As holy week progressed, each day marching us closer to the cross and to the death of death and the birth of new life, we here were marching into the fire. The ugly and the messy have gotten uglier and messier and a few times this week, I’ve wanted to dissolve into the ground and sprout up somewhere else.

I have felt the accuser claw at my back, his nails stabbing into my flesh like the wound of a friend turned enemy…only he was never my friend. Words of people I don’t know have pierced me on behalf of one I love and I have cried and screamed and ached for him. I have wanted to lash out – to destroy those people with my own carefully crafted words, returning fire with precise aim, and have called on every piece of restraint I have not to.

These people don’t know me. They don’t know him. Nor do they love me or him. They don’t care for us. We are nothing to them. So why do their words settle inside me like a bitter root desperately trying to take hold? Lord, may your truth be like poison to the lies that are circling like vultures.

In my heart, I am crying out for redemption. Demanding a righting of the wrongs. Desperate for a restoration of things torn down. For the mouth of the lion to be shut.

And then I am reminded of a silent Lamb who walked the dirt, bleeding, dragging a cross that became a sword that cuts off bitter roots. A sword that cut a new covenant in blood poured out at the Place of the Skull. This Warrior Lamb has defeated the evil one, crushing the serpent under His feet.

And I take a breath remembering that the mouth of the lion is powerless with its toothless bite.

And I pray for the courage to be at peace.