It's going to be alright: Mary's story

Someone told me that they had come for him.

You know how people love to pass on bad news? Someone rushed to my lodgings to tell me the worst news there could be, and close behind them my daughters pushed past to kneel in front of me. They would have been more gentle with their choice of words but the news would have been the same.

They had him and they meant to kill him.

I have no words to describe the agony of that moment. I know that I have no right to speak of agony having witnessed what they did to my beautiful boy, but I was torn apart right then. There was a stillness in the room as time stopped and my heart began to bleed. I couldn't take a breath. 

It was over. 

I had never understood my boy Jesus. To be honest I longed for him to live a quiet life, to take over the business, to stay with us and find a nice girl to marry and bring me my first grandchildren as befits my eldest son, but I always knew that it wouldn't happen like that. That there would be no easy life, no perfecting the carpentry skills that his father taught him. Joseph always said he was a good woodworker - had a feel for the wood in his hands - and with practice he could be great, but Jesus always smiled said nothing. He knew that his hands were made for something other than sanding wood. 

As he grew up I knew that he was not like the other children, even though in many ways he was just the same. He had a sense of fun, a ready wit, a boy's curiosity. He had something about him... he was such a good boy. No pushover, don't get me wrong, he was no goody-goody. I used to say that he was stubborn, but Joseph always laughed at my exasperation and told me that it was determination. The other children looked up to him. They deferred to him; he had presence, even as a small boy. And as he grew up and Joseph took him to the temple, we were soon in awe of his understanding. It was as if he were from another world.  Ha. 

I knew. I think I always knew. I knew that day at the wedding when he did the thing with the wine; I knew when I heard reports of amazing things that he was doing. I knew he was born for something greater than staying at home with his mother. If only.

As I wept and rocked back and forth that awful night and wished for a husband to hold me, and a strong carpenter son to walk through the door to tell me that it would be alright, just as he always had - that's when it came back to me.

Thirty three years ago. 

I was in a room not dissimilar to this one, and I was sleepy. 

'Don't be afraid, Mary. You're going to have a baby, and you'll call him Jesus. He will be great - he will be the Most High - his kingdom will never end.'

That's what the angel said to me. Have you ever had an angel speak to you? I remember the turmoil in my head that night, and then the strange, unnatural calm that came over me. It would be alright. I've looked for that same calm many times since then but it doesn't come from inside me. No, it comes from God. When I was with my eldest son I usually felt calm; he had that effect on people. I saw it over and over again as he was growing up. 

These last few years it's been different, somehow. He still inspired, still comforted, still reassured, but I saw a few people narrow their eyes when he talked to them; some people didn't get it. They didn't open their minds to his message. And this is what got him into such trouble. His determination - that stubbornness - to get the message across made him his enemies. He spoke out more and more. Yes, he did his wonderful things, he healed people, he taught people, but he challenged them too. He didn't pull his punches, and some people don't like to be told.

But I digress. There was something else. Quite apart from the circumstances around his conception and cousin Elizabeth's response, apart from the angels and the shepherds and the wise men, as if those things weren't enough!

Something else. 

Back from the early days when I still didn't know what being a mother was all about. I was so, so tired that day that I could barely put one foot in front of the other but it was time to take him to the temple for purification, and so we did. Joseph was so proud. You should have seen his face; and when I think how hard it must have been for him... he was the proud daddy of that baby boy that day, let there be no mistake. He was a good man, my Joseph. I miss him so much. 

So - at the temple. We presented Jesus and they all crowded round. An old man called Simeon came up to me. He looked at me with urgency in his eyes and tears on his cheeks and he told me that my baby was special. He would save people. He said that he could die in peace now because he had seen the Holy One of Israel.

Joseph and I wondered at it. Simeon gazed at Jesus for a long time. I wasn't sure what to do as he was due another feed and I really didn't want him to make a scene in the temple. I should have known better. There was nowhere that he was more content than at the temple. Before Simeon turned to go, he put a hand on my arm and spoke in a low voice. His eyes filled with something I didn't recognise, but I now know it to be pity. 

He said, 'A sword will pierce your heart.'

I told Joseph about it when we got home and he didn't get it either. He dismissed it as just something else that we didn't understand about our baby son. He put his arm around me and told me 'It will be alright,' and my heart settled. I believed him. God has had his hand on this boy's life since the beginning. Why would it not turn out alright? Great things were in store.

That day, when they told me that he'd been taken, the old man's words came back to me. It's exactly what happened. I sat there, my daughters' faces buried in my skirts, and I wailed as if I had been stabbed in the heart. I thought I might die, it hurt so much. 

The thing is, I have had to be strong. From the day that I found out I was pregnant, life has had moments where I've needed to be strong above anything else, and this was one of those moments. I was no use to anyone if I crumbled and refused to get up off the floor. I brought my beloved son into the world and I nursed him, and I taught him everything I knew, and then listened as he taught me.

I would not fail him.

I cannot talk about the next hours. I saw it all. I saw him endure more than a man can endure and I must confess that I shook my fist at God as I watched my eldest son, my perfect boy, suffer so completely. They did unspeakable things to him and they left him on that hillside to die. I saw it all. My throat was hoarse from sobbing and my eyes ran out of tears and became so dry and sore from the dust and...from seeing things that no mother should have to see. 

My boy. My beautiful son. He knew I was there, you know; he spoke to me as I leaned on John and watched him bleed. I take some comfort that he knew I was there. I didn't run away as some did; I didn't fear the Romans. What could they do to me that they hadn't already done? They took my firstborn son and they killed him. They broke my heart.

I watched that kind man Joseph take his body down and I kissed his bloody forehead as they wrapped him in his grave-clothes. Even in death he was not diminished, you know. He was still so beautiful to me. They couldn't hurt him any more. I took the thorns from his head and I smoothed his hair as I used to when he was small. They had to pull me away as they laid him in the tomb. I would have stayed there with him. They could have buried me too.

They took me home and the girls sat with me late into the night. 

I have nothing more to say, because you know what happened on Sunday. You know that this wasn't the end, even though it seemed like it. 

