Dayspring

Have you ever stared blank at the face staring back at you in the mirror and wondered how you got to feel so numb? Have you ever screamed all alone, knocking fists against a wall you couldn’t budge? Maybe tonight you’re face to face with some reality of terror or shame and you have no where to turn and nothing to do but grit your teeth and face another day methodically. Maybe you’re feeling called to face the painful realities of the world, but stuck in a haze of your own reality.

I was sitting high on my rooftop this past week, watching the sun peek up up over the highest apartment buildings and splash it’s joy all over the city below me. My bible was open to the resurrection account. Have you ever thought of it that Jesus appeared first to a grieving, weeping women? Mary was groping, searching; numb with the stark reality of Jesus’ crucifixion.

“Why are you weeping, whom are you seeking?”

“They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.”

I felt like Mary this week, groping in an empty tomb, seeing only the grave and the disappearance of a Savior. Maybe tonight you’re feeling that deep midnight of the soul inside the tomb of a shattered heart. Maybe some nightmare has come true for you, or just the normal reality of pain in the world has overwhelmed your heart like it has mine.

“Where is my Lord?”

I held the hands of a desperate women today as she cried out, “Where was my God?”

My own groping for Him seemed like waving hands into an endless abyss.

I was holding my little two year old friend this week as she stared at a picture of the crucifixion. When she perceived that the hands that held the scars were Jesus’, she said over and over in a heartbroken voice, “Jesus has pain! Jesus has pain!” I tried to show her the picture of Jesus resurrected and rising into the clouds, but she was insistent on staring at the painful nails in Jesus’ hands.

Some days we keep paging back to the crucifixion and feel the agony of a gethsemane that stretches into days and months. If something will leave you breathless and undone it is leaning into the raw reality of the world and our own hearts and facing them as it is with none of our smooth defense mechanisms in place. It really is that bad. And sometimes the badness catches us off guard, the rock bottom of evil falls and we see and feel something more evil than what we thought was possible.

When we stare too long at the evil it becomes a part of us somehow. The personal touches of evil have the capacity to uproot and challenge everything we once believed in. Some choose to discard the idea of Jesus, others choose to methodically recite the scripture they know without allowing it to penetrate their hearts. Others wrestle and grope for Jesus like Mary did; going to the tomb and searching.

When Jesus realized Mary didn’t recognize Him, He called her by name.

“Mary.”

And then she knew.

When I didn’t recognize Jesus this week He called me by name.

“Kate.”

And then I knew.

Jesus comes to you today, and when you can’t see His face through the crushing pain of your reality, He calls you by name. It’s hard to lift our head to face His presence. Terror and pain may seem to be a much more believable reality. The darkness of shame and oppression may feel like an ever present cloud, dimming or even obliterating his face. Yet, the reality of a resurrected Jesus has the power to redeem every part of us. The evil around us may torment and terrorize us; touch us and change us, but it cannot defeat us when we claim His power in the places where shame, oppression, and guilt have touched us most.

How do we claim His power and presence in the very darkest parts?

Jesus appeared to a weeping Mary, and His very presence must have filled her with absolute joy in believing. 2,000 years later, He is still coming to you and I at the tombs of our dreams and in the graves of our deepest devastations and although we may not feel Him, sense Him, or acknowledge Him He calls us by name.

“Because of the tender mercy of our God the dayspring {dawn, beginning of a new era} from on High has visited us.”

Maybe today you don’t know how to put one foot out to take another step towards Him. Maybe your emotional energy is depleted into nothing. Maybe prayer feels too difficult, and paging an open bible is just a motion. Maybe your groping hands have clenched into an angry, “Why?” Close your eyes with me tonight, and let go of all the pressures to fix and control the bad out there, and allow His presence to control the deepest recesses of your heart. Open your hands to receive Him, and your heart to feel Him. Tune your ears to listen as He whispers your name.

“_______________” (Insert your name here.)

And then you will know where your Lord is. He is there, in the deepest agony of your heart, and if you invite Him in He will become the Dayspring after the darkest midnight of your soul.

Photo by Roger Bradshaw on Unsplash