It’s a rainy, gloomy, gray day where I live. It’s fitting weather for this Easter.
I took my anti-depressant this morning at the usual time, but I’m not sure it helped me get through the first church service I’ve attended in a year. Or maybe it did since I was able to choke back tears rather than fall apart like I wanted to do.
I couldn’t open my mouth to sing. I hummed a bit, but I held back because I didn’t want to hear my own voice. I didn’t want to risk having the slightest bit of hope that I’d ever sing those songs again.
I listened to the message and somehow avoided an internal scoffing at the story of a savior who comes to rescue. My experience tells me a different story.
It wasn’t the church or the people that bothered me. In fact, if I were to go to church on a regular basis, this would probably be the one. My irritation was due to my own lack of faith in a story I’m struggling to believe.
Yesterday, I shared this on Facebook:
I was thinking this afternoon about the women at the tomb…specifically referenced in Luke 24:3: “they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” Death is one thing–final. But this was something altogether different: a missing body. Confusion. Despair. Hopelessness. I thought about those who seek Jesus and the despair of those moments (sometimes years) when he cannot be found. The time between realizing he’s missing and him showing up to make his presence known seems like an angst-filled eternity.
On this day when Happy Easter and He Is Risen! is proclaimed, I’m still standing in the gray, in the middle—between his death and his presence. I’m still seeking and waiting for him to show up and call me by name. It’s difficult to have faith in a rescuer who’s MIA.
Rebekah,
This is a beautiful, honest post. I think the Lord loves this post and that He loves your transparency. He wants our honesty not our platitudes and preening and posturing. He did not condemn Thomas, as an example. He understood the despair the disciples felt when they could not possibly understand that though He would die, yet would He rise. You are in an in-between time, and frankly, in some ways we all are. He is risen, but we can’t see Him (or even feel Him). But He is not MIA. He is actively present in your life, and in mine. I honestly do not believe you would have set foot in that church, had He not been actively working in your heart and life. If He weren’t presently, actively working in your heart, you wouldn’t care whether you believed or not. Just keep going to the garden. Just keep seeking. He knows your name, dear one. He knows your name, and one day, He will speak it loudly enough for you to recognize hearing it.
I love you like a sister Rebekah. I love your honesty. I love your giftedness. I love your passion. I love that you keep posting and posting and posting whatever you feel. But far more important, Jesus loves you.
Happy Easter.
Lynn
Lynn, you are so gracious. Thank you for finding the good and pointing it out to me. I am overwhelmed by your kindness.
Thanks for your post, Rebekah. Easter is fraught with this tension–a tension that we all-too-often simply sweep under our rugs of certitude. If I understand Jesus (at least in my own limited way) he inaugurated God’s kingdom, but it is not yet fully consummated. We live “between the times.” While some biblical statements are symmetrical, i.e., God’s promised blessings for faithfulness but curses for unfaithfulness (Deuteronomy), others wrestle with the fallen reality of this world in which such symmetry doesn’t exist (Job, Psalms, et.al.). The church needs all voices–those who are at the pinnacle of praise; others who are in the pit of despair and question the presence of God. We need both praise and lament. For me, Easter reminds me of an ultimate promise, while reminding me of the penultimate reality of the now (Jesus still bore the scars of torture). Easter, for me, isn’t the “all’s good with the world” but a reminder of the exact opposite. I proclaim “He is risen”, not because I always see him actively at work, but often as a protest to the darkness that apparently prevails. I suppose that’s one reason why I find your honest blogs so refreshing–they do not attempt to gloss over the hurt, and alienation we often experience (and sometimes for extended periods) but give them voice. And, somehow, as with the psalmists, the speech of protest begins to crack open new possibilities. Again, thanks for your poetic voice.
Thank you for being one of the few who appreciate the tension, especially in my writing.
Yes, yes, yes Rebekah. Such an honest and authentic, real post. Been in this place before, and often. You’re not alone.
Thanks for sharing this.
Thank you, James.