Lent Devotional: RestoreSample

Restore: Devastating beauty

Devastating beauty

On Friday my hope died.
The sky wept itself dark
the ground broke apart
and all creation cried
for the bloodied innocence
hammered into a tree.

There were whispers
of a torn curtain
but they didn’t reach my ears
or mend my mangled heart
or stem the bitter tears
as we took
the body
down.

On Saturday we grieved,
hiding from the troops
whom we’d once believed
would be overthrown
by the carpenter’s boy,
who had preached
and fed and healed
and was now dead.

But then on Sunday –
the devastating beauty
of that Sunday –
when time and space
were blown out of shape
and angels wrapped in electric grace
rolled the impossible away.

He is not here
they proclaimed
for glory had risen
our failings were forgiven
and the rules of time and space
were rewritten
as an empty tomb declared:
Love is alive.

Gideon Heugh, Tearfund