The weight of the world

Good Friday.

Good because we know the wonder that happened on that lonely hill outside Jerusalem, but 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, solved a problem, but when it came down to it even the soldiers holding 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?

Nobody has ever surpassed the Romans for devising a more excruciating manner of execution; indeed, that's where the word comes from. What a thing to be renowned for: straight roads, plumbing, torture.

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 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 you must have been desolate.

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 hung there and asked forgiveness for the people that did that to you even as you suffered.

You were afraid - you were human. In Gethsemane you came before the Father and asked if there was another way, could there be another way? - and yet you went through with the Plan because you knew that there wasn't.

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. 

When I see a film or read a book that tells of your passion I am moved to tears. I can't stand to watch because they are torturing and murdering someone I love. And what adds another layer of awfulness is when I realise that you allowed it to happen, for my sake. You didn't have to do it; at any time you could have called in an army of angels who would have lifted you back to your throne and struck down those who hurt you. You could have called down fire and hail and razed Jerusalem to the ground but you let them drive nails through your hands and feet before they lifted you up and mocked you. You chose to go through with it.

Lord, never let me reach a place where those scenes don't move me. I never want to feel that it is not the world-changing thing that it is. I never want it to be familiar, routine.  I want to hold this feeling of awe and wonder - and horror - in my heart forever.

I want to remember 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 long before I even turned to you, 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. They were pierced by nails and bled because of it.

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. 

He lives! (with an exclamation mark)

A friend sent me a picture from the internet. It was a picture of Jesus bursting out of the dark tomb into bright sunlight. Strips of grave-cloths flying everywhere, it is a picture full of energy and movement.

I love the idea of Jesus' resurrection as a dramatic, triumphant thing, not something serene and subtle. I think He would have emerged from that tomb exhilarated, breathing deeply of delicious fresh air. He'd have had enough of the suffocating claustrophobia of death, the crushing sensations of tightly bound grave clothes, the airlessness of a dark tomb, the cloying fragrances of embalming spices and ointments. 

He'd have stretched and flexed his muscles and thrown back His head and gazed at the starry sky - or the sunrise, or whatever time of day it might have been. He'd have lifted His hands and praised His Father in Heaven. He'd have smelled the grass and the dust and the flowers and felt the breeze in His hair and He might have smiled or even laughed to have conquered death so decisively.  He would have been wonderfully, thoroughly alive. 

He wouldn't be floating six inches above the ground with blond curls beautifully coiffed, hands folded in the sleeves of His pristine white robes and eyes downcast demurely. He wasn't a ghost, or an apparition; He was real. 

Jesus was a man. He was a carpenter, and then He was constantly on the move, so I reckon He'd have been in pretty good shape. He'd have had wonderfully strong arms and capable, calloused hands. He'd have been lean and well muscled (maybe even a six-pack, though that might be going too far).

He might not have been particularly tall; it seems that middle-eastern men in that era weren't particularly tall, and He'd have had olive skin, dark hair and brown eyes. We know from the Bible that He was not an especially handsome man - nothing that would turn heads if He walked past. 

I have an idea that if you looked into His eyes - if He was talking to you, if you had His attention - that perhaps that might have been another story. I think you'd have seen in His eyes something that you'd never seen before; you'd struggle to take your eyes from His. 

I bet He had the kindest eyes you've ever seen. Warm and intelligent and sincere. Eyes that could see into your soul; that could understand all the things you could never say, the good and the bad, the hopes and dreams and fears and regrets - and yet still you would know that He loved you. I think you'd have seen fun in His eyes; a joy of being alive alongside the sadness and compassion He had for the poor broken creatures that lived alongside Him. 

I think that Jesus was a man before and after His resurrection. Afterwards He was one hundred per cent alive, just as He was before. Blood was being pumped around His body, lungs filling with air, feet on the floor and all His senses keenly awake. I think He'd have enjoyed those days after His resurrection; He'd have been triumphant and joyful. He'd have known there was a job still to do, but He would surely have had a sense of satisfaction. He had done it, after all.

