Easter | Elaine Olsen

A Spring’s Visit to a Winter’s Prison

January 26, 2009

“Then she called, ‘Samson, the Philistines are upon you!’ He awoke from his sleep and thought, ‘I’ll go out as before and shake myself free. But he did not know that the LORD had left him. Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison. But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.” (Judges 16:20-22).

There is…

no prison so dank,
no shackle so confining,
no disobedience so egregious,
no blindness so dark,
no winter so long,

so as to keep Spring from making its arrival. None. Its buds and blossoms come regardless of the bleak season preceding its entrance.

Resurrection is the hallowed crescendo after the harrowing silence of a winter’s death—a season’s stripping that reduces branches to the bare and wide-opened embrace of colder winds.

It’s hard to think Spring when Winter continues its insistent knock. It’s hard to think grace when the consequences of sin leave a soul chained and blinded with remembrance.

Samson knew something of winter’s bite.

His life began well. He ended on the upswing, but the living in between reads more like a tragedy rather than the famed position given him in the Hebrews “Hall of Faith” (chapter 11).

God wanted more for him. His parents planned for more. But for “more” to be his portion, Samson would have to walk the plans of his God, and subsequently, of his parents’. And for all of the ways that he might have been faithful to those plans and to his covenantal vow as a Nazarite, we are privy to a majority of his “less” than moments. Moments that included:

- Chasing after all manner of foreign women.

- Gleaning honey from the carcass of a dead lion and feeding it to his parents.

- Exacting revenge via foxtails and torches, the jawbone of a donkey, and the sword of his own hands.

Playing games with God’s truth rather than honoring God’s truth with sacred and in reverent fear.

Indeed, some would argue that Samson had earned his chains, his blindness, and his mockery by men. Open rebellion to God’s ways always yields a well-deserved humbling at some point. I know. I’ve hosted my fair share of showcase moments along the way.

But to remain stuck in our chains … to assign ourselves a place of permanent shame and penance within the cold and barren of Winter … is to delay or to altogether miss the promise of Spring.

And to miss the grace of Spring is to miss everything.

Samson’s Spring came near his end. If you are one prone to spectacular endings—to the grandeur and polish of an epic finish—you’ll miss it. Samson’s resurrection didn’t begin between two pillars (Judges 16:29); it began in the dark and in the depths of a lonely prison cell.

“Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison. But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.” (Judges 16:22).

Just in case you missed it, let me type it again.

The hair on his head began to grow again.

Grow. The verb tsamach in the Hebrew language meaning, “to grow, to spring forth, to sprout.”[i]

No matter Samson’s sin and no matter his rebellion, God’s promise of Spring came to him in his darkest night, the seeds of which would grow and would ultimately result in his finest hour. God visited the cell of a sinner and planted his grace accordingly and in a very literal way.

I don’t know if Samson thought a lot about his hair in those days, but I imagine that he did. When a soul is stripped, both in the spiritual and in the physical, one cannot help but look for any sign of covering … of hope and rebirth … of new growth and of springing forth. With every passing day and with every difficult grinding, whenever Samson ran his fingers through the sparse seedlings of a new and growing strength, he was reminded of just how far he had fallen and of the grace afforded him for its gradual return.

It did return, at least in part. That’s the way of God’s grace. Despite our willful choices and hardened rebellion to God’s plan for our lives, his mercy is ready and available for its return. He planned for grace’s arrival, long before our sin mandated its need.

“‘The days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: “The LORD Our Righteousness.”’” (Jeremiah 33:14-16).

Just in case you missed it, let me type it again.

In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line.

Sprout. The verb tsamach in the Hebrew language meaning, “to grow, to spring forth, to sprout.”[ii]

God’s grace. Shooting forth and bursting onto the scenes of our lives. Sometimes through the simple of a hair’s sprouting. All the time through the profound of a Son’s coming. A Son’s dying. A Son’s springing forth on a Spring morning, announcing once and for all that resurrection is here to stay.

That resurrection is the gift of Spring; it follows the stripping and cold of a Winter season. A season when remembering God’s promises is critical to survival. There is…

no prison so dank,
no shackle so confining,
no disobedience so egregious,
no blindness so dark,
no winter so long,

so as to keep Spring from making its arrival. None. And that, my friends, gets a hallelujah from my spirit and a prayer of thanks from my knees as they hit the bedroom floor, once again, in absolute wonder and awe of the gracious grace that has been seeded on my behalf and that is growing in strength with every passing day and with every intentional glimpse I make into the treasures of God’s Word. He is the worthy pause of my heart this week. Yours too, thus, I pray…

Grow us, Father, into a deeper understanding of all things eternal. Let us not settle for our prisons; instead, renew our hearts toward a healthier life—one that is free of the chains and of the condemnation that seeks to keep us captive in sin’s remembrance. Spring us forth from our cells and grow us in the light and truth of Spring’s renewal—the resurrected life of Easter’s Gift. In the name of the Father who knows us, and the Son who loves us, and the Holy Spirit who so willing tends to us, Amen and Amen.