I don't know what the eleven did that night but I didn't see them. They would have known that I'd have words to say to them - where were they when my boy needed them? They stayed away from me. I imagine they hid, and I suppose I don't really blame them. Who knew if the soldiers would come for them too?

But I sat and I wept some more, and I berated God who had asked me to bring his child into the world in the first place. I wanted him to take the pain away. To bring back my son. To make it alright. But surely nothing would ever be right again.

I didn't move all night and all day Saturday. The girls brought me something to eat, but there was no way that I could feel hunger. I prayed. I gave him all my tears and my pain and my pierced soul. I laid it down. I had nothing left.

And then things changed. Everything changed.

I knew before they came bursting through the door for the second time in three days. I knew before Mary took my hands in hers and stammered out her tale of joy and wonder.

It came to me in the night as I sat, lost in my pain. That strange, unworldly feeling of calm. God spoke words of peace once again; this time not to a naive young girl with an unplanned pregnancy - this time to a mother whose soul was torn apart from watching her perfect son crucified. He didn't leave me in my agony.

I knew that they would go to the tomb to take care of the body.

I knew that they wouldn't find him there.

It's all going to be alright. 

Picture credit: 1. Cenetaph003.jpg (sic) by LittleJack 
Courtesy of Morguefile.com
Used with permission.

Reposted from not long ago, actually, but it seemed the right thing for Good Friday.

It's going to be alright

Someone told me that they had come for him.

You know how people love to pass on bad news? Someone rushed to my lodgings to tell me the worst news there could be, and close behind them my daughters pushed past to kneel in front of me. They would have been more gentle with their choice of words but the news was the same, no matter how it was imparted. 

They had him. There would be no walking away this time. They meant to kill him.

I have no words to describe the agony of that moment. I know that I have no right to speak of agony having witnessed what they did to my beautiful boy, but I was torn apart right then. There was a stillness in the room as time stopped and my heart began to bleed. I couldn't take a breath. 

It was over. 

I had never understood my boy Jesus. To be honest I longed for him to live a quiet life, to take over the business, to stay with us and find a nice girl to marry and bring me my first grandchildren as befits my eldest son, but I always knew that it wouldn't happen like that. That there would be no easy life, no perfecting the carpentry skills that his father taught him. Joseph always said he was a good woodworker - had a feel for the wood in his hands - and with practice he could be great, but Jesus always smiled said nothing. He knew that his hands were made for something other than sanding wood. 

As he grew up I knew that he was not like the other children, even though in many ways he was just the same. He had a sense of fun, a ready wit, a boy's curiosity. He had something about him... he was such a good boy. No pushover, don't get me wrong, he was no goody-goody. I used to say that he was stubborn, but Joseph always laughed at my exasperation and told me that it was determination. The other children looked up to him. They deferred to him; he had presence, even as a small boy. And as he grew up and Joseph took him to the temple, we were soon in awe of his understanding. It was as if he were from another world.  Ha. 

I knew. I think I always knew. I knew that day at the wedding when he did the thing with the wine; I knew when I heard reports of amazing things that he was doing. I knew he was born for something greater than staying at home with his mother. If only.

As I wept and rocked back and forth that awful night and wished for a husband to hold me, and a strong carpenter son to walk through the door to tell me that it would be alright, just as he always had - that's when it came back to me.

Thirty three years ago. 

I was in a room not dissimilar to this one, and I was sleepy. 

'Don't be afraid, Mary. You're going to have a baby, and you'll call him Jesus. He will be great - he will be the Most High - his kingdom will never end.'

That's what the angel said to me. Have you ever had an angel speak to you? I remember the turmoil in my head that night, and then the strange, unnatural calm that came over me. It would be alright. I've looked for that same calm many times since then but it doesn't come from inside me. No, it comes from God. When I was with my eldest son I usually felt calm; he had that effect on people. I saw it over and over again as he was growing up. 

These last few years it's been different, somehow. He still inspired, still comforted, still reassured, but I saw a few people narrow their eyes when he talked to them; some people didn't get it. They didn't open their minds to his message. And this is what got him into such trouble. His determination - that stubbornness - to get the message across made him his enemies. He spoke out more and more. Yes, he did his wonderful things, he healed people, he taught people, but he challenged them too. He didn't pull his punches, and some people don't like to be told.

But I digress. There was something else. Quite apart from the circumstances around his conception and cousin Elizabeth's response, apart from the angels and the shepherds and the wise men, as if those things weren't enough!

Something else. 

Back from the early days when I still didn't know what being a mother was all about. I was so, so tired that day that I could barely put one foot in front of the other but it was time to take him to the temple for purification, and so we did. Joseph was so proud. You should have seen his face; and when I think how hard it must have been for him... he was the proud daddy of that baby boy that day, let there be no mistake. He was a good man, my Joseph. I miss him so much. 

So - at the temple. We presented Jesus and they all crowded round. An old man called Simeon came up to me. He looked at me with urgency in his eyes and tears on his cheeks and he told me that my baby was special. He would save people. He said that he could die in peace now because he had seen the Holy One of Israel.

Joseph and I wondered at it. Simeon gazed at Jesus for a long time. I wasn't sure what to do as he was due another feed and I really didn't want him to make a scene in the temple. I should have known better. There was nowhere that he was more content than at the temple. Before Simeon turned to go, he put a hand on my arm and spoke in a low voice. His eyes filled with something I didn't recognise, but I now know it to be pity. 

He said, 'A sword will pierce your heart.'

I told Joseph about it when we got home and he didn't get it either. He dismissed it as just something else that we didn't understand about our baby son. He put his arm around me and told me 'It will be alright,' and my heart settled. I believed him. God has had his hand on this boy's life since the beginning. Why would it not turn out alright? Great things were in store.

That day, when they told me that he'd been taken, the old man's words came back to me. It's exactly what happened. I sat there, my daughters' faces buried in my skirts, and I wailed as if I had been stabbed in the heart. I thought I might die, it hurt so much. 

The thing is, I have had to be strong. From the day that I found out I was pregnant, life has had moments where I've needed to be strong above anything else, and this was one of those moments. I was no use to anyone if I crumbled and refused to get up off the floor. I brought my beloved son into the world and I nursed him, and I taught him everything I knew, and then listened as he taught me.

