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The Thick Fog of Suffering & The Sight of the Savior

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Our youngest son is already dreading the days when his beloved older brothers fly the coop for college. Last summer, in an attempt to create a hopeful experience of life with just the three of us, we took a trip to San Fransisco while the bigs were at camp. I came terribly unprepared. My sundresses and Birkenstocks were a terrible mismatch for the cold and the fog.

Apparently, the fog in SF even goes by the name Carl. Carl taught me a few things on that trip: when going to SF, always bring a hoodie, Birks are incompatible with hills, and fog is a powerful reality.

Just as Carl had the ability to completely hide a massive, fire-engine red bridge from sight, suffering obscures sight. I love Elisabeth Eliot’s simple, yet profound definition of suffering: wanting what you don’t have or having what you don’t want. God cares about all human suffering, even the kind we bring upon ourselves.

A few weekends back, I spoke at a retreat on suffering. The preparation, the delivery, and the stories I heard over the weekend were a heavy reminder of the reality of suffering and how quickly suffering obscures our view of our Savior. I’ve been bent over by brokenness, which is why the following verses and quotes have been balm to my soul this week.

God Lives with & Lifts the Lowly

Through the prophet of Isaiah, who served as the mouthpiece for a fair amount of hard realities, God offers precious words of hope and comfort to his sin-laden, brokenness-bound people. He reminds them (and us) his essence and character even and especially as we walk through brokenness.

“I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite. For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be andy, for the spirit would grow faint before me, and the breath of life that I made.” (Isaiah 57:15–16).

The Lord loves to live with the lowly. The Hebrew word daka translates as “broken, crushed, beaten, small, and trodden down.” Though our God is high and holy, he does not stand aloof from the hurting; rather, he stoops to offer succor. David captures the same sentiment when he writes, “The Lord is near to the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).

It’s not just that the Lord loves to live with the lowly and dwell with the devastated, he loves to restore and comfort. A few verses later, Isaiah continues, saying, “I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners, creating the fruit of the lips” (Isaiah 57:18).

He dwells with the lowly, but he also delights to lift them, not based on their perfect or even mediocre response to suffering, but based on his character. Despite seeing (Hebrew raah) the backsliding, closed-eared way of his people, he still chose to heal them (rapha). He sees and knows us completely, sin and all, but he still chooses to mend us by sewing us together. Just a few chapters earlier, the prophet Isaiah had hinted at the way this would happen: One would come who would be crushed (same root word daka) to mend the crushed (Isaiah 53:5).

Not Seeing, but Still Trusting

Isaiah looked ahead to a coming Suffering Savior; we look back upon him. Yet even for those who know him well, suffering acts like a thick fog that obscures the eyes of our hearts. When we suffer, we struggle to see, something the Apostle Peter understood well.

When seeking to comfort a terribly hurting people, he wrote, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8–9).

It was true in a double sense that the beleaguered believers had not seen Chris. They were one generation removed from actually having laid physical eyes upon Jesus. They were also struggling to even see him through the eyes of faith due to the thick fogs of suffering.

In his sermon entitled “The Eloi,” George MacDonald writes the following powerful words regarding striving to believe when we are straining to see:

“Troubled soul, thou art not bound to feel, but thou art bound to arise. God loves thee whether thou feelest or not….For he sees through all the gloom through which thou canst not see him.”

When my son and I had trekked miles (in the aforementioned Birkenstocks) to the bay to get a picture of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, we were deeply disappointed by the fog. Carl was ruining our plans, so we decided to sit until we could see. We sat stubbornly for an hour to catch grayed glimpses of the bridge. Finally, the sun began to break through, allowing us to see glimpses of the beauty for which we came and of which we had heard.

My lowly, brokenness-bent, suffering friends, the fog will lift and your eyes will behold your Savior. In the meanwhile, he sees you as you strain to see him. He longs to lift you and delights to comfort you.

To Remember Rightly: The Great & Terrible Wilderness and the Great & Awesome God

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Memory is a funny thing, isn’t it? My first memory is being pushed around in a dolphin cart at Sea World by my beloved Grandpa. But, then again, I don’t know if I actually remember it, or if looking at a tattered picture created a memory to which I cling. Either way, I treasure it because (though the picture holds no hints) my grandfather was very sick with the cancer that would take his life earlier than any of us would have liked.