I have no idea at all where He spent those three days after they lifted Him down from the cross and placed Him, bathed with tears, in Joseph's tomb. A friend of mine mused: 

"Easter Saturday fascinates me, as one of those "between things" times, which is neither one thing, nor yet quite the other. Schroedinger's Saviour lies in the tomb (or does he?), resting for the Shabbat, and yet Peter hints that Jesus was already roaming the underworld freeing prisoners and causing his usual mayhem. Why not both? Why not be in three places at once? My God is beyond comprehension, wrapped in grave clothes whilst dancing at the pinnacle of heaven mantled in new authority and descending to the depths to set the captives free."  Karen Dibbens-Wyatt, April 2015

Why not all three places? It's a mystery beyond any human comprehension that a man could come back to life after he was categorically dead, and so all bets are off, I reckon. He might have disappeared from that tomb magically and turned up on the other side of the stone, or He might have pushed it away with superhuman powers. He might have vanished moments after He was laid in the tomb and visited Heaven and hell and all places in between, since God is outside time; there was no clock-watching throughout those three days. Who knows? I wonder if one day I might hear Him tell the story.

I like the picture of Jesus bursting from the tomb with untold power and energy. I see Him standing outside in the morning sunlight anticipating Mary's arrival and smiling to Himself as he relishes breaking the news. I think He enjoyed appearing amongst His disciples and looking with affection at their astonished faces.

'...he showed them his hands and feet.  And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, ‘Do you have anything here to eat?’ Luke 24:40-41

I think that He'd have smiled gently at Thomas as He offered proof of His death and His life.

Because, obvious as it sounds - the penny drops - if Jesus died, and rose from the dead, He is still alive today. Normal human rules do not apply to Him. For us, there is nothing so certain that we will one day cease to live, but for Him: been there and done that. It didn't work.

He lives! And He didn't sneak out of the tomb apologetically, it would have been a momentous moment. The whole of the universe would have changed forever.

That's worthy of an exclamation mark, and I use them very sparingly.

He knows what death is like, and He knows what lies beyond. He says it's safe for us to follow; more than that - it's glorious and beyond our wildest dreams. He says that He's prepared a place for us to be with Him for eternity. But if He's battled death and won, He is not waiting for us in the place beyond death, He is here on this side too. He can go where He wants.

'And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ Matthew 28:20

If that doesn't blow your mind, I think nothing ever will.

Forty things to give up

A quick note on Lent. 

I have done - and attempted not to do - many things for Lent. Giving up chocolate was not particularly difficult for me as it's not my biggest area of temptation in the food department. Biscuits were harder. Coffee would be impossible, though I did once go decaf for the forty days. 

I've given up Facebook, and found on the whole that it was a positive experience with a lasting effect. The time that I found by not grazing on trivia I spent journalling, and that has become something very precious in my life. Social media doesn't have the same hold on me that it once had, though I still have to be careful. No, this year, something different. 

A book? A set of Lent devotions? Hmm - I am swamped by reading at the moment and I'm thoroughly enjoying a pile of new fiction that I tell myself is essential as research as I'm trying to write a novel of my own at the moment. One of the websites with daily suggestions of good things to do and acts of generosity...? Maybe.

And then I saw an article that jumped out at me. A gentleman called Phil Ressler, Pastor of a Church in New Jersey, America, wrote an article entitled 'Forty things to give up for Lent'. The list just grabbed me - it stood out from the page and flashed repeatedly. Almost. Anyway, suddenly I knew what I was going to be doing that was different in the run up to Easter this year. 

So many things on Mr Ressler's list were meant Just For Me. I decided that I would pray through one of his suggestions each day. Maybe aim to devote at least one page in my journal to each topic. That seemed both positive and do-able.

I soon learned that he'd written a book with the same title as this article, and even as my finger twitched towards the Amazon link, (Ooh, there's a book, buy the book!) I had another thought - no, I didn't want this to become another exercise in reading someone's take on each item on the list - I'd read through all forty and identified at least three quarters of them as things that need attention in my life. Probably God would add the other ten to the list as well, and so I wanted it to be my prayers, and His answers. 

