A Mary Weeping

“Don’t cry mom. Jesus died a long time ago. You weep like Jesus’ mother, Mary, weeped.”

These were the words spoken from a seven-year-old boy to his mother upon witnessing her tears this morning. My tears. A steady stream of salty, pouring down my cheeks as I watched a portion of The Passion of the Christ via YouTube.

It caught me off guard. Sandwiched between an Easter egg hunt and a three mile run, I had a few moments to peruse some of my favorite blogs, one of which featured a snippet of Mel Gibson’s masterful adaptation of Jesus’ final hours. I first saw the film upon its release four years ago. I have never allowed myself to revisit its witness until today.

I remember the tears that I wept as I sat in a packed theatre with others offering their own audible sounds of grief. The movie mediated its way into my soul and profoundly altered my thoughts regarding Christ and his cross. A few hours later, I would put pen to paper and write, what has become, one of my favorite reflections. It includes the movie coupled with words from my then, three-year-old son. The same son who spoke to my tears this morning. I want to share it with you, but not today; perhaps tomorrow. Today belongs to today. To the tears and the words of today.

“Don’t cry mom. Jesus died a long time ago. You weep like Jesus’ mother, Mary, weeped.”

You could birth a theology from those words. But there is no need. One already exists. One that says…

The tomb stands empty, and only the depth of a mother’s tears are worthy of its remembrance.

I cried those tears today. A Mary “weeping.” A weeping that issues forth because of a shared intimacy with a Son. A weeping that acknowledges the painful surrender of a Son. A weeping that willingly embraces the death of a Son, knowing that life will emerge on the other side of such consecrated submission.

Life does emerge on the other side of the tomb. Tomorrow, I will remember and celebrate my resurrected life in Christ. But tomorrow belongs to tomorrow. Today…I will remember Jesus with my tears. I ask for them to come like Mary’s, for a mother’s tears are sacred and are meant for lavish expression.

If I am going to weep over Jesus, I want to weep deeply…like Mary. I never want to get over what Christ has done for me. If it takes a movie to move me to such a place of thankfulness, then these eyes are ready for the viewing. If it takes the tender words of a child, then these ears are ready for the hearing. If it takes the tortured cross of the Son, then this mind is ready to conceive and to receive the promise of such an extravagant grace.

I pray for you a moment of tears this day. Maybe tears aren’t your thing. For whatever reason, they have stopped their flow in your life and in your heart. There is a hardness on the surface that breaks for no one—a calloused thinking that has little time for remembrance, much less a Mary kind of weeping.

If this is you, then this is the day for you to revisit the cross. Over 2000 years ago, Christ came to his knees in surrender for your heart. It wasn’t a simple thing. It was everything…the one thing that stood between heaven and hell. An obedient surrender.

Today, I come to my knees on your behalf for a surrendered heart. Right now in this little sanctuary I call my bedroom…for those of you reading and those who will read somewhere down the road. These knees were made for prayers, and as God’s fellow worker and privileged servant, I receive his grace not in vain. Rather, I fall to my knees for you and pray that the words of the Apostle Paul transcend the pages of scripture to become a “now” word for your needy estate.

“Now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor. 6:2).

Today. Not tomorrow, for tomorrow belongs to tomorrow. And we are not promised one moment beyond this one. There is no better time than today to surrender to your tears and to receive the unfathomable surrender of the Son who hung on your behalf. It is the one surrender that stands between your heaven and hell. And so I pray for you…

Father, right now as I am on my knees and typing these words, I pray that the gift of your cross makes its way into the hearts of my friends. They maybe strangers to me, but they are not strangers to you. As you hung upon the tree, you knew their names. You knew this moment would come…this day when they would read these words and be forced to grapple with your Truth. Release the hardness that surrounds the heart. Tender their soil for the seed of your Word. Let today be the day when their tears begin to water the soil of their need. Write your love upon their lives and surround them with the unshakable reality of Who you are and exactly why you made the pilgrimage to Calvary on their behalf. Where there is unbelief, replace it with sure belief. Where there is hopelessness, replace it with heaven’s hope. And where there is the darkness of a tomb, shatter it with the illuminating light of Easter. Today is the day of salvation. You, alone, are worthy of a Mary weeping. And so, I remember your grace…I cry a mother’s tears…and I ask that you fill the eyes of my friends with a similar portion.