I would not fail him.

I cannot talk about the next hours. I saw it all. I saw him endure more than a man can endure and I must confess that I shook my fist at God as I watched my eldest son, my perfect boy, suffer so completely. They did unspeakable things to him and they left him on that hillside to die. I saw it all. My throat was hoarse from sobbing and my eyes ran out of tears and became so dry and sore from the dust and...from seeing things that no mother should have to see. 

My boy. My beautiful son. He knew I was there, you know; he spoke to me as I leaned on John and watched him bleed. I take some comfort that he knew I was there. I didn't run away as some did; I didn't fear the Romans. What could they do to me that they hadn't already done? They took my firstborn son and they killed him. They broke my heart.

I watched that kind man Joseph take his body down and I kissed his bloody forehead as they wrapped him in his grave-clothes. Even in death he was not diminished, you know. He was still so beautiful to me. They couldn't hurt him any more. I took the thorns from his head and I smoothed his hair as I used to when he was small. They had to pull me away as they laid him in the tomb. I would have stayed there with him. They could have buried me too.

They took me home and the girls sat with me late into the night. 

I have nothing more to say, because you know what happened on Sunday. You know that this wasn't the end, even though it seemed like it. 

I don't know what the eleven did that night but I didn't see them. They would have known that I'd have words to say to them - where were they when my boy needed them? They stayed away from me. I imagine they hid, and I suppose I don't really blame them. Who knew if the soldiers would come for them too?

But I sat and I wept some more, and I berated God who had asked me to bring his child into the world in the first place. I wanted him to take the pain away. To bring back my son. To make it alright. But surely nothing would ever be right again.

I didn't move all night and all day Saturday. The girls brought me something to eat, but there was no way that I could feel hunger. I prayed. I gave him all my tears and my pain and my pierced soul. I laid it down. I had nothing left.

And then things changed. Everything changed.

I knew before they came bursting through the door for the second time in three days. I knew before Mary took my hands in hers and stammered out her tale of joy and wonder.

It came to me in the night as I sat, lost in my pain. That strange, unworldly feeling of calm. God spoke words of peace once again; this time not to a naive young girl with an unplanned pregnancy - this time to a mother whose soul was torn apart from watching her perfect son crucified. He didn't leave me in my agony.

I knew that they would go to the tomb to take care of the body.

I knew that they wouldn't find him there.

It's all going to be alright. 

Picture credit: 1. Cenetaph003.jpg (sic) by LittleJack 
Courtesy of Morguefile.com
Used with permission.

Empty day

It's Saturday morning but it doesn't feel like a normal Saturday.

It feels like we're in suspense. 

Waiting. A friend asked me earlier what we were doing today and I said I didn't know; it was a sort of 'limbo day'. She described it as 'an empty day', which I took to mean that she had no plans, but it might just as well have been a sense that something is missing.

There's a void. A void of activity at church after the past week of services to remember Holy Week.

Yesterday we went to the Hot Cross Bun service and looked again at the cross. Tomorrow we'll celebrate your resurrection, but today we wait. We feel the lack of something. Emptiness. A hole. 

We miss you. 

This was the day-in-between. I wonder what the disciples did that day. It was their Sabbath - did they go to the Temple and go through the motions? Did they stay in a room together and weep and try and work it out? Did they blame each other? Did they realise that they abandoned their Lord when it came to the end?  Did they go their separate ways? Merge into a crowd? 

They missed you. 

Max Lucado points out in his book 'He Chose the Nails' that you told the disciples three times that you would be executed and then on the third day you would rise from the grave.

Three times.

How many of them were waiting at the graveside that first Easter to see it happen?  None. Did they believe it? Did they not hear? Would I? Something so amazing? Even if I'd seen Lazarus peel off his own grave-clothes?

But hey, they were only human. They were scared. That first middle Saturday they must have been beside themselves with grief. You were their friend. You gave them purpose. You changed their lives. You showed them what to do and you had gone.

They missed you. 

So I'm sitting here with a cup of tea and it feels a bit like marking time. I, of course, know what happens tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. I love Easter day. Even so, today is a forgotten day. A lost day. I had a little smile of satisfaction when I learned earlier on that historically this middle day of the three is considered a limbo-sort of day. 

A friend from church sent me an email all about today. 

I learned that 'Holy Saturday' (in Latin, Sabbatum Sanctum) is known as 'the day of the entombed Christ'. It is 'the Lord's day of rest' as this was the day that you were lying in your tomb. (Or were you? Were you getting your breath back? Were you off dealing with the devil on that day? Wiping the smirk off his face? Raising up the saints who had been waiting and waiting for you to arrive? I wonder what you were doing.) 

It goes on, 'We recall the Apostle's Creed, which says 'He descended to the dead.' It is a day of suspense between two worlds, that of darkness, sin and death, and that of the Resurrection and the restoration of the Light of the World.'

Suspense indeed. A no-man's-land. Christ has died, but Christ has not yet risen. We wait. We are holding our breath. 

And also, I didn't know that, '...for this reason no divine services are held until after the Easter vigil begins that night.'

Funny, that. I had only commented this morning that there should be something at church today to fill the gap. To save me from the feeling of blankness. Empty day. Limbo-day. Since that very first Easter people who love you have felt the oddness of today. The emptiness. 

There's something more powerful, though. Tomorrow you rise again, all over again. We celebrate and we sing and we lift our hands in praise and worship to the Risen Lord. We celebrate your resurrection. Back from the dead. But it's also the beginning of something totally new. 

'This day between Good Friday and Easter Day makes present to us the end of one world and the complete newness of the era of salvation inaugurated by the resurrection of Christ.'

You changed things.

Nothing was the same any more.

You cleared the way so that we could approach your Father. You redeemed us. You paid the price so that we were not held responsible for all the rubbish that had piled up and blocked the way from us to you. That first Easter Day was the first day of the new order. The first day that things were different.

The Era of Salvation. 

So something momentous happened yesterday. Something momentous happens tomorrow.

