In the Tomb

Here I sit, in the tomb, before Your broken body. I'm so glad it's over--Your suffering, Your pain--finally, at an end. And I'm glad I don't have to watch You in it anymore either. Don't know how much more I could take, knowing it is good and right and necessary, and yet so horrible and evil all at the same time.

Thank You Jesus, for doing this for me. I'm sorry that You had to. Thank You, too, that in two days You WILL rise, You will come and show us all that death is a reality, but that You are stronger. Because of You, all other death, has lost its sting.

I've watched You these days, but earlier, not closely enough. I still didn't know, hadn't fully grasped, Who You are, what You had come to do, that all along You have been trying to show me how to live. In this last week especially, I've been amazed at You, in the face of incredible hardship and suffering. Oh how You love. Oh how You are so focussed on others. Even in pain, even while being whipped, even while struggling to breathe and the spasms wracking your body, You are caring for others, loving them. I...would be so self-absorbed at that time. I...often am so self-absorbed. 

Where did You get Your strength? How did You know Your Father close, when You couldn't see Him? How did love those who used You, manipulated You? How did you bear up under the disappointment? How did You keep Your eyes fixed, Your heart set, Your will committed, to what was most important? 

Please, teach me how to live--to live by Your strength, to live close to the Father I cannot see, to not waver in my determination to finish. Please, by Your Spirit, pour out Your love into my heart, that I might love those entrusted to me...as You do, to the end, regardless of what I am going through.

Jesus, teach me how to live, but teach me how to die. Teach me how to live this life a living-death, and be okay with it, not forever wrestling to be free, wishing for some other circumstances, trusting my Father's will, at peace...until this death, this dying, has done all it was meant to do.