The Scriptures are replete with the command to remember; however, there are two ditches we can fall into when traveling the backwards path of time: remembering with rose-colored glasses or remembering through melancholic lenses.

Remember

The Hebrew word for remember is used fifteen times throughout the book of Deuteronomy. The aged Moses reminds God’s people to “remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (Deuteronomy 5:15). A few chapters later, he bids them to “not be afraid of them” but instead “to remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt” (Deuteronomy 7:18). My favorite of the string of remember verses occurs one chapter later, when Moses commands them to remember the whole commandment and the whole way:

The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you” (Deuteronomy 8:1–2).

Whole is the world that trips me up: obey the whole of the commandment to remember wholly. To remember rightly is to remember wholly (the good, the bad, the ugly, the shameful, the embarrassing, the delightful, the traumatic and the triumphant).

Remember Rightly

This past week, I did not plan to take a time-traveling drive in a DeLorean, but some triggers led me back to some parts of my story I don’t like to remember. In fact, I have become adept at side-stepping or sugar-coating or suppressing (depending on which works for the moment). The Spirit brought two phrases from early in Deuteronomy to heart and mind: “that great and terrible wilderness” (Deuteronomy 1:19) and the aforementioned”the whole way the Lord your God has led you” (Deuteronomy 8:2).

I don’t like remembering “that great and terrible wilderness,” and I would bet the Israelites did not like it either: the hunger, the thirst, the confusion, and the long-wandering; the reminders of their unbelief, murmuring, and disobedience; the just punishment for their acts. That’s a long parade to parse and ponder. Yet, Moses (or more precisely, the Lord through Moses) bids us remember rightly.

We all have our own great & terrible wildernesses, don’t we? But those parts of our stories that we try to hide or repaint with gold-colored hues are significant pieces of the whole way the Lord has led each of us. To truncate them or to try to spin the story differently is to siphon glory from the stories of glory and redemption the Lord is writing for his glory and our good.

Bleached stories don’t show off his many-colored, variegated grace (1 Peter 4:8 &10). Books with chapters torn out don’t honor the author or show off his skill and artistry. In all the trials of the great and terrible wilderness, even those they brought upon themselves, God was with his people. Moses reminded the Israelites, “These forty years the Lord your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing” (Deuteronomy 2: 7). Later, he exclaims, “For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him?” (Deuteronomy 4:7).

We can remember our great and terrible wildernesses because we know our “great and awesome God” (Deuteronomy 7:21). Not only can we remember them, we can even learn to rejoice in them as pointers to the power and presence of our God.

That Great & Terrible Wilderness

That great and terrible wilderness
His faithfulness has fully tamed.
Follow the crumbs of the manna,
Remember all Christ has claimed!

Retrace His ways in this wilderness,
Admitting your lack and His love.
Mark out your own meager faith
And His plenty-dropping from above.

That great and terrible wilderness?
His mercy has made it a garden!
Remember the whole way He led,
Lest your heart in forgetting harden.

I don’t know your great and terrible wildernesses, but I do know the great and awesome God. I pray that he would gently lead to remember rightly the whole way he has led you thus far. His gentle leading of his children will not stop until he has walked us all the way into glory (Isaiah 40:11; Psalm 73:23–24).

The God who Sees & Hears: Atonement & Attunement

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One look from my most loved ones can level me. A look of fear from my son on the pitching mound makes me ready to climb the fence and rescue him. A silly look of affection from one of my teenaged sons covers a thousand little irritations and miscommunications. The upturned, attentive face of my husband when I am hurting says more than a million missives.

Those who live together in close quarters know that there is a language without words. An upturned chin, a sharp glance, a tender gaze– these speak volumes in closely-attuned relationships. In fact, just this past Sunday at church, a dear friend caught on to our inter-family communication (which happened, at that moment, to be the frustrated-mom signal). He then proceeded to make crack us all up with his very fine-tuned impression of my silent signal to one of my sons. Maybe we need less-easily-intercepted signals. But I digress.

This Easter Monday, a stanza from George Herbert’s “Prayer (III)” reminded me of the accessibility of our incredibly-attuned God:

“Of what an easy access,
My blessed Lord, art thou! how suddenly
May our requests thine ear invade!
To show that state dislikes not easyness,
If I but lift mine eyes, my suit is made:
Thou canst no more not hear, than thou canst die.”