Today we wait. We feel the absence of you. Today we hold our breath in suspense. We get ready. 

Come, Lord Jesus. We're waiting at the tomb.  

Edited and reposted from 2011

The weight of the world

Good Friday.

Wasn't such a good day for you, was it? I think the 'Good' bit is dependent on hindsight, because I can't imagine there were many people there who thought that what was going on was good.  There might have been some, perhaps, who thought they'd got rid of you, but when it came down to it even the soldiers who had wielded the hammer and nails looked and listened to you on the cross and concluded that you were something special.

What must you have gone through?  The agony of rejection, the agony of crucifixion, the agony of the moment that God the Father had to turn away from you. How is it possible that you went through with it at all?

Gasping for breath.  Pushing up on the nails in your feet to relieve the dislocating pressure on the shoulders and hands before sinking down again when your muscles betrayed you. Blinking blood and sweat out of your eyes, lifting your head a moment and feeling again the thorns pressing into your scalp; the torn and raw skin and muscles of your back against the splintered wood of the cross. Bracing shaking legs to take a breath - sinking down as weakness overtakes you and taking the agonising weight once again on nails through flesh, every suffocating breath a struggle.

The exhaustion and loneliness. The humiliation of nakedness in front of your mother, your friends, your enemies. And then the dark, dark emotional anguish when your isolation became complete; the Father, with whom you had always been completely in tune, was nowhere to be found.

 You had the weight of the world on your shoulders at that moment and I cannot begin to imagine the desolation.

Everything that was bad, corrupt, evil or rotten was laid upon you when you became the perfect sacrifice; the sacrifice to end them all.  You did all that.  You hung there and asked forgiveness for those that did that to you.

You asked the Father to forgive us all because I did it to you too.  I smiled and praised you then betrayed you and denied you and crucified you and you allowed it all to happen so that I could be free.

You were afraid; in Gethsemane you came before the Father and asked if there was another way - and yet you went through with the Plan because you knew that there could be no other way.

What can I say?  There's nothing I can do that is enough to thank you, and you know that. You did it anyway. There's no way that I can repay you - and you know that. You died for me anyway.

I am forever in your debt.

Lord Jesus Christ, thankyou for that Good Friday.

I have seen films in which an actor portrays your Passion. They all do it differently; some are more true to the Bible than others and some are more sanitised for the squeamish viewer than others.  The one thing that they all have in common for me is that when I come to the part where they crucify you I find it a terrible thing to watch. It's new every time.

I see that the Lord of my heart was put to death for me, and my eyes fill with tears, because they are murdering someone that I love.

Even if I watch these films over and over, Lord Jesus, never let me get to the point where those scenes don't move me. I never want to feel that it is not the momentous thing that it is. I never want it to be too familiar, routine.  I want to hold this feeling of shocked awe and wonder forever.

I want to remember the horror that I was responsible for what happened to you so that I can never forget the magnitude of the forgiveness that you have given me. If I no longer feel the awfulness then I can no longer feel the astonishment. If I don't perceive the depths of my need for forgiveness then I can't appreciate the vastness of your love.

You died for me. You loved me so much that before I even turned to you and held your gaze, you thought me worthwhile enough to die for.

'Can a mother forget the baby at her breast

and have no compassion on the child she has borne?

Though she may forget

I will not forget you.

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands'.

(Isaiah 49:15-16)

My name is on the palms of your hands.

I give you my tears and my wonder and my awe and my love. My guilt I don't have to give you because you lifted it from me on the day that you died.

It was heavy, I know, but you are strong.

My God, you did that for me.

(Picture OL9.jpg by edouardo
Courtesy of Morguefile.com
used with permission.)

Edited and reposted from 2012

The meaning of loneliness

Maundy Thursday.

Tonight at church we will remember the Last Supper and the events that followed in Gethemane. It will be quite a sombre affair as we listen to the account of your betrayal. 

That night in Gethsemane. My heart breaks for you. Nobody kept you company as you prayed and waited for the inevitable. They fell asleep. They didn't understand what was happening. I can't imagine  that they would have nodded off if they'd known what was about to happen. You asked them to stay with you, to be there, but they couldn't.

You were truly on your own; lonely in a way that no-one else before or since could possibly understand. My heart goes out to you. 

It must have been terrifying. You knew what was coming. You knew what had to happen. You were waiting for the start of a chain of events that would result in agonies for you - physical, emotional and spiritual, but the loneliness must have started right here.

You asked the Father if there was another way. Oh, Lord Jesus, how I thank you for that moment of - what? fear? weakness? doubt? I don't know, but my heart hurts for your humanity just then. You put yourself aside and chose the necessary path.

Minutes and hours ticked by while you waited. 

And then, one of your chosen friends betrayed you with a kiss.

Those same men who had sworn that they would never leave your side - they fled. Peter was aghast at the thought that he might disown you but he ran away and denied he ever knew you.

They were afraid for their lives and despite their claims that they would stand by you and even die for you they made themselves scarce in case it might be their turn next. 

You were alone. 

God, what was it like to watch your Son that night? To hear him ask if there was another way, and shake your head? To watch his sweat fall like blood, to see him on his face on the ground with anguish and fear?  To see these weak men who were his friends run away and deny him? 

Were you proud? Were you tempted to abandon the Plan?

Were you torn apart by grief?  Did you, even for a second, wonder if saving us was worth it? 

He did it all that scripture might be fulfilled. It had to happen this way. There was only One who was good enough. 

Tonight we will share bread and wine and we will watch as the altar in church is stripped.

It always moves me, to see the front of church bare and unadorned. No candles, no altar-cloth, no crucifix.

It doesn't seem right. Where you are there should be majesty and glory and richness and beauty but tonight there is just a wooden table. A cloud in front of the sun. Shadows instead of streaming, golden light. 

They took you away and you knew what was to come.You were human enough to pale in the face of this last horrible chapter but God enough to go ahead with it. You asked for company and support and the comfort of friends and nobody gave it.

You were totally alone.

Jesus Christ, Son of God, led away like a criminal as your friends abandoned you.