You are everything to me. Today. Tomorrow and the next. Let it be so for us all! Amen.

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A New Canvas ~ For Jennisa


In the beginning God created…

The heavens and the earth.
The light.
The sky.
The dry ground and seas.
The plants and trees.
The sun. The moon. The stars.
All the living creatures.

Good things.

But his final creative act came with punctuation. Exclamation. Celebration.

You and me…in his likeness and bearing the marks of his image.

A very good ending to a very busy week.

As his image bearers, we, too, share his capacity for creativity. Our Father fashioned our flesh with a bent toward creative expression. All of us…every last one of us…are artists. We paint stories with…

Our words. Our writings. Our music. Our acting. Our dance. Our paintings. Our teaching. Our leadership. Our singing. Our speaking. Our conversations. Our silence.

No one escapes the need for expression, for within each one of us is the impulse of our creative God. He placed our lives upon this earth to put voice to a story…his story. And somewhere within the telling, he hopes that others will be compelled to add their own lines to the script.

I’ve been putting voice to my story for nearly forty-two years. Rare have been the silent moments. Expression has always come easy for me. Lavish and unbridled at times. Raw and unedited most days. Those who know me would tell you that my emotions have never failed to find their words.

Nearly two months ago, I discovered a new way to format my artistic bent. It is called blogging. I happened upon it quite by accident, but I rather like surprises…especially the ones that allow me to put voice to my thoughts. It has been a blessing to me, and my deepest desire is that this blog will be a blessing to others.

After surfing around to visit other blogs, I decided that mine could benefit from the creative impulses of another. She’s an artist in her own right. Her name is Jennisa, and she has created a new canvas upon which I will paint my words. The canvas came with work. With patience and with gentle kindness. Never once did Jennisa complain about my artistic pickiness. She simply listened, and then she crafted. What you see is the outgrowth of her tender creativity.

The elements of this canvas tell a story all their own. Over the next few weeks, I will be unpacking some of the elements that you see…letting you “in” on a little more of my story. But today, I ask you to sit back and consider Jennisa’s gift to me.

I cannot promise you as to the full extent of the stories that will eventually find their home upon this canvas. You won’t find a lot of humor here. There are tons of brilliant humorists in blog land. I’m not one of them. I am a funny person, but my writing finds its strength in contemplation.

What I can promise you is that I will always write from the heart. And this heart, my friends, is filled with Jesus. He will be painted onto this canvas. His story overrides mine and is the only one worthy of my fragile attempt at words. I won’t always do it perfectly, but I will always endeavor to do it well. Creatively and with my God-given bent toward artistry. Humbly, under the shadow of his illuminating light.

May you seek to do the same with whatever creative outlet that God has scripted into your gifting. He celebrates your story, and he applauds your effort at expression. How I pray that your canvas, alongside mine, will always boast the presence of our Lord.

Thank you, Jennisa, for your brilliance. You have painted well. A very good ending to a very busy week. May God continue to script your mind, your heart, and your hands for all things sacred. Be blessed and as always…

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PS: For those of you looking to jazz up your blog, please visit my new friend, Jennisa, at “Once Upon a Blog” — http://jennisajoy.blogspot.com/ . Her artistry is worth the wait!

a Cup that would not pass

“Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.) Jesus commanded Peter, ‘Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?'” (John 18:10-11).

We all have them. Allowed cups. Cups that come to us through the plans of man and through the hands of self. Cups that come to us through the will of God. Some are sweet. Some are bitter. Some make sense. Some extend beyond reason. Regardless of their taste, they become our portion of drink. God has allowed them to touch our lips, and sometimes the aftertaste lingers long and hard on the palate of our will.