Though I’ve read this poem before, the last two lines struck me anew, perhaps because we had celebrated Christ’s inability to stay dead the day before. Christ can’t die, and he can’t not hear his children. In fact, he died so that God could, without separation or hindrance, hear directly from his children. He offered himself in atonement so we might know the Father’s attunement.

I’ve been musing on those two little lines for a few days now, alternating between awe and disbelief. That the God of the universe notices my needy gaze is hard for me to believe, but I long to believe it and become completely persuaded of this precious reality. My mind knows it, but I long for my emotions and body to join my brain in believing this kind of security.

Unlike me when reading my children’s various gazes, God has not only depth of care but also complete control. I can’t help my son pitch or heal a hurting heart or secure peace, but the God of the universe most assuredly can.

He hears sighs as loud, clear cries (Romans 8: 26–27). He reads looks like letters. He knows what we need before we do. Before a word is formed in our mouths, his mind knew it (Psalm 139:4–6). In the book of Exodus, God reassured the captive Israelites that he was the God who saw and heart his people: “And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel– and God knew” (Exodus 2:24).

Though it is only one verse, there is enough fodder here for the fires of our faith: God heard. God remembered. God saw. God knew.

In his short but powerful book With Christ in the School of Prayer, Andrew Murray wrote that all true prayer begins when we are able to say and mean: “My father sees. My father hears. My father knows.”

I don’t know how to translate sighs, and I can’t see your looks of pleading desperation. But there is One who does. I pray that you would know the astonishing attunement of his love today.

How Teenagers Have Changed My Prayer Life

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Before parenting teenagers, I would have given myself a passing grade at prayer. I felt, at least, moderately faithful and fervent in prayer. I have Scripture cards in my purse for praying in carlines and at halftimes. I journal prayers for my boys weekly during my Sabbath time. All in all, I thought I was doing pretty well. However, recently, I have discovered that as my teen’s worlds are expanding, God is doing a similarly expansive work in my prayer life.

Shifting from Prosperity to Presence

My limited knowledge of the future and my extensive knowledge of our budget has had me praying about college funding for my boys for the past few years. As the distance between my sons and graduation diminishes, academics and athletics have, for better or worse, become pressurized. I am embarrassed to admit it, but my prayers for one of our boys, who happens to be very fast, have been inching toward prayers that sound like, “Keep him fast, Lord.” Thankfully, the Holy Spirit, who does his convicting work both excellently and gently, has been shifting me from the fearful prayer, “Keep him fast,” to the hopeful prayer, “Keep him near to you.”

One of the prayers I have been praying over my boys for years comes from Psalm 104.

“These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground” (Psalm 104:27–30).

I memorized this particular psalm precisely because it emphasized our ultimate dependence upon God for every breath, every success, and every blessing. After all, every good thing given comes down from above from his opened hands (James 1:17). However, even while praying the Scriptures, I find ways to try to twist God’s will toward mine rather than bending mine toward his. I cannot tell you how many times I have asked God to open his hands for my children (in provision, in protection, in blessing).

Recently, however, I have found that I am praying for God to open his hands, not first so he can bless them, but first so that he can hold their hands.

Of course, I want good things for them, and I know from whence all good things come. But I am increasingly, ever-so-slowly realizing (for myself and for them) that his nearness is our good (Psalm 73: 28). Yes, I want my children to have prosperous lives; I long for their provision. However, I most long for God’s presence and nearness in their lives. Keep them near, Lord. Open your hands, so they can hold them..

Shifting from Safety to Security in Christ

We have always prayed in the morning on the way to school and before trips for God’s protection and safety. I have prayed prayers for safety so often that they ought be tattooed on my palms by now. As my teenager’s worlds get bigger, the dangers they face grow proportionally. Yet, I have found myself surprised by the Spirit’s help in beginning to shift those prayers for safety to prayers for a more robust security in Christ. Just when I thought i would be a puddle of desperate prayers for safe driving and street smarts in a fragile world, I find myself begging for my boys to know sturdy security in Christ (Colossians 3: 1–4).

My prayers have shifted from a bubble of protection to a boldness of faith, a resilience of spirit, and a cemented confidence in Christ. By God’s grace, I am learning to let them risk and beginning to believe that experience really is a trustworthy teacher. I find hope and courage in the father from the parable who, rather than bolting the doors and battening down the hatches, entrusted his son to the Lord and let him wander off (believing he would wander back home transformed).

