The Long Walk Home

Me and husbandface walking into town, talking about Psalm 131. It’s the one where the Psalmist says:

¹ My heart is not proud, O LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.

² But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

³ O Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.

We talk about how unobtainable this can seem at times.

Kath: It’s hard, isn’t it, to be content with what we have, still, at peace.

Kevin: Yeah.

My eyes then catch sight of a pretty rug in the shop: “Ooo Look at the pretty rug.  Can we have the pretty rug…”

Cue laughter from Kevin as I realise what I’ve just said and done…Living out the reality that it really is hard to be content in this world. Sigh.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget Easter, I’ve found that especially over the last two years when I’ve been working and Easter has seemed little more than a refreshing long weekend in the midst of the slog. This year we’ve made a concerted effort to remember. Sometimes memories come unbidden into the mind, sometimes you have to work at them, sifting through the boxes at the back of the head to extract that precious moment. Remembering Easter doesn’t come that naturally if there are no signposts guiding us. This year we are trying to put our own signposts in.

We’re remembering the crazy week of 2000 years ago. The one which started out with such promise, such joy, such triumph as Jesus headed into Jerusalem with the crowds cheering all around. But the one which descended into such darkness as Jesus battled in the garden with friends who fell asleep and eventually abandoned him. The one which ended with a cup, a hill and a cross.

We’re remembering because we need to remember. We need to remember that this point was the turning point in history, this is the event that changed everything. Jesus’ death and resurrection mean SO much in our lives and it is right to stop along the way and dwell on each part.

We stop in the garden, feeling the anguish of Jesus as he desperately asks the Father if there is any other way, feeling the strength of his obedience so you and I could live at peace with our Maker. We travel along the road to the cross, standing with the women with Jesus to the end, seeing the effect as the temple curtain tears and Jesus cries out, “It is finished”.

We stop in the space between Friday and Sunday, the cold emptiness tinged with fear and hope, so similar to where we stand now.

And then we let loose, we glory, we dance, we exalt and celebrate as the tomb stands empty, as death is defeated, as Satan is trounced, as Hope is born, as new creation becomes real, tangible, a certain future.

Right now we’re in the garden, Jesus is urging, pleading his friends not to fall asleep as he experiences mental torture at the thought of what he must endure. How do we feel as we see our Saviour, Friend and Lord in such agony? What must the disciples felt as once more he came back, blood in his sweat to wake them? What could cause such agony? What could he be going through for you and me? What were the effects of this offering?

^“26Such a high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. ²⁷Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.” (Hebrews 7)

This weekend we reclaimed a weekend from our planned lives and schedules. We postponed a weekend where we needed to be awake and exchanged it for one where we didn’t. So we did this on Saturday:

We also bought a desk for our small room in the flat. It’s been a dumping ground/a laundry room/a book room/a shoe room/a guitar room for the last 3 months. This weekend it was transformed into a study. I’m sitting at the desk right now gazing out of the window at Brighton. This is a space I want to write in, read in and ponder life in. We managed to redeem a weekend and a room all at once.  On the seventh day we rested…

When beating oneself up with a large stick for being generally useless, ugly, stupid and sinful, God doesn’t join in. He lovingly takes the stick from us, snaps it over his knee, wraps his arms around us and tells us once more that He loves us, that we are Dearly Loved. He whispers into our ears the truth and lets that warm bold incredible truth hold us until we can face the world again. Strong in His mighty power and not in our weak efforts.  So we can Hope in His mighty unfailing love which leaves the accuser scuttling for cover as his half truths, lies and accusations, which made up the stick we were beating ourselves with, are broken and stamped on by our Dad.

We are loved. We are delighted in.

“Grace, can you tell me love, where are your accusers now?”(Martyn Joseph)

I can’t read a Douglas Coupland novel without the need to paste quotes from it everywhere, well maybe with the exception of “All families are psychotic”.  His latest is called Generation A, 19 years on from Generation X it’s a similar mismash of stories and people who make up and invent those stories. The themes remain the same as in every Coupland story.  A band of people encountering each other, attempting to discover meaning, or despair at the lack of meaning, or just ask lots of questions about who we are and why we are here. As ever he manages to get under the skin of part of what it is to be human, has insight into the future spin of our world (what will happen when the bees finally disappear?) and has some kick ass quotes.

“And then what do you do- do you pray? What is prayer but a wish for the events in your life to string together to form a story – something that makes some sense of events you know have meaning.  And so I pray”

“I decided that knowledge comes from real life and from travel and interacting with others. So I decided to spend all my awake time playing World of Warcraft.  How amazing to see all that mythology acting itself out in real time, fueled by genuine human sentience!”

The new drug: Solon
“Introducing SOLON
SOLON CR is indicated for the short term treatment of psychological unease grounded in obsession with thinking about the near and distant future.  By severing the link between the present moment and a patients perceived future state, researchers have found a pronounced and significant drop in all forms of anxiety. As well, researchers have found that disengagement with the “future” has allowed many patients complaining of persistent loneliness to live active and productive single lives with no fear or anxiety.”

“Serge said, ‘Stories come from a part of you that only gets visited rarely – sometimes never at all. I think most people spend so much times trying to convince themselves that their lives are stories that that actual story-creating part of their brain hardens and dies. People forget that there are other ways of ordering the world’.”