The place of your pain: An Easter Meditation

Throughout the Lenten season I've been viewing this upcoming Easter Sunday as a sort of magical day.   I've been hoping that when I wake up on Sunday morning, a sort of ephipany will come to me of God being triumphant over brokenness, sin, death, and throughout the whole day I'll be joyful in God's presence.  I've been anticipating that this Easter Sunday will be full of exultant and expectant hope for me.

But the closer it gets to Sunday, the more I realize that my expectations of the day may indeed fall quite short.  In fact, I may feel no different from today.  I may still feel cautious, hesitant, wary.  I may still be afraid to hope for better things, unsure of what even to hope.

I was thinking about this yesterday in the car when a thought came to me.  It has to do with the Easter story in Matthew 28, so I'm including it below.

"After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”      

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him.”

I've been hoping that this Sunday I break free of my grief, joyfully celebrating the risen Savior, reveling in the implications of his resurrection.  I've been wanting to experience the glory of this day wholeheartedly. And yet I'm starting to realize that perhaps I can experience the wonders of the resurrection just as well in my current state of shock and sorrow.

In fact, celebrating Easter Sunday while filled with grief is rather fitting.  After all, Mary Magdelene and her friends were themselves weighed down with grief that first Easter morning.  They had put all their hope in Jesus being the Messiah.  Although they had been so sure that he was the one sent from God to save them all, they had just seen him brutally beaten and publicly crucified.  They had followed him for years, supporting him, watching him heal the sick, bring hope to the oppressed.  And now he's been killed.

I can imagine their grief, their devastation at his death, their disappointment.  I can see them walking to the tomb while carrying embalming ointments, readying themselves to see Jesus' body, riddled with wounds, one last time.  And yet they went anyway to the place of their pain.  They went to visit the place of their deepest disappointment, of their darkest tragedy.  

Perhaps all I have to do this coming Sunday is simply to visit the place of my pain.  The place inside where I feel abandoned, wronged, wounded.  Because that's what the women did this first Easter morning.

Now going to the place of our pain isn't easy.  Some of us haven't visited it in a long time.  Some of us have rolled such large stones in front of it that it cannot be readily visited or easily experienced.  Others of us have chosen to forget we have places of pain, or are guarding ourselves from uncovering our own wounds, from working through our past hurts.  You will find the place of your pain where you are the most guarded, the most barricaded.  It's a place of darkness, of decay.  It's a place where you have a lot of defenses built up.  And it, to varying degrees, is within each one of us.

But the story doesn't end there.

Because after the women went to the place of their pain, they found that the heavy tombstone had been rolled away, the guards disarmed by the presence of an angel.  They found that the place of their pain had been made accessible to them.

So this Easter Sunday, choose to visit the place of your pain.

Go there yourself or take a friend with you, but choose to go to the place of your wounds, of your disappointment!  Like the women on that first Resurrection morning, you may find that dark place opened for you, the large stone rolled away, the guards disarmed.  Perhaps if you are able to visit the place of your pain you will find the power of it broken over you, even supernaturally.

In the midst of your fear and sorrow, least expecting it, you will find the Risen Savior.  In the midst of your deepest disappointment and tragedy, you will find that you are not alone.  And when we go to the place of our deepest pain, we may find instead the Risen Christ, generously greeting us.

Run, not walk

These past few weeks I have been hiding from myself by reading way too many mystery novels.  I've enjoyed not having to face the realities of my new life through the mindless escape they offer. Tonight as I slipped into bed I picked up my latest mystery novel from the library and my flashlight, expecting to read until I fell asleep. While I was doing so, my lit flashlight illuminated a book beside my bed that I haven't read for some weeks now, the Book of Hope. I started to read it instead of my mystery novel, and as I was doing so, cracked open some kind of inner window to my heart that has been intentionally closed. 

As I was reading, a thought came to me that one of my fears may be that I am, in fact, fully capable of surviving this tragedy and thriving.  Perhaps, like the mythical story of Michelangelo and the hunk of marble he’s carving, there is a lion in me waiting to be uncovered.  

After Vincent died I expected my whole life to be shattered and for me to never walk again, let alone run along life’s road.  Perhaps the truth is that in fact, I am able to run again more quickly than I thought.  I am afraid that perhaps I can do this, and do it well.  Why is this so hard to believe?  Because I want to be bed-ridden.  I want to act as devastated as I feel.  I want my life to never be the same again, like the woman who went to bed after her daughter was killed in a hit & run accident, and who died years later in the same bed, leaving a huge indentation behind in the mattress.  I want to leave a dent that shows I have been wounded.  I want to leave a huge indentation that is a testament to the extent of my grieving.  

I’ve been expecting that this said dent would be in my mattress, and I’ve given myself many opportunities to do nothing.  In fact, that’s what I’ve been doing.  Nothing.  I have no job, I have no expectations of myself other than mothering my almost 4 year old who is eager to please and can entertain himself for hours on easy-to-set up craft projects, plus my ipad.  All I’ve been doing is reading book after book and eating crackers and cheese for dinner.  Is it possible that I can do more?  Perhaps.  And this thought terrifies me.  

Dan has been running miles every day in preparation for the Aloha Run, which he ran yesterday.  His knee started complaining a couple weeks ago, and froze up one day during his run so badly he could barely walk.  But he did walk home.  And then he walked to the store, because he was afraid that if he didn’t move he wouldn’t be able to walk for a while.  So he kept moving, and it helped his knee to normalize.

I have been grievously injured.  And I’ve been expecting to not be able to move.  And yet perhaps that’s exactly what I need.