elisabeth pike:notes along the way

Please come and find me at https://lizpike.wordpress.com/

as the dark is dissolved in to light.

Hope is that quiet shining thing, hidden at the very centre of us. It might be forgotten sometimes, or covered in dust and debris, it may be looked at with cynicism by others, by ourselves, even, but it remains; a coin, glinting in the soil, catching the light, catching your eye again, reminding you of the heart-bursting promise that is coming.

The two men on the road to Emmaus had forgotten how to wait, they had moved on too quickly to despair; 'We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel', they said. They had already given up hope, had tossed it by the wayside, in favour of despair; perhaps it comes quicker, is easier to hold. But there is strength in waiting, in hearing a promise and planting it deep in your heart. There were those who lived like this, staring down old age and infertility with God's promise, believing for something as wild and outlandish as this: a child from a lifeless womb, a screaming mass of bone and flesh, but it came, it came, and like Abraham, we must learn to live our lives this way; waiting for the third day, holding on to hope, and the words that have been spoken, no matter how barren or broken things seem: the story isn't over yet, though it tarries, wait for it.

I see God bowed and brooding, his arms falling around his dear earth, after cruel jeers condemned his son to death. Doubled up with grief, he came close to the jagged earth, his arms around, almost touching. And it reminds me of this year; of all the loneliness, the people in their boxes, staying safe by staying alone, perhaps God is bent and broken by our grief, by our struggles too, perhaps he comes close when the darkness is too dark to see by.

Mary, bowed by grief, goes early to the tomb and finds it empty. Her tears spill as her mind races; 'Where have they taken my Lord?' But her tears have left her blind, for as she turns in the garden, she can't even make out the figure in front of her, alive and breathing, her 'Rabboni', the very one she is mourning.

I've always loved Thomas, the way he acts like a petulant school boy. 'Show me then', he says, 'I won't believe unless I see it.' And then a week later, Jesus is there, and all of his undoing is there too; 'My Lord and My God', he says. Better to be true like he was; transformed to the core, than false, going with the flow, wearing your emotions like a mask.

you were hidden in death, in grave clothes, waiting for the right time to take your first breath of rebirth. and now I am hidden in you, safe as houses, where moth and rust cannot break in and destroy, because all my treasure is in you and you are all my treasure.

Sometimes, we too, bury our hope in darkness, shove it beneath the soil with a hollow heart, but even death itself was no match for my King; life-giver, death-defier. The truth of spring coming, though we saw only black mud, truth of the blazing heat of the sun, though we felt only the chill. Out of the darkest darkness, out of nothing, came first breath, green shoot; Life itself, reborn.

'Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is no longer here' Luke 24:5

he made a way, his body a bridge, his death and awakening a doorway between this lowly land and the pathways of heaven. way-maker, future-forger, eye-opener, the veil was torn in two, the sea split apart, death was undone and the separation was finished, finally, once and for all. so we could come boldly, as children do, no fears about their past, no worries about their future, their popularity, their fame, they just come.

'Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.' John 12:24

  Inspired by Isaiah 53 'Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.'

This is a poem about the creative life and is inspired by this from Frederick Buechner: 'And deep in my heart I do believe that we will overcome some day... by God's grace, by helping the kingdom grow in ourselves and in each other until finally in all of us it becomes a tree where the birds of the air can come and make their nests in our branches. That is all that matters really.

But I can't put it any better than Frederick Buechner in this wonderful extract: Great Laughter — Frederick Buechner

the thorny crown, a bead of blood spills, shame falls. he carries, then, all the weight of sin, and the mark of it on his body.

Phillipians 2:8 TPT