Are you familiar with the phrase; “the calm before the storm”? That little ditty creates an anticipation of fear doesn’t it? It tells us to watch out when we experience peace because fury is sure to follow in its steps! How sad for us when we are in the midst of silence and serenity to fear that all hell may break loose at any moment? This is not how our Heavenly Father works. Instead, when chaos surrounds us and peace seems to elude us, He speaks and it brings forth order to our messy lives. How sweet and awesome is His grace!
This year as I prepare to celebrate Christ’s first coming, which serves as a reminder to me of His second coming, I want to concentrate on this Truth. Perfect Love has cast out fear!! God has not given us His Son so as to then yank the proverbial rug out from underneath us! He has sent His Son, that those who trust in Him will have peace…everlasting peace…peace that passes all understanding. He delivers us from the tumult of sin and gives us rest in our hearts which guards our hearts and our minds. (Philippians 4:7)
Tis the season that you and I scramble about to prepare for time with family and friends to share in the celebration of this glorious truth. Yet, the longer our lists grow the more stress and anxiety elevate, until there is no peace of mind and heart to be found. I have decided to take a few minutes each morning before my day begins (somedays before my feet hit the floor next to my bed) to thank God for this costly peace. For it has come to us through His precious Son Jesus Christ who stepped down from heaven (He stooped or condescended to us) that we might know Him and His peace. In other words, like the hymn Silent Night says, in the stillness of the night when the world was lurching in the chaotic mess of sinful darkness, Jesus came, and all was calm and all was bright. Let’s be still and know that He is God, the great giver of ALL that is calm and most definitely ALL that is bright.
“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Hebrews 1:3
Many dear friends of mine have been suffering from depression lately. Not just a time of feeling blue, but deep soul-rending pain that leaves them questioning their very existence. Weeping with them and praying for them is in sharp contrast to the new life of spring surrounding us—flowers blooming, leaves returning, sunshine beckoning.
Palm Sunday has just passed, the remembrance of the joyful day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey (fulfilling the prophecy from Zechariah 9:9) and people lined up to greet Him with shouts of “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matthew 21:9) Jesus said if they hadn’t, “the very stones would cry out.” (Luke 19:40) And Easter is next, the most hopeful event in all of history. He is risen. But between those Sundays of celebration, we have a very dark week.
On Maundy Thursday we remember the Last Supper Jesus had with His Apostles, where He washed their feet and instituted the Lord’s Supper. We know His heart must have been heavy as He warned them how Judas would betray Him and Peter would deny Him. And then He went to the garden of Gethsemane, where He asked His friends to watch with Him because “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Matthew 26:38). He went a little farther on and fell on His face (Matthew 26:39) praying if it were possible to be delivered from what His Father had asked Him to do. He returned to His friends, who hadn’t even stayed awake while He was dealing with such torment, and then left them and prayed the same thing again… and then came back and found them sleeping again, and left and prayed the same thing again. The Son of God, who had chosen to come from the full glorious presence of His Father in heaven to live a sinless life for 33 years on sinful earth was about to face the full wrath of the Lord for all the sins of each of His people. What sorrow, what dread! He was under such emotional strain that He began to sweat blood (Luke 22:44). Traditionally at the end of the Maundy Thursday service church leaders strip the vestments from the front of the church and the congregation files out in silence, commemorating Judas’ betrayal and how the soldiers stripped Jesus once they’d captured Him.
As we pass into Good Friday we remember the torture He endured, His death by crucifixion, and His burial. While He hung on the cross, the whole land was dark for three hours in the middle of the day (Mark 15:33). Traditionally churches hold a Tenebrae service to commemorate this darkness, gradually lowering the lights until the sanctuary is dark, as it would have been outdoors while our Savior was dying. When Jesus died, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.” (Matthew 27:51) The Messiah had just been crucified. He was dead, and His followers had to bury Him.
It must have been hard to cling to what Jesus had told them, that He would be raised on the third day (Matthew 16:21). He was dead. They’d seen Him breathe His last, touched His body, prepared Him for burial, and laid Him to rest. They went away to mourn together as the Sabbath approached.
But we know the rest of the story! On the third day the tomb was empty. He has risen, He is alive! Death no longer has dominion over Him (Romans 6:9). Later “He parted from them and was carried up into heaven” (Luke 24:51) and “After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3). Not only is Jesus alive, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-6). This is unfathomable mercy, grace upon grace.
Theologian Dr. R.C. Sproul and composer Jeff Lippencott collaborated to write a number of hymns in a project now known as Glory to the Holy One. One of the songs is No More the Grave, about Christ’s victory over death. Listen to it sung at Saint Andrew’s Chapel during the debut concert and rejoice with the refrain:
No more the grave can yield its sting,
No more is death our foe.
Our souls can now with gladness sing,
Now gone all curse and woe!
I pray as you travel through this week that you “may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:18-19)
