A resurrection story

Last year around Easter, I found myself compelled to poetry by Good Friday, that beautiful contradiction. 

This year, for whatever reason, I was inspired by the time in between Friday and Resurrection Sunday, when all the disciples had to show for all their learning was a dead rabbi and a hostile community. What would it have been like to walk home after Jesus' burial, anything but assured of his resurrection?

In particular I wanted to explore Peter's perspective, and the complex emotions that I'm sure he was wrestling with after Jesus' death. He wasn't just a passive observer of the event. He'd been intimately connected with Jesus, the only disciple recorded as being confident enough in Jesus to say that he was the Messiah. And even after all that drama, all that conviction, in Jesus' time of suffering, Peter had still denied him to preserve his own well-being.

It must have tortured him. Imagine the relief, then, when Jesus came back--not only justifying all the disciples' faith in him, but willing to embrace Peter as a brother and to empower him to share the fulness of the Gospel with anyone and everyone he could. What a comeback story. And what an encouragement to me it is to see Peter's cowardly yet all-too-relatable failure turned so magnificently into Spirit-driven fire. 

Without the resurrection, we're all stuck in our failures. But Jesus defeated death so you too could rise up out of it and become his champion. 

Saturday

The world was ending.

more precisely,

the world had ended yesterday

a few hours after noon—

the visible simply took time

to catch up

with the invisible.

The Truth, invisible to so many,

still cloudy, even to his closest friends,

had been marched to his death

only yesterday afternoon.

His body,

heartbreakingly human,

lay lifeless, empty as a shattered vessel.

His blood had been red as it poured out,

no more extraordinary than a loaf of bread.

What was it he had said? 

For you I am broken, drained. 

Remember me always.

And as he passed the bread Peter had thought,

I would sooner forget my own name 

than You.

But he had been wrong. In weakness he’d failed

even while praying for the courage to fight.

Now his one hope, his redemption was gone,

hidden away in a tomb

whose stone, rolling to seal it,

had lodged itself in his throat

and would never be exorcised.

Don’t be afraid, he’d said. I will return.

But it couldn’t be true. 

Even if it were,

surely Peter had soiled his portion.

That wine-red blood was on his hands.

And the rooster had crowed his death sentence

even before they had condemned his Christ.

What sacrifice could cover the shame 

so real to him now, 

so much more piercing than any fable of forbidden fruit?

No, the golden hour had passed.

They had killed him,

and he had died like any man.

The dawn of that Sunday

Peter’s mind was an island,

a sheer, desolate crag.

A place no miracles could grow.

Blasphemer or coward, he’d earned

his reward. 

Someone burst in the door–

doors still existed, even in a world at its end--

Mary had been running.

She stood, eyes bright with tears,

catching enough breath to utter two words.

Two words,

and Peter’s legs couldn’t take him fast enough.

Two words:

He’s alive. 

Happy Easter!

Easter for the guilty ones

Barabbas is an afterthought in the Easter story, but this year I find myself compelled by his experience. He was guilty of great evil, yet the Jews demanded Jesus be crucified on the cross that had been prepared for him. 

What would it have been like to be the very man who was exchanged for Jesus on that Good Friday? We all are Barabbas in practice, all of our souls exchanged for the one perfect Jesus--but he was granted this intensely personal view of Jesus' propitiation for our sins in a way that no one else has ever known.

I hope he didn't take it for granted. I pray I never will. 

A Good Day for Barabbas

All I can see is the cross.

Lurking behind, looming before me

around and above me,

inescapable.

I know only one emotion now.

Fear.

Fear of dying.

And beyond that, the still more ominous fear

of death.

I know nothing good can await me there.

It is a dead end, the road to it paved

with pain and humiliation

and overshadowed by that sadistic tree.

They will come for me.

They will open the door and speak my name.

Barabbas,

they will sneer. 

They will spit it out like sour wine.

And then will come the real fear,

the slow and masochistic march.

I will see the cross,

feel its crushing weight

cut into my back.

My ears will fill with the sound of my name,

spoken with contempt, with derision.

Never again

will I hear love in those syllables.

I will feel the life within me churning,

writhing as if caught in a snare,

not knowing its escape will also be its downfall.

They will strip me bare

like Adam in the Garden.

The nails will snap shut their jaws

and I will wait to die, blessing and cursing every breath.

The cell door opens.

Barabbas,

they call. The first stone.

