journey onWord with us

For several years, I had a rhythm of writing during Holy Week. My pattern was to focus on the events of each individual day in Jesus’ final week of walking the full measure of redemption’s road. It was an intensely observational and experiential activity that has produced much good fruit in my life of faith and caused a tectonic shift in my experience of Easter. This year, however, in returning to writing after a brief absence, I am choosing to pen from a slightly different perspective. You may hear a few familiar echoes along the way, but the focus will most often be on details that were not a part of that particular day.

In my devotional reading during this current season of Lent, I have been drawn to the details. I have come to see them and refer to them as “facets.” Facets of the most rare and precious stone created by the pressure and heat present in the events at the peak of Passion week … the days nearest our dear Savior’s death.

It seems the thing to do, when sitting down at the onset of a “project” of this sort, to name it. The name I settled on was born out of a picture which began to form as I completed each of several daily readings where facets were discovered or experienced anew. I began to see a common thread, and soon after a phrase began repeating over and over in my head … “facets of the second Fall.” To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure at first where that last part came from, and perhaps you are a bit confused or concerned as to what that exactly means. I am grateful for the first whisper of the Spirit, and for the clarity that eventually came. The first Fall was that of the first Adam, who ate the fruit of the only tree in God’s garden which he was instructed not to eat from. In choosing to be like God rather than obey God, Adam brought sin into the world and death’s curse along with it. The second Fall was that of the Second Adam (Jesus) who paid the penalty for all the sins of man for all time and put death to death in rising three days later … just as He said. This second Fall was not a failing (like the first). It was an intentional giving up to pay the penalty and cure the curse of the first.

A diamond would not be as precious a stone absent facets. Those facets would not be of much note absent light. In this way, the facets of the Passion narrative (that burst forth with the brilliance of the most rare and precious diamond) would only be cuts or cracks absent the presence of the Light of the World. Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, humbled himself to enter this world as a child. He lived as we do. He came for a singular purpose – to make a way back to God. That purpose would demand His earthly life as the only worthy sacrifice for the sins of all and would be made whole in His rising again on the third day.

Join me each day of the coming week in slowing down and getting quiet with Him to consider a few facets of the second Fall. The very first one will be quite familiar, but in all my years of writing, it remains the most meaningful place from which to begin as we walk together through this sacred week.

A brief footnote: I wish I could lay claim to the words I used to note the second act of the second Fall (put death to death). They are the most succinct and powerful words I’ve heard to describe the moments of Jesus’ waking and walking out of the tomb. They are best attributed to my favorite artist, Andrew Peterson, and are lyrics in a song he wrote for a Resurrection record. The name of the song is “His Heart Beats,” from the album Resurrection Letters: Volume 1. I strongly encourage you go listen to this song and add it to an Easter playlist. Also, you simply must add “Is He Worthy?” from the very same album. With sincere apologies to some grand old hymns, “Is He Worthy?” is undoubtedly Easter’s anthem. I’d encourage getting up extra early this Easter morning and having both cued up to press play at dawn’s first light.