Phil and I walk Caroline the half-mile to school in the morning. On the first day of kindergarten, we walked her to the classroom and lingered outside, not quite knowing how to leave. In first and second grade, we walked her up to the playground entrance and watched as she ran in to see her friends. This year, she likes to be dropped off at the telephone pole near the street. We stand there and follow her with our eyes ‘til she rounds the corner into the doors.

We say our last words for the morning there at the telephone pole. She says, “Love you!” while Phil says, “You’re smart!” and “Be blessed!” And I say, “Love you!” and “See you at three!” and she turns to leave. I shout, “Have a good day!” and, if there’s a test that day, “Read the directions!” and “Take your time!” and “Do your best!” and “God is with you!” By then, she’s pretty much out of earshot.

This is how we say goodbye, with a volley of parting words. We hope they land in her heart.

Jesus’ parting words showed him taking care of last things with friends, strangers, his mother, his Father. But these last words from the cross were not his last. This is the reason we celebrate Easter: because death didn’t have the final word.

He said many other things after the Resurrection, like:

Peace be with you.

Receive the Holy Spirit.

Feed my sheep.

Go, make more disciples.

I’m always with you, even to the very end.

A volley of last words: where would they land?

I think back to the expensive perfume poured over Jesus’ head by a stranger and poured on his feet by his friend Mary. The aroma must have filled the air, clinging to the clothes and hair of all who were there. I bet it stuck in their nostrils for days. I wonder if it wafted from the tomb yet a week later.

Jesus spoke last words and everlasting words. He was both the messenger and the Message; the narrator of God’s words and the Word made flesh. And, like the scent of perfume wafting on the air, his words linger today.

Where will they land? May they land in our hearts.

Photo credit: Amanda Meyers

Do you know someone who might like this short essay? Please share it with them. Thanks! –Em

The day we call Good Friday was once a very bad Friday. By three o’clock, Jesus had suffered greatly and was dead.

The Seven Last Words from the Cross, Jesus’ final sayings recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, have been my writing topic these past six weeks. I’ve also been writing about my own seven “lasting words”–not my “last words” (too morbid), nor “everlasting words” (we’ll just leave those to Jesus)–but words that stick with me, sayings that rattle around in my head, or things I say to others. They are:

Lord, have mercy.

Did you know you’re special to me?

Take care.

I hope.

I need.

I’m just a person.

and Thank you.

I arranged my “lasting words” in an order that sort of dovetailed with Jesus’ Last Words, which worked out pretty well until now. My final saying is “Thank you,” while Jesus is giving up his life. My last word is a plastic shopping bag. Jesus, meanwhile, is dead at a young age under dark skies.

Still, I couldn’t omit thank you from my lasting words. I’m big on saying thank you, as my daughter can attest. I like to say thanks as a matter of courtesy and a spiritual practice—showing gratitude to people and to the Giver of all good things. But now I’m wondering how thanks fit with Jesus’ last breath.

The seventh Last Word comes from Luke, who gives us a time-lapse perspective of Jesus’ final three hours:

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:44-47)

Luke really packs a lot into these sentences—the solar-eclipse effect, the shocking incident in the temple, Jesus shouting out his last lungful. The thing that grabs my attention here is the darkness, how eerie it must have felt. The description of darkness covering the land takes me back to the opening poem of the Bible, when “darkness covered the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:2). Though I try to imagine the darkness of that moment, the world suddenly bereft of Jesus, I can’t fathom it.

In the very next sentence, Luke turns his gaze away from Jesus: “The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, ‘Surely this was a righteous man.’” He’s talking about Jesus in the past tense, of course, but there is a light bulb over his head: Aha! In the darkness, the centurion suddenly realizes who Jesus really was. Even hardened Roman soldiers–the most endarkened–may be enlightened.

In the creation poem, darkness covers the face of the deep—until God speaks. “Let there be light,” God said. And there was light. In Luke’s telling and in the Genesis creation poem, darkness comes before light.

Before darkness comes the simple blessing of thanks. Jesus spoke seven times from the cross, yet he prefaced the whole ordeal with thanks. Sitting down to the Passover meal, Jesus picked up a glass of wine and thanked God for it. He took a piece of bread and thanked God for it. After these things, the mood darkened. It would become very dark indeed before the light reemerged.

I’m so grateful for the very bad Friday that precedes our very good Sunday–that makes our joy possible.

Darkness precedes light.

Thank you comes before Into thy hands I commit my spirit.

And thanks precedes all.

