An Occasional Word, April 2, 2010
04-02-2010Dear Friends
I was a 15-year-old kid with a healthy imagination. But this was just too much.
In the hills to the east of Jerusalem near the Mount of Olives, the guide pointed out to us the “footprint” of Jesus in the rock. There was this weathered indentation in the rock that looked vaguely like a foot.
He then told us this “footprint” was made as Jesus “pushed off into heaven” at the moment of the Ascension. Even at 15, I wondered if the guide would be interested in some oceanfront property in Arizona.
While I still believe the “footprint” was no more than the weathering of exposed rock, I have come to believe that there are awesome and mysterious moments that transcend the capacity of the mind, of our reason to comprehend or explain.
I have come to understand that life is all about both heart and mind — not one or the other. I have known mathematicians who saw God in the elegance of a complex equation. I have felt the mysterious warmth of God’s love in the darkest night of the soul. I cannot explain either.
I cannot explain the hatred of Good Friday, the despair of Holy Saturday or the triumph of Easter’s dawn.
This entire event is for me a great, awesome, inexplicable mystery.
I can do little more than stand before the empty tomb with an incredulous look on my face and the wondering heart of a child. I simply know that somehow, in the wondrous nature of God’s economy, the impossible has happened.
Evil and sin and death — the worst that humanity can do — has been overcome. I believe that love and grace and faith are triumphant.
I will be in worship on Easter Sunday to claim and celebrate again that which I cannot explain. I simply know. And it is enough.
Faithfully,
Charles Crutchfield
