But Friday . . .

It’s Friday and we want Sunday . . .

The simpler side of Easter is pastel, not darkness ~  it’s a braided path that leads to Calvary. There’s a smoother path that rushes to the resurrection but will miss the reflection on the one stained with blood tracks. Suffering and victory – we can’t have one without the other.

The passing of my mom added to the sorrow of a holy week thirteen years ago.  It was hard to look past her suffering to see the hallelujah of it all . . .  driving home from the hospital one night I remember thinking how every one of us is in critical condition needing a Savior to take us to Sunday.

I know it’s comforting to look to the hosannas and hallelujahs rather than the suffering and passion of Jesus, but it happened. It really happened. Not just to the Divine but to a human heart and body. The final hours of Jesus had Him face betrayal, devouring crowds, a cup that wouldn’t pass, and His Father’s will to carry the world uphill to a cross in an ancient week that lives forever. The human side of what took place at Gethsemane and Golgotha of the healthy thirty-three-year-old carpenter whipped to holy bone causing failing organs, ruptured heart, and swollen eyes looked over with mercy to the thief hanging next to Him . . . and then looked beneath to see a grieving mom who knelt before the pierced feet that she helped to take a first step. The holy foot that crushed the neck of death as it slithered to its appointed place.

But Friday . . .The sacred piece of the story where we must pause in the deep to experience the beauty of the agony that leads to Sunday. . . to our rescue and redemption.

But Sunday . . .where the stone is rolled away, the veil is torn, and the resurrected King is forever glorified and lifted high, forever ~  And we sing Hallelujah . . .

 

I am the resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in Me will have life and never die. 

John 11:25