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Look at this big girl! You would never know that merely 15 days ago, we were bidding farewell to her beloved pacifier(s). It went so differently than I expected. The actual “paci-release party” turned out not quite as I envisioned it, as so many things in life. Instead of the poetic balloon release, the paci actually weighed down the balloon too much. And so the balloon floated down the stairs of our deck onto the sidewalk, where a few neighborhood dogs were circling for the kill – before I rescued the paci and told the neighborhood kids that no, now was not a good time to come over to play. We only lost one of the helium balloons, and the girls did not escape down the stairs of our back deck in all the chaos (though there were several near misses). We brought everyone and their balloons and paci inside, and Seth very unceremoniously threw away both pacifiers in the kitchen garbage can, telling Lucia that they were going “bye-bye” and she was a big girl now. I think she understood. At least until it was time to go to bed and she kept searching for one. That was the hardest part for me as her mom. I added a lengthy period of rocking instead, and she actually fell asleep without a fuss. Same with naps the next day. I was astounded.
But we have noticed the absence of our beloved pacifier in other, unexpected ways. Like the severity and frequency of tantrums in the week after its absence. Pretty unbelievable, and more than once, I wished along with Lucia that we had her favorite comfort object to help soothe her. She’s having to learn a new way to soothe herself, and so are we. I actually began to count the number of tantrums the girls have been having lately, because it seemed like a lot. And I wanted data to prove to myself that it really wasn’t a lot, or that maybe it was. Yesterday, the total was a very unimpressive 7. But today, we had a two-dozen tantrum day (and that doesn’t count the 2 hours I was at lunch with a friend). Yes, TWENTY-FOUR tantrums between the two girls. No wonder the days feel long sometimes. I was quite thankful for Seth’s presence at home with us today. We all needed him.
No coincidence that it’s Good Friday. I was hourly (no, more frequently) reminded that I need Jesus. I am not the good mom I want to be. I lose my patience when they lose their tempers. My emotions are not sanctified but reveal the many places of false refuge I go to rather than God. I lose it because I “need” peace and quiet, routine, space to think, predictability. I “deserve” all of this … and more. I choose not to follow the Spirit’s leading towards self-control, peace, love, but to indulge the flesh – the part of me that still wants to rebel against God. I pull it together in public. Just like my daughters, who were perfect angels at nursery tonight. The Savior they need is the Savior I need. The one whose death we remember today and whose death we feel in each little “death” to the flesh, each time we choose to die to what I want & think I deserve in order to live to God, to live to the Spirit in me. As I was reminded at our women’s retreat last weekend, we are united to Christ in his death, so it should be no surprise that there are times when resisting sin will feel like dying, too. If only I could attach my sin to a helium balloon and send it away forever. Oh, wait. It got nailed to a cross, taken on by the only innocent One, God’s beloved Son, and it is gone forever. Sin/death/the devil will NOT have the last word. We will celebrate that on Sunday. Praise God that Friday is Good and that Friday is not the end of The Story. Resurrection life is coming.
“I am the resurrection and the life.” I need some of this life. My friends who are grieving the loss of their friend to cancer need the resurrection. Death is so foreign to life – its opposite, isn’t it? We need resurrection hope this Easter.
And I need the hope of life as I grieve the separation from family and feel like there are too many places that are dead within me. I need Your life to awaken me. To remind me of the joy of this calling of being a mother. I feel an absence of life when there is truly an abundance of it. The abundance of lives has made my life feel weary. Mundane. Monotonous. Even (especially?) on Easter.
Lord, who is alive, give me life. Joy. Hope. Lift my eyes from my self-imposed misery to the miraculous empty tomb. Empty of my sin because it died with Jesus at the cross. Empty of my misery because the living Redeemer is pushing back the darkness. Empty of death because my Savior vanquished it on the third day …
As I read and reflected on the Easter story this morning as told by the four Gospels, what stands out is the response of those who heard the news of the empty tomb and the risen Jesus. Initially, there is fear. Yet the fear becomes “great joy” or it gives way to cynical doubt.
