This Deep Ache I Feel

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Elizabeth

This season of Lent into Easter always leaves me with an ache in my heart.

I ache as I sit in the heart-wrenching tension between what is now and what is not-yet.

This year my heart has been even more tender than usual.

It is tender with an ache of longing for God to fulfill His promise to make all things new.

It is tender with an ache of longing for God to return and set all things right.

It is tender with an ache of longing for God.

We have sat in silent mourning through Lent, grieving our sin and our broken world and longing for Messiah.

We have rejoiced in exultation on Easter, celebrating Christ’s victorious defeat over sin and death.

Now we wake up to a world that is still sinning. still broken, still dying.

We trust, on our best days, that Jesus’ defeat of sin and death really happened, that God will not forget any of His promises, that God’s Spirit truly dwells inside of us.

And our hearts ache.

We are filled, more on some days than on others, with an aching, homesick kind of longing for what is still to come.

This is good. This is as it should be.

We should not be satisfied with this world in its brokenness.

We should not be satisfied with ourselves in our sinful nature.

We should not be satisfied to be physically separated from God.

Listen to this ache, for we are not yet home.

Let yourself feel this tenderness fully.

We should allow this ache in our hearts to spur us on to seek God more, to love God more, to love those around us more, to do all we can to bring His kingdom to rule on earth.

It is good to have seasons in which your heart is more tender, in which that longing ache is closer to the surface.

It simply means the end is not yet here.

On the day when our earth is made new, when heaven and earth are joined together, when Jesus descends from the clouds and we run into His arms,

On the day when God will dwell with us and we will be His people,

On that day, this ache we feel will melt away.

We shall be home.

For now, learn to be still and truly feel this ache in your heart. Let it draw you closer into the arms of the One who will someday heal you completely. You can trust Him.

Easter has already come.

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

All photographs copyright Made Sacred 2020

Living in Saturday

Posted on April 10, 2020 by Elizabeth

Saturday of Holy Week is hard.

The disciples’ hopes are dashed. Disappointment and dread lie heavy in their stomachs. Fear is rising quickly in the face of an unknown future.

It feels right now as though we are living in Saturday.

Our hopes are dashed. Disappointment and dread lie heavy in our stomachs. Fear is rising quickly in the face of an unknown future.

Saturday is dark.

Yet – When darkness veils His lovely face, I’ll rest on His unchanging grace.

For we know something that Jesus’ followers did not.

Sunday is on its way.

No matter what your fear in this time of Saturday, Sunday is certain.

For the sick, for the hungry, for the hurting, for the jobless, for the homeless, for the lonely, for the grieving, for the abused,

Sunday will come.

This is why we celebrate Easter, to remind us of the glorious Sunday that is still to come.

This is why, even in this strangest of Easters when none of our normal gathering will occur, it is important to celebrate, to feast, to fill our spaces with joy in whatever way we can manage.

It is important because we are living in the time of Saturday, and we need the reminder of why we do not despair, why we continue to work toward the coming Kingdom.

We need the reminder that no matter what happens on this earth,

Sunday is on its way.

And when the light of Sunday blazes over the horizon, all of the ugliness and horror that happened on Saturday will melt away like the morning fog.

This week, sit with your dashed hope, your disappointment and dread, even your fear on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, for these hard things are real.

But on Sunday prepare to celebrate.

For Sunday is also real, more real than any of those other things, and Sunday will be more glorious than your wildest dreams can imagine.

Sunday is coming.

Let him who walks in darkness
and has no light
trust in the name of the LORD
and rely on his God.
Isaiah 50.10

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

Art credits: Preparation of Christ’s Tomb by Vittore Carpaccio; The Angel Opens the Tomb of Christ by Benjamin Gerritsz Cuyp; Rabboni sculpture by Gutzon Borglum, photo by Kathleen Cole

The Resurrection Is Our Crocus

Posted on April 26, 2019 by Elizabeth

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

Reality.

All of creation conspires to teach us what is real.

