Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

Everything Sad Is Coming Untrue

Easter is over, but the story is really just beginning. And it’s the best story, with the best possible ending.white flowers

Jesus’ resurrection is God’s promise to the world that the impossible has suddenly been made possible.

The Resurrection isn’t just the promise that something good will happen someday—it’s the promise that every bad thing will be turned upside down, into something good. The Curse will be reversed. Broken things will be restored. Love will win.

The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation—this story begins and ends in joy.
—J. R. R. Tolkien

Eucatastrophe: It’s not just the opposite of catastrophe. It’s God rewriting the story, weaving in his threads of grace. It’s the heartbeat of redemption, pulsing throughout the land.

Sorrow will turn into joy.
Wounds will be healed.
Dead things will come to life.
Ugly things will be made beautiful.
Heartbreak will become hope.

In The Return of the King, after the ring is destroyed, Sam awakens and is surprised to see that Gandalf is still alive. This is what he says:

Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?

I have to imagine that’s what the Marys thought when they went to the tomb and found it empty. Everything sad is coming untrue. And I’d guess it’s what the disciples thought when they saw Jesus alive again, sitting down to eat with them. Everything sad is coming untrue.

Death is coming untrue, pain is coming untrue, sadness is coming untrue. All because he lives.

The one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!”
—Revelation 21:5

New Thursday

Perhaps no other week in the year is as full of dramatic turnarounds as this one.

Good Friday turns into Easter.
Winter melts into spring.
Sadness turns to joy.
Despair is trumped by hope.
Death is trounced by life.

Christianity is marked by those defining moments when everything changes: Creation. Exodus. Incarnation. And so it is with Maundy Thursday. On that night, the whole tilt of the earth shifted. On that night, Jesus made a proclamation that reframed all that was and all that will be:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
—John 13:34

The English word Maundy comes from the Latin word mandatum (mandate or command), the first word of the phrase “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos” (“A new command I give you . . .”).

The Old Testament records some 600 laws and rules. Yet in that seismic shift the night before his death, Jesus installed just one new law that covered all the old ones. Love, he said. Love, love, and more love.

But before new could replace old, before life could replace death, before Easter morning could dawn in all its glory, there had to be that long, dark night between Good Friday and resurrection.

According to Watchman Nee, the same is true for us:

God must bring us to a point—I cannot tell you how it will be, but he will do it—where, through a deep and dark experience, our natural power is touched, and fundamentally weakened, so that we no longer dare trust ourselves. . . .

We would like to have death and resurrection put together within one hour of each other. We cannot face the thought that God will keep us aside for so long a time; we cannot bear to wait. . . . All is in darkness, but it is only for a night. It must indeed be a full night, but that is all. Afterwards you will find that everything is given back to you in glorious resurrection; and nothing can measure the difference between what was before and what now is!

—Watchman Nee

Do not fear that dark night. It must come to make space for new life. For Easter. For resurrection.

When Skeletons Come to Life…

I’ve always felt a little sorry for some of those Old Testament prophets. Not just because their teachers no doubt mispronounced their funky-sounding names in class, but because their lives were often used as rather startling object lessons. A few cases in point: Hosea was told to marry a prostitute; Isaiah had to walk around naked and barefoot for three years; and Jeremiah was given orders to bury his underwear in a hole by the river until it rotted.

The prophet Ezekiel was no exception. For him, the object lesson was about a heap of bones:

[The Lord] led me all around among the bones that covered the valley floor. They were scattered everywhere across the ground and were completely dried out. Then he asked me, “Son of man, can these bones become living people again?”

“O Sovereign Lord,” I replied, “you alone know the answer to that.”

—Ezekiel 37:2-3

His response is precisely why I’m no prophet (aside from my pronounceable name). I would have said something like, “Um, God, no offense, but those bones look really, officially, 100% dead.” But Ezekiel said, in essence, “I don’t know if you will bring those bones to life. But I know you can.”

Maybe right now you feel like nothing more than a heap of dried-out bones. You feel certain that it’s game over, that all hope is gone.

But here’s what God says:

Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again! I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

—Ezekiel 37:5-6

We serve a God who is stronger than anything. Even death. And if he can bring a pile of dry bones to life, I’m pretty sure he can do anything.

He can bring your lost child home.

He can heal that relationship that seems broken beyond repair.

He can dig out the splinter that is lodged deep in your heart.

He can raise up your buried dreams.

He can bring dead things back to life.

Oh God, put your breath into us. Bring us back to life. And we will know that you are the Lord.

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.