A New Beginning

- for me, for you

We cannot know fully the breath, depth, height and expanse of the Love that made Jesus hang on the Cross for me, for you.

But we can respond to that Love.

What would move the Creator Whom Heaven and earth cannot contain, to be born in a humble manger for us, to move among us with a beauty, a majesty and a poise that would be marked for the ages - and then be flogged, spit upon, buffeted, slapped, nailed on a Roman cross for us, with a crown of thorns upon His head?

The prophet Isaiah does not dare to fully explain this Love. But he tells us very plainly, in some of the most beautiful, profound, earth-shattering words ever written, the purpose of this great Love:

He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities,

The chastisement of our peace was upon Him -

And with His stripes, we are healed.

For a broken, bruised, world, the God of the universe decided to be broken, bruised and bleeding Himself.

He even tasted that old enemy for us - death. And then, by the Resurrection, dealt death the decisive death-blow for me, for you. The Orthodox Christian song is the message of Easter - “he has destroyed death by death.”

In the English poet Issac Watt’s celebrated hymn, “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross,” the Saviour upon the Cross is already calling us to the new life that is possible by surrender to Him:

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

The worst possible thing that could have happened to Jesus, the Cross, was turned by Him into the best possible thing that could happen for mankind, the Resurrection.

The great philosophers of the world have laboured long, laboured hard and laboured in vain to explain suffering. And the cosmic meaning of suffering has always been beyond the grasp of our finite minds.

But the Cross of Jesus shows us that the God of the universe takes part in the human lot, takes part in our suffering - and then offers us the astounding triumph of the Cross, the Resurrection. No philosophy here - but profound, shattering Love, asking for our response, our giving ourselves to Him in surrender.

The poets have tried always to recreate for us the beauty and truth they believe must last forever. The fragility of life itself is often the stuff of their song - since both the apparent, utter futility of death and the breath-taking beyond of eternity have seduced their quivering pens. And we all feel with the poet, that such things as love and beauty and truth deserve to last forever - even the love between girl and boy, man and woman. Can these last forever?

The Resurrection shows that there is available for all who believe, a new beginning - an “about turn” if you will, for the destiny of human beings. So that instead of death being an end, it becomes a new beginning. And life and love and beauty and truth do not then die, but live forever. “Dust to dust” has turned to dust to eternal life instead.

After His Resurrection, Jesus walked with two of His distraught disciples as they were returning home from Jerusalem - a distance, the account informs us, of about eight miles. This was the road to the village of Emmaus.

They did not know it was Jesus Himself who walked with them. But they shared their sorrows, their broken lives, with Him.

When they invited him to their home, they still did not know that it was Jesus. But when they broke bread together, Jesus revealed Himself to them - and then he vanished out of their sight. And with that, the new beginning of a new and eternal life had begun. No longer were those disciples’ lives to be reckoned in earthly terms - but in terms of the risen, eternal Son of God who had just been in their midst.

The Gospel account records the unspeakable joy of the disciples as they rush back to Jerusalem to proclaim to their friends that Jesus was risen, was alive. As they go, they recall how their hearts had “burned within them” even as they had made their way earlier that evening with Jesus, to Emmaus: “And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, saying, The Lord is risen indeed”

My poem, “Emmaus” can be found in my book of poems, “To A Nurse Friend Weeping.” Here it is, for my readers:

EMMAUS

Every homeward step like summer’s spring -

sedate, infused with newness, settled,

but scrambling for new and urgent life.

The dust cool upon the skin,

and one sparrow another chasing

into a newly bemused sky ...

Dusk’s shadows scarcely heeding the miles,

the miles, scarcely the darkness heeding.

Had he not heard of flayed flesh,

Roman nails, Jewish tomb now empty?

Had they not heard of love multiplied

or death’s demise foretold?

And as mortal mules, camels, travellers

passed them by, he too would have gone,

melted into death of spring ...

but he was asked to stay.

The cold, stone walls now held

another dispensation unaware;

bread in clay oven baked;

hands lately pierced,

by love immobilized, now free

to break the clay-wrought bread.

Three of them, then only two -

another Kingdom dawning;

and two burning hearts

upon the way remembered.

This beautiful story of a new dispensation for mankind has been told by the great artists too. Here below, is the painting of the “Supper at Emmaus” by the Italian master, Caravaggio - in it, it is beginning to dawn upon the startled disciples that it is Jesus Himself in their midst, eternity meeting mortality as they break bread together:

The early Christians greeted each other on Easter Day by saying, “Christ is risen!” To which the reply would ring out, “He is risen indeed.”

He is risen!!

I wish all my readers a most Happy Easter!!