When God created, He carefully crafted the laws of nature to point toward reality.

Every growing seed points to the reality that we must die in order to bear fruit.

Every autumn leaf points to the reality that in dying to ourselves, our true colors burst forth.

Every new birth points to the reality that new life comes only after great labor pains.

All of creation shouts out God’s beautiful reality.

Today, as I look out the window on a Palm Sunday in the middle of April and see this:

I am meditating on the reality that when the calendar says it is spring, when the crocus first peeps up from the ground, it is truly spring, even when it still feels like winter.

Because, let’s be honest, it still feels like winter in this world.

As refugees stream out of war-torn countries,

as friends fight deadly diseases,

as families continue to grieve beloved ones who have died,

it still feels like winter to me.

And yet.

I sit here on Palm Sunday, contemplating the Holy Week to come:

The road into Jerusalem which led to the giving of bread and wine,

a desperate prayer in a garden,

the cross.

The ghastliness of Holy Saturday and the knowledge that God is dead.

And then.

A weighty boulder moved easy like a feather.

An angel wondering at anyone presuming to find Jesus in a tomb.

A familiar voice: Mary

Jesus.

Alive.

Resurrection.

And suddenly I understand what I am truly seeing out of my window on this Palm Sunday in the middle of April, when the crocuses have peeped out their heads and yet snow lays heavy on the ground.

The resurrection is our confirmation.

Yes, it may still feel like winter all around,

but the resurrection is our crocus.

Spring is really here.

Art Credit: all photographs are mine, copyright Made Sacred 2019. And yes, I know that none but the last photograph are actually of crocuses. Mea culpa.

Easter Joy and Sorrow

Posted on April 19, 2019 by Elizabeth

I had another post ready for this week, but have been grieving my Gram and Papa a little more heavily this week, so decided to post this from the archives instead, as it more accurately describes my current feelings. May it bless you as well.

Easter.

Spring.

New life.

On Easter morning, my eldest ran into the living room where we had left Jesus on the cross the night before, eyes wide with hope of resurrection. “Daddy, look! Jesus left us flowers that God made!”

Hope and joy at the end of sorrow and pain. This is Easter.

On Easter morning, gathered with our Family, we sing

The greatest day in history

Death is beaten, You have rescued me

Sing it out, Jesus is alive!

Endless joy, perfect peace,

Earthly pain finally will cease

Celebrate Jesus is alive!

Oh, happy day, happy day…

My heart swells and overflows with emotions that at first glance seem to be at odds. For some time now, I often feel both joy and gratitude, sorrow and longing.

On Easter morning, the joy is easy. Jesus is alive!

Sorrow and longing, though, those are things that are more difficult. Yet they are real and, although hard, they are what should be.

My sorrow is over our first Easter without my Gram.

As we celebrate Jesus’ victory over death and as our family celebrates a new season of birth from my youngest brother and his wife, we miss Gram with a physical ache.

We acknowledge that all of this, this pain and death and sadness, is not how it was supposed to be. None of this existed before we rebelled against God.

And so I sorrow.

My longing is for that day of redemption and transformation. The day when earthly pain will cease and death will be banished for all time. I desperately wish to be gathered into Jesus’ arms and told that all is now well.

And so I long.

Sorrow and longing. At second thought, they are what we should feel. After all,

Our kind, heavenly Father has provided many wonderful inns for us along our journey, but He takes special care to see that we never mistake any of them for home. ~ C.S. Lewis

May I return for a moment to gratitude?

On Easter morning, as we worshiped together, we sang

You make beautiful things,

You make beautiful things out of the dust.

You make beautiful things,

You make beautiful things out of us.

My heart cries out “Why?”

Why do You love me that much?

You went to the cross to allow me to become a daughter of God. Wasn’t that more than enough? Why would You now also work so very hard to make beautiful things out of the dust that I am? Why would You pour so much into molding me into someone who looks like You?

There is much deep theology in this. Perhaps I will explore these things later.

