Types & Shadows
Discerning Truth in the Arts and Culture
Resurrection Letters (Pt. VII) The Beginning
Today concludes our series of posts featuring Holy Week meditations written by Andrew Peterson
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VIII. THE BEGINNING
The blue-green earth turns on its axis, rolling Jerusalem into the light of the sun. It turns like a door swinging open, pouring light into a dark room.
Jesus inhales.
His flesh and blood lungs expand, retract; the pupils of his eyes adjust to the buttery light pouring in through the crack in the door. The muscles in his shoulders flex, his fingers open and fan once, curl into a fist, then relax. His heart pumps steady and strong in his chest, and the stuff of miracles crackles in the air about him.
His glorified body passes through the grave clothes, and Jesus grins in anticipation of the looks on his friends’ faces when he materializes in the room without bothering to use the door. He swings his feet to the floor, seeing the scars in his flesh and smiling again at the beauty of it all, if he does say so himself. Freedom for the captives. Hope for the weary. The bright unraveling of the curse that man brought upon himself. The valley of the shadow of death now glows with the light of the noonday sun and becomes lush and verdant and green as jade.
He trails his fingers on the damp stone walls, then steps into the light of the new day. He is pleased with the story he’s telling. He is satisfied with the price he paid, with the cup he drank, bitter as it was, and most of all he is satisfied that he can now love his weak and wayward children with all of himself. The holy part of his nature that could bear no iniquity from man has been satisfied. There could be goodwill henceforth, from God to man. At last.
The sun warms his face. He closes his eyes and feels in a flash the hearts of all men and women from the beginning of things to the end, from Adam to Abraham to you and I in this room on this night, and with each thump of the holy heart in the frame of his ribcage he loves enough to overwhelm us all. Love set loose on the world. Love like a roaring lion, like a thunderclap of deep laughter.
From the moons of Jupiter to the center of our boiling sun, out past numberless stars to the walls of the universe, that laughter resounds and makes its way back to the ears of the figure standing at the mouth of the tomb.
“It is finished!” Jesus cried in his agony on the cross. Now he thinks of the Kingdom he is making, of the world he is redeeming, of the living hope he has unleashed.
He smiles to himself and agrees with the Father.
“It has only just begun.”
Resurrection Letters (PT VII) The Hungry Tomb
We are continuing our series of posts featuring Holy Week meditations written by Andrew Peterson
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VII. THE HUNGRY TOMB
I want to turn away from this part of the story.
I want to close my eyes on it, partly because my love for you makes it difficult to bear, and partly because I am ashamed of myself. I’m afraid that I’ll see my own face in the mob, among the teachers of the law, in Pilate, in the men who beat you. You are despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces.
But I watch. I watch as you are whipped, mocked, nailed to the cross, and lifted up. I force myself to watch.
“It is finished,” you say, and then the life and light of men dies.
The mob clears beneath a black, churning sky, as black as the sorrow or terror they feel in their chests. The Sabbath is coming, and Joseph of Arimathea of all people knows that no man’s body is to hang overnight, especially during Passover. Pilate gives his permission and Joseph comes trembling to the foot of the cross. There stands the Jewish leader, his robe whipping in the angry wind, his back bent before your wrecked body, crooked on the crossbeams. Joseph lays the linen-shrouded flesh and bones of the son of God in his own tomb just as evening descends and brings with it God’s holy day of rest.
We all have tombs that await us, open-mouthed and hungry for our bones, but the author of life lies there in our stead. You died so that we who come sorry and helpless to the foot of your cross may rest on the Sabbath knowing that it is not ourselves in our graves, but you.
That atonement was made would have been enough. But in the riches of your grace and great power, we rest on the Sabbath knowing that the tomb is not the final word. Great God, we are overcome with joy and thanksgiving and all manner of gladness that
the tomb is not the end of the story.
Just wait, you say. You will see my wonders.
Resurrection Letters (Pt. V & VI) Enemies and Friends
We are continuing our series of posts featuring Holy Week meditations written by Andrew Peterson
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V. LOVE YOUR ENEMIES
Judas.
Doomed to be the one who would betray the son of God, misguided, obsessed with money, wracked with a destructive, cowardly shame that left him swinging from a rope with his neck stretched and his head cocked. You knew it would be him. The night you broke the bread, your eyes met his, and he knew that you knew. Judas went and betrayed his rabbi. It would’ve been a dastardly thing had you been an ordinary man, and you were anything but ordinary.