So, this is my plan. With just the words and concepts that Mr Ressler listed, I am going to bring each one before God and say what's on my heart, then listen for anything He would like to say to me. Some might say that this is a very inward-looking way of spending Lent, and that might be true, but I think for me, at a point in my life when I feel beset by loads of things that I thought I'd managed to beat, (most of which are on the list) it seems easily as valuable as cutting out crisps or resolving to do twenty sit-ups every day until Bank Holiday Monday. 

Ooh, the horror of sit-ups. 

Here's the list. If you know me even a little you'll see that we got off to a flying start.

1. Fear of Failure
2. Your Comfort Zone
3. Feelings of Unworthiness
4. Impatience
5. Retirement
6. People Pleasing
7. Comparison
8. Blame
9. Guilt
10. Overcommitment
11. Lack of Counsel
12. Impurity
13. Entitlement
14. Apathy
15. Hatred
16. Negativity
17. The Spirit of Poverty
18. Going Through the Motions
19. Complaint
20. The Pursuit of Happiness
21. Bitterness
22. Distraction
23. Giving Up
24. Mediocrity
25. Destructive Speech
26. Busyness
27. Loneliness
28. Disunity
29. The Quick Fix
30. Worry
31. Idolising
32. Resistance to Change
33. Pride
34. Small View of God
35. Envy
36. Ingratitude
37. Selfish Ambition
38. Self-Sufficiency
39. Sorrow
40. My Life

For each suggestion, there is a sentence explaining what the author means, but I am not making a note of that. I want to take each word and think about it, exploring what comes to mind, and then listen to see if/how God would have me change the way I think, act or speak. I suspect there's much work to be done. 

Time spent with God is never wasted, is it?  My One Word for 2015 is 'PEACE' - and it occurs to me that most - if not all - of these forty things are peace-stealers. Please God, it might be a long road, but I hope to take the first steps to reclaiming each of these bits of my life. 

So, this is my Lent Task. Time in prayer each day around these forty areas of life. I've already found that the first two stretched to multiple journal pages, much heart-searching and unexpected insights, so I'm hoping for real change over the next month and a bit. 

 my life. 

I'll let you know how it goes. 

I may need a new journal before very long. 

Article reference:  40 Things to Give up for Lent: The List by Phil Ressler, Pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, Old Bridge, NJ. Published on the Church website 11/2/2015  

http://gs4nj.org/40-things-the-give-up-for-lent-the-list/

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.

Seeing and not seeing

I was reading about the trial of Jesus; the crowd are growing louder and louder calling for Jesus' execution, but nobody knows what to do with Him.

Jesus appears before the Sanhedrin, before Pilate, and before Herod, and then is passed back to Pilate. An innocent man, He stands before the authorities bruised and bloody. He has been beaten, mocked, spat at and insulted, and yet Pilate knows that He has done nothing wrong.

Both Pilate and Herod don't want to make a decision. In all four gospels we read that they don't see a basis for a charge, and yet the mob are baying for blood and they are afraid. What are they to do? To begin with, they are uneasy, and want to see this 'King' for themselves, to find out if He was looking to depose them.  Then at the last they see the defeated, pathetic man dragged in front of them and decide that He is no threat after all.

None at all. He wasn't a pretender to the throne. He was weak and pathetic. Finished. Just another deluded Jewish unfortunate who the mob had turned against.

I picture Jesus in the fine robe in which Herod had Him dressed, blood and dirt caked on His face and body. Bruised, eyes swollen shut, nose broken and bleeding, handfuls of His beard torn out. Head bowed, exhausted, limping. Silent.

No wonder Pilate and Herod thought that there was nothing special about Him after all. He worked no miracles while they watched, He didn't argue with them, accuse them, defend himself. He appeared every inch the broken man.

The loyal disciples were nowhere to be seen, either. They were at a distance, in hiding, fearing for their own lives. What must they have been thinking? Surely they were convinced that it had all gone terribly wrong - where was their leader now? Surely this was not what Jesus had in mind when He talked of a new Kingdom, of justice and restoration and hope?

