Parakalein

I imagine how the disciples must have felt.  They had spent three years with Jesus.  They had mountain top moments, Mt of Transfiguration, moments of deep disappointment, like when Peter was told to get behind me Satan, and moments of disillusionment when they began to hear that Jesus was going to leave them all alone.

No one likes being all alone.  Recall that "it is not good for man to be alone".  There is a difference between needing some alone time and being all alone.

Saturday, is the day between the death of Jesus on Golgotha on Friday and the Resurrection on Sunday morning.

Grief is a dark and lonely place where one feels abandoned by the one who is gone.  But really, the one who is gone has left everyone.  Suddenly it seems grief is very selfish, it is all about me and my loss.  Not really in fact what if it is all about, in the loss, finding great gain.

Adam and Eve felt so much grief, so alone, so separated from God and each other that blame and shame filled the sacred space of the garden.  THey went into the cave of aloneness to hide from the God who was quick to offer the smile of grace.  Not a smile that says it does not matter nor a frown that blames and shames.  God's smile is one of an understanding face and of transformational grace.  Grace that transforms the darkest of moments.  The midnight madness of despair into the midnight of clarity and compassion.

What if Adam and Eve knew that nothing, neither wrong doing or right doing, neither heights of achievements nor depths of despair, nothing can separate us form the love of God that is in the face of Jesus Christ.

In the dark despair and grief of feeling abandoned and alone we see with true light the truth that we are never alone, that we are accepted, adopted, and abundantly forgiven. Just as we are without one plea except that we know God's love is greater, richer and deeper than any pit.  As Corrie TenBoom once said, "There is no pit so deep, that God's grace is not deeper still."
So, I say to all,  when you are falling in grief and feeling all alone, let go and fall into the hole of God's grace.

When Jesus said in that dark moment of his soul, "My God, My God Why have you forsaken me" he was falling into the hands of His father's Grace.

Adam and Eve did not fall from grace, grace was not necessary until they sinned.  They fell into he hole of God's grace.