But the next ones fall from their hands.

They want him, not you.

Him

not me.

Who is this man, 

condemned to take my place?

Ashamed, I realize

I do not care.

Him, not me.

Not me.

I am a free man, an impossible 

contradiction,

but I cannot go home.

They may have freed me, but

they will never welcome me. 

My life is tainted by death.

Where else can I go but that inevitable place?

I am drawn to the hill,

the place where he died,

where my blood should have watered the ground.

My blood, not his.

But I am here, I am whole. And he is not. 

Who is he? I look up,

as if Heaven might answer

but when I lift my eyes, all I can see

is the cross. 

Abortion isn't Healthcare. It's a Holocaust.

I can't stop thinking about those babies. 

More than likely you already know what I'm talking about, but if you don't: last week, the bodies of five babies were recovered by Washington D.C. police in the home of a well-known pro-life advocate. For days the pro-life community has been calling out for an investigation into their deaths, which appear not only brutal in nature (as all abortion is), but potentially illegal as well. There has been nothing but radio silence from the D.C. government in response. 

This is our holocaust. 

I do not use that word lightly. Some may think I use it inappropriately, but I don't care. The time for sparing feelings has long since passed, and abortion is a holocaust on a grander scale than any Nazi ever could have dreamed. And yet, so many of us are silent. So many are content to stand by and do nothing. So many are content to keep the truth buried inside.

And what's our excuse? Social ostracization. Unpleasant conversations. Imperfect solutions. The Germans in 1940 had better excuses than we do. 

After a week like this, it can be hard to remember that evil is destined to lose. But I still believe in the God who defeated death. 

Lament for the Five

Five.

Five children dead.

Five sons and daughters mangled, abandoned

to blood and fear, cold and betrayal. 

Five dead faces speak for millions,

and the wicked heart calls this barbarism 

beauty.

These words, these thoughts are poison,

bitter herbs and stinging bites.

But how can I write anything else

when my mind is full of them?

Words of sorrow and rage,

hateful condemnations,

silent screams. 

I am anger,

I am a blunt weapon.

I am fatigue, I am nausea.

I am everything unrighteous. My heart

turns against me.

I hate death and desire destruction.

I desire the destruction of the wicked

yet my own maladies would condemn me.

Pain and death surround me.

The pain of the innocent encroaches on my safety.

With every breath

fear and hopelessness snatch at my joy.

The dead lurk behind my eyelids.

I cry rivers of blood,

never enough to satisfy a cruel world.

But the Holy One of Israel will not be thwarted.

His hands heal their misery,

for them now just a memory, 

while left behind,

we live still, in the echoes.

Come quickly to save me,

Man of Sorrows and Prince of Peace.

Wipe the tears from my eyes.

Let me write of beauty and love.

Let me sing songs of hope,

courageous ballads.

Let me dance and be joyful.

No more songs of lament

will flow from my lips,

no tears then

Except tears of laughter when I see You.

You, always before me,

just in your anger. Eager in mercy.

Perfect in goodness and

inescapable.

Let me rejoice and find in You my salvation.

find out more about how you can fight the evil of abortion at liveaction.org

Snow and what it teaches us

It's almost springtime, and every year as winter slowly edges out the door it leaves behind a reminder of the One who created the seasons.

Even slush is a sign from God

When snow comes down,

crystal-white and clean,

it settles in flawless formation

against the world.

Blades of grass become tiny daggers,

houses turn into gingerbread

and daylight into a galaxy of stars.

No one can say it isn't beautiful,

that first crisp crunch through the sun-hardened crust of frost.

No one can say it isn't just as delectable

as bread new-birthed from the oven

It's the crumbs we regret.

The slush on the side of the road,

the gathered leavings,

stale as the word gray.

The snow turns from glistening diamond to coal dust

blackening our lungs,

the dirt it had covered so cleverly

churned up by the movements of the world

Too soon, we say.

Too soon the snow goes sludgy,

too soon the bread goes stale.

Unthinkable, the idea of a purity

that lasts.

But

if we could have the snow washed clean again

then anything might be possible.

A happy (not)ending

My husband and I watched the Passion last night. He'd never seen it before, and afterward he stared wide-eyed for a long time, thinking about Jesus' suffering. 

