Wednesday, 4 September, 2002



From Between Cross & Resurrection by Alan E. Lewis

In many ways, today's piece by Lewis has made me re-view the three days from crucifixion to resurrection.



What do we see if we make the effort and muster the courage to examine the cross of Jesus Christ from the second-day frontier, looking back without knowledge of the future? The sight is melancholy, terminal, disastrous. Yesterday a man suffered hellishly and died; was buried; and is now perhaps in hell. That makes today a day of godlessness and putrefaction. What are we to make of his death after all he did and said and was in life? What does his dying make of us if he was the Life he said he was?



Reading along in Lewis' book I am marking up the pages and highlighting a number of things he writes. Then as I go back to use these pieces as the basis for these daily devotions, I was a bit concerned. My concern was with the fact that Lewis writes his entire book from the perspective of the day in the grave - death at its utmost. Dead and gone. The concern has to do with how many people do not like to hear about death. We like the battle that goes no prior to death for it is a time of heroic actions or accidents or fear and trembling. We also can fix our thoughts on the day of resurrection - everyone likes the image of the beautiful butterfly coming to life in a new form. But what do we do with the nothingness of death. Most often we even paint that with experiences...the tunnel...the light...the encounter with a heavenly being. But Lewis keeps forcing us to acknowledge and spend time within the deafening silence of the tomb. Now what!! For as much as we may not want to be there...all of us will be and have been in just such a place in time. There is no escaping it and there is no need to run from it. The tough part is learning to sit within it. That may be the place in which we will best hear the radical word that will speak of Life when there appears to be no hope at all.



Connection: I love to engage the present and I love to look forward to what will be. Sometimes I find myself at the "second-day frontier"...it can be a hard time. Today, we may want to prayerfully consider how we interact with one another knowing that death has a way of making us run from others and trust no one. How do we stand with people who are in the middle of those death moments in life without rushing them out of them.



Lord of the Living and the Dead, we know that you reign over all time. Keep us confident that you are present with us even as we face the possibility of no longer being who we may be today. In your presence we are able to engage each day and be strengthened for your service and life. Amen.