🍲 @username53748

Who helped me to bear my heavy cross? Who fixed me up, turned me ’round, Left my feet on solid ground? I know it was Jesus! I know it was the Lord! Who do you think gave sight to the blind? Made the lame to walk And dead men rise? Who took the fishes and the loaves of bread And made five hundred so all could be fed? Oh, Jesus, Oh Lord, Jesus! My Lo

Scholars say they referenced psalms by quoting the opening line. Given that information, here’s what may have been happening: When Jesus is on the cross, quoting the first line of this psalm, it’s almost as if He’s saying, “Remember that psalm about the coming Messiah? That prophecy David wrote? It’s about Me. This is it. I’m it!”

say his prayer

to the turbulent Jesus

hidden in the water,

Updike’s poem, which he wrote in 1960 for an arts contest at his church (he won), is beloved by many, myself included. It tells the reader that the Resurrection is not a parable, not an event to mark the rebirth of spring. Easter is no tamed observance that respectable modern people can fit neatly into our sensibilities. The force of its claims mus

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. (

Look, O LORD, and see how worthless I have become. 12 Is it nothing to you,[2] all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the LORD inflicted on the day of his fierce anger.

Jesus’ lament of God-forsakenness is answered with the Resurrection. His Father acts on his prayer and raises him from the dead, creating a new, deathless body for Jesus, a foretaste of the coming new creation that will utterly transform all of us who believe in him. Laments work.