And yet, it hadn't gone wrong after all. Impossible as it is to get my head round, it was going exactly to plan.

At the time that it seemed completely out of hand, it was all under control.

'He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.'
Isaiah 53:7

Jesus knew exactly what was happening and at any moment He could have called a halt to it. An army of angels would have descended and instantly struck dead everyone who had injured, mocked or spat at him if He had only summoned them.

'Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?' 
Matthew 26:53-54

He had the power of Heaven at his fingertips and yet he was silent. He knew that it had to be like this. He was far from powerless, but he appeared totally broken.

It made me wonder how often I look at a situation, anxious and despairing, and ask, 'Where are you, God? Why aren't you doing anything?' 

When I'm in the middle of my struggles, the big and serious ones, or the daily trivia that gets me down, I sometimes feel defeated. I've been asking and asking, and yet God isn't helping me. Nothing is changing. I've been praying for this for years and He is silent.

The doctor says the very thing I've been dreading, even though I've implored God over and over not to let it happen. The situation that is out of my control seems to get worse instead of better. The people that I repeatedly pray for stay ill; the people that I long to introduce to Jesus stubbornly remain uninterested.

There's no point. It's all gone wrong.

Or so it seems.

Jesus looked a broken man. Not the Messiah at all, not the King of anything or anywhere. He went through all this horror and then on to an agonising and humiliating death without a fight and the soldiers stood at the foot of the cross and stole His clothes.

He looked like nothing, and yet He was everything. We know that he was indeed the King; the King of Kings. He might not have looked like the Son of God, but he was. He may have died the agonising death of a criminal, but he was alive again on the third day, and he will be back in triumph and majesty and glory and not a soul on the earth will be in any doubt about it.

When he stood before Pilate, Jesus was not what they thought. They didn't see the truth of the situation; how could they?  They saw what anyone would see, but they were wrong.

When my life seems to be falling apart around me, every door seems closed, there's no hope - it's all gone wrong - that's when I need to stop wrestling and striving and trust Him. Trust the One who put up with the cruelty and the injustice and the pain because there was a bigger plan. Trust the One who has the Plan right here and now, just as He did then.

'Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning.'
Psalm 30:5b

The night lasted three days, and joy did indeed come in the morning. At first light, the women went to the tomb and found it open, and empty.

So when I think that it's all gone wrong, nothing can be right again; I can think of Pilate, looking at the beautiful, all-powerful Son of the living God, and shaking his head and seeing a pathetic man, beaten, defeated, deserted and left to his fate.

'Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.'
Isaiah 53:3b

It's not what we think. Just as God had not abandoned Jesus, we are not abandoned. Now, as then, when all seems lost, we can trust that the One who holds the universe in His hands has a plan that we cannot see from our limited vantage point, just as Pilate could not see from his.

Glory stood in front of him, but he saw only weakness.

We think we know, but we don't. All the time I make the same mistake as Pilate; I think that what I see is all there is to see.

We are called upon to stop staring at the problem and trust.

'Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.'
Proverbs 3:5

My word for this year is 'Trust' and in so many ways already I realise that God has taken me at my word. There are things that I can't do, can't sort out, can't change, and He's asking me to stop trying to work it out, but to trust Him. It might look like a mess to me, but I don't see things the way He sees them. Every day it's a battle, because I seem to gather up the anxieties over and over again and hug them to me, but I'm trying to breathe out, slowly.

I trust you, Lord.

Like Pilate, I think I see, but I don't.  But you do, you see everything. You are my heavenly Daddy, my Abba, my friend and my God; you love me and you have promised that you will never leave me, that you will bring good out of even the most devastating circumstances. So, when I look around and I see all the things that I struggle with and so want to be different and I question whether you care about me at all...

I trust you, Lord.



Image: thorns_purple.jpg by lb63664 
From Morguefile.com 
Used with permission

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 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

Riding on a donkey

Palm Sunday.

I always find it a bit melancholy; the celebrations don't feel right to me. You rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to fulfil prophecy, and the crowd went wild.

'Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'
Zechariah 9:9

They cheered and waved and praised and sang.  You must have looked around and seen the happy, welcoming faces of the crowd and marvelled at their fickleness.  Less than a week later they would be screaming in hatred and baying for your blood.

Lord Jesus, how did that feel?

I want to say that if I'd been there, I wouldn't have been like that.  I would have cheered you and welcomed you and then stayed faithful even when things went bad in a few days time.  I want to assure you that my love would have been more constant than that.

I would have stood by you.

But we both know that isn't the case, don't we?

No doubt I would have been scared and fearful and the instinct for self preservation would probably have kicked in for me just as it did for the others. I would have smiled and cheered and praised you that day and then turned away and cowered and hid when the going got tough.

Would I have had the courage to speak up for you?

To say 'No. I'm with him...' 

'He really is the King.'

Unlikely.

I would have been as bad as all the rest. Perhaps that's why I feel so uneasy on Palm Sunday.  Perhaps it's too close to home.  The ease with which 'Hosanna!' turned to 'Crucify!'  The way the welcome turned to rejection.

I feel bad that you had to go through it all.  You looked about you with a smile on your face and accepted praise with grace and mercy and at the same time you saw how shallow it all was.  We didn't understand. We're good at not understanding.

It can't have been easy; you were a man after all.  Your humanity must have loved the celebrations, the recognition, the welcome. There must have been an element of enjoyment in it for you. Who doesn't love being loved?

But then you are God as well.

You saw beyond the shouts of praise and understood the emptiness of the hearts and the fear and the betrayal. It makes me weep for you. I'm sorry that we did that to you. You, who are honesty, truth, beauty, mercy, forgiveness, grace, peace, straightforwardness, love. You were clean and bright and sinless and you were lauded by those dark with hypocrisy. You loved them anyway, because these were the people you came to save. 

How amazing is that.

Physical pain - you went through plenty of that, but the emotional stuff as well, stab after stab of hypocrisy and rejection. Did you see faces in the crowd that you knew? That you'd healed? All singing to you, praising you, then nowhere to be seen when you needed a friend. And still, you loved us.

You went on loving. You could have turned to your Father in heaven and said, 'You must be joking. You want me to do what?  To save these?'  and shaken your head, because we're not worth your sweat, let alone your blood.

But you so loved us that you smiled and blessed and walked on towards the cross. 

Next time, you won't be riding on a donkey, will you? There will be no subtlety about your Triumphal Entry next time.

You will leave us in no doubt.  People will not ask, 'Who is this?' because they will know. Everyone will know.

You will come in all the majesty and dignity that you chose to set aside on Palm Sunday.

Every knee will bow.



Edited, from 2011

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.  

Poured out like water

Jesus Christ, you died for me.

You poured yourself out. To lay down your life for a friend is one thing, but to die for those who rejected you?

To go through so much for so little in return?

The physical agony of crucifixion - the Romans knew how to kill a man. They knew how best to inflict pain. They knew just how to do it so that death was long, drawn out, dying one agonising breath at a time. They knew where to put the nails, the angle to bend the legs, the way to suspend a body so that every moment was a lifetime of misery. 

The emotional pain that you went through. The humiliation of nakedness and helplessness in front of your enemies, your friends, your mother. Being an object of ridicule and mockery. Being spat at. Beaten. The religious leaders and the Roman cowards thought that they'd won and you hung on a cross, bleeding from your wounds and you let them think that. The devil was laughing.

No-one was there. Where were the disciples? Where were all the people you'd healed, helped, transformed; the many whose lives were changed beyond recognition because of you? Where were they all when you needed a friendly face, someone to stick up for you? They had gone. You were going to die and nobody was there. 

The spiritual pain. Now this is hard for me to grasp, but I know that you lived your whole life in complete communion with your Father. I know that you never took one step away from the path that God wanted you to tread. You never once ignored him, or decided that you knew better, or did something for the hell of it, or because you wanted to, no matter what. 

You were sinless. So you never knew what it felt like to be guilty. To be dirty. To be ashamed. To feel unworthy and fearful and worthless. To be condemned. 

