When Earth Trembles

“And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.  At that moment…the earth shook, the rocks split.” Matthew 27:50-51.

I was reading this morning about the moment Jesus gave up His life on the cross.  Jesus, the unblemished Lamb died at 3:00 in the afternoon, the exact time the temple priest was sacrificing lambs for the sins of the people.  Can you even imagine what they thought as they lost their footing when the earth began to violently tremble?  Did they understand the significance of what had just happened on that day?  Scripture makes it clear the whole earth shook in such a violent manner, it was felt everywhere.  Rocks began splitting in half and moving in ways they never had before.  The translation for split is ‘to violently tear asunder, or to terribly fracture.’  You see, creation had just lost their Love.   Creation fully understood that the hands who formed them had been nailed to the cross.  Creation fully understood that their master’s commands had been silenced.  The waves remembered the day when Jesus asked them to quieten themselves.  The sea longed for the day when at His command they were told to part.  The foundation of the world cried in such violent ways the heart of the earth split open.  The sun refused to shine for 3 hours that day wearing its dark garment of grief.  They knew…they understood perfectly what had just happened…and their grief was unbearable!

I couldn’t help but to remember certain times in my life when grief felt like the earth shook so violently that I would fall right off.  Phone calls on an ordinary day turned into my heart splitting wide open with the news on the other end.  Walking through circumstances that seemed so dark that the sun would never shine again.  But it did thanks to God who resurrects life!  At His command I was comforted.  At His insistence I laid my sorrow upon His shoulders, so I could walk forward.  He uninvitedly invaded my darkness with His brilliant light and the sun shone once again. 

I’m sure you have lived out circumstances that felt like a ‘terrible fracture.’  You might be walking through a situation where you earth has just trembled, and you are just trying to get your footing.  God has been the ultimate Stabilizer since the beginning of time.  He takes what shakes us and uses the good stuff, while discarding the debris that no longer benefits us.  He begins a beautiful resurrection project in our dead hearts where we must kneel together with Him.  We must be willing to be put back together by His creative hands. 

"When suffering shatters the carefully kept vase that is our lives, God stoops to pick up the pieces. But he doesn't put them back together as a restoration project patterned after our former selves. Instead, he sifts through the rubble and selects some of the shards as raw material for another project - a mosaic that tells the story of redemption."  The North Face of God, Ken Gire.