Easter has two definitive events, the cross and the resurrection. But perhaps what is more relevant to all of us in the living of our lives is what happens BETWEEN these two events.
It is no secret nor is it a surprise that if God is going to intervene in our lives it is usually in the in-between.
We are typically slothful and sleepy, from a spiritual viewpoint, before the rock bottom epiphany — or at least that was what it was like for me. I’ve noticed it a lot throughout my ministry experience, too. God usually has to awaken us before spiritual transformation can occur.
It is very common, therefore, for God to breakthrough in the event of loss.
Does God bring suffering into our lives to get our attention? I don’t know if I would say that. But I am sure that God intercedes for us ever more intimately in the grief we experience.
THE DISCIPLES’ EXPERIENCE OF LOSS
Think for a moment what it would’ve been like for the disciples, who, one by one, found themselves running from Jesus when he most needed them.
Think for a moment about what they must’ve felt waking up on Saturday morning. Their Lord had been crucified! They either watched on as Jesus suffered immeasurably, or they learned second or third hand.
Not only had they lost their dear Rabbi and Lord, the one to whom they looked up to, and the one they had been so intimate with — especially Peter, James and John — but they had all failed him in his time of deepest need.
Each of them had betrayed their Lord. And yet, there is the more obvious note of paralysing and torturous grief that must’ve overwhelmed them as they found themselves scattered in the wake of that mockery of a trial and the hastened, crude and cruel execution of Jesus — murdered between two criminals, and in the place of one of society’s worst (Barabbas).
OH, PETER!
If we were to settle within the persona of one of the disciples, let’s use Peter as our datum point, we might begin to understand the dynamics of grief within the Easter accounts.
How must Simon Peter have felt? Anything like Judas Iscariot? We know how his life ended.
Given Peter’s personality as an impulsive, outspoken and saying-before-thinking man, who was also given to reflect in a self-critical way, we may well imagine that on top of his grief lay a stark coating of guilt and shame. “How could I have been so gutless to have denied my Lord three times, and then not to have stepped in when he was being whipped and insulted and then crucified? All this is unforgivable!!”
Peter must’ve been very fearful, and his shame and guilt must’ve been overwhelming. He didn’t know it at the time, that his grief would be short lived, but he faced a reality that he could not change, just as we face that same reality when we face loss that, we, ourselves, cannot undo.
Peter must’ve felt as if God’s presence had completely left him. He must’ve experienced the forlorn. One wonders if he had even reconnected with any or many of the disciples. We may well imagine he was completely alone and completely open to the enemy’s attack.
He faced the tyrannical thought that his Lord was gone and that there was absolutely nothing he could do about that.
THE INESCAPABILITY OF GRIEF IN OUR LOSS
When we lose love ones, we suddenly face the reality that we should have always imagined we would inevitably experience, but we never imagine it will feel so dark and horrendous.
When we face loss it feels so bizarre, because we suddenly realise that sorrow has depths we never comprehended before, and yet from the viewpoint of loss, it suddenly seems to make so much sense.
Of course, we would feel like this!
Of course, love compels us to feel the deepest sadness when we lose it.
Of course, we instantly have a whole new benchmark for suffering; it is so much deeper, harder, harsher, unfairer than seemed possible beforehand.
Easter Saturday is an important time not only in the Christian calendar, but also as it speaks into the reality of life and loss and grief.
Could it be that God wanted Jesus’ disciples to experience the loss of their first love? Not as an exercise in cruelty, but as an experience to awaken them.
Grief awakens us to the fullness of the abundant life in Jesus. The in-between time that we all experience in loss, the waiting and the pain, the months and even years of endeavouring to adjust to it, teach us something indispensable for the journey of being Christ’s disciples.
THE WORD OF GOD COMES MORE ALIVE IN GRIEF
Suddenly the Word of God, that is replete with images of human suffering and of God’s compassion, comes to life.
We rediscover (or discover for the first time) the gift of the lament psalms, the suffering prophets, the vanquished exiles, and those who waited in the quiet intertestamental period of about 400 years.
We encounter Paul in chains imploring the Philippians to rejoice. The persecution of the early church in Acts — where they were overjoyed to be considered ‘worthy’ to suffer for Christ — suddenly begins to make so much more sense.
We begin to see, perhaps for the first time, the suffering and struggle embedded in the text. We never saw it before. Not like this!
Not only does the Word of God become more alluring in the time of our most perilous lament of grief, not only do the words leap off the page and strike us with new meaning, but Jesus himself is seen as the suffering servant of Isaiah 53.
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Where does this leave us?
We are left with the polarising importance of Easter Saturday, seeing perhaps for the first time God’s heavenly purpose in the in-between.
We should never hurry past the cross in a rush to get to the resurrection, not so much just for what we would lose about glossing the cross (Atonement! God’s love! Redemption! The forgiveness of sin!), but also for what we might miss about the incredible thought that our Lord might be lost to us.
Imagining being in that place gives even more meaning to the resurrection and the hope of renewal beyond the grief of loss.
It is only when someone is lost to us that we truly see their value in our lives.
It is only when we look back to what we had that we truly miss it. And yet being in the in-between heralds the opportunity to perceive what is truly important and prayer into the future for it.
Easter Saturday is so apt as an image for the times we’re in right now — the liminal space of the in-between; not who we were anymore, not yet who we will be. We are who we are right now, and it’s our opportunity to find the goodness in it.
This in-between time calls for patience, gentleness, kindness, stillness, peace, acceptance.
Image from: https://presbydestrian.wordpress.com/tag/peter/
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