I don't know if we could even begin to understand the despair that filled that room of wounded believers in that dark time between the cross and the empty tomb.
All of His followers, just days before were enjoying the ride of a lifetime. Basking in His light and liberty with no fear of treading where even angels had not trod. What an amazingly nonthreatening life with Him. He could walk unscathed through angry crowds, calm tempestuous seas, and meet all of their fashion and dietary needs. To top it off there wasn't any disease or malignity that He couldn't cure. It seemed for that moment He had eliminated all threats to life and living. Nothing in this world could threaten their forward movement with Him, even death had to deliver up its victims at His command.
Then it began to happen. He started uttering words, simple words that would trouble their hearts even though He tried to soften the blow with phrases like “Let not your Heart be troubled”. Words like “If I go” and “I must needs go” scarey dark phrases like “I will be delivered into the hands of angry men and be killed”. These words seemed to throw them into a blank stare, into a numbness that they had tried their best to ignore until now.
Now He was gone ...taken, beaten and abused, scourged and mocked, paraded and berated, and then nailed to a cruel Roman Cross where He was horribly tortured for a few relentless hours. Well maybe, just maybe, He had one more “transfiguration” stunt up His sleeve that would make this horrendous nightmare all go away. As they waited from a distance for fear of losing what remained of their shifting-sand-like existence … no transfiguration … and the unthinkable did happen: He raised His voice committing Himself into His Father hands and gave up his life. He gave up, seeming …... He just gave up.
Even the sky darkened and all the universe heaved with a sympathetic movement to coincide with their growing anxiety. “How could He allow this to happen?” “How could He do this to us?” “He got our hopes up and then allowed them to be dashed to pieces”. Do we really know how long three days and three nights would be like without Him? Can we really go there with our hearts and sense the growing anticipation that death for them may be also closing in? He had said “Without me you can do nothing”, and He was so prophetically right as they were hopelessly paralyzed in that moment's grief and anguish.
Matthew 12:40 – For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Right Now there are individuals and groups of believers all over the planet, huddling together with the unbelief of grief. Sons and daughters taken by the winds of war, Moms and Dads stripped of dignity by cancer's menacing rampage, friends and lovers taken in a cruel thoughtless moment . Distant sounds of grinding twisted steel, the flesh giving way to the stronger force, and the spirit fleeing the scene without a last good-bye. Sleep is broken by sobs and oceans of tears that don't seem to even begin to usher in a still small voice of comfort. And the roar of the world and Satan, Oh my! It raises its voice above the wailing and shouts, and threatens us with the words ….“Where is your God?” … Where is your God?
If we could zoom into each broken, shivering, huddle (with an insightful lens that would allow us the ability to see through the veil of tears and focus the ocular on who was bearing the greatest portion of this grief) our hearts might momentarily be overwhelmed by the flaming eyes of the One looking right back into us. How can this be? Though all my earthly senses scream that I am crushed by the abandonment of this breech, if I but take just one deep cleansing breath committing the scene to Him … I find Him... with his arms wrapped about me so tight that I can feel Love's refusal to let me go as He says “ Be filled with good and lasting comfort … it will not be long ...I have overcome the world for you.”
Rest, He is here. He is Alive!
HLFA,
Jeff