The Beautiful Wounds

    It is the week before Easter, Holy Week as many call it.  This year, we began this week of remembrance with an unexpected snow storm.  My daughter groaned, “This snow is going to ruin Easter!”  What she really meant was, how am I going to wear my new Easter dress and go Easter egg hunting in snow?!  What she didn’t know was that even though we were beginning the week with our biggest snow fall of the year, we were going to end the week with some of the warmest temperatures of the year.  She did not know what was coming.  She did not know what to hope in. 

    In this family, the week leading up to Easter is crazy.  We just have weird things happen around here, and usually it is the night before Easter.  My husband and I definitely think the cause for these strange happenings is spiritual.  There are forces at work, trying to get our hearts and minds off of celebrating Jesus’ resurrection.  And as you may have guessed, the Easter craziness usually involves a child or two with an injury. 

     About three years ago our son lost a good chunk of his big toe when a piano bench fell on him.  I just looked at Chris and said, “I am going to the emergency room.  You have to preach a sermon in the morning.  I will call you later.”  And that was that.  The following year, a projectile object cut deeply into our son’s face, right above his eye.  I lost it.  Chris had to drive that child to the E. R.  Not one of my shining moments.

     So far, so good this year.  We have already had one fluke injury a couple of days ago, and its only Friday.  Sunday is coming.  We have to pass through the night to get to the morning.  And so, we remember the wounds of our past and present.  By looking at these hard things in our lives for a few days, we become watchmen.  We wait with greater anticipation for the morning. 

     When our tears are spent and we have been overcome by our pain and our wrong doing, we become quieted.  We come to the end of ourselves and we have nowhere to look but up.  Up at the cross where blood and tears and sweat flow mingled down.  For you.  For Me.  And it is there that we begin to taste a sweetness.  A joyful sweetness, because of the morning that is to come.  A morning that is full of promise. 

     Scripture tells us that He was crushed for our iniquities and the chastisement for us all was upon Him.  He was beaten for us and He was rejected, a man despised on the earth.  The excruciating pain of what Christ endured became beautiful to us.  His wounds have healed us. 

     With every year, we have seen with our eyes the healing of our own wounds and the binding up of our own broken hearts.  He gently restores and buys back what was taken.  He gives us beauty for ashes.  We have seen the faithfulness of God and that He does not change.

     And so, I do not fear the next 48 hours.  All I have to do is look at the wounds.  The beautiful wounds of Christ.  He obtained peace for my soul, crushing the power of sin and death.  He gave me the oil of gladness through the hope of life eternal.  My pain may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.   Christ has risen and so will I.  I will leave this body of death behind.  And on that morning, oh what joy, what joy!            ~ Your Fellow Sojourner

Who has believed what he has heard from us?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For he grew up before him like a young plant,

and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

and no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

and as for his generation, who considered

that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people?

And they made his grave with the wicked

and with a rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;

he has put him to grief;

when his soul makes an offering for guilt,

he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;

the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;

by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

make many to be accounted righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,

because he poured out his soul to death

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and makes intercession for the transgressors.

                                                            Isaiah 53

                                                      

                                                       New Life pushing through.