Judas saw the wonders you did, the authority with which you taught, and heard you declare yourself the son of God more than once. He had no excuse. It was clear to those in your company that you were made of a goodness that rendered betrayal unthinkable.
But Judas, whatever his reasons, did the unthinkable.
Resurrection Letters (Pt. IV) Rememberance
We are continuing our series of posts featuring Holy Week meditations written by Andrew Peterson
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IV. REMEMBRANCE
Remember, you told them.
With a loaf of tough bread and a cup of grape wine, you gave us all the gift of remembrance. You know how fallible our memories are, how
prone we are to rationalize the spectacular and to sensationalize the mundane, and so you set in motion a ritual that would tether our fancies to earth and history and truth.
You broke the bread, and you thanked the Father for it; the one whose word lit the galaxies gave thanks for bread. You called it your body, and the apostles stared at you dumbfounded for a moment before they ate of it.
You took the cup and offered it to them, and you told them it was the blood of a new covenant, poured out for many. With the bits of bread still in their teeth and crumbs in their beards they looked at one another with questions on their faces.
Around went the cup and the apostles drank.
You told them it was for remembering, but what they were to remember hadn’t yet happened and so it would be at least another week before they began to understand what you were telling them. I’m sure they wanted to know what you were talking about, but something in the look on your face stayed their tongues.
It’s been two thousand years now, more or less. We kneel with contrite hearts and accept the gift of remembrance. We call it communion.
We accept the gift of your flesh and blood, and we offer you only our helplessness. We bask in mercy and rise from the table blessed, full of joy, because we have remembered.
Because we have been remembered.
Resurrection Letters (PT. III) The Fig Tree
We are continuing our series of posts featuring Holy Week meditations written by Andrew Peterson
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III. The Fig Tree
You woke in the morning and walked along with your friends. Peter saw the fig tree you had cursed the day before, now withered and dead. While you slept, the life hissed out of the leaves, the branches clenched like knuckles, the roots curled up like the legs of a dead spider. The tree bore no fruit because it wasn’t the season for fruit, and yet you cursed it.
Sometimes I’m afraid that I’m that fig tree and you’ll approach me when I’m faithless and wayward and you’ll banish the life from me. Or maybe you were just cross that the world you made didn’t recognize you, even down to the trees themselves. Satan had so twisted the good world you made that the tree that might’ve blossomed at its maker’s approach merely languished in the heat, as dead and unresponsive to your presence as I so often am.
Whatever the tree’s significance, your power was plain to the disciples that morning, as it is to me now. You drew their eyes away from the fig tree to remind them about faith and forgiveness, and if they were better able to hear you by the death of the tree, then that too is fruit.
And maybe the story of the withered tree is not to make me afraid, but to show me you were hungry, and you were human. If you weren’t human, then all that follows is farce.
Resurrection Letters (Pt. II) The Shepherd King
We are continuing our series of posts featuring Holy Week meditations written by Andrew Peterson
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II. The Shepherd King
You steer the donkey through the gates of Jerusalem. Centuries before, in this same city, King David wrote his songs and sang
your praises. You think of the timbre of his voice, the earnest heart, the long nights on the roof of the palace when the great king remembered how to be a shepherd boy again, alone in the dark pasture but for the sheep in his keeping and the quiet stars.
In your mind you can see him:
King David, barefoot on the airy roof, sitting on the edge of a kingly chair, his harp like a woman in his arms, his mind bending heavenward as he prays with that boyish frankness you delighted in.
Would even David have known what you came to do? If David had been alive on the day of your coming, would he have known the kingdom you were bringing would be of a holy matter, stronger than stone and sharper than steel?
Even David would have been wrong. No man can fathom your ways. No mind could’ve alone foreseen the Kingdom as you would make it.
Holy Week Meditations by Andrew Peterson
Andrew Peterson is a favorite of ours here at Types and Shadows. He is an amazing songwriter as wellas an amazing writer. A few years ago he penned some Holy Week meditations that I return to each year entitled Resurrection Letters. They are beautiful and inspiring and I hope they encourage you as they have encouraged me.
Note: I should have started posting these on Saturday. I will catch up by tomorrow night. BE ENCOURAGED!
I. THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY | Lord, forgive us.
We welcome you in because we think you’ll give us what we want. We act as if our true motives are hidden from you—you who made the world with a word. We spread our coats and wave our hands and cry “Save us!” and you ride with your back straight and your face drawn, accepting our hosannas because you know that even if the heart is false the words are true, and for now, that is enough.