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Copyright © January 2009 – Elaine Olsen
[i] Baker & Carpenter, entry for “samah,” The Complete Word Study Dictionary Old Testament (Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 2003), 956.
[ii] Ibid.

Early Memories (part two): the find and the fear

November 3, 2008

Please take time to read the previous post for context. This is my follow up response.

“‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.’” (Matthew 13:44-46).

Hartsville, Indiana.

The soil of my beginnings. The landscape that houses my earliest memories.

My mind traveled to Hartsville this past weekend. My father’s words always have a way of taking me to places—to new levels of understanding often tucked away in the old and in the unseen, yet, when scratched, become the itch that cannot be ignored. I’ve thought a lot about my early memories and Sam Keen’s words…

“Tell me your three earliest memories and I will tell you what you are working on right now.”

I’ve plumbed the depths of my remembrances; some have yielded pleasant. Some not so much. And as it pertains to my now, I’ve come to two conclusions about those early imprints—those firmly rooted memories and about how they, perhaps, continue their shaping of my current.

1. The find.

One of my earliest memories can be traced back to this picture–an Easter egg hunt at the ripe age of nearly three. Some would argue me too young to remember, but the images in my mind from that day are real and vivid. I can still feel the heat of the sun and the squirm of my hand inside of my mother’s grip. The decorations of the Easter basket were held together with straight pins, pricking my tiny fingers with just enough annoyance to relegate my attention away from the task at hand.

The find. The candy and the eggs. The hidden treasure that required my participation.

My anticipation was heightened by the flock of other children intent on doing the same. Even at my young age, there was a deep sense of urgency for the find. I was disturbed by the waiting for the horn to sound, signaling the beginning of the hunt. I was even more disturbed by the possibility of not being able to get my hands on the prize.

The memory holds little else for me beyond these initial moments of waiting, but once the signal sounded, my heart and my feet raced forward for the find. I don’t remember the prize that I took away from that event. Perhaps the memory in and of itself, is the prize.

The find. The urgency for the hunt. The concern that somehow I would be overlooked and unable to get my hands on the promised treasure of Easter.

Could it be that I’ve never quite escaped my need for the search?

2. The fear.

Hartsville also housed the beginnings of my fear.

In that season, my father was in graduate school and my mother worked part-time; thus, my sister and I were sometimes left in the care of babysitters. One of our favorites was Beulah. I liked going to Beulah’s house, but going to Beulah’s meant being away from my parents. I remember standing on her front porch, furiously waving to my father as he drove away. Because of his absence, tears filled my eyes as an unhealthy sense of fear filled my heart.

For all of the reasons that I loved Beulah, they weren’t enough to warrant any joy at being left in her care. I’m not sure as to the reasons why, but the insecurities secured in me during that season were the beginnings of a deeply rooted fear that has followed me for nearly four decades.

Could it be that I’ve never quite escaped from my fear of being left behind—forgotten about and deemed as the “lesser priority” of well-intentioned goals?

The find and the fear. Two urgent and pressing memories that surfaced for me this past weekend as I contemplated what I might, perhaps, “…be working on now.”

One replaces the other. The more I find the treasure of Easter, the less I fear being left behind. The hunt for Jesus—the digging and the intentional search for the kingdom of heaven—always yields a peace that surpasses any fear that surfaces to the contrary. I know this to be true, for I am an Easter person.

I’ve walked the road to Calvary and found the greatest treasure of eternal Truth seeded in its soil and harvested in his resurrection. Jesus didn’t walk the road home to his Father so that I could stand on earth’s porch in fear of his never returning. No, he walked home so that I could follow accordingly, with a faith that replaces fear and with a joy that comes from being trusted with the sacred find.

When we find forever, friends, and when we cherish it as the greatest holding of our hearts, we need not fear his return on our behalf. He’s coming, and it won’t be long. Fear tells us that it will be, but faith reassures us that our waiting is but a breath—a single pause between our flawed memories and our sure and soon-to-be, eternal realities.

Now we see dimly. Live dimly, and remember dimly. But soon, we shall fully see. Fully live and fully understand how our beginnings—our early remembrances—have shaped us and equipped us for the kingdom find that has always been our Father’s intention. Thus I pray,

For memories and their shaping, Father, I thank you. Never let the “truth” of my past replace the truth of who you are. The former is flawed, whereas you are perfect. When I am tempted to be shackled by the restraints of imperfect remembrances, increase my vision for my perfected end. As I live my life in process, I ask for your guiding hand and divine wisdom to be my teacher. Where there is fear, replace it with faith. And when I cry tears, wipe them away with the truth of your return. Today, I cast my eyes to the Eastward sky, knowing that you soon will break my stare with the glorious revelation of your return. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen.

