The Day Before Easter...

I wrote my Heavenly Father a letter:

What a remarkable journey we have been on together this year, eh?

Bound by the guilt of my sin and trapped in the lies of failure and performance, I have found such freedom in your overpowering forgiveness. I know that I’ll be in the throes of learning your kind of grace for a long time coming, but this season of life has opened my eyes to yet another facet of life with You.

We celebrate Easter tomorrow—officially, as a body. I’ve been feeling guilty because the distractions of life and relationships and school and scheduling (all good things, when brought under your authority, I’ve realized) have been my focus lately, instead of the sacrifice that we’ll formally recognize tomorrow.

But I’m beginning to understand that while I’ve been hurtling a million miles a minute the past few months, and beating myself to a pulp when I fail to “measure up”, You’ve been stirring in my heart. At times, you’ve been silent, but you’ve been no less fully present in my struggle to grasp how truly gracious you can be.

You don’t require me to handle my time effortlessly, flawlessly. Sometimes I make mistakes. Sometimes I refuse to follow you into an uncomfortable situation and I miss an opportunity. Sometimes I distract myself with mindless activity instead of reading your word and praying and listening and… being. You don’t ask me to be a machine, producing good works for your approval. My time with you doesn’t always have to look a certain way in order to be “right” or “normal” or “on track.”

But… you are HOLY. You are RIGHTEOUS. You are flawless— WITHOUT SIN.

Shouldn’t you want holy, righteous, perfect, sinless people, Lord? Isn’t that what you deserve? (Answer: Absolutely.)

And herein lies the conflict. It is a conflict that should exist, but doesn’t—this conflict between our sinful nature and your perfect divinity. We cannot possibly, through any power of our own accord, be the people you deserve. And when it comes to what we ourselves deserve, well… it’s not much. It’s just death, really.

And it all comes back to this event that occurred some 2,000 years ago, which I’m going to sing about and reverently observe tomorrow.

How real you have made it for me this year, the heaviness of your sacrifice. I don’t have to live under the shame of my failure and selfishness. You are not an angry judge just waiting for me to screw up to a point where you have to take something away. My walk is not blameless because I am living blamelessly, but because Christ did, and He took my place. You left your throne and became the least of these so that we could live in freedom.

And so how could we ever be the same? How can we keep on living a life of works and performance?

“I don’t have to carry the weight of weight of who I’ve been, ‘cause I’m forgiven.”

Praise the One who paid our debt. This resurrection life cannot stay silent!