Cups of joy and cups of suffering, coupled together within a life’s embrace.

Cups of …

Love. Acceptance. Purpose. Security. Contentment. Family. Prosperity.

Cups of …

Hatred. Rejection. Abuse. Disease. Solitude. Poverty. Death.

Cups of… _______________________________.

What is the cup that boasts your lips this day? Yours is not mine and mine could never purposefully fill yours. Still and yet, Christ allows them to find their presence at our tables. The choice to drink them is up to us.

Long before Christ knew the confines of his cross, he made a decision to embrace the cup of the cross. To drink of the suffering that his Father had assigned to him before the foundation of the world. This cup would not go down easy, but it would go down. Deep down. All the way down from his head to his feet until love’s redeeming work was done.

Jesus’ decision to drink the cup was based upon his knowledge of what stood to be lost by his rejection of it.

Us.

We stood on the other side of his hard surrender. We were the purpose behind his unparalleled obedience to partake of the cup that carried our salvation. A cup that would pass from our lips onto his because our lips are not capable of such sacrifice. Our blood bleeds temporal. Christ’s blood sheds eternal.

No wonder his stern rebuke of Peter’s misguided devotion and unbridled emotion.

“Jesus commanded Peter, ‘Put your sword away! Shall I not drink from the cup the Father has given me?’”

A given cup…portioned out by a good God…to a Son who chose to do a gracious thing. A grace-filled suffering portion of sacred drink poured out for you and for me for the forgiveness of our many sins. A mysterious and wonderful gift that I cannot fathom, and yet one that I want to readily receive.

“Want to” I say, because so often I don’t. Like Peter, I am quick to draw my sword and voice my objection.

Not you, Lord. You will never die a criminal’s death. You will never wash my feet. Your feet and hands were meant for more than suffering nails and a servant’s basin. You will not wash me. You will not bleed for me. I will bleed for you. I am well armored, and I will fight to the finish. This is not how it will end. This cup will pass from you. I stand ready to make sure.

And as I chorus my plan, a rooster finds his tri-fold chorus, reminding me that God’s plan is better. Fully complete without fault or blemish. Nothing I could say or ultimately fail to do would keep Christ from his cross. It is what he came to do.

And so I put my sword back in its sheath and stand aside. I walk with him to the cross, and offer my own nails for his suffering. I stand alongside others and take my turn with the hammer. I position my body beneath the weight of his surrender, and I pause. … Waiting for my cleansing is a difficult obedience. It is a hard cup to swallow. But, slowly it comes. His blood. The shower of his redemption begins its flow over my frame, and I am engulfed by his love.

Perhaps, today, you are thinking about the cross–about Christ and his assigned cup. It is our season to remember. Time is well spent when time is spent thinking about him. We all approach Calvary with different cups pressed to our lips. Some of us are living in a season of suffering. Some of us with inexpressible joy. Some of us with both. Whatever your current cup, there is one cup you have been spared. Only Christ’s lips were worthy of its embrace. His surrender to it has been your salvation.

As we come to Good Friday, I ask you to take a few moments to ponder the question that Christ asked of Peter almost 2000 years ago.

“Child…daughter…son whom I love…shall I not drink from the cup the Father has given me?”

Linger in sacred contemplation as you position yourself beneath his cross. Your response determines your steps. And so I pray…

Yes, Lord…drink! Drink from your assigned cup. Let not my will nor my wants keep you from doing what you came to do. Calvary’s work is finished; yet so often I want to revisit the issue. I want to be the keeper of my salvation. I want the surrender to be mine and not yours. Thank you for showing me that mine would never be enough. Yours alone stands the test of grace. Humbly, I bow for the cleansing. Thank you for embracing the cup of the cross. May I never lose the wonder of your magnificent gift. Amen.

peace for the journey~elaine

Save Us…

“The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, ‘Hosanna!’ ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ‘Blessed is the King of Israel.’” (John 12:12-13).

My eyes found their tears yesterday…somewhere along the second stanza of “All Glory Laud and Honor.” I wanted it to matter to them. Truth is…it probably didn’t. At least not beyond the moment.