For now, I will fall on my knees in gratitude for such deep love.

On Easter morning and beyond, I will let my heart swell with sorrow and longing, joy and gratitude, knowing that Jesus is alive.

art credit: The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise by Benjamin West; heaven picture; cross picture by Asta Rastauskiene

Echoes of Creation

Posted on April 21, 2017 by Elizabeth

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

He is risen!

He is risen from the grave and He is alive!

We rejoice in knowing that our debt is paid, that we will one day be with the God we love.

Yet perhaps you sometimes wonder. Is Easter only for our someday? Is there no piece of Easter that gives purpose for our today?

In the beginning…

John the Apostle begins his gospel with echoes back to Genesis.

In the beginning…

As he tells his gospel story, you can hear the reverberations of creation all throughout.

On that first day of creation, God spoke and there was light.

In the beginning was the Word…and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

Skipping ahead, on the sixth day of creation, God created man.

On Friday, the sixth day of the week, Pilate brings Jesus out before the people and declares, Ecce homo!

Behold, the man!

The new man. The new Adam. The man who was as we were created to be, who shows us what it means to be human and then offers himself as a sacrifice, thus making it possible for us to become like him.

On day seven, God rested.

On Saturday, the seventh day, God is in the tomb.

And then.

Listen to the way John tells what happened next.

Early on the first day of the week…

Do you hear it?

John is so deliberate with his words.

The first day of the week.

This is what Easter brings to our today.

The first day of the week. The first day of new creation.

Christ, his death and resurrection, has made a way for us to begin again. The old is gone away, the new has come. God’s kingdom is come to earth bringing restoration and healing in its wake.

As we obey Jesus’ instructions to love each other, to feed his sheep, we are allowed to help bring God’s kingdom to earth.

This is what Easter gives.

A chance to be a part of the new creation as it happens.

Rejoice!

He is risen!

He is risen indeed.

Resurrection Made Dull

Posted on April 8, 2016 by Elizabeth

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

They heard God’s voice and ignored it.

And not that “still, small voice” of God’s way down in the depths of their hearts, either.

They heard His loud, audible, filling-up-the-sky voice, just after Jesus came riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, and they ignored it.

They explained it away. They looked for the rain that must come since it was thundering, or even went so far as to call it an angel.

Anything but the voice of God.

Some things are too astounding, too wondrous for our hearts to accept.

The resurrection is one of those things.

The resurrection is anything but dull. The story of God becoming man, being defeated by man, and rising again to defeat death is the most heroic tale of all.

That man should play the tyrant over God and find Him a better man than himself is an astonishing drama indeed. ~ Dorothy Sayers

But it is hard to accept that we cannot save ourselves. It is humiliating to acknowledge that there is absolutely no way we can cleanse our own hearts. It is a bitter and unendurable truth that we are hopelessly imprisoned in our shadows and darkness.

The resurrection throws its light over our darkness in such a daring, audacious way that our helplessness is impossible to ignore.

So we choose to explain away the resurrection or else we attempt to dull its edges so that we cannot be cut.

We choose to explain it away as Jesus’ teachings becoming immortal in the manner of Shakespeare, or as the spirit of Jesus living on in us in the manner of Socrates, or as simply a manner of speaking in the symbolism of the human spirit conquering all.

Yet the resurrection refuses to be explained away.

You can call it nonsense or you can call it lies, but you cannot call it poetry.

You can deny the resurrection and live mired in the fear of inexorable death or you can believe the resurrection and allow it to bring you hopeful life in the now, but you cannot claim to believe in the resurrection and continue on in your darkness and dread.

The remarkable thing about it is that the real truth of the resurrection seems to be too strong for us, because it will not suffer itself to be hidden or concealed in these harmless clothes. ~ Karl Barth

Resurrection always bursts forth, rising up and shouting, “Do you truly believe that the only reason Jesus came, suffered, and died was to bring you empty comfort in the middle of the reality of life?”

