine, warmer weather, blossoming trees, and spring flowers.
Last Sunday we returned to our driveway after many hours out and about, and the first thing I noticed was the banner was gone, and the rod was hanging dejectedly down from one end. We thought the windy weather must have somehow whipped it around until it became untethered, so we looked for it on the porch, then in our small front yard, under bushes . . . but our big, beautiful, bright banner was gone.
We figured if the wind wasn’t the culprit, a human being must be. Someone with bad intent must have come up on our porch, yanked the rod out of one of its wire sockets, and swiped the banner.
Now I felt much worse about its absence. I love our neighborhood. How could someone, in broad daylight, invade our peaceful street and do something as ugly as steal our banner?
I texted our neighbors across the street – had they seen anyone visit our driveway or porch? Michelle replied that her daughter had noticed something in the street when they drove out on errands; she would check her surveillance camera and see. She sent us the results; a grainy video of folds of fabric lying in the street behind a car, mid-afternoon.
Hooray! We didn’t have our banner back yet, but my peace of mind returned. We had not been ripped off!
We widened our search, with flashlights. It had been a very windy day; no telling where the banner ended up. Maybe it was still traveling. I told the Lord He knew where it was, and it was a very small matter, but we would love to be reunited with it, if possible.
Three days later I walked across the street and down one house to deliver a birthday gift to one of our favorite five-year olds. She and her father greeted me at the door, and soon her mother joined the welcome, holding our neatly-folded banner in her arms. “We’ve been meaning to get this over to you,” she said. “We found it in our driveway a couple days ago.”
I’m not sure who was happier – the young birthday girl unwrapping her gift, or her beaming neighbor, holding her wayward banner. The lost and wind-tossed was found and restored.
And yes, this reminds me of Jesus. He’s definitely in the lost-finding and restoring business. And I remembered there were banners in the Bible. I started searching for them and discovered they were usually found in scenes of conflict, when victory was declared.
The first instance I found was in Exodus 17:
The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.”
So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven.”
Moses built an altar and called it The Lord is my Banner. (Exodus 17:8-15 NIV)
The Lord was their Victory.
The first Biblical banner I thought of did not involve a battle, though; it takes us in an entirely different direction:
He brought me to the banqueting house,
And his banner over me was love. (Song of Solomon 2:4 NKJV)
Banners of victory and love. That sounds like Jesus to me, Jesus on the cross. It didn’t look like victory then, but it certainly looked like love.
As we step out into this brand-new week, may you live with His banner flowing over you: Jesus is your Way, your Truth, your Life, your Victory, and your Love.