Lent Devotional: RestoreSample

Restore: The great unbreaking

The great unbreaking

I remember the beginning.
The choruses of hallelujahs
the awe of newness
the sudden weight of time
and the mouth of God roaring violent light.

I remember the garden singing with life,
the wild scent of flowers carried on unpolluted breeze;
birds singing in the warmth of a young sun;
tentative footsteps on never-trodden grass;
man, woman – the first embrace.

I remember the slither of the serpent
and the hiss of the oldest lie;
I remember pain, the howling pain of knowledge
and then the quivering of shame,
hiding from the only love that could fix it.

I remember the breaking,
relationships ripped apart –
great chasms between people and God
and people and the world
and people and themselves.

But I also remember him.
The carpenter’s son, the Rabbi, the temple-trasher,
demon-tormentor, crowd-feeder, leper-healer;
I remember his body being wrecked –
his brokenness our great unbreaking.

Gideon Heugh, Tearfund