âThe resurrection of Christ means everything sad is going to come untrue, and it will somehow be greater for having once been broken and lost.â
DR. TIM KELLER
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE CROSS
What is it about brushing up against beauty and pain all at once that makes us come alive? What is it about tasting both life and death on the same breeze that makes us breathe deeper? What is it about this tender dance we are all wrapped up in that is most vivid and potent as soon as we realizeâat lastâthe music must stop?
These are the very questions I have been chewing on this past week as I have fasted (mostly) from work, social media, and the world at large so I could turn my attention toward this Holy Week, my family, and my next poetry book, Exalted Ground.
These are the feelings I am doing battle with as I learn to love them for exactly what they are: the stinging beauty of new life and innocence that we see in babies and the first day of spring, and the burning reminder of death as we watch our bodies come apart or hold onto a loved one whose body is falling apart.
We must stay. We must go.
We must love. We must let go.
It seems these most startling realities of the human existenceâthis living loreâare what make The Cross and what Christ came to do on it all the more moving and raw and haunting and gripping (and every other word this humble writer can conjure up to paint a moving picture of what it is to be alive and face these times with a sober mind and romantic heart).
The things we feel deep down in the marrow of our bonesâlong before having read a Bible or having been told what we ought to feelâmean we know all of it is true: that there is a God who made this world from love, that He came to know us, that He lived this human life for himself and faced all of the startling beauty and pain at once, that He willingly died for us an unbearable death, and thenâ
AND THENâŚ
that He rose again to save us from the darkest part ourselves and to overcome the darkest parts of this worldâ
that we all might live again and be restored one dayâ
so that everything wrong would be put back rightlyâ
so that everything lost would be found and found more sweetly having been lostâ
Yes, this is the way of The Cross:
It is a sacred intersection made of wood and nails where divinity, man, beauty, pain, life, and death all merged at once, and in doing so, created the pinnacle of existence for all of mankind and the whole Universe for all of Eternity.
Does this move you? Does it allow you to stand bravely and wholly in the face of every blessing and trial you may face? To say, âYes, Father!â to everything?
Yes, to beauty. Yes, to pain. Yes, to love. Yes, to being saved.
I hope it does.
I pray it does.
Shalom to you.
Shalom.
AN EASTER POEM FOR YOU
I know I have shared this poem before, from Of Wings and Dirt, but it is an Easter poem of sorts, so it feels right to close with âStill Life.â Be blessed, dear soul.
(PSâ Thank you for making Of Wings and Dirt a number one best-seller in Christian Poetry for two weeks on the Amazon New Release Chart! Grab your copy now!)
STILL LIFE
by Kimberly Phinney
It is an ancient scene before me: a wooden table for banqueting (a rugged cross for crucifying,) with fruit ripened and cradled in baskets (a heart of flesh cupped by sagging ribs,) and roses in full bloom strewn about, (His head wilting in anguish beneath a crown,) a collection of lifeâ (a sacrifice of life) with fine strings, prose, and ink wells. (with lashings, thorns, and driven nails.) The perfect still lifeâyet amidst it all: a skull with black socketsâ moribund yet hungry. (a divine mouth in grimaceâ wine-soaked yet thirsting.) Giving warning: (Speaking love:) Memento mori. Or âRemember you must die.â (Hodie mecum eris en Paradiso. or âToday you shall be with me in Paradise.â) Oh, it is the way of manâ that on our last day we go down to the dead! (Oh, it is the way of Christâ that on the third day he rose again!) The End. (Selah and Amen.) â
A most blessed Easter Sunday and Easter Monday to you!
You belong here,
me
I love this. Thank you for sharing, Kimberly!