It’s the day between Good Friday and Easter. And yesterday, though solemn, really was good. I was at church all day long, setting up and taking down a Journey for our families. The Journey to the Cross. Eleven reflections, lamp-lit, sensory-rich. My sweet spot.
Kyle was at home battling boys with no school while he tried to work. All day long, attitudes and moods. Friends and messes. Entitled spirits and thankless hearts. Later in the evening when he escaped to church, his cell phone rang again and again. Boys squabbling, needing Dad’s intervention.
Ugh.
Today is Saturday. The day between Good Friday and Easter. And this is the season we find ourselves in. This in-between.
I read about the tension in my Lent devotion this morning in my favorite chair. Coffee dark, morning breaking, window cracked to the songs of birds. Spring is in-between, too. Temperatures warming. Landscape gloomy. Peeks of sun. Snow still threatening.
The Now and the Not Yet. The author of my study named it this, and I’ve heard this phrase before. It’s fitting, and explains our frustration. Easter and Jesus are here and now. Making things new and bringing us life. And yet. Something’s missing. We can feel it, this longing for something that’s still out of reach.
Several years ago something happened in my own spiritual journey that was so exciting. I’m not sure what you’d call it. A revelation, or transformation. A work of the Spirit. Something happened that made me ALIVE. It was Joy and Passion overflowing. Every morning I’d wake with a song of worship stuck in my head. I devoured my Bible and wrote everything down. Pages of journals full of giddy remarks.
It lasted a while. Six, seven, eight or ten years. And then, a new season. I’ve been pondering it lately. What happened? The best description is to say I grew up. I settled. Got serious. Less dreamy. And the truth is I miss the giddy newness of life.
I’m stuck most days in this tension. The now and the not yet of this journey with Christ.
Our boys are stuck, too. Facing battles, not knowing. The inner turmoil of a skirmish engaged for their souls. We wait and wonder. How long? How hard?
My devotion this morning spoke of adoption. Those who trust Jesus received a spirit of adoption. But the fullness of adoption is yet to come (Romans 8). We live in this tension, too.
So do they.
The now and the not yet. This Shalom story unfolding, not completed.
Tomorrow is Easter. Resurrection is coming. Our new lives are waiting. Our hope is a promise.
We live today in victory that’s coming tomorrow.