It is Holy Week.
I woke up this morning feeling heavy…weighted down.
A sorrow and grief that has been nagging at me seemed to surface in my heart before I even got out of bed.
I felt like God was so far away.
“Where are you, God?”
Have you felt that way before? Have you ever found yourself wondering and wandering in God’s silence?
The rain, pouring down heavy on our roof and drenching every nook and cranny of our city, seemed to echo the heaviness in my heart this morning.
For some odd reason, it seems to make me more attune to the solemnity of this Holy Week.
Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:4-6
Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…
Jesus…the weight of the cross…the splintering edge of the wood as it rested on his flesh…bore my grief…carried my sorrows.
He was bruised – crushed – for our iniquities.
I am trying to fathom the depth of such love. All my wrongdoings…my sins…the intentional and unintentional times I fail…for all of those, he was bruised.
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
Isaiah 53:10
It pleased the Lord to bruise Him.
It pleased the Lord.
God did not spare his son.
He was not pleased to see his son suffer, but he was pleased knowing that, through Christ’s sacrifice, the world would know salvation and reconciliation with God.
What strikes me so profoundly is that the weariness I am feeling today…the weightiness of this grief…was carried by Christ as he walked to his death.
The sorrows that I feel…that we feel…were on his mind in every step and every harsh beating that he took.
And Jesus knows, and is acquainted with, the silence of God.
In the heaviness, there is comfort.
In the weariness, there is strength.
In the uncertainty and disappointment, there is hope.
In the grief, there is peace.
He knows our sorrows…he has already carried them.
He knows our pain…he has already felt it.
He knows right where we are…what we are facing…the challenges that are in our hands and the ones coming…he has gone before us.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation.
2 Corinthians 1:3-7
Holy Week.
As I walk through this week…still keenly aware of the weariness of my heart…I walk in Christ’s comfort.
You, as well, may walk in the comfort of the One who was bruised for the very heartache you are feeling right now.
There is no suffering that Christ cannot console.
He has felt every wound and the sting of every pain…every disappointment and every hard and heavy step.
This week leads us to the greatest moment the world has ever known…the hope we have…the reason for our very being.
Redemption…salvation…hope and renewal.
Holy Week reminds us to keep our eyes looking upward…to keep our hearts turned towards him…the One who was bruised for us.
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