Advent Doors Day 3: Cross

Raising of the Cross, by Rembrandt van Rijn c. 1633

J.R.R. Tolkien coined the term ‘eucatastrophe’ to mean ‘good catastrophe’ – a sudden turn from dire conditions that proves dramatically and beautifully for the better. Where around there is nothing to inspire hope, yet suddenly out of the darkness, or rather from above it, light breaks through dispelling all the woe and bleakness, ushering in glory and goodness where before none was seen or felt. God is up to something beyond the veil between His land and our eyes. We cannot see it. Yet what looks like only death and destruction will one day show forth as somehow being apart of, or redeemed to work onto His ultimate plan. 

Take the cross itself. A criminals death for an innocent man, injustice, false witnesses, broken religion, lies and power, greed and death… we might relate a little. And yet through this very suffering and death comes the resurrection and the doorway of salvation and eternal life opens wide for all to enter in. Like the dried dead seed, then planted in the ground, bursts forth with color and life in the flower that blooms. Each spring is a eucatastrophe. And so shall every circumstance we face become too, Glory to God.

Michah 4:11-13 (NIV)

11 But now many nations

    are gathered against you.

They say, “Let her be defiled,

    let our eyes gloat over Zion!”

12 But they do not know

    the thoughts of the Lord;

they do not understand his plan,

    that he has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor.

13 “Rise and thresh, Daughter Zion,

    for I will give you horns of iron;

I will give you hooves of bronze,

    and you will break to pieces many nations.”

You will devote their ill-gotten gains to the Lord,

    their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.