PS: For any of you who would like to be put on my father’s weekly email list, please email me separately with your address. I will pass it on to him. Shalom.

Walking in Resurrection

March 26, 2008

baby Levi born 3/26/08 at Shiloh Farms

“ … ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!’” (Luke 24:5b).

Making the transition from the tomb to a walk of resurrection can be a difficult embrace. It is for me, for I am comfortable in my grave clothes. I am used to my ashes and my sorrowful surrenders. Christ’s journey to the cross is wrought with just enough human emotion and melancholy to hold my attention and limit my perspective. I understand the confines of Calvary’s tomb, for the tomb is what I am due.

Instead, what I am given is a gift that far exceeds my understanding.

A gift that includes…

A rolled away stone.
A new set of clothes.
A walk out of darkness and death into the marvelous light of real living.
A Resurrection.

Easter scripted God’s message to humanity over 2000 years ago, and yet I continue in my struggle to receive its grace. How can I…how can we…begin the walk of our resurrection?

We begin by listening for the whispered voices of the tomb. By receiving the message of the first Easter as heralded by those who stood guard to pronounce the benediction to Christ’s grave.

“ … ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!’”

Our walk of resurrection begins by our looking for the living One amongst the living…not by our eulogizing of a death that could not contain him.

We search for Christ in our today and tomorrows rather than glancing back at our yesterdays. We move beyond the graveyard to take hold of the road ahead. A living, breathing journey that requires our participation and refuses our conciliation to sit on the sidelines in surrender. In defeat. In deference of a walk that we deem to be too sacred…too holy…too consecrated for the soles of our sinful feet.

A resurrection walk means that we engage with life. We vision life through a new set of lenses that host an eternal perspective rather than a temporal focus. We perceive God’s sacred possibility rather than man’s probability. We bath our minds and hearts with the truth of God’s Word. Words that say…

~Life and death is ours to choose. A choice for life means a choice for God. (Deuteronomy 30:19-20).

~Life cannot be found in former things. God’s new thing stands on the horizon. Even now it bursts onto our stage. Resurrected living brings about its perception. (Isaiah 43:18-19).

~God’s plans for our abundant living trumps the enemy’s plans for our death and destruction. (John 10:10).

~A resurrected walk includes the unseen, unheard, and beyond conceivable preparations of God whose love reaches far and wide…long and deep. (1 Corinthians 2:9).

~Possibilities are God’s probabilities. (Genesis 18:14, Matthew 19:26, Mark 9:23).

Simply put, a walk of resurrection means leaving the grave as Christ left it.

Empty. Void. Barren and defeated.

Too often, though, I choose to linger in Friday’s embrace. I run to the tomb with my ointments and perfumes in hopes of preserving the remnants of a Jesus I once knew. My eyes remain fixed on things seen…controlled things…things I can get my mind around rather than the unseen Promise of a third day resurrection. Instead of leaving the grave as Christ left it, I begin to fill its void with my many needs.

Fears. Questions. Doubts and unbelief.

I miss the victory of Easter because my lack of faith limits the Christ of Easter. And limiting Christ is the one posture of the heart that can keep these feet–mine and yours–from our intended walk of Resurrection.

Christ didn’t go all the way to Calvary and back so that we would continue in a life that boasts tombs and grave clothes. No, Christ made the journey to the tomb so that we could bypass its confinement. So that we would start living in the new, abundant, inconceivable possibilities of his lavish grace. So that we would begin our participation in the resurrection walk that leads us from the graveyard into the spacious land of the living and that will one day soon…lead us straight to his feet.

Today is a good day to examine your location in the Easter story. Are you lingering at the tomb…looking for the living One amongst the dead, or are you walking in resurrected living with the risen Christ as your compass? Which road hosts your heart? I know which road should. It is the road that extends beyond the grave. The one-way street paved with the blood of Calvary’s surrender that reaches in only one direction.

Home.

To life eternal with the living, risen Savior of the world. A resurrection walk that breathes with the sacred possibilities of the sure and living Lord. It is the only walk I want to make, and so I pray,

Lead me, Lord, from the tomb into your glorious walk of resurrection. Dress me, Lord, for such a walk…leaving the grave clothes where they belong—in the tomb, alongside all of my fears, doubts, and unbelief. Forgive me when I am tempted to limit Calvary’s work to a cross and to a grave. Move me beyond the confines of Friday into the glorious promise and light of Sunday. It is a pilgrimage I can make…should make…because your feet first walked the road of its surrender. Let not your sacrifice be in vain, …in my life and in the lives of my friends. Lead on, O King Eternal. Full throttle. Straight ahead…until I am finally home and see you face to face. Amen.

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