The Scriptural truths upon which these boys have been raised stand up under suffering and storms. The Spirit of the living God dwells within them and goes where I cannot and ought not go (1 Corinthians 1: 10–13; 3: 16). They are secure even when, from my vantage point, things feel less safe, predictable, and controlled. I am learning to pray with Moses, “There is none like God, O Jeshrun, who rides through the heavens to your help, through the skies in his majesty. The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33: 27–28).

Shifting from Solutions to Questions

Finally, I find that my prayer for my teenagers consists much more of honest questions than sincerely offered solutions. I still think that I have some insight into my boys and their lives, but I am less likely to storm into the throne room like its a war room roundtable with my plans and potential solutions. I am much more like a tired parent/child longing to rest in the presence of one immeasurably more responsible, wise, and good than myself (Hebrews 4:16). .

The Spirit is helping me replace, “Lord, please do x, y, and z” with “Lord, what are you trying to teach son x, y, or z?” The following are some of the question/ requests I frequently bring to the presence of God for my teens:

  • Lord, in this situation, what is mine to do? Theirs? Yours?
  • Lord, how have you wired them? What wisdom might you have for me in this situation?
  • Lord, what are you trying to do and how can I come alongside you?
  • Spirit, bring to mind specific Scriptures I can pray for them, offer to them, and./or discuss with them.
  • Lord, to what are you calling them? Give them that which will help prepare them for just that.

I love that we will never reach the end of growth in prayer this side of glory. I love that I am growing spiritually alongside these boys of mine.

Early in the Morning

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To know me well is to know that I am not a morning person. I want to be because of the early bird and the worm and such, but my mind and soul come alive after the hour of 10 am even if my body is up earlier. Six am feels early to me and anything before 5 am feels unthinkable. At this point, all the morning people in my life start telling me about the stillness of the morning and the rising sun and how productive they feel before the rest of the world is awake. I hear them, but my body does not seem to get the point. I have stillness in my bed. My sleep is very productive in its own kind of way.

I give this as context because, as I was studying the last few days of Jesus’s life, the phrase the Lord used to draw me toward him in wonder was “in the morning.” Of all the things in the living and active word of God, it was the Greek word proi, which means “early in the morning; at dawn.” God certainly has a sense of humor!

Two Very Different Morning Motivations

In Mark 15, we hear that the chief priests, “as soon as it was morning,” held a counsel after which they “bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate” (Mark 15:1). In the Greek, the words are much stronger: “Euthus proi” begins the verse. Euthus means straight away; immediately; without any unnecessary zig zags or delay.”

As much as it may seem like mincing words, the strength of these words shows the organizing passion of their lives. Straightaway, as soon as they could, before dawn, without delay, the priests had to meet to get rid of Jesus. What made them rise early was their need to stop the one who was threatening their power, position, and tradition.

We hear proi again with a different additional descriptor a chapter later, in Mark 16. The Marys and Salome “brought spices, so that they might go and anoint him” (Mark 16:1). “And very early on the first day of the week, when the had risen, they went to the tomb” (Mark 16:2).

This time, we see in the Greek lian proi: very early, exceedingly early, utterly early. The emphatic lian adds intensity of intention to the women rising early in the morning. While the chief priests rose early and with straightaway intensity to destroy the body of Jesus, the doting women rose exceedingly early to show their devotion to the torn body of Jesus. Of course, the Spirit was quick to prod me with the questions, “What makes you rise early in the morning?” and ” What are the ordering passions of your life?”

The One who Rose Early for the Father

These are not the first occurrences of the phrase “early in the morning” in Mark’s gospel. Way back in the first chapter of his gospel, Mark writes the following of Jesus:

“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35).

In the Greek, we have lian proi (like we saw with the ladies heading to the tomb), but we also have the added ennuchos, meaning “while it was still night.”

Again, it may seem like splitting hairs, but words create worlds. Underneath that rising-early-before-the-dark-Jesus, we sense the passion, the urgency, the priority of being with the Father.

Long before Jesus rose from the tomb, he was raising early to be with the Father. Love for the Father, hunger for his nearness, and readiness to obey him were the organizing passions of Jesus’s life. What got him out of bed every morning was the existing, eternal smile of the Father and his desire to live ever-pleasing the Father while walking the earth.