But here's the thing; I know the end of the story. I know that it doesn't end with your death. From my little vantage point in history I know about the agonising death and I know about the resurrection. I know that your team is still the only team to be on even though right at this moment in Gethsemane it looked totally defeated. You are victorious. It all works out alright in the end. 

I have an advantage over the disciples. And yet...

Would I have run away? I'm sure that I would. 

Would I run away now if they came for me, because of you?  Oh, Lord, I hope not. 

I am like Simon Peter. I don't flatter myself that I am any more loyal, brave, steadfast than the Rock upon which you built your church. I love you, but I am easily frightened. Easily cowed. 

And yet you did all this for me. 

Even without the adornments, you are beautiful. Without the gold and the tapestry and the candles, you are still the Lord of Light. 

Walking away with your captors, allies nowhere to be seen, you are not diminished. 

I am in awe. 

You are here.

Your spirit is with me.

I lift up my heart. 

I give thanks to the Lord my God. 

It is right to give Him thanks and praise.

Thankyou, Jesus.




Edited and reposted from 2012

Opening my hands

I don't have any words to celebrate Easter.

I like words and I usually enjoy playing with them. Searching for the right one. Quite often I can't make my mind up and I use more than I need to use. 

Today I'm feeling subdued. Yesterday was Easter and I didn't manage to find any quiet to come here and talk to you and by bedtime I had already been asleep on the sofa and any offering I might have made at that point would have been pathetically inadequate. 

It's a bit of a challenge right now. 

We've had visitors over Easter and they've gone. It was good to have them here and the children are missing their cousin badly. They've had company and stimulation and games to play but now the visitors have gone and taken their computer game with them (should we get one? Or would that be a bad idea for small girls who already have so much? More screens to stare at? But on the other hand... Divine guidance much appreciated on this one). Anyway, the children need extra attention and I would rather crawl into a little hole and have some time just me. 

On my own. With you. Though I can't guarantee that I'll be very good company.

Lord, yesterday morning at church it was just lovely. The building was full, the music was good, the atmosphere was festive and the message was the most incredible, breathtaking, amazing thing that there is. You rose from the dead. And if you did that two thousand years ago, that means that you're still alive. 

Alive. Not dead. Alive. Living. 

Nothing that they did to you could defeat you. It was lonely and awful and painful and you did it for me. You did it for me so that the way to God was open and clear and not blocked by piles of dirt and debris and rubbish. You did it. I thought my heart would explode, it was so full. 

Yesterday I raised my hands and praised you and the angels were singing too. He is risen! Alleluia! 

Today the first day of this year's post Easter life begins and I'm wondering what will change now. What can I do that's different because of Easter this year? What is my response?

We have chocolate to eat. We have a holiday this coming week; Bryan is at home and the children are off school. We will do nice things in the name of the Easter holiday. But my life should alter as a result of what I have seen this Easter.  I have spent Lent looking inward, and it's time to change gear. 

The Lord is here. He's not dead. Stop looking for him in his grave.

I am tired. I have things on my mind. Yesterday I felt lighter than I do today, and I know that a Good Night's Sleep will help.  Some space. But I feel troubled.

One thing keeps coming to mind. A friend and I often say this to each other when we find ourselves having trouble in life. We both have a tendency to control-freakery. We both frequently feel responsible for things that we can't do anything about. We both worry; probably me the most. But we've found something that helps - a bit. When we let it help. 

We need to open our hands. I need to stop holding on with fists clenched tight and I need to prise my fingernails out of my palms because only then can I take what you're holding out to me. If my hands are full, I can't accept anything. And that's such a shame because my hands are usually full of concerns and anxieties and worries and regrets and the things that you want to give me instead are peace and rest and hope and joy. Who would cling to the darkness when offered such light? 

Me, it seems. 

Yesterday at church I said some things and I've been acutely uncomfortable about them ever since. Three people have contacted me to say that what I said struck a chord with them. At the time it felt important that I say it; my heart was thumping in my chest, my palms were cold and sweaty and I felt that I should say it, then afterwards my mind was flooded with doubts. Big, hot, tearful doubts. I'd made a fool of myself. I shouldn't have said it. It didn't make sense. I didn't express myself very well. People would think badly of me. How embarrassing. And so on and so on. 

I have no idea what was going on, there. I trust you, Lord. I trust that you had a plan and that you can use even my obscure stumblings. But as I talk to you now I know that my feeling ill at ease today has something to do with yesterday. 

I need to do something.  Forgive?  Perhaps. It's a rolling programme. Give it all to you? Certainly.

Max Lucado says in his book 'He Chose the Nails: What God did to win your heart' which was my unofficial Lent reading this year, that the cross demands a response. A new examination of the cross demands a new response. He says: 

'May I urge you to leave something at the cross? You can observe the cross and analyse the cross. You can read about it, even pray to it. But until you leave something there, you haven't embraced the cross.'

What am I going to leave?

Right.

I'm going to carry my normal load of baggage and worries and anxieties and fears and regrets up the hill until I'm right in the shadow of the empty cross.
I'm going to make a pile of the boxes and rucksacks and carrier bags right in front of it. The little things and bits and bobs that I never let go of, I'm going to find an empty box left over from moving house and I'm going to fill them up and then get parcel tape and tear it off with my teeth in that way that makes my Mum wince and I'm going to seal the box and pat the tape down tight so I can't easily reach inside for something that I'm having second thoughts about.

Actually, there might be more than one boxful of sundries. Several, even. I'm going to stack them up on top of each other. I'm going to make a pile.

It's neatly stacked but it's still a great ugly heap.

I'm going to label them with the same efficiency with which I started to pack when we moved house.

Worries: the future, what people think, health, the health of those that I love, finances, jobs, that crack in the ceiling in the hall, the damp behind the living room radiator...

Fears: that something bad will happen. That people will die. That if I take my eye off the ball something will go horribly and irrevocably wrong. That I'll make some disastrous mistake in bringing up the children that their lives are ruined...

Bad things: my tendency to think I'm right, laziness, irritability, being critical, withholding forgiveness, superstition, temper, selfishness...

Regrets: things that I've said, things that I haven't said, perfectionism, the times I've messed things up, mistakes, things that I find hard to forget...

