.glory bound.

"He's alive!"

and so we fully live. 

We take our first deep breath as the saved to match the Risen King. 

He has bound our wounds and our wandering hearts to His, we sing, 

and we are bound for glory. 

This news first told by the women of Resurrection day, received by those that circled the table, took the bread, drank the cup.

News that "seemed to them an idle tale" (Luke 24:11)

But the sight of the linen cloths.

The stone rolled away. 

A simple question. 

"Why do you seek the living among the dead?" 

"He's alive!" 

and so we are counted among the living.

Never to know the depths of Sheol, because of He who went before us.

Our adversary defeated.

And oh, our adversary is mightily defeated.

His scars tell the story, 

of an enemy that will be no more,

of a dwelling that declares the "place of God is with man" (Revelation 21:3)

We are His people 

Our story shouts "It is done!" (Revelation 21:6)

O blessed Easter Day.

"He's alive!" 

and so our souls now redeemed follow Him out of the tomb,

And while we're here we will meet him step for step. 

We take our place as pilgrims, citizens of a far off country. 

This is our beginning.
He, the Risen One, is our Home. 

on Good Friday and the in-between.

I lost someone very close to me more than a few years ago now. 

There's something about the days after someone you've held close suddenly leaves your side. When you won't be hearing their voice or saying their name anymore. 

It makes you think on the in-between

I've learned that as long as I'm here walking this sod, I'll be between where I've been and where I'm going. The "now and not yet". And that at the end of the days counted for me, I'll be met by the same open arms once stretched across that tree so long ago. 

The people there that day who loved Him, we don't know much of their personal grief. The text is fairly silent on the subject.  Although they didn't know it yet, they too found themselves walking the in-between. Before the dawn of that third day their was the tremendous loss of a friend, a son, a brother, a healer...how did they walk away from the rugged cross?  The ache, the rawness, the sting of hell for two dark days. His friends no longer heard His voice or His laugh. His mother met with silence when she called His name.  None knew of a Savior risen.

They couldn't have known He was saving their life. They didn't yet know His victory over the grave.  They couldn't fathom a morning of voices raised in hymns of redemption. They walked away with seemingly empty hands and no Sunday school lesson telling them otherwise.   

"Sinne had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I'almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for mee.
Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;
What a death were it then to see God dye?"

                                    -John Donne

We awoke this Good Friday morning with a knowledge of how the story ends.  We have a living Companion, a friend. He is to us what He was to them, those at the cross that solemn day. And with them we await the coming of our risen Savior.