Lent Devotional: RestoreSample

Restore: The great unbreaking

The great unbreaking

I remember the beginning.

The choruses of hallelujahs

the awe of newness

the sudden weight of time

and the mouth of God roaring violent light.

I remember the garden singing with life,

the wild scent of flowers carried on unpolluted breeze;

birds singing in the warmth of a young sun;

tentative footsteps on never-trodden grass;

man, woman – the first embrace.

I remember the slither of the serpent

and the hiss of the oldest lie;

I remember pain, the howling pain of knowledge

and then the quivering of shame,

hiding from the only love that could fix it.

I remember the breaking,

relationships ripped apart –

great chasms between people and God

and people and the world

and people and themselves.

But I also remember him.

The carpenter’s son, the Rabbi, the temple-trasher,

demon-tormentor, crowd-feeder, leper-healer;

I remember his body being wrecked –

his brokenness our great unbreaking.

Gideon Heugh, Tearfund