Until the Resurrection...

Finally, Passion week. The week that brings into focus all of our suffering. As Ann Voskamp likes to say, in remembering His passion we are re-membered in the midst of ours. Being joined with Him in His death, we are miraculously made whole again. 

His dismembering, bones taken out of joint, hands and feet impaled, side pierced, flesh torn, Sonship severed, is our re-membering.

But somehow, we don't like to dwell here, in this, our very life. For Lent I read through the gospels, stopping after Jesus was dismembered, after He has breathed His last and was laid in the tomb. But every time I so desperately wanted to read further, to read resurrection, He is risen, and to know that everything would be alright. 

What I'm realizing now, though, is that it isn't just resurrection that makes everything "alright." Resurrection requires death to precede it, and so in death, as much as in resurrection, is everything made right. And in a way we dwell in death, between the last breath and the empty tomb, until that day of final resurrection.

Christ is risen, He is risen, indeed!