I remember.

I remember two tears, slipping onto my cheek

Wrapped in a blanket

Music blasting in my headphones

Silence desperate in my heart

“I’m okay, yeah, I’m okay

But it’s like my heart is breaking

and I can’t feel a thing.”

I remember a life

Lost

A thousand flowers dropping

Their petals in the moment

That the winter reached our hearts

I remember a boy who thought no one would notice

And a community of people who would never be the same

Never gonna give

Up

But he did

Two tears fell

Down

Just two. Two tears for all the words I knew I could never say because words for this don’t exist.

Remember

Gethsemane?

Remember agony

The precious face now drenched in red

Oh, Jesus.

He bore it all.

He endured it all.

It makes me speechless.

He endured it; we never could have

The Father’s face turned? The fullness of sin? The depth of darkness? All the fears and all the righteous, fired judgment?

We quake because we could never stand. We would always have to

give it up

But Jesus didn’t.

Never. Ever. Gave. Up.

He is the author of eternal salvation.

(For Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, Hebrews 13:8).

Two tears of love fall down for the Love who gave Himself.

He took the pain and the loss and the darkness and He felt it too,

He bore it all on His shoulders,

and let it tear through His hands,

and gash into His side,

and sweat through drops of blood.

He entered our brokenness and it broke Him,

But He broke it.

Remember how

Death itself did die?

Remember how restoration shone from lifted eyes?

Remember how heaven sang as creation cried

For the Love that came to life?

Remember how

Suddenly the guilty became clean?

The lost were named Redeemed?

Remember how the chains that bound our sinful souls were cast into the sea?

Two tears.

For words we cannot speak;

A tear for deepest anguish

A tear for it redeemed

Last spring, a little over a year ago, my writing community lost a precious soul. I didn’t know him well, but it was heartbreaking. If you’ve ever wondered how many people one teenage boy can touch, it is a lot. A whole lot.

As I went through my Lent bible study, a few months after Thomas died, I found myself sobbing at the crucifixion of Jesus. At the perfect Love that bore so much pain to make restoration come alive. It was only looking at Jesus and “seeing His wounded hands and side” that let me cry tears of aching yet sacred mourning and hope. That, and imaging all the broken places in Thomas made beautifully whole as he sees Jesus face to face.

Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.

Hebrews 2:9

Christ suffered. The beautiful, holy, righteous Lord, who whispered life into being and is King over all, suffered so that He might taste death for everyone.

This is God. Yahweh, who is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness and truth, forgiving and perfectly just. God who is love. Christ who is merciful and faithful and suffered like His brethren (us) to show us He is indeed our compassionate high priest (Hebrews 2:17-18).

Today I remember Thomas, and I remember Jesus. The sorrows are not unto death, but for the glory of God (John 11:4). Just as Christ’s suffering was. We mourn death on this earth—mourn it deeply for it is a terrible devastation of God’s perfect creation. He must weep over it too, I think, like He wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41) and over Lazarus. But He offers us the living hope that we do not have to taste spiritual death, because He has borne it for us. And even physical death has lost its victory, for it does not have the final word (1 Corinthians 15:54-57)!

Press into Jesus, dear hearts, as Lent continues and Easter shines it’s hopeful light on the horizon. His plans are still to prosper. Look to Him. See His scars and see His heart. Oh, how precious He is.