Born, Raised, and Handcrafted
Scott and I are fans of art and craftsmanship in all of their varied forms. I have enjoyed John Mayer’s latest record Born And Raised and have enjoyed looking at the artwork. however, there is something amazing about learning what goes into a particular piece of artwork. Knowing the skill, determination, hard work, and passion of the artist allows you to take your appreciation and enjoyment of their work to the next level. I was blown away as I watched the video (below) of David A. Smith’s work in creating the album artwork for Mayer’s latest record.
In such craftsmanship we see the image of God, the creator, whose work is infinitely more creative, passionate, and inspiring. In taking the time to learn what goes into such craftsmanship we allow ourselves to see the image of God on the artist allowing us to think on him or her with the dignity they deserve. I know nothing of the faith (or lack thereof) of Mr. Smith but the fingerprints of his creator are all over his work.
Take the time to watch this video. At 18 minutes it is a little lengthy but like the artwork is showcases, patience and deliberateness have their rewards.
The Exact Place…is God’s place.
“From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live”
Paul, in Athens. Acts 17:26 NIV
The Westminster Confession of Faith Larger Catechism Questions 12 asks, “What are the decrees of God?” and then answers without ambiguity that, “God’s decrees are the wise, free, and holy acts of the counsel of his will, whereby, from all eternity, he hath, for his own glory, unchangeably foreordained whatsoever comes to pass in time, especially concerning angels and men.”
I admittedly have a hard time with this. Not because I don’t believe it and not because I don’t believe God to be sovereign or that scripture can contain seemingly irreconcilable differences yet still be inerrant. No, my difficulty with this wonderfully encouraging Catechism is that I want to be God. I want to be the one who chooses my “exact places” and I want to be the one who believes that I have a better plan than the One who created me. The great news is that my story, my geographic situation and my circumstances upon which I thankfully embrace are not what I would have chosen. There is freedom in trusting a sovereign and loving God who uses all of our “exact places” for his pleasure and his good will and like Margie, I wouldn’t change a thing.
In her book, The Exact Place* Margie Haack writes a beautiful story of how a Midwestern girl living in a bucolic wilderness finds the love of her Creator through poverty, pain, rejection and relationships.
Growing up in Northern Minnesota Margie found life to be brutally honest and at times as biting as the northern winter winds. Having visited the northern great plains I find it difficult to ignore the unrelenting and pervasive theme of need. Margie’s story is just that, a wonderfully written memoir that blends the lightheartedness of childhood experiences with the difficult realities that living on a farm in the great white north can bring.
As any good memoir does, The Exact Place especially calls its reader to think and ponder on his/her own story. I was reminded of the ugliness of childhood teasing and the utter cruelty of sibling rivalry. But deeper than the anecdotal humor of children and all of the inconveniences that they bring Margie reminds us of a reality that plagues each and every one of us no matter our geography, climate, economics or family life; the longing to be pursued, invited into, rejoiced over and wanted by a father who is safe, strong, loving, and good.
The longing to be wanted is not unique to Margie or any of us who had a difficult relationship with our father. This desire is something that even those of us who had a great father still long for. We ache for these things because written deep upon our hearts is the desire for reconciliation. It is only when the reality of the exile from our Creator sets in that we can then see how God uses his love for us through the work of Christ to bring us into a love far more perfect and beautiful than any earthly father could give.
My “exact place” was not what I would have picked either but I recognize with Margie that God uses his perfect plan for our good no matter where he has us. The beauty of Margie’s story is not only in her ability to tell it so excellently, viz. the funny situations of childhood and the unfamiliar circumstances that farm life brings, but more so in what her reader is beholden to as her vulnerabilities and insecurities are exposed to the love of a Father far greater than we could ever fathom; so wonderful that it is hard to take in.
There are times when my insecurities lead me to become jealous for what I think others have that I do not. I get frustrated with God believing him to be unfair or cruel. But where social media tends to paint pictures of falsified bliss and can, at times, breed discontent in its casual and de-contextualized observer, Margie’s story does just the opposite. In the midst of the story I was given over to a wonderful sense of contentment as I was reminded of the reality of life and how through it all God cares.
I still struggle to be loved. I believe that it will always be difficult for me. But I believe in a God who is there and who has not abandoned us, who comes down into our suffering, who welcomes instead of rejects and loves instead of leaves. Thank you Margie for being vulnerable to us so that we might see the love of God in our exact places. Read this book.
*Kalos Press 2012 www.doulosresources.org