It is not an easy thing to watch. It's nauseating, shocking, horrific. To see the flogging, the humiliation, the crucifixion of Jesus, even as a reenactment, is incredibly painful--especially considering that He went through all of that for us. A mother myself now, I can't even imagine Mary's desolation as she watched her baby suffer like that. It's almost too much to bear.

And it would be completely unbearable, if not for the death-defying hope that rings throughout the Passion story. 

Through the movie we had the opportunity to witness one of my favorite Bible stories, from Luke 23:

Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

I went to bed last night burdened by sorrow for the barbaric treatment of my King, but humbled deeply by the notion that he endured it all deliberately, joyfully, knowing he could save himself but unwilling to do so and leave me to die in my sins. I was in awe again at his treatment of that criminal hanging next to him. That he could enter into a situation so grim and so painful, and imbue even the darkest of moments with pure hope and love and forgiveness, is beyond my comprehension.

Imagine that man, condemned to die. Lost to his sins, deserving of punishment. Imagine his hopelessness as they nail him to his own cross.

And then imagine the turnaround. Jesus reaches out a lifeline to him in his hour of need, and this criminal, unloved by so many, finds his life even as he's dying. In that moment, everything changes for him.

We are all that criminal on the cross. Hated by the world, trapped in our sin. And even now Jesus offers us the same love, the same grace, the same power to conquer death. If we reach out to him, we are saved and transformed. That's all it takes. 

I hope this truth becomes yours today, that the end of your life might be just the opposite--the beginning of a beautiful eternity. 

Is spring a fancy or a feeling?

It's that time of year again. Springtime, or at least technically near-springtime. 

People keep saying that in Nebraska we always have a "false spring" where the weather gets warm for a week or two, before returning to frigid icy Narnia-ness. In a way, I suppose they're right. The weather here does tend to be unpredictable. 

But also, doesn't the fact that we expect that make it just a little bit predictable? Calling it a "false spring" when this is what happens in the spring every year just kind of means it's spring, but not the way you want it. If spring is sometimes cold and sometimes warm, it doesn't stop being spring just because you don't want to have to wear a jacket, any more than a Chinese buffet stops being a Chinese buffet because they aren't serving crab legs. 

"False" or no, right now it's spring to me. I can tell because I've once again begun to feel the wistfulness stir in my soul. 

That spring thing

Spring is a long stretch. 

It's waking up and hitting the snooze once 

or twice.

It's a breath of change, of hope, of forward-ness. 

It's looking out the library window when you should be writing. 

It's running to your car in the rain, 

forgetting your umbrella. 

It's discomfort and daydreams and 

don't-

give-

ups.  

It's warmth on your face,

and a chill breeze to wake your heart.

It's mud, pine needles, bike tracks through a puddle. 

It's the world 

crying with you.

It's a bone-popping metamorphosis. 

Spring is all-enduring love, the essence of Easter. 

(Hopefully) saying goodbye to winter

Spring officially started on Monday. Which of course, for Nebraskans, meant that there was snow in the forecast for Wednesday. Like winter had suddenly become a rich old man who miraculously outlasted the doctor’s prognosis by five years, just to spite his gold-digging grandchildren.

It seems cruel that we should have to endure such a thing. Indeed, even as I write this, a flock of bedraggled and disillusioned college students parades past my window, leveling their torsos sideways against the wind and crying, “O, Groundhog, how could you fail us so?”

These are uncertain times.

But I say unto you now, Nebraskans! Take heart! We of all people should know, the weather tomorrow is almost never the same as the weather today, and that is both our blessing and curse.

So wear your floral print.

Wash your car.

And never give up on your freshly sprouting tulip beds, because one day soon they’ll be the envy of all your neighbors.

May this poem be an Easter encouragement to you.

 

The Ghost of Winter Past

The Ghost of Winter Past

came for a visit last night.

This spirit was a bitter one,

angry at us petty humans

for not fully appreciating his glory.

For our delight

in the promise of springtime.

In his jealousy he rudely hijacked the brisk northerly winds,

turning a chilly spring rain

into a thick

heavy

snowfall.

Flying sideways through the air,

like a drift of powdered sugar with its own personal gravity,

the snow attempted to reclaim the world.

 

The Ghost of Winter Past

had proved the weather man wrong.

“Ha! See now?”

he said.

“I will not be forgotten.”

 

But just then the sun,

fed up with his antics,

decided to make an appearance.

Fashionably late.

And with a wink,

he sent that troublemaker packing.