No. Unequivocally no. The truth of the resurrection gives us certainty of our outcome. The truth of the resurrection gives us perfect assurance that death is, indeed, defeated and that we are, indeed, able to be presented before God pure and holy.

The truth of the resurrection blazes forth and tells us that everything has changed.

Truth is extraordinary, never dull.

He Is Saying Your Name

Posted on February 26, 2016 by Elizabeth

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

I have lived deep in pain.

When I wanted a baby and God said not yet.

When my brother called and said of his pregnant wife, it’s cancer.

When my Papa died the day my baby was born.

I have lost friends and family, I have been disappointed and lonely.

As have most of you.

You, too, have received the doctor’s call, heard the rejecting words, felt the crippling fear and doubt.

When you are in the middle of deep, dark pain, you are blinded. Your body curls in on itself, your eyes darken with tears. You look for Jesus, desperately searching for Him, but you cannot see Him.

In the deepest pain, He is closest.

Mary stood at the tomb, searching for Him. In the middle of her deepest pain, she searched for His dead body but was blinded by her grief. Angels spoke to her and she could not see. Jesus, the One she searched for, stood behind her and she thought He was the gardener.

And then.

Mary.

He is right here. As close as your very breath. And He is saying your name.

Look up. Wipe your tears away for just a moment and listen.

He is saying your name.

He has not left you. He is there, speaking to you. Can you hear Him?

He died and is alive and because of that resurrection, there is new closeness with Him.

I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.

There is resurrection and now there is intimacy that was not possible before.

In the middle of your deepest pain, do not wonder anymore where Jesus is.

Turn around. He is right there behind you. Closer than He’s ever been.

And He is saying your name.

This is Easter

Posted on April 3, 2015 by Elizabeth

Easter.

Spring.

New life.

It is an inevitable part of life that monochromatic winter begins to melt into spaces of bright color. Snow gives way to tulips and crocuses. Perhaps it is our necessary reminder that death is followed by new life. Our reminder of Easter.

It was our first Easter without Kristina.

On Easter morning, my eldest ran into the living room where we had left the figure of Jesus on the cross the night before, eyes wide with hope of resurrection. “Daddy, look! Jesus left us flowers that God made!”

Hope and joy at the end of sorrow and pain. This is Easter.

On Easter morning, gathered with our Family, we sang, “The greatest day in history, Death is beaten, You have rescued me. Sing it out, Jesus is alive! Endless joy, perfect peace, Earthly pain finally will cease. Celebrate Jesus is alive! Oh, happy day, happy day…”

During a celebration after tragedy, hearts swell and overflow with emotions that at first glance seem to be at odds. We feel both joy and gratitude, sorrow and longing.

On Easter morning, the joy is easy. Jesus is alive!

Sorrow and longing, though, those are things that are more difficult. Yet they are real and, although hard, they are what should be.

We all suffer. We all love and therefore all suffer because in our broken world, love means suffering. Those who do not love much do not suffer much. I would not grieve so deeply had I not loved Kristina so much. God loves our world and therefore God Himself suffers.

Such sorrow was felt over our first Easter without Kristina.

We acknowledge that all of this, this pain and death and sadness, is not how it was supposed to be. None of this existed before we rebelled against God.

And so we sorrow.

Our longing is for that day of redemption and transformation. The day when earthly pain will cease and death will be banished for all time. We desperately wish to be gathered into Jesus’ arms and told that all is now well.

And so we long.

Sorrow and longing.

At second look, we are reassured that these are what we should feel. After all,

Our kind, heavenly Father has provided many wonderful inns for us along our journey, but He takes special care to see that we never mistake any of them for home. ~ C.S. Lewis

At the end of it all, however, our hearts must return again to gratitude.

On that Easter morning, as we worshiped together, we sang, “You make beautiful things, You make beautiful things out of the dust. You make beautiful things, You make beautiful things out of us.”

