Good Friday reflection: brokenness to restoration

Do you know the story of the Ragman? I know it from our Easter sunrise service - every so many years it's one we do as a drama and I was reminded of it as my parents shared that they'll be doing it again this Easter. Basically, a man walks through the streets of a city, calling out that he'll give new rags for old ones. He comes across a woman sobbing with heartbreak, gives her a clean handkerchief for her used one, and he walks away sobbing as she sits there in peace. He takes a child's blood-soaked bandage from her head, which then becomes a bleeding wound on is own head while she now has not even a scar. He takes a jacket from a one-armed man and as he gives the new jacket, the man's arm is restored while the Ragman now is missing an arm. And he takes the blanket of a drunk, offering new clothes while he himself staggering away, now the drunk. He hobbles outside the city, crying, bleeding, staggering, where he finally lays down and dies. And yet the teller of the story is awakened 2 days later to find the Ragman alive and without any of the sorrow that he carried, and he invites the Ragman to dress him in new clothes (for the actual story, you can read here).

I'm deeply touched by this story this week. Over the past months, I've carried much pain, sorrow and heaviness from my own weaknesses and failures and the battle against lies and evil in the world around me. My brokenness is ever present. And yet our Beautiful Savior willingly took on all of this, not so that it disappears completely, but so that I don't have to carry the burden of it. Out of his love he chose. He chose to take it on himself. He choose to endure for ME.

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
    it was our sorrows that weighed him down...
 He was pierced for our rebellion,
    crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
    He was whipped so we could be healed.     (Isaiah 53:4-5) 

 I'm profoundly humbled and grateful. I'm completely undeserving of such grace and mercy, unworthy of such infinite love that suffered so horrifically so that....
So that I could be free of the burden of sin.
So that I can be redeemed and don't need to live under heaviness.
So that he can offer beauty for ashes, joy for mourning and praise for despair.
So that I could be restored to him as pure and faultless and worthy.
So that he can enjoy unencumbered intimacy with me and delight in me, and I in him.
So that I can live in the freedom of the glory that He designed me for.

I really can't even fathom this. But this year I've been given a whole new awareness of this amazing sacrifice. I'm eternally grateful.

So I'll stand with arms high and heart abandoned
In awe of the One who gave it all
I'll stand, my soul, Lord, to you surrendered
All I am is Yours

One of the most meaningful songs I've experienced in this season.