Stillness at the Cross

  "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'"

John 14:6 NIV
  








The way of life is a mystery to me. 
How is it that something long lost 
is suddenly revived and found beating again?
How is it that the dead brown leaves
make way for growth after the winter?

Oh, I know the scientific answers. But the heart of it all is still a mystery to me.  This morning I watched a Mama Robin in her nest building cycle. She was certain that the fluffy landscape netting, left-over from last year's patch of lawn seeding, would make fine nesting material. She tugged and pulled, and hopped and yanked, but the more she worked, the more tangled the strings became. Finally, after more patience than I would have shown, she gave up and left the knot lying in the yard.

I've faced those same kinds of knots. Have you? Those kinds that leave my weary mind reeling. Those kinds that stay knotted and twisted for years, even, as a situation refuses to be unraveled, and peace remains elusive.

During these last few weeks of journeying into a Lenten Stillness, as my heart has been leaning into a new kind of resting in Jesus, I've heard Him speak of a different way of unraveling.  He has come to bring us HIS life, but in so doing, He has entered into our very places of knotting pain. If you are part of the Faith Practice that observes the Stations of the Cross during Holy Week, then you will be very familiar with this Scripture Passage. I grew up in a Church that did not practice many of the old traditions, so these are new thoughts to me.  But my Online Bible Study Group has been reading through the book of Luke, and right there in my chapter for the day was the same verse that a friend had just spoken about from her Stations of the Cross journey:

Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.

Luke 23:28 NIV 

And my own heart wept. Jesus took upon himself all of my pain, and all of the pain of my children. He took all of your pain also.  Those knots that twist away in the muscles of your heart, leaving you gasping for air? He is right there, waiting to show you His love.  The problem is that we look away. 

We somehow grasp that 

He came to bring us Salvation from 

 OUR SINS.

But our pain

and our problems?

Well those 

must be unknotted

and solved 

by our own wits.

And just like Mama Robin,

we walk away

when the knots

are too strong,

and the web can't be

unwoven

by any effort of our own.

But Jesus came to help us face 

the pain,

to acknowledge the grieving,

and to finally find HIM here

loving us still

and 

rising again

with LIFE for us all.

These words were whispered into my heart, as I looked at the pain and the knots that remained in my own life this week. May they speak God's Love to you, as they spoke to me:

At the Cross

My daughter sit with me
here
grieve and wail
for the injustice
and pain
that my people
must bear.

My Body
was broken
for you, for them.
My heart
was torn open
as I carried
the cross.

But my people
can't see
how I've never
stopped loving
never stopped
giving
never stopped
seeing.

I see the wounds
they bear
I see the grief
they carry

I see the pain
you feel
I see the wounds
you bear.

The cross
Your cross
My cross
I swallowed up death
and I swallowed the pain
in the Love that I gave
for you
for them.

Sit with me here
Taste my mercy
and know
There is nothing
between us now.
                   --BG

May this song be a place of rest with Jesus for you:

 

I am linking this week with:

Debbie Kitterman, #TuneInThursday 

Suzie Eller, #LiveFreeThursday