Just as we did in the middle of our ugly places, our hearts cry out “Why?” Yet this time, it is a vastly different sort of why.

This time we ask, why do You love me that much?

You went to the cross to allow us to become children of God. Wasn’t that more than enough? Why would You now also work so very hard to make beautiful things out of the dust that we are? Why would You pour so much into molding us into people who look like You?

Let us fall on our knees in joy and with gratitude for such lavish love.

On Easter morning and beyond, let our hearts swell with both sorrow and longing, joy and gratitude, knowing that Jesus is truly alive, knowing that He has defeated death.

edited from the archives

art credit: The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise by Benjamin West; heaven picture; cross picture by Asta Rastauskiene

The Day God is Dead

Posted on April 11, 2014 by Elizabeth

Holy Saturday.

The day God is dead.

The day we lose God Himself.

Don’t miss this. Don’t rush through it. On the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, God is dead.

One part of the Trinity, yes, but God nonetheless.

The Word of God is gone. We can no longer hear Him.

Linger in this day. Does the earth feel different? Somehow vacant?

There is, for this day, no possible way to reach God.

And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

No Most Holy Place where the high priest could meet with God.

It is finished.

He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.

No Word of God in whom we can see the Father.

No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

Remain in this day as long as you can. I don’t understand how, but somehow this day exists on which we are completely isolated from God.

Breathe in the horror of this day. God is dead. He is, for this day, unattainable. Can you catch even a glimpse?

The disciples did. They lived it for what must have felt like an eternity.

We’d rather skip past this day, this Saturday that contains Christ’s body in the tomb. Yet we must linger if we are to grasp the power of Easter Sunday. We must dwell here awhile if we are to be allowed to hold the joy of Easter Sunday.

When the Son, the Word of the Father is dead, then no one can see God, hear of Him or attain Him. And this day exists, when the Son is dead, and the Father, accordingly, inaccessible. ~ Hans Urs Von Balthasar (theologian and author)

Can you feel the terror of it? Do you sense the incomprehensible void that stretches before us on this day? What does it even mean?

Do not rush too quickly past this Holy Saturday on your way to the miracle. You may miss the deepest part of the gratitude and joy that are to come.

The deepest gratitude and joy that come only when you understand what was absent, and understand that it was only for a day.

Art credits: Preparation of Christ’s Tomb by Vittore Carpaccio; Tomb of knight Philip Keerman in Flanders, Belgium; 1912 photograph of Jerusalem Garden Tomb by Dwight Lathrop Elmendorf; Side view of Garden Tomb by Deror Avi; Jerusalem Garden Tomb by Berthold Werner

Alive!!!

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Elizabeth

He is ALIVE!!!

Today, the tomb is empty.

Today, the earth is singing for joy.

Today, He has risen from the dead.

Today, He has proven beyond any doubt that He is able to fulfill His promises!

By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Rev. 21.3-5)

He is able!

He is ALIVE!!!

Art credits: Das Engel öffnet das Grab Christi by Benjamin Gerritsz Cuyp; Title page of the New Testament section of a Martin Luther Bible; The Resurrection by Luca Giordano

This season of Lent into Easter always leaves me with an ache in my heart.

I ache as I sit in the heart-wrenching tension between what is now and what is not-yet.

This year my heart has been even more tender than usual.

It is tender with an ache of longing for God to fulfill His promise to make all things new.

It is tender with an ache of longing for God to return and set all things right.

It is tender with an ache of longing for God.

We have sat in silent mourning through Lent, grieving our sin and our broken world and longing for Messiah.

We have rejoiced in exultation on Easter, celebrating Christ’s victorious defeat over sin and death.

Now we wake up to a world that is still sinning. still broken, still dying.

We trust, on our best days, that Jesus’ defeat of sin and death really happened, that God will not forget any of His promises, that God’s Spirit truly dwells inside of us.

And our hearts ache.

We are filled, more on some days than on others, with an aching, homesick kind of longing for what is still to come.

This is good. This is as it should be.

