Graves

Six weeks ago, we smeared ashes on our foreheads and began wrestling with our mortality. We voluntarily entered the Wilderness in our own ways. This season is the shake-up of our complacency, a jump-start out of our tired habits.  It's the shedding of winter's dormant coat as the earth begins to wake up with crocuses breaking through the ground. They are like alarms reminding us that we are surrounded by patterns of resurrection, death to life.

An image kept invading my psyche like an unwelcome companion:

I stared into an empty grave for 40 days, knowing that someone would be laid in it.  It became a battle within my heart. Because to follow Jesus--to REALLY follow him means that I would carry a cross too.

I don't want my playbook to include pain. I try to insulate myself from what hurts. I try to stay one step ahead of heartbreak. 

We would all choose the shortcuts, distraction, even oblivion, rather than willingly endure the unrelenting ache of a broken spirit- Anything to run away from what Christ endured. My soul wrestled this Lent season as I asked again and again (just like the Pevensie children born from the imagination of C.S. Lewis in his tale The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)

But how can I know that you are safe? Screaming into the great expanse between us--HOW CAN I KNOW, GOD? 

And a reply came to me like wind. It was the same one that the children heard in the story:

" Who said anything about safe? Of course, he isn't safe!! But he's the King, and he is good. "

As the disciples followed Jesus, he tried to tell them about his death, even as he washed their feet and broke bread with them for the last time. All of these metaphors that he had given them throughout his ministry crowded their vision as they, too, stared into an empty grave--They couldn't see that it would become his. 

This week, leading up to the crucifixion, I tried to imagine death, to sit with it, walk around in it, to let the dirt cover me.

The truth is that it's just too dark. 

But even that darkness is not too dark for Jesus, because he's already been there. The only way to navigate that darkness of the tomb is by taking God's hand and letting him lead me on. If you filled a hole six foot deep with all my fears, mistakes, brokenness, and sin it's still no match for God, because He defeated all of it when he went to the darkest places for me and made a claim for my life.

 " Where can I go from your spirit, where can I hide from your presence? If I go up to the heavens you are there; if I make my bed in the depths you are there. " (Psalm 139:7-8)

I confess I don't want the hard parts, but I really, really want HIM.

I want the untamed lion, the healer, the one who breathes life back into my sorry, pitiful, dry bones. 

He is not safe-This road is uncomfortable, and dark, and perilous, but he is the KING and he is GOOD.