Marching in cadence with the pastor’s pace, they waved their branches. Twenty or so bearers of the palms…two of whom I call my own. I was moved by their participation. As quickly as they entered, they exited, leaving their palms as a witness of their presence…of having been a part of this occasion. An occasion meant for remembrance, and yet, probably one that sketched little significance across their hearts.

Palm Sunday. A day of announcement. A day of initiation. A day of pilgrimage to the one feast that should not be missed. Jesus’ Easter moment is just around the corner, and I am afraid I have done a poor job of preparing the hearts of my children for such a visitation.

How does one begin to prepare for such an occasion? An occasion that scripts pageantry alongside passion? Celebration alongside crucifixion? Shouts of acclamation alongside shouts of disdain? How can such lavish expression of opposing emotions sketch their existence within the same frame? How can we embrace Calvary when our hearts hunger for palms and pageantry?

We can because Christ did. Jesus embraced his inevitable.

“‘Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.’” (Matthew 21:2-3).

Jesus began his pilgrimage to Calvary on the back of donkey. Gently, he approached his inevitable with tears in his own eyes. He wanted this moment to matter to them. Truth is…for most of them, it mattered little. He knew this would be the case, even as he voiced the sadness within…

“‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.’” (Luke 19:42).

But their eyes could not vision beyond their palms of welcome and their pleas for rescue.

Palms. Palms of splendor, reserved for royalty. For triumphed victory over the enemy. For kingdom moments graced with a king’s presence. For parades atop the cloaks and branches of a peoples’ homage.

Pleas. Pleas for deliverance. Pleas for release…for liberation…for relief. “‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” Hosanna!—Save us! Please save us now! Be the righteous salvation that the prophet Zechariah foretold (Zechariah 9:9).

Palms and pleas and pageantry. All fodder for a good parade. Christ allowed them their moment, even though their eyes were temporarily blinded to its significance. He knew there would come a day…a day beyond this first Palm Sunday…when we would remember and realize that, in fact, the King did process. That the battle was won over the enemy. That a Savior has come…is come…to deliver, to rescue, to liberate and to relieve.

Jesus knew that Easter stood on the other side of his surrender. Resurrection awaited his arrival. It would be a long walk between the two, but willingly he embraced the journey.

He asks us to do the same. To take time to recall these sacred moments of his history. Our King has conquered death. Our Savior has conquered sin. He, alone, is worthy of our palms and our parades and our hosannas. Our participation in such sacred remembrance matters to him, for it speaks of a day yet to come.

“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’” (Revelation 7:9-10).

Palm Sunday 2000 years ago. Palm Sunday 2008. Palm Sunday in a season yet to come. Who can fathom the mysteries of our God?

Let us not rush to Easter. We are quick to move from one Sunday to the next. Could it be that God is calling us to tarry awhile longer on the road with his Son? He has called me to such an embrace, and so this day I bring my palms and my pleas and wave them before my King. I lay my filthy cloak at his feet and ask him to consecrate it with his own. To step high and wide and long and deep until my soul is embedded with the footprint of his soles…marked forever for kingdom living. Truth is…it matters to me a great deal. It means everything to me, and so I pray…

Humbly, Father, I bring my palms and my pleas and my filthy rags and lay them all before you this day. You are worthy of a far greater offering, and yet your grace readily receives my homage. Forgive me, Lord, when I forget your walk of surrender…when I callously process through tradition rather than submitting to sacred remembrance. Walk over my life, Lord, until all that can be seen are the footprints that will lead others on the path to Calvary. I submit my heart and my feet for such a journey. Amen.

peace for the journey~elaine

(eolsen2008/allrightsreserved)

A Walk of Hope

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
(Proverbs 13:12).

Deferment. Fulfillment. And every step in between.

It is a walk that spans the spectrum of human emotion. From sadness to joy. From sickness to health. From empty to overflow.

It is a walk of hope. A journey of expectant steps toward an anticipated end. An end that yields blossoms. Fruit. Life abundant.

