Easter Past Reflections
Good Friday begins like any other Friday. There is work to do. I am planning. Much needs to be done. It is an interruption in the schedule, these services I mean. My neighbors do not remember. There is not much memory left in the culture for this event, this day, this night. It is Friday and if I do not get it done today the last hope of having a solidly productive week will have been lost. But now I am reflecting on lostness. My mind struggles to focus, to redirect. Understanding the doctrine is not the same as salvaging the moment, of rescuing the soul and body from the torments of being consumed in the momentary. I begin to think, to muse, to perhaps perch on a loftier spiritual wing. My mind quickly returns to the mundane. Everything is about work and doing, doing, doing.
I am a redeemed man. There is a Spirit-infused soul, a life, a living Word and Branch that sweeps me along to places I would not go, but must. I want to go, to the services, to the Man, fearsome, lovely, wild. He is filled with strength yet He is beaten, He dies. The story is twenty centuries old. It is new each morning, each Easter morning.
What words do we offer? They have all been said. He has new life and peace. I have nothing to bring. That is what we cannot escape. He has all things but we have nothing to bring, not even to the conversation. The story is all told but it is never all told. I am changed and only for the better. His searching love found me out, hounded me to the ground. He took me from my work and working, and forced upon me rest. I must work the day is short. I must rest the night is long. And, in resting I am given the sinew to rise and labor for a kingdom not my own.
Many things are good but not all things are necessary. Good Friday and Resurrection Day drag us back. They sit us down to reflect against hurried, hurried, everything. The pressing and the urgent may sit for this little season. We will not exchange our souls for thirty pieces of silver. I am not Judas I am redeemed. I have calculated ahead. The decision is firm, I will not sell my soul, not in this season nor in any other. As the many turnings become a life, a recognition is chiseled out that I am not turning back. The cross, that cross, the one of which we contemplate with joyful tear and somber memory lifts our heads as well. He has redeemed us. We are not turning back. It is Easter.
For Christian Culture,
Don Schanzenbach 4-23-11
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Suspender Man™, Don Schanzenbach, has long been an outspoken advocate of recapturing culture for Christ. He holds a MA in applied Biblical studies and a doctorate in applied theological studies in the field of political philosophy and government from New Geneva Seminary. He has been thinking, writing and speaking on Christian culture for two decades.
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