Beating Hearts

Mark 15 34, 37  And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?  …And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.

Oh, the pain, the racking, clutching, pain!  He’d never known such rapture could bring with it both apprehension and pain.  Could an emotion be ascribed to the overwhelming apprehension of future responsibility, accountability, and preparation he was feeling?  And, how could the pain in each beat of his heart coupled with the tightness of his chest, which had nothing to do with the medical term “heart attack”, be both frightening and welcoming at the same time?  The heart attack he was experiencing was emotional, spiritual, and physical all rolled into one.  Every wave of love coursing through his heart for both his wife and newborn child brought a new level of intensity to the heart attack.  He had thought the wedding had been a time of unprecedented joy until the moment that child’s head appeared and the little body slipped out and into its new world.  Oh, bring on another wave!  He didn’t care if his heart suffered a blowout or not, as long as the suffering never stopped.  Lord, may these waves of joy never fail!

Twenty-five years they’d been together and she’d just up and walked out the door.  He almost called the paramedics because of the jackhammer that was driving through the center of his chest.  Every breath became shallower and shallower with every attempt at air.  How could she have done this?  The pain was unbearable the sorrow intense.  There were other times his heart had pounded from joy and fear alike, but none could compare.  His heart kept a steady triple shot rhythm, “For-sake-n, for-sake-n, for-sake-n”, and every burst seemed to be the one that would strike dead center.  Dead!  He wouldn’t care if his heart suffered a blowout right at this moment, at least the pain would end and the sorrow cease.  They had tried to have children but never new the joy of a birth.  Five times conceived, five times miscarried.  His heart had certainly suffered over the intervening years.  But, there were five children waiting to greet him on Jordan’s far shore.  There had been nights he’d imagined the reunion, seeing them both infant, youth, men and women all at once.  With eternity and without the constraints of time he’d not miss a thing.  “For-sake-n, for-sake-n, for-sake-n”, the shots seemed to get closer to the mark with every sweep of the second hand.  He had never blamed her and had, instead, enveloped her in the protection of his arms at every opportunity.  His efforts extended beyond the physical and he was careful not to offend and cause any stress.  She had finally had to tell him to quit overprotecting her.  But, it had become a routine.  It had become him.  Protecting her had been the central focus of his life.  And, finally, she’d escaped his protecting embrace, broken the bonds, and leapt into the great unknown.  Where would be his focus?  Who would take his love?  Oh, Lord, can I come home?  God would never forsake him.  Yes, Christ would have his love.  The rhythm continued and the pain increased as he stared at the cold, closed door.  Now was not the time for eternity.  Now was the time to heal.  He reached for the phone.

Adam began to cry and sob.  She looked at him baffled and confused.  What hurt him so?  Adam had never felt this way before.  His body was unique.  It had never had pain that didn’t quickly go away.  Once, he’d felt incomplete.  It had been a new sensation, but of course, everything was new.  How do you describe incomplete when you’ve never known complete.  God had known the answer to that pain, if indeed that had been pain.  Compared to the assault on his senses, at this moment the “pain” of incompleteness from his past was simply an inconvenience, a mere burp of indigestion.  Now he knew not only incompleteness but separation and loneliness too.  His wife had just died and he could do nothing about it.  The heart that would’ve beaten for much longer than 930 years had come under a strange and invisible attack.  Adam searched his skin and the area around his chest but could find no source of the pain.  Every time she looked at him with those dead eyes the pain increased.  She smiled and it was the smile of the dead.  His heart almost stopped.  An arrow of searing, white hot, molten lead pierced his flesh and buried itself in the center of his chest.  Yet, when he looked down and reached for the offending arrow, it could not be found.  Her laughter rang hollow in his ears, the echoes striking jangling, sharp, blows against his eardrums.  She stood differently, as if to hide something about her without being obvious.  What did she have to hide?  The smile and laughter held a subtle note of desperation.  They betrayed a hint of fear, something dark, hidden, and foreboding.  His mind had never gone down this path before.  These thoughts were new and uncomfortable.  His heart grew more restless and erratic with every new thought and concept running through his head.  Why was his face streaked with salty tears?  He wasn’t happy.  He certainly wasn’t glad.  These were tears of a different nature.  They were tears he’d soon find common to his life.  His heart was shrinking, its ability to pump life giving blood constrained.  Every beat was a lash on the inner wall of his chest.  Every lash sucked a year off his life.  With each longing look at his wife he could feel the approach of an impending – What?  What was impending?  Then it struck him between the eyes.  It was death.  Death was stalking and skulking about his feet.  Every time he longed to be joined again with Eve and complete, death took one step closer.  The heart in his chest quaked and beat an unnatural rhythm.  What was he to do?  God would certainly come and find Eve strangely different.  She was already taken from him by that wretched serpent, but God would certainly judge her.  Would she remain with Adam?  Perhaps he could find a way out.  Maybe if he joined her in death God would have to accept it as it was.  Oh, his head hurt from the dilemma.  His heart pounded and danced a jig in his chest.  If he didn’t do something soon it would certainly burst.  He’d play it by ear.  First he’d have to join Eve in death, yet she still lived.  Hurrying to escape the dreaded loneliness, he grabbed the fruit and ate.  Then he knew and his spirit died.  Oh, Lord, save us!

The God-man hung in shame on a cruel cross.  With one word God came shining through in full splendor, and with one look the man revealed compassion.  At any moment he was God and at any moment he was a man.  As God he was uniquely God the Son.  As a man he was uniquely sinless.  He had, not only, never sinned, but had been born of a virgin and without Adam’s dreaded curse of inherited sin.  He was not only God the Son with power and authority but he was the Son of God with meekness and servitude.  How his heart continued to beat is beyond man’s comprehension.  The man within him marveled at the pain which surpassed any he’d suffered this day.  As he surveyed the sin-stricken crowd before him his heart nearly burst from the love and compassion he felt.  There was his mother, his tormentors, his disciples, and the mockers; lost and believers alike.  His heart was taxed by malnourishment and stricken with the love of God.  The heart of man was never designed to contain the love of God.  Men thought they knew love and one day they would if they chose the right path.  And, today he made the way.  He must do God’s will and finish it.  He prayed the heart in his chest would be sufficient to the end.  Every beat swallowed him in overwhelming pain.  As each beat struck, his whole body seemed to swell in concert.  Timing the effort of breathing with the beat of his heart lent strength to raising himself up for some sweet, welcome, air.  The torture of frayed nerve endings screamed along his frame.  Every drop of blood gained strength of renewal to encourage damaged flesh.  The eyes of Jesus would lose focus during one of these magnificent beats of his heart and he could see the faces of men and women from the beginning to the end suffering sin’s depravity.  Every other beat was a call that implored, “Come”, to those visionary faces.  Then God the father turned away.  Oh, the love of God in the heart of man strained the life of Jesus.  But, to bear the forsakenness of God and the love of God in the heart of the man Jesus could not be borne.  The Son of God could not be killed.  The Son of God would never have died but for the love and loss of God.  “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”  With that final cry and the dual blows of love and loss crushing his chest from within, he lay down his life.  The heart of Jesus could not abide the suffering of Christ and burst from the supernatural love and loss that slammed into His taxed and inadequate organ of flesh.

Adam opened the way into death and eternal loss.

Christ made the way into life and eternal joy.

Does your heart beat a rhythm of joy or loss?