Losing Words

A odd truth reveals itself every year about this time, it seems that the task for writing something meaningful about Easter grows larger and larger. It is not the bare facts of the Cross\Resurrection events or the baseline meaning of them that is hard. It's not a lessening of the appreciation for and the joy which continue to grow at the thought of Jesus' resurrection.  But as I grow older and become more aware of my own sin and the enormity of the sacrifice Jesus took to save me from myself  and the world from itself, then the meaning behind the facts of Easter leave me more and more speechless. I can say the same for the Incarnation, for that matter. Consider that God- Holy, Creator, and Ruler of the Universe loves His creation to the point of sacrifice; withholds judgment to the point of absurdity in hope of eliciting a loving response, and opens His greatest treasure (knowing Him deeply) to former rebels who can by faith, become lovers of Him and His Kingdom- Remarkable! How do mere words from a finite creature begin to capture one scintilla of the love and grace of God?!?

They can't. And the truth is I seem to be losing words even while the appreciation grows deeper. In writing about Easter one tries to explain the unimaginable, come to grips with the unfathomable, understand the infinite and communicate it all with words and sentences that are all too ordinary. The longer I am a Christian and the longer I contemplate what Christ has done the bigger Easter grows. It doesn't become something that grows smaller and more understandable with time and study and living. Jesus' awe, beauty, wonder and sacrificial love only multiply. Words fail me.

Another problem encountered in seeking out the Unsearchable is the frame of reference. We have never lived in a world that hasn't known resurrection power. We have ignored it, misused it, and abused it but we have never lived in a world that hasn't had someone, somewhere proclaiming that Jesus lived, died for mankind's sin, and rose from the grace defeating death. You and I can't imagine a world without hope. We have all faced or known situations and circumstance that gave no hope for that slice of time. Maybe it was hunger in Somalia,  fires in west Texas, tornadoes in the south, war in the middle east, bears on Wall Street, shootings on the border, war, job loss,  cancer or a thousand other evils in this broken world that took away hope for that moment in time.  But even in the most horrific circumstances that focus our fear on the hands of the clock in front of us, we have always, since the resurrection, had nailed scarred hands pointing us toward eternity . John Lennon wrote, "... imagine there no heaven...it's easy if you try..." No, John, I'm sorry, but for the Christian that fluffy sentiment has become impossible. Everything we are, have and hope for is framed with eternity. A well know lady with very agnostic views was once heard by a magazine editor to have uttered these two phrases while their airliner encountered engine trouble: "Oh, God, please, no!"and later when the plane landed safely, "thank-God!" When the editor asked her about those utterances later she said it meant nothing, they were just expressions. Some expressions. The cross and the resurrection are also just expressions: the expressions of a loving God who reaches from heaven into the temporal by means of the incarnation to give a glimpse of and a taste of His eternity. That glimpse and that taste give us a hunger for Him and His life. That is hope. The cross\resurrection give us the promise that hope will be realized. Imaginations fail me.

Words fail me. Imagination fails me. The resurrections declares that Christ doesn't fail me. The hope and the promise live because He does. Maybe a fitting epitaph for folks trying to capture Easter in words and utterly failing could be this:


                       Lost my words in His wounds,
                      Lost my wounds in His Word.

To the day we find our voices in the King's song,
Cos