Happy New Year!

Caravaggio’s The Incredulity of Saint Thomas

Dear sisters and brothers,

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Having said that, I know more than of few of you who will be quite relieved to see the backside of this season that – though merry and happy for some –has been difficult for you. Holidays do often sharpen the sting of grief. Jennie and I loved getting Christmas cards from many of you, several of which mentioned the loss of your beloved friend and pastor, Rob. Following in Rob’s footsteps here at his church has prompted me to reflect more than ever on a few themes. Prayer... Suffering... Hope... But also on the idea of legacy: What am I living for? Life is not a game. Life is, as I understand Rob powerfully reminded you, a precious and fragile gift. Surely this is a ruthless sermon that loss preaches to us – do not take this breath for granted. Use it to bless. Use it to love. Use it to heal. Use this breath to build a legacy of love, like Rob’s. How utterly sweet it will be to one day tell Rob that his spiritual legacy never stopped living through you.

For others, time with extended family proved trying at best or profoundly painful at worst. Old wounds were opened, predictable patterns of dysfunction dimmed the light of Christmas celebrations, you had to say no, again, to feasts your body refuses you to indulge, or perhaps marital tensions stripped some of the shine off presents given and received.

Jennie and I’s experience of the holidays was also complicated. We visited her family in Dallas where her parents, three siblings and their many kids, cousins, and college friends form a veritable village. The experience of these deep relationships all week made our drive back to Denver somewhat sobering: A place we have been called and are excited to make home but doesn’t quite feel like home yet. As we found ourselves wrestling with feelings of loneliness and displacement, we also found ourselves cleaning throw up off a car seat in a gas station in west Texas. Life plunges forward, doesn’t it?

Whether it’s grief or mild struggles that are common to us all, each of us is, like Christ was, wounded. I’ve already had the honor to sit with people in this church family who testify to unrelenting physical pain, PTSD, crippling anxiety, insomnia, marital strife, discouragement with work, discouragement with parenting... and more.

Though not all of you can relate to being in the throes of pain as we enter a new year, I had it on my heart to write this exhortation to those who are: Remember, in your pain, the spear-pierced side of Jesus. I shared the end of this poem in a sermon not long ago. Here is Edward Shillito’s “Jesus of the Scars,” written to soldiers returning battered by the battles of World War I:

If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;

Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;

We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,

We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.

The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;

In all the universe we have no place.

Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?

Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace.

If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,

Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;

We know to-day what wounds are, have no fear,

Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.

The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;

They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;

But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,

And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.

So, whether or not it was a “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” for you, may you find strength to abide in the joyous hope of the pierced, crucified, and risen Christ who promises to be near to the brokenhearted.

God’s peace,

Jordan+