This is the seventh post in a multi-post series for Lent. Find the most popular one here and the first one here. As ever, thanks for reading, liking, and sharing! -Em : )

A while back I read Tig Notaro’s book, I’m Just a Person. That title really stuck with me: “I’m just a person.” It’s not an excuse. It’s not apologetic. It’s just one way of explaining why things don’t work out as planned. It’s become a regular saying for me when my genuine best isn’t good enough.

I used to say, “It is what it is.” Now I tell myself: “I’m just a person.”

In high school I was armed and prepared to defend against threats to my faith, whether real or imaginary. One year, the choir teacher had us singing a medley from Jesus Christ Superstar, and I was queasy about Mary Magdalene’s song, “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.” It came down to this line: “He’s a man, he’s just a man.” I refused to sing it, determined to be some kind of musical teen martyr.

After class I approached the teacher with my reasoning, which was that Jesus was a man but not just a man. The problem was the word “just”—the diminution of it. The teacher patiently explained the character’s point of view in context and that it was just a Broadway tune, not Christian doctrine. Then she gave in, choosing new music for the spring concert.

I was using the tools I had, but they were none too sharp. I was just a person.

Kind of like Jesus was just a man. But he was also God. (God is big enough to be both.)

I think now of Paul’s letter, when he waxes poetic (no, really – it’s written like free verse) about Jesus, who,

Though he was in the form of God,
did not consider being equal with God something to exploit.
But he emptied himself
by taking the form of a slave
and by becoming like human beings. (Phil. 2:6-7)

Jesus didn’t claim his divine rights. Instead, he poured himself out to become “just a man,” like Mary Magdalene sings.

Paul continues:

When he found himself in the form of a human,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,

even death on a cross. (2:7-8)

Emptied out, humble, obedient: that’s exactly how we find Jesus in this week’s Last Words from the Cross. After taking a sip of sour wine, “Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30).

The curious part of this Last Word is not his saying it’s finished but rather what comes next. Most translations say that he bowed his head and gave up his spirit (or “gave up the ghost”). Recently I came across a version worded differently: “And, letting his head droop, he delivered up his spirit.” I like this wording because it feels truer to the circumstances of dealing with a failing body.

“Bowing his head” sounds as if Jesus is bowing in prayer, which gives the event too pious a sheen. He’s not bowing in prayer but surrendering to death. His body can take no more. His flesh-and-bone neck has given out. He’s yielded to human limitations. He’s just a person.

I don’t know which version is more faithful to the original text. My point is this: I don’t want abstract Lenten piety to eclipse the real, human agony of the man who was God—and also just a person. It’s easy to do — I’m just a person. And maybe — if I’m being honest — like Mary Magdalene, I don’t know how to love him.

I’m doing my best. But you know, I’m just a person.

This is the sixth post in a multi-post series for Lent. Find the most popular one here and the first one here. As ever, thanks for reading. -Em : )

A couple years ago, I started attending writing conferences and learned how very much I need. I’ve listened to credible people with tons of clout in Christian publishing explain what is needed for success.

If you want a literary agent, you need at least 10,000 followers. If you want a book deal, you need a lot more than good writing. If you want your book to sell, your writing needs to satisfy a big need among readers.

Experts say these things not to dishearten but to disenchant. I guess you could say I’m now less enchanted with the prospect of publishing.

However, I do feel called to write, but my need to write is stronger than the need to amass followers or try to figure out readers’ big need. And so, I’ve been operating on the assumption that maybe readers need the same thing I need, which is a big need, which is Jesus.

Sometimes when I write the words come easily, and sometimes there’s a hole in the bucket and the well is dry. Like today. I’ve learned to ask for the words—words that are needed.

Not long ago, I remembered a song from my childhood that seemed like the perfect Invocation of the Muse. It’s a hymn by Gloria and Bill Gaither, and this is the verse I remember:

Come, Holy Spirit, I need you,
Come, sweet Spirit, I pray,
Come in your strength and your power,
Come in your own gentle way.

Lately when I sit down to write, I sing it. On days I’m too discouraged to sing, I whisper it.

Weighed down by despair, Jesus whispered one last need from the cross: “I’m so thirsty.” They offered him a sip of vinegar. The only needful thing left was to die. So he waited. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit waited in the wings. Jesus had already promised to send his friends someone to help them:

“The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you” (John 14:26-27).

In Jesus’ absence, the Holy Spirit brings us God’s presence. Of all the things I need–marketing prowess, intellectual clout, a social media miracle–that’s the main thing I need.

