In life no house, no home
my Lord on earth might have;
in death no friendly tomb
but what a stranger gave.
What may I say?
Heav'n was his home;
but mine the tomb
wherein he lay.
On Holy Saturday Jesus lay in someone else’s tomb. God in Christ is homeless, lifeless, the lips of the Word sealed in silence. But the finality of death is not the final word. “We see Jesus…crowned with glory and honour, that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”
Those last three lines are like the three first pencil lines of light heralding dawn, the new day, a world made new. But not yet. That question of the baffled, speechless heart is the ultimate rhetorical question – “What may I say?” Nothing. “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all.”
Prayer: Lord, it is “hard for our words to stretch to the measure of eternal things without breaking beneath us.” As well stand under Niagara with a bucket, as try to capture in words the meaning and mystery of your love for all you have made, including me. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. Amen
The image is William Blake's pencil sketch of the Trinity. I have always found this to be a deeply moving depiction of divine love, both intimate and cruciform.
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