...and so on. And what am I going to do next?

I'm going to walk away. I know I'll be back because my hands fill up very quickly. No doubt before I get to the bottom of the hill I'll have things that I should come back and throw on the pile. But I'm not going to do what I usually do, which is to grab everything I can carry as if I'm on a trolley dash and run away with them again rather than leave them with you.

I'm walking. I'm not looking over my shoulder. I know that the cross is there, dark and silhouetted against the brightness of the sun.

I'm climbing down.

I want my hands to be empty so that I can grasp what you offer to me. Give me eyes to see what you are holding out and the sense to understand that what I have in my hands now has no value in comparison with a gift from you.

Thankyou for dying for me, Lord Jesus.

Please don't let me gaze at the cross and lift my hands in praise, but do nothing.

I want it to change things. Change me.

I'm sitting still. I'm relaxing my shoulders, which have a tendency to creep up towards my ears when I'm tense and anxious. I'm leaning on you. I'm remembering my pile of debris.

My eyes are closed but my hands are open.

Empty day

It's Saturday afternoon but it doesn't feel like a normal Saturday. 

It's different for a few reasons; we have company at the moment, the normal Saturday routine is temporarily interrupted, but for me there's definitely something else. Suspense. 

Waiting. A friend asked me earlier what we were doing today and I said I didn't know; it was a sort of 'limbo day'. She described it as 'an empty day', which I took to mean that she had no plans, but it might just as well have been a sense that something is missing. There's a void. A void of activity at church after the past week of services to remember Holy Week. Yesterday we went to the Hot Cross Bun service and looked again at the cross. Tomorrow we'll celebrate your resurrection, but today we wait. We feel the lack of something. Emptiness. A hole. 

We miss you. 

This was the day-in-between. I wonder what the disciples did that day. It was their Sabbath - did they go to the Temple and go through the motions? Did they stay in a room together and weep and try and work it out? Did they blame each other? Did they realise that they abandoned their Lord when it came to the end?  Did they go their separate ways? Merge into a crowd? 

They missed you. 

Max Lucado points out in his book 'He Chose the Nails' that you told the disciples three times that you would be executed and then on the third day you would rise from the grave. Three times. How many of them were waiting at the graveside that first Easter to see it happen?  None. Did they believe it? Did they not hear? Would I? Something so amazing? Even if I'd seen Lazarus peel off his own grave-clothes?

But hey, they were only human. They were scared. That first middle Saturday they must have been beside themselves with grief. You were their friend. You gave them purpose. You changed their lives. You showed them what to do and you had gone.

They missed you. 

So I'm sitting here with a cup of tea and it feels a bit like marking time. I, of course, know what happens tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. I love Easter day. Even so, today is a forgotten day. A lost day. I had a little smile of satisfaction when I learned earlier on that historically this middle day of the three is considered a limbo-sort of day. 

A friend from church sent me an email all about today. 

I learned that 'Holy Saturday' (in Latin, Sabbatum Sanctum) is known as 'the day of the entombed Christ'. It is 'the Lord's day of rest' as this was the day that you were lying in your tomb. (Or were you? Were you getting your breath back? Were you off dealing with the devil on that day? Wiping the smirk off his face? Raising up the saints who had been waiting and waiting for you to arrive? I wonder what you were doing.) 

It goes on, 'We recall the Apostle's Creed, which says 'He descended to the dead.' It is a day of suspense between two worlds, that of darkness, sin and death, and that of the Resurrection and the restoration of the Light of the World.'

Suspense indeed. A no-man's-land. Christ has died, but Christ has not yet risen. We wait. We are holding our breath. 

And also, I didn't know that, '...for this reason no divine services are held until after the Easter vigil begins that night.'

Funny, that. I had only commented this morning that there should be something at church today to fill the gap. To save me from the feeling of blankness. Empty day. Limbo-day. Since that very first Easter people who love you have felt the oddness of today. The emptiness. 

There's something more powerful, though. Tomorrow you rise again, all over again. We celebrate and we sing and we lift our hands in praise and worship to the Risen Lord. We celebrate your resurrection. Back from the dead. But it's also the beginning of something totally new. 

'This day between Good Friday and Easter Day makes present to us the end of one world and the complete newness of the era of salvation inaugurated by the resurrection of Christ.'

You changed things. Nothing was the same any more. You cleared the way so that we could approach your Father. You redeemed us. You paid the price so that we were not held responsible for all the rubbish that had piled up and blocked the way from us to you. That first Easter Day was the first day of the new order. The first day that things were different. The Era of Salvation. 

So something momentous happened yesterday. Something momentous happens tomorrow. Today we wait. We feel the absence of you. Today we hold our breath in suspense. We get ready. 

Come, Lord Jesus. We're waiting at the tomb.  

Injustice and the missing bun

Hello, God.
I'd be a rich woman if I had a pound for every time my children say (or shout), 'It's not fair!'  For example, today we baked buns together and the children each had their little bowl of mixture which made six buns.  Elizabeth gave one of her buns to Grandma, and ate one. Then she sneaked one of Katy's buns off the other side of the cooling rack and added it to hers so that they were even again. 

Unfortunately, owing to the greater mixing power of Lizzie vs Katy, Katy's cakes were easily identifiable as Katy's, being smaller and less risen. So Lizzie's new batch of cakes consisted of four beautifully risen buns straining at their paper cases, and one flattish one that looked suspiciously like Kate's. With Katy on her way to the kitchen to ice and decorate her buns, I extracted the purloined bun and placed it back with it's five siblings. 

Cue: wail from Elizabeth:  'But Mummy! It's not fair!'

Actually, it was perfectly fair. Elizabeth had snaffled one of her own buns (while it was still warm, very sensible) and had nobly gifted another to Grandma, who had an unaccompanied cup of tea (very laudable).  Sadly, her four looked quite lonely in comparison with Kate's six. Then my little Katy climbed up on a stool, assessed the situation, counted by jabbing her little index finger into each bun and immediately donated one of hers to make up the numbers on the opposing team. What about that?  

