journey onWord with us

Would you agree that a sign could be hung over this world that says, “Waiting Room”? It certainly feels like we are most often in times that are between what was and what’s next, between what set things in motion and their coming to be, between our ask and His answer. Could that be why we crave convenience so much; why instant gratification has such a powerful pull? I believe most would say they don’t particularly like waiting. We prefer things to be in our own hands, rather than leaving them in someone (or even Someone) else’s. Today, in the life of Jesus, was one of those times of wait. It was the stunning silence between the rocks splitting (from the force of all that fell on Jesus’ final breath) and the stone being rolled away; between the deep, desperate darkness of His death and the bright, brilliant light of His rising. Was the reason for today’s pause simply the math required to fulfill the three-day prophetic promise or were there other layers (perhaps, in the lives of the ones who believed they had just lost their Everything)? God doesn’t say, so I won’t either. But there is no doubt, there was purpose.

For the whole of His life, Jesus lived the truth of purpose in the pause. He stole away routinely, waited three days before going to a dear, dying friend and spent ten times more time growing up from boy to man than He did in His ministry and mission as the Messiah. We may never know the whole why of what God authored for this day, but I cannot help but feel the great weight of the wait. Can you hear the weary exhale of a created world that was shaken to its core just the day before? And can you feel also its lungs beginning to fill with intense expectancy for the most brilliant Son-rise it has ever seen?! Perhaps this is the picture we can carry forward into our future waits … an ever-present hope in the often-unwelcome in-betweens.

p.s. A favorite artist of mine has written two of the most stirring songs I have ever heard concerning the Resurrection. I’ll be sharing one today, and the other as a final footnote tomorrow. I invite you to rise early tomorrow and begin your day with His Heart Beats by Andrew Peterson. I promise you won’t miss the lack of further introduction once you listen to the song tomorrow. He is risen, my brothers and sisters!