But when the walk requires a longer obedience…a drawn out and prolonged submission…the dreams of blossoms and fruit and abundant living fall prey to disease. Heart sickness. Sinking, sagging sickness that burrows deep within the soul and cries out for understanding.

Why God? Why me? Why not me? Am I not worthy of some dreams? Of blossoms and fruit and life? It seemed like a good hope, a well-intentioned desire. A longing wakened and crafted by your divine will. Why then, am I here Father? Stuck. On hold. Hope diminishing by the minute.

For each one of us who walk the path of hope, it is a familiar grip…this seeming stranglehold of dreams. Our hearts hurt when hope is paused, longing, instead, for our trees to blossom with hope realized. And in between these extremes, God asks us to patiently continue in our trust. To wait on him to move.

When we give ourselves over to a time of sacred waiting, one of two things happens.

Either our hope becomes reality within God’s perfect timing, or our hope becomes reshaped through the loving heart of a Father who has our anticipated “end” in mind. God never removes our hope. But there are times when he requires its surrender to the flames of his refining fire, so that what emerges is a purer hope, more closely in line with his intended purpose for our lives.

Hopes crafted by our Creator never go unrealized.

Two thousands years ago, a walk of hope commenced upon the soil of Judea. A few men, alongside their Teacher, journeyed through the sands of a hard obedience. Their hearts would know the pain of deferment. Many would cry their “whys?” in private. One would cry his “why” from his intended cross.

“‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? … My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Mark 15:34)

Christ understands the language of deferment. He lived it. He knew the language of longing…of hopes put on hold for a season. His longings were and always have been couched within our need. Our need for blossoms and fruit and abundant living. But before his hope would be realized, his hope would be shaped through the flames of his Father’s purifying love.

Hope deferred. Not forgotten. Not diminished. Simply prolonged…long enough for love’s redeeming work to be done.

In the end, longing was fulfilled. Hope was realized. And a Calvary tree blossomed with the fruit of abundant living.

Christ understands the language of fulfillment. He lived it. He IS it! The Tree of all Life.

In the next week, you and I will once again walk the road to Calvary to remember Christ’s walk of surrender—an Easter pilgrimage that we must make, for we are an Easter people. It is a week that embodies the fullness of hope. Hopes deferred and hopes fulfilled. A journey of sadness, sickness, and emptiness. A journey of joy, health, and overflow.

The cross stands as a witness to them both. For within its crude structure, Hope was deferred…crucified, dead and buried in sacred surrender and trust. On the third day, Hope was fulfilled…resurrected and realized. The tree of sacrifice became the tree of Life. And every moment lived between the two was wrought with divine significance and purpose.

I do not know where you are today in your walk of hope. I stand somewhere between the extremes of deferment and fulfillment. There are some dreams in my heart that have simmered for a long season. Stretched out hopes that have required a difficult obedience. But God has not removed them; therefore I am learning the language of surrender, knowing that his fires of refinement will purify them for his sacred purposes.

Perhaps you are walking a similar path. If so, then let us walk it together. Let us journey alongside the One who is well familiar with our sorrows…our heart sickness…our hopes and our dreams. Let us trust him for their fulfillment. Let us rest in the surety of his plan, even though these moments seem unsure…unsteady and uncertain. All of our “whys” are answered with his love.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16).

Abundant life. Blossoms and fruit. Hope realized. The only walk worthy of these feet, and so I pray…

Lead me, Father, along your path of hope until one day my hope is realized in your presence. Only then will all the deferment that I have known and all the fruit that I have blossomed make perfect sense. In the temporal, give me a measure of understanding. I cannot fully reason through my seasons of waiting, but I can bear them…even rejoice in them because I know that your refining presence yields hopes and dreams aligned with your will. Thank you, Savior, for your walk of deferment. For your surrender to the fire, and for you astounding love that led you there. You, alone, are worthy my praise. You are the realized Hope of my every longing. Amen.

peace for the journey~elaine
(eolsen/allrightsreserved, 2008)

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