Saturday

Last night I went to the ACP Good Friday service and was so tired I fell asleep during the organ solo in the middle (and immediately woke up when the sleeping relaxed my hands and I loudly dropped my program to the floor) and I wasn't really connecting to the Scripture being read, or the hymns we sang, but at the end all the lights went out (it was a tenebrae service btw) and there was only one candle lit in the whole room, the Christ candle. And I stared at it avidly, and suddenly I was completely present to the moment, and the weight of Easter sunk over me full force. "Light of the world, by darkness slain..." goes the song.* That line ran through my head again and again. I did not want that candle to go out. I did not want our only hope to be extinguished. We would be in utter, blackest darkness without him. With no hope of a coming morning.

Earlier I had been talking to Elena about how sometimes you have hopes, or even something you think is a promise or dream from God, and waiting for them/it to come about is just like holding your breath. This stereotypical expression is perfect to describe it. You hold your breath until you can't anymore, and instead of gasping, putting your head above the water, because you can't do that-- it's all water once you've jumped into the river with God-- you, well, you drown. Better put, that one part of you dies. It's as painful and strange as you would expect, learning to live with death inside. You wake up every morning, and remember that part of you is dead. Obviously it feels like a mistake. You think, "God is the author of life! What did I do? What happened here? He doesn't make mistakes, so I must have." But I don't think that's necessarily the case.

A few months ago, I heard a sermon on the life of Joseph. It was in French, which for me sometimes means that the message takes on delightfully fuzzy edges and the ideas I take away from it are more general. Not because I don't understand it, but I simply don't remember exact wording as well as I would English. The main takeaway for me from this sermon was that things that look like a mistake aren't necessarily one. Joseph being in jail, for example. Who would think that an honest man, righteous and walking close to God, would go to jail because he did the right thing? What sorts of thoughts did Joseph have as he woke up each morning for those couple years, as he "wasted his life," forgotten and alone, even presumed dead by the father who loved him? But he rose to great honor again, and it had all been part of the plan all along. He was in the perfect position to save all of Egypt (+ suburbs? what was Canaan?) from starvation.

Today, Saturday, is the perfect time to remember that I serve a God who raises people from the dead. A God who died. It must have seemed like the biggest mistake in history to anyone watching. Instead of a kingdom established for eternity, utter hopelessness. They thought he was a king who would reign forever, and instead he died and was buried. They had held their breath for his promises, perhaps half-doubting them all along --they sounded too good to be true-- and he died on them. How hollow the promises must have seemed then. What a Saturday.

If it wasn't a mistake even for Jesus to die, if that was actually the point, then we know that God does allow death. Not small setbacks or obstacles, but even real death to our dreams. He even let Lazarus die, and then said it was better that way. Because he is strong to save, and he resurrects. He takes great delight in resurrection. And frankly, that makes a better story and brings more honor to his name than a shallower alternative. It builds more faith in us.

Today, I am reminded that when I stand before impossible circumstances, there is nothing preventing God from a literal (or any other kind of) resurrection, because that is his thing. That is what he longs to do for his children, if they will only give him control by placing their trust in him. There is no circumstance dark enough that I need to be afraid.

Tomorrow, when the sun comes up over the Seine, I will be outside watching the light seep back into the world. I will sing, "...then bursting forth, in glorious day, up from the grave he rose again!" And I will  remember that even my dead dreams, the ones that seem too impossible for a positive outcome, are in the hands of a God that, out of an infinity of possibilities, chose dying and coming back to life as the best way to redeem all that he'd ever created.

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*In Christ Alone... durrr. But we didn't get to sing that at this Friday service.