Prison and Death, oh Joy!

Maybe one day, my husband will make the Lifetime movie of our adventures, with the stirring title "Loving what I've Lost: How a Mom of Five Maintained (most) of Her Sanity." So we'll keep logging the mundane and the insane, because it's all part of the good life, right?

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Days before leaving Rome, I walked with our older two to the Colosseum. As we drew near, I tried to paint them a picture of what it would have been like in the first century AD. Gladiators clashing in the arena, chariot races, and perhaps even Christians crucified, burned as torches, or fast food for half-starved lions. Well, maybe not very fast if you were one of the children.

All while crowds cheered and went wild with bloodlust, the heat of the day and the cheap wine driving the frenzy to a fever pitch.

I was on a roll when one of my girls piped up, "It's not as big as I thought." 😑

Wait until I show you the next place, kid. It's an underground prison smaller than your bedroom.

The air smelled damp as we descended the stairs, the stone room poorly lit. There was nothing to recommend this place to anyone now - no stunning artwork, or historic scratchings, not even artifacts that would have once been used by the person who lived here.

This cell is merely remarkable because of two former prisoners.

Pere and Paul each spent long and lonely days in the Mamertine Prison. You could almost picture what it would have been like for them trying to scratch out letters to the various Churches scattered around, with little light, materials, or comfort. Did they know that they were just the beginning of a movement that would endure long beyond the Roman city outside had begun to crumble?

As I stood in that dank, dark cell and pictured what it was for these two men to be in that very same place, proclaiming the goodness of God….well, shoot. That must be the dust getting in my eyes.

Ours is not a faith borne out of glamour and grandeur. Ours is one that started in a stable, found its apex at the death of One killed like a common criminal and sent shock waves through history on a Sunday morning.

It has been carried forward on the witness and suffering of hundreds of thousands, in the daily, quiet resistance to evil. Public attempts at shaming, persecution, and death have led to more followers, not less.

It's certainly an ignominious way to build a religion. But it's the perfect way to build a relationship.

From the beginning, we have been a people marked by the lowly, the simple, the shameful, all redeemed for glory. Perhaps that is why, at times, the opulence of the churches of Rome bothered me to the point of anger.

Christianity is not an exclusive club for those who understand the order of a service, or a gilded grasp at power - it's the extended hand to a perishing person, the hope emanating from a rock dungeon prison, the unwavering commitment to love in the face of rage.

Those early martyrs bore on their bodies the marks of following a humble King who made himself a sacrifice when he could have demanded obedience.

A sacrifice that at the time looked like the end of a dream, not the beginning of a fulfilled promise.

Haven't we each had moments when it looked like Death would have the final say in this Story of our faith?

Death of children.

Death of reputations and careers.

Death of marriages and sometimes spouses.

Death of confidence in leaders, of trust in our health, in the comfort of our surroundings.

Death of what has been, without being sure of what will be.

Death of dreams never realized.

Hope deferred for too long just starts to feel like insanity. Or maybe, it's audacious faith and obedience.

The frenzied mob that adored a might-be Messiah on Sunday trades him in for a murderer on Friday. Through it all, a group of women watched, followed, and wept. Once they finally see Jesus’ body wrapped and laid in that rock tomb, they go home.

And they wait.

What?!

Have you met women? We do not “wait” in a crisis. We do not “sit still” in a storm. We act. We fix. We kick into action to organize, strategize, improvise, and provide. We press in when death hits, not withdraw.

Yet Luke 23 tells us that on that Saturday between the seemingly Horrible Friday and the yet unknown Resurrection Sunday, this group of women who had been following, serving, and funding the ministry for three years, “… rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.”

They could have decided to make an exception, extraordinary circumstances being what they were. We certainly wouldn’t have begrudged them trying to stay busy, to do something the day after Christ died.

But instead, they rested. They waited.

And God did all. the. work.

Maybe this Saturday, you’re in between the Struggle and the Solution, between Death and the Promised Land.

The only thing for you and me to do? Enter the Sabbath rest. Press into scripture as we lament, as we grieve. Allow prayer to still the restlessness in your soul.

And wait.

God is not dead. Though your situation may tell you otherwise, though the world conspires against you, though your dreams be sacrificed on the altar of obedience, wait.1

And rest.

God is working on your behalf. You just can’t see it yet.

But Sunday is coming. Best be ready when it does.

JO x