We should not be satisfied with this world in its brokenness.

We should not be satisfied with ourselves in our sinful nature.

We should not be satisfied to be physically separated from God.

Listen to this ache, for we are not yet home.

Let yourself feel this tenderness fully.

We should allow this ache in our hearts to spur us on to seek God more, to love God more, to love those around us more, to do all we can to bring His kingdom to rule on earth.

It is good to have seasons in which your heart is more tender, in which that longing ache is closer to the surface.

It simply means the end is not yet here.

On the day when our earth is made new, when heaven and earth are joined together, when Jesus descends from the clouds and we run into His arms,

On the day when God will dwell with us and we will be His people,

On that day, this ache we feel will melt away.

We shall be home.

For now, learn to be still and truly feel this ache in your heart. Let it draw you closer into the arms of the One who will someday heal you completely. You can trust Him.

Easter has already come.

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

Saturday of Holy Week is hard.

The disciples’ hopes are dashed. Disappointment and dread lie heavy in their stomachs. Fear is rising quickly in the face of an unknown future.

It feels right now as though we are living in Saturday.

Our hopes are dashed. Disappointment and dread lie heavy in our stomachs. Fear is rising quickly in the face of an unknown future.

Saturday is dark.

Yet – When darkness veils His lovely face, I’ll rest on His unchanging grace.

For we know something that Jesus’ followers did not.

Sunday is on its way.

No matter what your fear in this time of Saturday, Sunday is certain.

For the sick, for the hungry, for the hurting, for the jobless, for the homeless, for the lonely, for the grieving, for the abused,

Sunday will come.

This is why we celebrate Easter, to remind us of the glorious Sunday that is still to come.

This is why, even in this strangest of Easters when none of our normal gathering will occur, it is important to celebrate, to feast, to fill our spaces with joy in whatever way we can manage.

It is important because we are living in the time of Saturday, and we need the reminder of why we do not despair, why we continue to work toward the coming Kingdom.

We need the reminder that no matter what happens on this earth,

Sunday is on its way.

And when the light of Sunday blazes over the horizon, all of the ugliness and horror that happened on Saturday will melt away like the morning fog.

This week, sit with your dashed hope, your disappointment and dread, even your fear on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, for these hard things are real.

But on Sunday prepare to celebrate.

For Sunday is also real, more real than any of those other things, and Sunday will be more glorious than your wildest dreams can imagine.

Sunday is coming.

Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God. Isaiah 50.10

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

Reality.

All of creation conspires to teach us what is real.

When God created, He carefully crafted the laws of nature to point toward reality.

Every growing seed points to the reality that we must die in order to bear fruit.

Every autumn leaf points to the reality that in dying to ourselves, our true colors burst forth.

Every new birth points to the reality that new life comes only after great labor pains.

All of creation shouts out God’s beautiful reality.

Today, as I look out the window on a Palm Sunday in the middle of April and see this:

I am meditating on the reality that when the calendar says it is spring, when the crocus first peeps up from the ground, it is truly spring, even when it still feels like winter.

Because, let’s be honest, it still feels like winter in this world.

As refugees stream out of war-torn countries,

as friends fight deadly diseases,

as families continue to grieve beloved ones who have died,

it still feels like winter to me.

And yet.

I sit here on Palm Sunday, contemplating the Holy Week to come:

The road into Jerusalem which led to the giving of bread and wine,

a desperate prayer in a garden,

the cross.

The ghastliness of Holy Saturday and the knowledge that God is dead.

And then.

A weighty boulder moved easy like a feather.

An angel wondering at anyone presuming to find Jesus in a tomb.

A familiar voice: Mary

Jesus.

Alive.

Resurrection.

And suddenly I understand what I am truly seeing out of my window on this Palm Sunday in the middle of April, when the crocuses have peeped out their heads and yet snow lays heavy on the ground.

Let him who walks in darkness
and has no light
trust in the name of the LORD
and rely on his God.
Isaiah 50.10