This is the fifth post in a multi-post series for Lent. Find the most recent one here and the first one here. Thanks for reading. -Em : )

Caroline fell in love with the new Disney movie Zombies, a Romeo-and-Juliet musical with cheerleaders and, you guessed it, zombies. Generally, zombies are not my thing, but the songs are so catchy. I know this because she’s had Alexa play them many, many times.

When we get in the car, though, she’ll ask me to turn on the radio and say, “Oh, I hope they play my song!” This is a new thing. When I let her have my phone in the car, she can bring up any song she wants, but lately she’d rather wait for the lucky surprise of hearing her song on the radio.

This is how we listened to music back in the day. We hoped and waited for the radio to play our song because our moms wouldn’t buy the cassette, and we certainly didn’t have Alexa on call to play music. I remember waiting hours (?) for those first notes of Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up,” my boom box poised to record at two seconds’ notice. When the song finally played, it was everything I’d hoped for.

I have the cassette tape in my basement. If you ever want to borrow it, straight up now tell me.

Caroline’s new habit reminds me how fun it is to hope for something, then poof it appears. So far, Radio Disney has not played her song while we’re in the car, but when it happens there’ll be smiles for miles.

What happens, though, when you wait and hope for something, but it doesn’t appear? No poof. You think, “Maybe, just maybe, they’ll play my song.” But it’s always some other song.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,” wise old Solomon wrote. Ain’t that the truth.

Looking at the Seven Last Words, I notice this week’s saying is the most heart-sick of all: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus had given up his wants, but I wonder if he held on to some tiny sliver of hope. Passersby had been mocking him, but perhaps the last remark stung the most: “He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him . . .”

Maybe, just maybe, the heavens will open and angels will execute some dramatic, nick-of-time rescue. I hope. But, of course, it wasn’t to be.

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast; / Man never is, but always to be blest,” Alexander Pope wrote. Sometimes I hate how hopeful I am, especially when there is no poof of fulfillment, no good reason for it. In these Last Words, Jesus not only quotes David’s song of despair, but he simply asks why. Probably he partly knows and partly wonders. Whatever the case, his words signify the stark clarity that accompanies the loss of hope.

This is a long way from hoping to hear your favorite song, but the impulse is the same. The difference lies not so much in the things for which we hope but the one on whom we pin our hopes. Again, Solomon: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, / but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” And the tree, for a time, was draped with a suffering Savior who hoped in God. The poof had to wait through all of Saturday.

I wait in hope for several things: responses from publishers, a report of students’ test scores, a call that my new glasses arrived, a decent grade on Caroline’s math test, and her song to play on the radio. Varying degrees of importance, maybe, but they depend on one thing:

I hope.

This is the fourth post in a multi-post series for Lent. Find the first one here and the previous one here. Thanks for reading. -Em : )

Photo: Robert Indiana’s Hope sculpture on Michigan Avenue on a cloudy spring morning.

My favorite sign-off for emails is “Take Care.” It’s pretty informal, but it conveys feelings of affection without inadvertently weirding out the recipient.

When I was in college, I encountered people who signed off emails with “Best,” which I found new and strange.

“Best what?” I wondered. Best wishes, best of luck, best punch to the throat? “Best” leaves things too open ended for my taste.

My favorite professor, however, signed off messages with “Warm Wishes,” which I thought was nice. I’ve borrowed it myself a few times, but I always go back to “Take Care.” Sometimes I end phone calls with it—and I mean it. I do care about the person on the other end and his or her “wild and precious life.”

“Take care” was one of Jesus’ last words from the cross, in a way.

“When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that time on, this disciple took her into his home” (John 19:26-27).

Jesus cared deeply for his mom and for John, but he wouldn’t be around to care for them much longer. So he asked them to take care of each other.

John, take care of my mom. Mom, take care of John. Please take care of each other when I’m gone. Take care.

When Caroline was born, I experienced the privilege of actually taking care of someone. I’d really only been responsible for myself up until then, but with her I first understood caretaking as an honor—as well as (or maybe in spite of) being hard work.

Phil still teases me about the time she asked me to cut up her pancakes and I said, “It would be my privilege to cut up your pancakes.” Over the top? Yes. But sometimes I have to remind myself.

I’m convinced that “take care” is the seed—the beginning—of love. Taking care, caring about others, caring for others’ needs—that’s how the sheep get fed.

Jesus asked Peter a third time, “Do you love me?” and he replied, “Lord, you know everything; you know I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:17).

This is the third post in a multi-post series for Lent. Find the first one here. Thanks for reading. -Em : )

Photo courtesy of Jill Biehl, photographer and farmer extraordinaire.