Jesus never wavered in his morning motivation. I do. Jesus never missed a moment of being with the Father. I do. Yet, he rose from the dead that I might be empowered by the indwelling Spirit to rise with the desire to please the One already fully at pleasure with me through Christ. No matter how early I rise, there is one already waiting for me.

I was reminded of one of my favorite George Herbert’s poems, “Easter (II).”

“I got me flowers to straw thy way;
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

The Sun arising in the East,
Through he give light, and th’ East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,
Though many suns to shine endeavor?
We count three hundred , but we miss:
there is but one, and that one ever.”

Herbert recognized that no matter how early arose on Easter morning to greet Jesus, Jesus was already risen and ready to greet him. The same is true of us daily.

Behind the Basin

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Last memories matter.

It should come as no surprise to us that Jesus, who was the most intentional human to ever walk this globe, was very intentional about His lasts with His disciples. Of course Jesus wanted to leave a few specific scenes burned on the brains and seared onto the souls of His disciples and best friends.

What does shock and surprise me, and should scare the flesh in all of us, are the specific last scenes that Jesus intentionally played out for his friends.  The two symbols that Jesus left with His followers that night were a table and a basin, two ordinary objects that conveyed sacrifice and service in community.

He could have given them a scepter as a last group impression, a symbol of power and sovereignty.  Yet, for His last lesson with the band of brothers who had literally followed him in the world’s classroom of highways and byways, He chose to wash nasty feet.

Feet. Jesus dreamed up the tarsals and metatarsals. He spoke and the bones were formed in the foot of the first man.  He did the unthinkable and became a baby who played with His feet. He stubbed His toes and likely got callouses as He logged some serious mileage on those two puppies.

One of the last scenes of his short life involved Him dressing himself like a common household servant and washing the nasty feet of his friends. He slowly went around a room of twelve dear friends, one of whom He knew would betray him in a few short hours, caressing and cleaning their feet.

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He has called us to be people of the basin. Basins imply a lifetime of unsexy, selfless service. Basin living looks different for each of us and changes in different seasons. Basin living may mean changing diapers in the nursery or soiled bed sheets as you care for an aging parent. It may mean investing in the lives of students who have little support outside of the classroom or it may mean folding laundry.

While the spaces and places where we use our basins look widely different, the people behind the basins share one thing in common: behind the basin must be stand someone who is convinced that he or she is the beloved of God.

In his prelude to his series of Last Supper stories which covers the majority of his gospel, John lets us into a few clues of what enabled and empowered the Savior’s service leading up to the ultimate Sacrifice on the Cross.

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray his, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments and, taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. John 13: 1-5 (emphasis mine), 

Jesus lived all of his life in an atmosphere of assurance of the love of His Father. He knew that the Father had given and would give Him all He needed to do His will. He knew that the embrace of the Father whom He had willingly left to become a man was waiting for Him upon His return from His quick dash to the earth.

The love of the Father freed Jesus to pick up the basin and put down His own rights, yet again. Assurance of His place as the Beloved of the Father freed Him to take the place of a servant, even a servant who would wash the feet that would flee to betray him moments later.

Through faith in Christ’s life, death and resurrection we are named the beloved of God. We are invited, through faith, into the same atmosphere of beloved-ness that compelled Christ to the basin.

Dirty feet, dashed heart and desperate neighbors abound. May we bask in the undeserved, unearned and unconditional love of God, and thus become people of the basin and towel.

 

 

Christ’s Vulnerability in the Garden of Gethsemane

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As we approach Holy Week, there are two realities that shout from the gospel records of Jesus’s days in approach to the Cross who which he came: his deity and his humanity. Both are true at the exact same time, but as I read the gospels this week to prepare my heart for Holy Week, I have to take the optometrist office approach: switching lenses from deity to humanity, from humanity to deity. My finite mind struggles to hold the mystery of the Incarnate Christ.

When I read Matthew’s account of Jesus in the Garden in Gethsemane looking for the humanity of Jesus, I found myself in tears. Here we meet Christ, finding a hidden spot on the Mount of Olives to express his growing grief to the Father. Bible commentator Alexander MacLaren powerfully wrote, “He withdrew into the shadow of the gnarled olives, as if even the moonbeams must not look too closely on the mystery of such grief.”