Round of applause for Katy, I think. Lizzie stopped crying and there was a moment's silence in the kitchen while Grandma and I gazed admiringly at our little peacemaker.  So they had each had five buns to decorate. Then round two began when Lizzie dipped her iced bun in it's entirety into the chocolate sprinkles leaving only one or two left that didn't adhere to the icing. 

I know. Scones a bit
overdone. Not many left
now though. 

Cue: wail from Katy: 'Mummy! It's not fair!'

And so on. You get the drift. But they're just kids, right? You wouldn't expect anything different from children, would you?  

I realise that I am no different. Maybe I don't give voice to it, and maybe it's more sophisticated than an inadequate number of buns, but I know that I am guilty many times a day of the adult equivalent of the 'It's not fair!' wail. 

Right, here we go. Just off the top of my head, from memory, so far today (and it's about four o'clock):

Why do I have to wake up when I want to stay asleep? It's not fair.

Why can't I hear out of my right ear still? It's not fair. 

Why do I have to fight with Katy about washing her hair/brushing her teeth/eating her breakfast/putting on her clothes? It's not fair.
Why do things keep going wrong? It's not fair. 

Why do I have to tidy up the girls' painting things instead of sitting here playing on my computer? It's not fair.

Why don't people leave me alone for five minutes to have a cup of coffee in peace? It's not fair.
Why are good people round me having a horrible time? It's not fair.
Why are you not doing what I'm asking you to do, God? It's not fair.

Why can't I eat a plateful of buttered scones without putting on even more weight when some people can trough through many of them and remain slim? It's not fair. (This one really isn't fair, Lord.)

And I'm quite sure that I could think of more. In fact I did think of more but I'm less than willing to drag them all out into the open. 

Which is why this morning's reading from the very wise A W Tozer made me think. 

'Christians who understand the true meaning of Christ’s cross will never whine about being treated unfairly. Whether or not they are given fair treatment will never enter their heads. They know they have been called to follow Christ, and certainly the Savior did not receive anything approaching fair treatment from mankind.'

Oh dear. It enters my head quite often. 

'He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth . . . neither was any deceit in his mouth.' 

Isaiah 53:7, 9

Oh dear. I know. This is the point at which the wind sort of goes out of my sails. It doesn't much matter if my little lot is 'fair' or not; it's trivia in comparison with the injustice that you suffered on my behalf, and yet you never complained. Not even a bit. Just imagine the scream that could have echoed down through the ages if you had yelled out, 'God! It's not fair!' from the cross. And it wasn't. Not a bit fair, because you didn't deserve to die, you deserved to be enthroned as King. You didn't deserve to pay the ultimate price, but I did. But you did it for me. You did it without complaining or whining or moaning. 

I'm so sorry. 

Tozer goes on to say:

'The man who cries “Unfair!” is not a victorious man. He is inwardly defeated...'

I suppose that's how I'm feeling at the moment, but I know that I'm not defeated for I have the victory in you. But the way I'm feeling at the moment isn't an excuse because I'm often pretty whiny about what's fair and what isn't. I wonder if anyone ever grows out of it?

Really? Oh. Just me then? That's disappointing.

'It is a certainty that Christians will suffer wrongs; but if they take them in good spirit and without complaint, they have conquered their enemy.' 


Oh here we go again. The enemy. I have so much to learn about the enemy. I'm reading books about the battle in and for the mind and I'm realising that so many of my thoughts aren't good for me.  The negative, the defeatist, the self-pitying, the critical, the resentful... all those type of thoughts for starters are not good for me. And the icing on top of the pyramid of destructive thoughts (like the chocolate on a pile of profiteroles) has to be the childish-sounding wail: 'But it's not fair!'

Help me with this one, Lord, because I often feel that life isn't fair. Indeed, that's what my Mum and Dad kept telling me as a child, and I know that it's true. It wasn't fair for you, was it? You came to love us and save us and show us the way to all that is good, and what did we do? We hurt you and rejected you and killed you. That wasn't fair.

So help me with this one, Lord. It seems a big ask to want me to take all these injustices in my stride - 'In good spirit and without complaint' - that seems a long way from where I am. One more in a long list of things that I can't do.

But you can.

When you know that I'm about to get crabby about things not going my way, remind me that your experience of the world wasn't one of perfect justice and yet you never complained. It might sound small but if my thought life is as important as I'm starting to think it is, then please help me to get a grip of all of these small things that add up to a big thing. I want to turn the negatives into positives and learning how to stop the wallowing will be a step in the right direction.

The weight of the world

Good Friday. Wasn't such a good day for you, was it? I think the 'Good' bit is dependent on hindsight, because I can't imagine there were many people there who thought that what was going on was good.  There might have been some, perhaps, who thought they'd got rid of you, but when it came down to it even the soldiers who had wielded the hammer and nails looked and listened to you on the cross and concluded that you were something special.

What must you have gone through?  The agony of rejection, the agony of crucifixion, the agony of the moment that God the Father had to turn away from you. How is it possible that you went through with it at all?

Gasping for breath.  Pushing up on the nails in your feet to relieve the dislocating pressure on the shoulders and hands before sinking down again when your muscles betrayed you. Blinking blood and sweat out of your eyes, lifting your head a moment and feeling again the thorns pressing into your scalp. the torn and raw skin and muscles of your back against the splintered wood of the cross.  The exhaustion and loneliness. The humiliation of nakedness in front of your mother, your friends, your enemies. And then the dark, dark emotional anguish when your isolation became complete; the Father, with whom you had always been completely in tune, was nowhere to be found. 

You had the weight of the world on your shoulders at that moment and I cannot begin to imagine the desolation.

Everything that was bad, corrupt, evil or rotten was laid upon you when you became the perfect sacrifice; the sacrifice to end them all.  You did all that.  You hung there and asked forgiveness for those that did that to you.  You asked the Father to forgive us all because I did it to you too.  I smiled and praised you then betrayed you and denied you and crucified you and you allowed it all to happen so that I could be free. You were afraid; in Gethsemane you came before the Father and asked if there was another way - and yet you went through with the Plan because you knew that there could be no other way. 

