Dark to Light

Here it is all celebration save one event. There is one area where we hold back, one area where we stand in darkness anticipating light. I breath shallow in expectation.

We made an Alleluia banner. Alleluia, it's the song of heaven. It's been nearly 40 days since we took that song and buried it. It lies on the front table beneath a cloak of black. Its stand awaiting the resurrection, awaiting Easter morn. The symbolism pierces deeply. A black scar in the springtime decor. It mars.

40 days walking past, mourning its absence, the beauty of the song. Mourning because it's loveliness, it lies there buried black, while the bounty of spring burst forth across our world.  I have walked these 40 Days my heart longing to know him better, for sight to SEE the sacrifice.

I grew up in the church. It has always been there, the egg hunts and colorful dresses, sweet white gloved youths with their ribboned hats, post church feasts on tables set dazzling, baskets spilling over with sweetness. The yearlyness of it all lost on this often blind soul.

This year, THIS YEAR, I would be transformed. I would see with new eyes. I would deprive myself, bury the song of heaven, immerse myself in the dark to truly see the light.

God, well he gladly met me here. In my darkened state he softened my heart and adjusted the perscription of my glasses.

 And this, Christ, is the stunning irony:

    that their evil was made good in you! You knew our nature as children of wrath; you knew      exactly how we would choose; you put yourself in harm's way that our sin might kill you, that your death might redeem us even from our sinful nature!

    Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, and I grow dizzy thinking about it. All that I can say with certainty, but with everlasting gratitude, is --

Amen.

~Reliving the Passion by Walter Wangerin Jr.