— On Holy Saturday restlessness, our human “what ifs,” and the love that chose us anyway.

Saturday, I’m sorry to say—it being Holy Saturday and all—was a restless day. It started off okay, I wrote, read, walked—the usual.

But by the afternoon I couldn’t sit still. I was up and down continually; returning to my computer, where I was trying to figure out where the publication title goes on my new Substack account. It sounds easy enough—just fill it in where it says Publication Title. If you don’t see that, then you have to switch something under “Themes.” But I couldn’t find the themes they were referring to. 

Me? Stupid? I’ve never felt so stupid. Well, not in a long time. 

And why was I messing around with this on Holy Saturday of all days? Because, I’m brand new to Substack. I’d just shared a Good Friday reflection. I wanted to get it right. I wanted it to look right. Todd says it’s like I have a Tourette’s twitch. I can’t let things go until I fix them. Ridiculous, right? Any fool knows the only thing we can fix is ourselves. And the more frustrated I became about the whole thing, the more my whole self needed fixing. 

Then it was Easter morning, gray and overcast and cold near the lake.

Somewhere between picturing the cold ground of our souls as being the place God comes to sit—alighting the place, entering into the stillness, bringing comfort—and our Father sitting on the barren ground of the earth, waiting, as His beloved Son overcomes, restores the temples, and brings His children home, as His eyes searched the whole earth—I realized:

His love for humanity, for each person—and you in particular—is endless.

There the Father is—waiting.

There in Gethsemane, is Jesus in His final duel with the enemy. The anguish, the weeping, the tears and drops of blood. I’d never thought about it before this Easter—about that last onslaught of lies, the attack of the enemy.

He was about to go to the Cross, you’d think that’s what his turmoil was about. But what if the anticipation of his brutal Crucifixion wasn’t at the root of His turmoil?

What then? What was?

As I read Oswald Chambers, I realized after all these years, there was Jesus the Son of Man, feeling the cost of obedience. And there was Jesus the Son of God, holding the weight of the world.

These two realities aren’t separate—He is both.

The agony in Gethsemane was the agony of the Son of God fulfilling His purpose as our Savior—and Savior of the world. And then there is this—the agony of the Son of Man in a battle with the lies that whisper.

What if He as the Son of Man overcame the Cross—triumphed over death—yet humanity was lost?

What if this cost everything?

What if it didn’t work?

What if love was not returned?

And still… He said yes.

He triumphed over both. But the anguish that brought the drops of blood—what do you think caused that? Why didn’t he want to be alone. “Stay awake with me,” he said three times to his friends. Those poor guys were exhausted.

Wouldn’t we have been? Aren’t we now?

I’m the one who can’t even figure out where the publication title goes on my Substack. It’s taken me a lifetime to begin to grasp this.

Our Lord triumphed over the Cross as the Son of Man—overcame death—and as the Son of God, He triumphed in saving mankind.

Because of what Jesus, the Son of Man, went through, every human being can get through to the Presence of God.

As sons and daughters of the King, the worst enemy— death—and all the rest can’t touch us any more than it could touch Jesus, the Son of God.

He did more than overcome—He went back to the Father.

And he brought us home.

As if choreographed with my thoughts, the sun broke through the clouds, the stained glass reflecting the shape of a sunflower on the loveseat in front of me—just for a moment—then it disappeared. 

But in those moments of this Easter, I caught a glimpse of God’s glory.

Holy Saturday’s in-between place had passed with a new understanding of what Jesus did. His agony in the ‘what ifs?’ he passed through was not unlike our own. He understands us so deeply. He knows the worst of the darkness—and He triumphed over it so that we could pass through to the Presence of God.