What can I say?  There's nothing I can do that is enough to thank you, and you know that. You did it anyway. There's no way that I can repay you - and you know that. You died for me anyway. I am forever in your debt. 

Lord Jesus Christ, thankyou for that Good Friday. 

Every Easter I make a point of watching a version of the Easter Story on the television and there are quite a few interpretations. This year we have just finished watching 'Jesus of Nazareth', with Robert Powell playing you. Last year it was the Mel Gibson film 'The Passion of the Christ' and the year before was the BBC's 'The Passion'.  The films are very different. Different interpretations - the words from the Holy Bible have different emphases and the actors deliver them in their own way.  The one thing that they all have in common is that when I come to see the part where they crucify you I find it a terrible thing to watch. It's new every time. I see that the Lord of my heart was put to death for me, and my eyes fill with tears, because they are murdering someone that I love.

Even if I watch these films over and over, Lord Jesus - and I'm sure I will because there aren't that many of them - never let me get to the point where those scenes don't move me. I never want to feel that it is not the momentous thing that it is. I never want it to be too familiar, routine.  I want to hold this feeling of awe and wonder forever.  I want to remember the horror that I was responsible for what happened to you so that I can never forget the magnitude of the forgiveness that you have given me. If I no longer feel the awfulness then I can no longer feel the astonishment. If I don't perceive the depths of my need for forgiveness then I can't appreciate the vastness of your love. 

You died for me. You loved me so much that before I even turned to you and held your gaze, you thought me worthwhile enough to die for.

'Can a mother forget the baby at her breast

and have no compassion on the child she has borne?

Though she may forget

I will not forget you.

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands'.

(Isaiah 49:15-16)

My name is on the palms of your hands.

I give you my tears and my wonder and my awe and my love. My guilt I don't have to give you because you lifted it from me on the day that you died. It was heavy, I know, but you are strong. 

My God, you did that for me. 

Thankyou for the Cross

You sent your Son to die.  For me. 


The Living God, the Maker of the Heavens and the Earth who put the stars in the sky and created the mountains and the seas and keeps the world turning and the sun shining; you loved me enough to send your Son to die, so that I might live.

It blows my mind. It's that glimpse thing again.  Only this time, I can open that door a bit wider if I concentrate - I got a glimpse of the enormity of what you did for me, and suddenly I find that the insight is staying with me.


You died for me.


You loved your Son infinitely  - a perfect love, and yet your Son was the sacrifice that you made.  The rubbish in my life was so awful, and there was so much of it, that the only thing that was enough to pay for it; to put right the deficit, was a sacrifice that was perfect.  Something unblemished, sinless, perfect.

Jesus, you came from that wonderful place at your Father's side, a place of beauty and glory and you were all powerful, all holy, and yet you chose to die for me. 


You could have said no, you could have said that I wasn't worth it.  You could have saved yourself so much.  Those soldiers mocked you and spat at you and humiliated you and tortured you and you put up with it because you loved me.  


You could have struck them down, taken a horrible revenge, left them in no doubt about who you were. You could have proved them all wrong and climbed down from the cross.  You could have proved that you were God, but you didn't.  


You knew what it would take and you went through with it, horrible and agonising and desperate as it was.


I cannot begin to imagine what pain you were in.  I know that the Romans were pretty good at torture and had made execution into an art form.  I understand that no-one before or since has devised a method of killing someone that is more agonising than crucifixion.  So you were wholly human and felt pain as we do; yet you went through with that, for me.


It's more than that, though.  I know how lonely I have felt at times in my life, when it seems that nobody is on my side; but however sad I've been, that has never truly been the case.  You've always been there, even though I haven't taken any notice of you.  I have never been abandoned. Never have you turned away from me; all my life I have never had to feel what true separation from you feels like, yet that is what you went through on the cross, for me.  The Father had to turn his face away from his Son so that the deal could be done.


How much worse could that have been for you? For you, Jesus, the Son who had only ever experienced complete oneness with the Father went through complete separation as you hung there dying. You, the Father, you knew what your beloved Son was going through; you must have longed to take him in your arms, and yet you knew that it had to be done. To watch your only Son suffer; that sort of emotional pain is out of my imagination.


Last night at church we sang this song:

'Jesus Christ, I think upon Your sacrifice 
You became nothing 
Poured out to death 
Many times, I've wondered at your gift of life 
I'm in that place once again 
I'm in that place once again 

And once again I look upon the cross where You died 
I'm humbled by Your mercy and I'm broken inside 
Once again I thank You, 
Once again I pour out my life.' 

It came to me, perhaps for the first time, that what I can do is lay down my life in front of you just as it is; it's far from a perfect offering, in fact there's a lot wrong with it, but it's all I have. I want to give you something that reflects what you've done for me, so I can lay down my troubled, broken, imperfect life and you accept it and cherish it, because I am a work in progress and you love me. 


I can't, needn't, shouldn't wait until my life is something worthy of giving you, as that day will never come. There will never be a day that I am able to make myself acceptable to you, and so all I can do is lay down what I have.

'Now You are exhalted to the highest place 
King of the Heavens, where one day I'll bow 
But for now, I'll marvel at Your saving grace 
I'm full of praise once again 
Oh I'm full of praise once again' 

One day, hey. One day I'll be there and I'll be transformed. I can't wait for that day.

'And once again I look upon the cross where You died 
I'm humbled by Your mercy and I'm broken inside 
Once again I thank You 
Once again I pour out my life 

Thank you for the cross 
Thank you for the cross 
Thank you for the cross, my friend' 

That's the bit that brought tears to my eyes last night in church.  


How come I get to call you, 'My friend'? 


You're the Lord, the Creator, the Redeemer, the Messiah.  And yet you are my friend.  Me.  I cannot get my head round it.  That's why I want to give you everything.  

I know that what I can give doesn't amount to much. I know that there's much work to be done. I know that some of my life is offensive to you and so part of my gift is pretty useless, but it's all I can I have.  It's no good to give you some bits but try to hide others. 


So I place it in front of you. Take it and change it and use it. 

Thank you for the cross, my friend. 

Words and music Matt Redman 1995
Kingsway/Thankyou Music