By His Wounds

At midnight, I took a two hour break. When you work a twelve hour shift here at the hospital, you get a magnificent two hour midday lunch break, or since I have been working nights, a midnight lunch break. And I did what naturally everyone would do during their break, I went swimming. 

For at 1 am it was still blazing hot and humid, and I’d been sweating constantly for several hours. So I warmed up my dinner, trotted over the pool, got all wet, and ate my philly cheese steak by moonlight with pool water dripping off my elbows into my salad. Just the slightest breeze cooled me down all over. It was wonderful. 

It was also miraculously peaceful. At 1 am, no one else was awake except a few night birds singing a beautiful song and the moon, shining so bright that even the stars didn’t have a chance to twinkle on this night. 

I dangled my legs into the pool and breathed deeply, resting in the peace and quiet and solitude of the moment. My thoughts turned to Jesus, who, on this Good Friday at this hour, was already dead after a brutal day of trial, rebellion, desertion, isolation, and torture. Earlier that evening, I had read the final chapters of John to focus my mind on the story of his death, burial, and resurrection in preparation for this Easter Sunday. And I was suddenly hit with a pang of guilt, because thinking on Jesus’ suffering should make me mourn and weep, and sometimes it does. Perhaps I should be suffering because Jesus suffered on a night like this. Instead I’m drinking in peace in a place and among a people that I love doing the work that I love. 

Then perhaps that’s the point. Because he died, I live. Because he suffered, I am free. By his wounds, I am healed. The death I earned, the suffering I deserved, the penalty I asked for - he took it all in my place, in our place, so that we could be free from sin. Free to enter his presence and be in relationship with him. Free to be called his children and his friends. Free to enjoy life and peace and joy in the places we love with the people we love. Free to dangle our feet in the pool and breathe in the night air and think on him in the light of the moon. 

For he suffers no more. 

He ripped open the tomb and broke through hell and raised to life again, and now he is with his Father. He is crowned in glory, seated in majesty, surrounded in honor and praise. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him, and he is sovereign over all.

He is sovereign over me, over us. 

When I think on him - the Lamb who was slain and is now alive and ruling in absolutely authority over the world and over me - me heart and soul rest in a peace deeper than the ocean and brighter than the full moon.