Leaving the center of the city, we made our way to the home of Caiaphas, the High Priest who condemned Jesus to death that twilight before His crucifixion. On that fateful eve, Jesus took to prayer in that Garden across the valley, pressed and poured out in surrender to the will of His Father. Like thieves in the night, men loyal to the Pharisees, tipped off by the betrayal of a kiss, grabbed Him by the arms and dragged Him to be placed on trial. Lugged up these steps, Jesus came face to face with His persecutors, who had plotted a way to end Him under the persuasion of that devil, the one who could not let the Lord of Creation see His plan through. Or so he thought.
Not a word escaped His lips as He was made a spectacle with every word coming out of the mouths of his accusers. He simply let it happen. As the night drug on, even his closest friends had abandoned him, lost in the confusion of the matter. “Wasn’t He supposed to be the Messiah? Shouldn’t we be doing something? Why isn’t He defending Himself? Was this what He had spoken about those many times before when He tried to warn us? I don’t understand, isn’t He the one who would save us?” Yet He remained silent as the bystanders around him hurled insults and spit in His face. Noise. Chaos. Silence.
Then it all went dark.
In that pit, waiting for His execution, we read Psalm 88. Pause. Read this Psalm in this context, allow the Spirit to minister to you.
I’m a very emotional being, so naturally, I wept. Nothing could have contained the waterworks that began as I felt everything He felt. They were convinced God has forsaken Him, that He had forgotten Him completely— abandoned, pierced, with nothing to look forward to but death. So they left him in that bottomless pit, drowning in a sea of sorrow as He wept in His desertion. The depth of his pain felt more real than ever before, in that small enclosed space with knowledge of what was to come looming over his head, lurking in every crevasse.
“My eyes are swollen with weeping. My arms are wide, longing for mercy, but you’re nowhere to be found. How can those who are cut off from your care even know that you are there? How can I rise up to praise you if I’m dead and gone?”
Have you ever felt alone? Jesus sees you. Have you ever felt abandoned, like your world was spinning out control? Jesus knows the feeling. Have you ever felt an overwhelming burden, too heavy to carry? He understands that too. Have you wept a sea of sorrow? He does with you. Every pain, every moment of anguish, every plea for help, He experiences it with you.
His misery concludes, “I’m drowning beneath the waves of this sorrow, cut off with no one to help. All my loved ones and friends keep far away from me, leaving me all alone with only darkness as my friend.” Even Jesus struggled with hope. Even Jesus had instances when He wanted it to just end. Moments when He felt his back pressed against the wall, the air leaving His body, as He gasped for safety, belonging, and security once again. The battle was just getting started for Him.
Leaving that house of trauma behind, He gets dragged once again along that road to annihilation. In a sea of shouting, roaring rage exploding, Body already shredded, He is forced to carry the vehicle of his completion until He could go no longer. Bleeding over that Cross before He had yet hung on it, He knew that His time had come. He freely, without any more hesitation, relinquished His life, went down to that permanently dark pit once and for all. So, sitting outside that borrowed grave, as the sun sunk in the sky, we partook of communion, our last act together in that Holy Land as my heart burned fiercely within. Blinking away tear after another, I remembered what He had done for me. What He had sacrificed for me. Who I was allowed to become because of Him. What I had finally seen firsthand because of Him.
Jesus, thank you. Thank you for it all. Thank you welcoming me into your family. For taking the once abandoned girl and turning her in to a freely, deeply, passionate, sold out for you, woman of faith. Thank you for healing her soul, with all its wounds and scars. For changing her from a cowering, fearful child to a bold, trusting daughter of the King. Thank you for giving me a new name, a new identity, and a new heart. Thank you for melting this heart and remolding it to look more like Yours. For giving me compassion and correction for a people I have wrestled with. For bringing me back to life. You died so that I could have life and to live it more abundantly than I could have before. Thank you for showing me the Land. For revealing Your goodness in the Land of the living! For radically changing me simply by bringing Your Word to life. For giving me a fresh hunger and thirst for more of who You are. For this gift I have been given to share with countless others.
So, the end is simply a beginning. We left that grave because He is no longer there. He’s inside of you and me. Thus I walk out, with a mountain, not a mustard seed, of faith. A phoenix arose from the ashes as that plane took flight, ready to embrace dying to the past and living for today. The season ahead would not be easy, full of turbulence, but I was ready to take it on for I was reminded that I am not alone.
If you get a chance, go to the Land. It’s worth the investment. Thank you for letting me take you along, though we’ve barely scratched the surface.
Lydia, you said it well “the end is just the beginning”. You know better than many how alone you can feel. Just like Jesus felt alone and abandoned during that time. And what seemed like the end of him turned out to be the beginning of new life. Not only for Jesus but new life promised for us. Do you remember seeing the giant Sequoias In California? Only when they go through a fire does the Sequoia send out its seed. You’ve certainly gone through the fire when you were alone. But Jesus met you. And now look at you. You have replicated Jesus’ seed into the lives of many others. Bringing more life and even more abundantly.