He may have hid his grief from the moonbeams, but, in his humanity, he invited his three closest companions into the weight of heaviness that had been building to the point of crushing, encompassing grief. Matthew notes the following:

“And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me’.” (Matthew 26:37–38).

Stay and See

The English translations don’t capture the intensity of the pain Jesus is expressing and the vulnerability he shows in needing the companionship of his human friends. The words Matthew uses to express Jesus’s pain mean “extreme vexation,” intense pain like in childbirth, and an engulfing heaviness. As these waves of human emotion (which have their own somatic effects) come over Jesus, he asks his friends to do two things: stay with me and see me.

The Greek word meno is translated “to abide, to stay with, to remain with.” Jesus, in a sense, invites his friends to join him in this sorrowful space, to hold space for him and be with him. Anyone who has attempted to accompany another through unthinkable pain (be it physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual) know what a challenge it is to stay. Our compassion and empathy make us want to get moving to offer solutions. Jesus asks to stay and offer our selves. First, Jesus asks his friends to stay, then he asks them to see.

The Greek word gregoreo is translated “to stay awake, to be vigilant, to be watchful, and to be responsible.” Anyone who has experienced suffering knows that it makes the sufferer feel invisible, unseen, unnoticed, and alone. Jesus, whose heart was not hardened by even a hint of sin, felt suffering in ways no other human ever could; yet, he asked his disciples to stay awake, to stay alert so that they could be watchful and see him.

The requests which sound so simple are simply profound. The One who created olive trees kneels bowed down in olive grove under the weight of grief, inviting humans his power caused to stand to stand with him in his pain.

We know how it goes. The disciples, even at their best, fall palpably short of their Master’s requests. Multiple times, they fall asleep. Perhaps it was the heavy meal and the wine from the Passover, perhaps their brains were shutting down at the immensity of emotion being shown by the One who was always their security and their calm. Either way, they could not and did not stay or see.

This is where we see the deity of Christ on full display. He wrestles, but fully submits (Matthew 26:39–46). He wills what the Father wills, even when it means willing a death he does not deserve. He chooses to shut his eyes in submission for the friends who can’t keep their eyes open for him in his pain. He greets his betrayer still calling him friend (Matthew 26:50). He who could call legions of angels to protect him offers himself willingly (Matthew 26: 52–56).

Staying with and Seeing Our Savior

We live on the other side of the story, we who are indwelled by the Spirit of the Living God. We know that he suffered alone so we would never again have to. We know what our sin couldn’t do and what Jesus did so we would no longer be enslaved to sin. We can learn (even if ever-so-slowly) to stay and to see our Savior.

Isn’t that what Jesus asked his disciples earlier in the same evening before this episode in the olive grove? “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches” (John 15:4–5). That is the same Greek word, meno.

The invitation remains: stay with me. Stay alert, be watchful, be vigilant, learn to see as I would see and to be as I would be.

Stay with him. See him. Savor him. Speak of him. These are the natural responses of the love he has shown us in bowing himself to the Father’s will that we might stand freely in the Father’s love.

Was Ever Joy Like Mine?: A Poetic Response to Herbert’s “The Sacrifice”

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Traditions are funny. Often, whenever I try to force their creation, they fight back at me; however, sometimes, when I am not even trying to create one, it just happens.

This is exactly how my yearly reading of George Herbert’s lengthy yet poignant poem “The Sacrifice” came about. I read it once and then found myself reading it again as Easter approached. Now it’s my own poetry tradition!

As Spring shows her glad face and Easter approaches, I look forward to its familiar lines and my notes scribbled in the many margins. The depth contained in such tight stanzas still shocks me afresh every time. The repeated line in each stanza, “Was ever grief like mine?” continually invites the reader into the agony Christ endured to offer us access back to His agape love.

Here are a few of my favorites:

“Oh all ye who pass by, behold and see;
Man stole the fruit, but I must climb the tree;
The tree of life to all, but only me:
Was ever grief like mine?…

Betwixt two thieves I spend my utmost breath,
As he that for some robbery suffereth.
Alas! What have I stolen from you: death:
Was ever grief like mine?”

After reading it last night, I found myself feeling stuck in the heaviness of the reality of the Cross and the cost that Christ paid for my redemption. I whispered to Jesus, “I am so sorry.” I imagine he would reply, “I’m not.”

