I am not even sure how to explain all that is going on right now. Today is Good Friday- the day on the calendar that is set aside for us to remember the goodness of God in the sacrifice of His son. If you stay in Good Friday, it is actually a sad day, but if you know the rest of the story, you know it actually was the beginning of the most amazing event in history.
Yet somehow this event has been changed so much. While the U.S. is focused on the Easter bunny, eggs, good food, and the death of young people, Masatepe is focused on vacation, carrying chains through the street to symbolically capture Judas, and lots of drinking.
This morning hundreds of young men and children ran through the street dragging chains, dressed in dresses, wearing colorful pointy caps. This is the celebration for Good Friday. This week and this afternoon, I have watched as respected men in the community stumble past our front door, completely drunk. Presently the smell of alcohol on the guys hanging out on our front porch is wafting into our house.
It does not seem to matter where we are, who we are, or how we are behaving, we can become so misguided in the truly important part of God’s gift to us; whether it is visible or internal, getting off track is the easy thing.
Over the past few months, I have been walking a road of self-discovery of things that I really don’t want to discover. I have not faced it joyfully or expectantly, and those around me have met some of my frustration in this process. This time of Semana Santa (Holy Week) has in many ways felt anything but holy, but what it has offered is an opportunity for reflection.
To add to the reflection time, Stephen took our truck in to get some work done on it, with the promise from the mechanic to have it back by Tuesday night (the shop would be closed Wednesday through Sunday). No surprise, but he was not able to get the truck to us on Tuesday- Great! More opportunity for reflection (read a bit of sarcasm in there!)
Early on in the week, I was “asked” through our home church to get familiar with a song that will be introduced on Easter Sunday. They made it easy by including the link in the email so I listened to it, and to be honest, it sounded a lot like all the music that is being played now-a-days- yes, I am getting old!
BUT there is a line in the song that kept playing through my head throughout the week- it collided with my internal thoughts and what I was seeing…
“By your Spirit I will rise from the ashes of defeat, the resurrected King, is resurrecting me.”
What kept coming up is that we have a Savior who did that and does that. I do not have to be defeated by what is in me or around me! The rest of that verse is:
“In your name I come alive to declare your victory, the resurrected king, is resurrecting me”
I have to hang on to that- He is the one who brings me alive in order to declare His victory, and because of what He did, He is changing me.
The struggles are still here- we still have relationship struggles, the hopeless that comes with alcohol in our midst, I still want perfection in a very imperfect world, but this is the real celebration of Easter! Rising out of the ashes of defeat and declaring His victory. I move into that with hope.