Here in our neck of the woods, a couple of warm days in early April brings out neighbors we haven’t seen since last fall. I saw one of mine come out of hibernation yesterday, wearing an apron that looked like a basket of Easter eggs. She and her husband keep their property in immaculate condition, and she was busy sweeping the winter dust bunnies off her front porch. It’s a season of new beginnings as our landscapes comes alive with pink and yellow bulbs, and our streets are ablaze with motorcycles racing at breakneck speeds.
Acceleration is, after all, part of what spring is all about. We are quick to soak up as much sun as we can, sing a couple of hallelujahs and kick things into high gear. Two thousand years ago, the same thing happened when new believers in Jerusalem rushed to get a glimpse of their new king Jesus, only to watch him be ridiculed, tortured, and sentenced to death on a Roman cross. He was the New Spring, walking with a greener vision among those “least, lost and the lonely.”
It is always interesting to ask a Christian about their salvation story, especially this time of year. There is never one of those stories that is boring, but they are often joyfully tearful. I have shed a few tears myself when I talk about the path that led me to need a Savior, and like many, they begin along a dark path with twists and turns that made me question my very existence or purpose.
Along my way, a mentor of mine likened the journey to walking through a dark tunnel. He encouraged me to walk looking ahead, even when the way was pitch black and dingy. Squinting ahead, down the narrowing space, he told me there was a light, a tiny dot, giving me a clue to the direction to be followed. I wasn’t clear whether this was a real light or a momentary flash. Stepping towards some unknown goal, with unsure footing and no handholds, would feel frightening and not worth the risk, and with each step I took, my mentor warned me the darkness behind me would beckon me to turn back, and sometimes that draw would feel stronger than the light. However, the only way to the end, he said, was through the tunnel, towards that beacon of light that would hush the voices behind me while fortifying the notion that there would be something better at the other end.
And so it is with the Christian walk, even in the midst our King’s death. We are moving forward in spite of the mostly unlighted tunnel we travel through. We try to lean in on the good stuff while watching the light enlarge and listen to only the true voices in front of us.
I asked my wife Carrie to marry me on Easter Sunday twenty-three years ago. She has been one of my true voices. I had no confidence really that I was going to be able to carry the responsibilities of being a husband and a new father to Emily, her daughter. After gaining some trust, I began picking Emily up at the crack of dawn on Saturdays and we’d go out for breakfast, order some greasy bacon and wash it down with Stewart’s Orange Cream Ale right out of the bottle. It felt like eating a plateful of lard and a glass of sugar all in one sitting, but it was worth it.
I had serious hesitations about pulling the trigger to get married though, fostered by regrets from the past, and a lack of trust in my own abilities. Fear paralyzed me and filled me with indecision and doubt. So, I created a protective box around myself that was comfortable and predictable, one that didn’t require much emotional or spiritual stretching. Boxes, as you know, are confining and restrictive, and come with sides and borders and rules and judgements, all of which I thought would keep me safe and keep others out. Those are the same boxes that can position any of us to be rigid and stand alone. Inside those boxes, being right is more important than having a relationship. Sharp edges and strong slants begin to illustrate our life as a series of hard lines drawn in the dirt.
As a nation we all paid witness to another school shooting recently that murdered helpless children and teachers in Nashville, Tennessee, adding to the list of many senseless attacks on the innocent in America. When President Obama went to Charleston in 2015 and gave the eulogy for nine other victims and their pastor who were shot in a bible study, he paid homage to the congregation and the nation. The president added to his remarks by singing Amazing Grace, a timeless song that leads with the words “who saved a wretch like me.” His voice crossed boundaries, if only for just a few minutes, that were those hard lines that had been drawn in the dirt of racial divide in our country.
As Christians we dare not think of what might have happened if Jesus had not been crucified on the cross. If he hadn’t been there, I for one, would not be here. Oh, I might have been born and I might be walking around, but I would be lost on the inside, the proverbial dead man walking. I would have turned around in that tunnel I spoke of earlier and walked out into my former life, climbed back in that rigid box and spent my time spouting off my opinions. And I would have missed a world waiting to be born again with the resurrection of hope and life. I would still be standing in that rigid box unable to peer out beyond its boundaries or even open my mouth to sing a few bars of Amazing Grace.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” was a line written by a man who knew about the grace at the end of our tunnels. Abe Lincoln, who was assassinated only a week before Easter, had in his pockets newspaper articles and clippings that offered words of encouragement to a nation healing from the ravages of the very darkest of tunnels, the Civil War. Lincoln had spent all his life fighting to erase lines of segregation and discord in our nation, so the words “that all men are created equal” might heal the lines that had been drawn on the battlefields. He too could be found in the church pews singing songs about a grace that had ‘brought me safe thus far,” and a grace that would “lead him home.”
Perhaps Easter might be more colorful, like my neighbor’s apron, if we quit drawing lines that dare anyone to cross them and begin drawing some dotted lines instead. Somewhere between those spaces we might let in someone new who has been lost in a tunnel looking for an opening. When we reach over and grab their hand to pull them through, we become the light for them in their tunnel and help them die just a little bit to the old self back there in the darkness. It is difficult to do this when we might be grabbing a hand that is soiled, wrinkled, or tired. No doubt it will be a hand that will hold some hurt, or maybe bear a scar from a nail that went right to the bone.
The hand might belong to my Savior, or it might belong to yours, but if you grab it, embrace it this Easter, you will be dying a little bit to an old self that was in darkness and but born again to a new person in the light of His amazing grace. On that walk, in that tunnel together, we will be singing hymns together, shaking off the old dust of our winter and drinking all the Stewart’s Cream Soda we could ever want.