Category: Good Friday

Lenten Reflection–Just the End of the Beginning

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“What God began, God will not abandon. He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion. God loves everyone, sings the psalmist. What God has named will live forever, Alleluia!
The happy ending has never been easy to believe in. After the Crucifixion the defeated little band of disciples had no hope, no expectation of Resurrection. Everything they believed in had died on the cross with Jesus. The world was right, and they had been wrong. Even when the women told the disciples that Jesus had left the stone-sealed tomb, the disciples found it nearly impossible to believe that it was not all over.
The truth was, it was just beginning.”
Madeleine L’Engle

The Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday always feels like a “already but not yet” kind of day, as if we are between sleep and waking, in weary vigil.  We aren’t celebrating “happily ever after” quite yet.  Actually every day should feel like this day, as that is where we live: we know the extent of sacrifice made, the overwhelming debt paid, but the full completion of His new covenant, His new kingdom is yet to be realized.   We wait, and will wait some more, unsure what comes next.

But one thing is clear.  Burial in the tomb was not the end.  Not even close.

To borrow from Winston Churchill out of context:

“Now this is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

David Phelps’ The End of the Beginning

Lenten Reflection–Piercing the Soul

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“This child is like a pearl,
Some men will forfeit everything
To have his love, while others cling
To worthless things and forfeit life.
He is a source of peace—and strife.
And many thoughts he will reveal
That men have thought they could conceal.
And you, most blessed woman too,
Will see what wicked men can do.
Your love to him will take its toll,
And like a sword will pierce your soul.”
from John Piper in “Simeon“

Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught
that I might be free, blind in my womb
to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.
from “Accompanied by Angels” by Luci Shaw

The God of curved space, the dry
God, is not going to help us, but the son
whose blood splattered
the hem of his mother’s robe.
“Looking at Stars”  by Jane Kenyon

This was the day she had been told would come yet she could not have anticipated how horrific would be His suffering, how hideous His wounds, how extensively His blood covered those around Him.  She could not have imagined the helplessness she felt in being unable to comfort Him, ease His pain, or smooth His torn brow.  She could not have known she would feel His hurt so deeply; it was as if she too had been lacerated and drained of life herself.

Yet looking down at her from the cross, despite His own distress, He compassionately provides for her future care and protection.  He continues loving her even when He is beyond her reach. He doesn’t abandon her even as He endures the unendurable–separation from His Father and betrayal by His people.

She shed her blood bearing Him, birthing Him to breathe and walk and live fully on this earth;  now her heart breaking,  she watches Him surrender and take His last breath.
He sheds His cleansing blood in parting, once and for all mending all that is pierced and broken in us, yet rending forever that which separates us from God.