There is Mary Magdalene who is one of the first at the tomb on that first Easter morning. She hears the news and is filled with fear. But then she sees Jesus, and her fear turns to the disbelief of joy that he is alive and so she worships him and spreads the news to the rest of the disciples. Most of them do not immediately believe, but persist in cynical doubt. Luke actually says that the disciples regarded the women’s report as “an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” However, Peter went to see for himself. And then he went away marveling at the too-good-to-be-true truth of Jesus’ resurrection.
Thomas persists in his doubt because he missed the first resurrection appearance of Jesus to the disciples. He boldly claims that he will “never believe” unless “I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side.” I wonder why Jesus didn’t show up immediately to dispel his cynical doubt. But he doesn’t. He waits eight days, and then he appears and invites Thomas to, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Instantly, Thomas is transformed from a doubter to a worshiper.
Where are you this Easter morning? Be assured that Jesus can (and will) meet you wherever you are. Maybe he will call your name personally, as he did for Mary in the garden that first Easter morning, and you will be overcome with joyful disbelief. Or perhaps you, like Thomas, are more cynical and it will be a longer journey for you. Jesus can meet you here, too, transforming your doubt into the worship of faith.
He has risen. He has risen, indeed. And he is alive. Let us then worship with joy this Easter morning.
There is much we celebrate about today that is ironic. I remember as a child wondering why this Friday in which Jesus died is known as “Good Friday.” It certainly seemed like a very BAD Friday when he died. So bad that darkness covered the earth prematurely and Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” The Trinitarian Godhead is mysteriously wounded … so that we could be healed from our sins. And so it becomes our Good Friday.
There’s also the irony of the “righteous” religious leaders who crucified the only truly innocent man who ever lived. Pilate himself affirmed Jesus’ innocence, yet succumbed to the political pressure exerted by the “righteous” Pharisees who demanded that Jesus be killed. When Jesus is taken to Pilate’s house, John includes this ironic sentence about these leaders: “They themselves did not enter the governor’s headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.” WHAT?!! They wanted to be “clean” and “pure” enough to eat the Passover, but in so doing they crucified the Passover Lamb of God himself.
And then there’s the way that Jesus is taunted while he is being crucified that he “save himself.”
So also the chief priests, with the scribes and the elders, mocked him, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.”
Yet if Jesus had saved himself the painful agony of the crucifixion, bearing the wrath of God on behalf of us sinners, none of us would be saved. Jesus would not truly be King if he had come down from the cross. We would have no one to believe in for true salvation.
Good Friday is a day of truly hidden glory. The glory of the King of Kings dying the death of a criminal so his subjects could be in relationship with him. Hidden behind the taunts of the “righteous leaders” who needed his salvation more than any others (and still do!). A bad, horrible day of mourning and weeping and darkness that will turn good for all who believe upon him.
“What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered/Was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression/But Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior/’Tis I deserve thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor/Assist me with Thy grace.”
(from the hymn “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”)
I haven’t been tuned in to Passion Week this week. I confess. Although this is the highlight of the Christian calendar, I have been busy with life and work and future plans (more on that in another post). So tonight I finally took the time to be quiet, and to read and remember what this Holy Thursday (Maundy Thursday) is about: blood and body. In reading Matthew’s account in chapter 26, I am struck by a few details that have escaped my notice before.
What a loaded question the disciples ask of Jesus initially: “Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?” For truly, Jesus would be preparing their Passover. And during the Passover meal, he would invite them to eat of HIM. He would call the bread his very body. And he himself would be the Lamb, giving his own blood to be “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sin.”
And they do not remember Jesus for long. Although in verse 35, Peter (as the spokesman for the disciples) cries out passionately, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” And Matthew affirms that “all the disciples said the same.” Yet scarcely two paragraphs later, they have failed to stay awake to pray with Jesus when he needed them the most. And he is betrayed by one of them (Judas). And the action in the Garden of Gethsemane ends with the bleak commentary, “Then all the disciples left him and fled.”
I am not too different from these first disciples. I, too, claim allegiance to Jesus that is so often faltering. I forget that I need Jesus for forgiveness of sins, mine and others. I proudly proclaim things about myself that prove I am self-deceived.
Let us celebrate communion and remember this Maundy Thursday with gravity – drinking the wine and eating the bread lest we forget who we are and who Jesus came to be for us. We need the Passover lamb. And he has been given for us!
Let us remember … lest we forget.