Christ, who was once in agony, is now in ecstasy. His grief has been turned to joy. Redemption is accomplished. Christ resurrected. His children are coming to His embrace. These realities led me to want to write an accompanying poem to be paired with Herbert’s “The Sacrifice.”

The Relief

I heard her sobbing, shaking with grief,
She who from demons had found relief,
“I’m no gardener; I’m death’s chief!”
Was ever joy like mine?

I felt desperate hands clutching me in fear,
Shocked to see Rabboni again so near,
“Don’t cling; go call the others, my dear!”
Was ever joy like mine?

I found them locked in an upper room,
Huddled in confusion, mixing hope with gloom,
“Locked doors are no matter; let’s resume!”
Was ever joy like mine?

My tender Thomas was not within
Yet I heard his doubts, the honest Twin.
I offered my hands his heart to win.
Was ever joy like mine?

Walking at daybreak on a familiar shore,
Peter fled the boat like the time before.
Being led by an impulse he couldn’t ignore.
Was ever joy like mine?

I embraced him in a wet and welcome hug,
But his three offenses at his heart did tug.
Thrice I forgave what he struggled to shrug.
Was ever joy like mine?

We breakfasted over a charcoal fire,
A second chance to do his heart’s desire.
A shepherd’s calling he did acquire.
Was ever joy like mine?

I watched him shed a thousand pounds,
As I swallowed up the failure that hounds.
I welcomed him into grace that abounds.
Was ever joy like mine?

Forty glorious days with my friends,
Speaking of the kingdom that now extends,
Offering them living hope that transcends.
Was ever joy like mine?

I spoke of the Helper I promised to send,
The One who’d be with them until the end;
No better comfort could I recommend.
Was ever joy like mine?

With the Father, I watched from on high
As the Promised Spirit to them drew nigh,
And as they learned how on Him to rely!
Was ever joy like mine?

At the Father’s right hand, I still intercede;
For each of my children I gladly plead
Until with me, they will feel no need!
Was ever joy like mine?

What manner of love is this would walk through agony to gladly invite us into the agape love of the Trinity? Was ever a joy like ours?

Van Morrison, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Union with Christ

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As most of my current job description is driving my children to all the things, I have plenty of time to listen to alternate between praying and listening to music in the car. In this current season, I have been listening to Van Morrison’s greatest hits. When I get to Crazy Love, I inevitably tear up when I hear, “I can hear her heartbeat from a thousand miles.”

At first, I thought this somatic response strange. I certainly enjoy Van Morrison, but tears on cue at a particular phrase?

Then, I began slowly rereading Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese and found myself with tears pooling at something similar in Sonnet VI:

“…The widest land / Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine / With pulses that beat double. What I do / And what I dream include thee, as the wine / Must taste of its own grapes….”

As I mused on the big emotions that I welled up within me in these two very different pieces of art, I realized that both help explain what union with Christ feels like.

The Mystery of Union with Christ

I remember exactly where I was sitting when the reality of union with Christ first started to sink into my mind and then my soul decades ago—that is how significant this theological reality is to me. After years of trying to imitate Christ, I learned that, through the Spirit, I get to participate in the very life of Christ right now.

While I continue to treasure and explore the glorious reality of union with Christ, I still struggle to comprehend and receive such a soaring offer. How does it work that I am here on this dusty globe and yet simultaneously seated with Christ above (Colossians 3: 1–4). What bearing does that have on my daily duties and the moments of my mundane days? How can I be two places at once? How can he be there, seated at the right hand of the Father, and also hidden up in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of believers on earth at once?

Both Van Morrison and Barrett-Browning’s phrases about two heartbeats in sync even though thousands of miles apart (which were both clearly referring to his experience of human love) help me to get hints of what union with Christ might feel like and mean.

As a mother, I have hints of the solidarity and union resulting from love. Last week, while my son was at a significant and highly competitive track meet in Los Angeles, I felt that twinned heartbeat. A hundred plus miles away from him, my heart pounded with his in nervousness, adrenaline, and anticipation. It felt like I was on the starting line with him. My life is wrapped up with the life of my children: their joys become my joys, their sorrows, my sorrows. To a degree.

As a wife, I have moments of such deep connection with my husband. When he is out of town at a significant event, it is as if we are both attending said event. Love binds us to the beloved in such a way that distance does not diminish our connection or closeness. The stronger the love, the stronger the connection even when we are physically apart.