Me, I know what it feels like to do what I know to be wrong, and then to stand there with regret and shame in my heart. I know what it feels like to mess things up and know that I've messed them up. I know what it feels like to have a conscience weighed down by rubbish and know that I deserve every last bit of heaviness in my heart. You never did. 

Until that first Good Friday. Until the nails were hammered home and you were lifted high and the cross thudded down into it's hole and every joint was wrenched and the drops of blood and sweat showered down onto the earth that you created. You knew then for the first time what it felt like to be wrong. To be full of selfishness and pride and hatred and anger and guilt. You understood the consequences of sins that you'd never committed. It all came crashing down on you, as if you didn't already have enough to put up with. Physical pain, emotional pain, and now the pain of the world's filth.

You knew what it was like to have your Father, holiness itself, unable to look at you, unholy for the first and only time in your life. 

'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'

Matthew 27:46

Your Father turned away. Darkness fell and a storm whipped up and at that moment it looked as if darkness had triumphed. The sin of the world was on your shoulders. The final sacrifice.

And you did it for me.

You paid the price. For me and for all those like me, then, before then, ever since and everyone who is still to be born. You were the only one who could have. But the weight of those hours must have been unbearable. Cut off from your heavenly Father. The agony must have been intolerable. 

At any point you could have called it a day. You could have brought angels rushing to your aid. You could have climbed down from the cross and ascended into heaven in a blinding flash of light. You could have brought lightning down to strike the soldiers who stripped you and stole your clothes, but you did none of these things. You knew the Plan and you stuck to it. I wonder if you knew how hard it would be.

But you tell me it was worth it. You tell me that you would have done it had I been the only sinner on the planet. You died for me. 

My God. 

The people back then would have known the scriptures. The psalms back then didn't have numbers, people knew them by their first lines. 

' My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'

Psalm 22:1

You told your disciples in Gethesemane to put away their swords - the soldiers were coming for you so that the scriptures would be fulfilled. You knew the Plan and you stuck to it. You had enough presence of mind as you hung their dying to recall the word of God as given to the psalmists and you told us who you were. Those who heard must have been amazed.

'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me,

so far from my cries of anguish?

...

But I am a worm and not a man,

scorned by everyone, despised by the people.

All who see me mock me;

they hurl insults, shaking their heads.

'He trusts in the Lord,' they say,

'let the Lord deliver him, since he delights in him.'

...

I am poured out like water,

and all my bones are out of joint.

My heart has turned to wax;

it has melted within me.

My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,

and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.

You lay me in the dust of death.

Dogs surround me, 

a pack of villains encircles me;

they pierce my hands and my feet.

All my bones are on display;

people stare and gloat over me.

They divide my clothes among them

and cast lots for my garment.'

Psalm 22:1-25

Lord Jesus, I can remember the first time I read Psalm 22 and realised that you knew exactly what was coming. That you were the fulfilment of the Scriptures. That every detail was correct and you knew. It blew me away. The whole of creation points towards you and yet as you died you spelled it out for me.

'I am poured out like water...'

You did it for me. What would I be without you? 

I am so thankful that the story doesn't end with your death. On this Good Friday we think about only part of the story. Gethsemane is part I of a trilogy, Golgotha part II. I should wait for part III until Sunday - but I can't stop there. It just isn't right. I know that the disciples had to; they ran and retreated and hid and wept and wondered and worried, but they weren't reading far enough in the scriptures. I know it's easy for me to say with the benefit of hindsight and easily available Bibles and blessed enough to have people who will teach me and point it out to me in words of one syllable.

You died for me. You paid the price that needed paying. And then... (sneak preview)...

You. Rose. Again. 

'Posterity will serve him;

future generations will be told about the Lord.

They will proclaim his righteousness,

declaring to a people yet unborn:

He has done it!'

Psalm 22:30-31

At the moment you died, you called out, 'It is finished!' (John 19:30)

'He has done it!'

You did it. That was the Plan. Complete. 

Done. 

My Lord and my God. 

Thankyou for dying for me.