Introductory Note:
We are about to enter Holy Week. The last week of Jesus’ journey began optimistically on Sunday morning when He entered Jerusalem to shouts of welcome. But things then took a terrible turn. Working behind the scenes, one of His own disciples arranged His arrest late Thursday evening. In our meditation on that dreadful night, we resolve to remain awake and attentive to what Jesus experienced in the darkness of Gethsemane as He opened his heart to all that breaks our hearts, and entered deeply into our pain. Michael Card’s song “To a Broken God” offers this glimpse (view it on YouTube).
Miriam Dixon
Didn’t see You there, didn’t know You were weeping too;
I think of tears as a human wound.
Though of course You care, You have shown You were human too,
They say You cried at Lazarus’ tomb.
I was unaware how it is with a broken God,
I thought of You as above my pain.
Lost in my despair, so it is with a broken heart,
I never dreamed You could feel the same.
Once, in a magazine I saw a face
wrinkled up in grief and travailed grace;
I kept looking to that face,
some sad refugee in some sad place.
And in his eyes the sorrow of our race;
then I saw it was the face of God,
the face of God — Your face, dear God.
Some say You’re not there, just a myth for a lazy life,
an artifact from an ancient scroll.
But I have known You near in the gift of a weary sigh,
Lord of the lost and the lonesome soul.
I was unaware how it is with a broken God,
I never dreamed You could feel the same.