The Pain of Parting & The Joy of Reunion

Jesus knows the pain of parting and the joy of reunion with the beloved. In the Incarnation, he left the secure, immediate embrace of the Trinity to become a man. He who had known no physical distance and had never felt the strange separation of time stepped into time and space. Though he was deeply attached to the Father throughout his earthly life (Luke 2: 49; Mark 1:35; John 7: 16–19 and 11: 41–42), he longed to be back bodily present with his Father. We hear this longing in the high priestly prayer when Christ says, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17: 4–5).

Jesus’s heart beat as if with that double pulse of love that Browning captures in her sonnet to her future husband.

Maybe more shocking than the double pulse Jesus felt with the Father is the double pulse he felt with his disciples. Jesus felt the pain of departing from his friends. We hear his sorrow amid his resoluteness to return home to the Father:

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14: 1–4).

As his followers who have not seen him, yet love him, we daily feel the distance from him whose presence is our true home (1 Peter 1:8 and 2:11). Yet, in union with Christ, we are invited into that mysterious double pulse that is nearness to God despite distance. Christ has attached himself in covenant love to us. He is with us in our sorrows, in our joys, and in everything in betwixt. He who has numbered both the hairs on our heads and the numbers of our days can hear out heartbeat from a thousand miles. Despite our distance from him, our hearts can beat with the double pulse of devoted love until we are fully and forever united in the New Heavens and the New Earth.

Followers, Not Admirers

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We are approaching Easter weekend. Outside of Christmas, these days commemorating the death and resurrection are among the most approachable and accessible to the watching world.

For at least a few days, even those who would not consider themselves devout slow down to admire Jesus. While this is a beautiful access point, it was never Jesus’s end goal in going to the Cross. In the words of Soren Kierkegaard, Jesus does not want admirers, he wants followers.

Born & Bored on the Same Day

People love a show; we always have. I remember being a little girl and watching the circus train arrive in our small town on the Jersey Shore. We would watch them unload the animals and scatter hay all over the muddy, trodden grounds. There was such a sense of eager anticipation that I thought my tiny heart would burst.

Entirely too much candy and popcorn would be consumed. There would be a few minutes of wonder. And then, we would head home and promptly forget about it for a calendar year.

Annie Dillard notices a similar tendency in the human heart in her book Teaching A Stone to Talk. She describes the crowds of people she joined to watch a full solar eclipse on Mount Adams. She remembers the screams of wonder, shock, and delight as the sun went dark. As shocking as it was to experience something so other-worldly together, she was equally shocked at how quickly everyone moved on:

“I remember now: we all hurried away. We were born and bored at a stroke. We rushed down the hill. We found our car; we saw the other people streaming down the hillsides; we joined the highway traffic and drove away.”

I fear that my heart often responds the same to the events of Easter each year: the build up, the anticipation, the emotion, the wonder, the disassembling and moving on.

We dress up; we prepare an extra full worship band; we up our signage game. Then we move on as admirers rather than pick up our crosses as followers. We are tempted to treat the resurrection of Christ as a day worth noting rather than the revolutionary day that it is. This day we remember, this day when a dead Savior breathed again, conquering death, this day demands a lifelong response not a check box on a response card.

Followers vs. Admirers

Pastor/poet George Herbert captures this conundrum we face at Easter so well in his poem “Easter (II)” :

“Can there be any day but this, 
Though many suns to shine endeavor?
We count three hundred, but we miss:
There is but one, and that one ever.”

An admirer says this day is significant and moves on. A follower says there is no day but this. According to Kierkegaard, “An admirer…keeps himself personally detached. He fails to see that what is admired involves a claim upon him.” He goes on to say the following convicting words about admirers of Christ:

“The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. He always plays it safe. Though in word he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christ, he renounces nothing, will not reconstruct his life, and will not let his life express what it is he supposedly admires. Not so the follower. No, No. The follower aspires with all his strength to be what he admires.”

I long to be a follower, not a mere admirer. I don’t want to be born and bored on the same day. I want to be born and bored through by the reality of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.

In the words of the Apostle Paul, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead” (1 Corinth. 15:19-20).

The right response to the life, death, and resurrection of Christ is to hidden in life, death, and resurrection:

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I live now in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).