Music has a way of lingering in my mind; often, I will get “stuck” in a song and have it playing, either literally or mentally, nonstop. It’s like my mind is an old record with a scratch, and one song is the only groove that is working. “Where Joy and Sorrow Meet” by Audrey Assad is one of those songs.
So often I forget that the cross is more than a place of pain and agony. I find myself getting lost in the cost of my failures. My sin… my shortcomings… my rejection of God…
But the cross is more than that. Yes, it is the place where my sin is dealt with; and yes, it is my failure that is the cause of the crucifixion, but it is also the place where all sin is remedied.
If there were anything worthy of praise, if there were anything to be amazed by, if there were anything that I could be excited about, it is that my sin is no more.
But I forget. I forget that while the cross is a place of horror and death, it is also the culmination of our God and Father’s plan to destroy the problem of sin that has been plaguing humanity since the foundation of the world.
How can I not be joyful about that?
There’s a trope in movies and books: the Hero is wandering in the desert after some kind of disaster has stranded them. However they get there, we quickly see the Hero start to struggle. The desert is not a place where anyone thrives. The Hero quickly stumbles and falls over the sand, looking for some relief, but there is none.
Finally, they see it. There’s a little pond, some palm trees, sometimes a hammock, and, depending on the movie, the Hero sees some version of a waiter coming to them with a tall glass of water.
And just as the Hero gets to the edge of the water to plunge their face into its refreshing waters to drink and be restored, the mirage is torn away, and they have plunged their face into a pile of hot sand.
This was my story, until I was found by God. This is your story, without God. No matter where we went or what we tried, we were trapped wandering the desert, being fooled into plunging our faces into mountain after mountain of hot, dry sand, thinking it was water.
Only when God stretched out his hand to us, pulled us out of the mirage, and brought us to his oasis did we finally get the water of life we needed.
The cross is not a place I can see without having the most drastic conflicted feelings I could ever have.
The cross is where my failures and my rebellion put to death the Son of God. Where the Most Pure, Innocent, and Holy One was put in the place that I deserved. And that is… devastating.
The cross is also the place where all of humanity comes to see God putting an end to our collective failure. Paying the full penalty of our rebellion once and for all people.
I can, through the agony of the cross, finally come to God as pure as the man who died there.
And his love for me is shown by his free choice to come to me and bring me back to the Father, washed clean and pure. I am going to be in the very presence of God, not as a guest or a visitor, but as a son called home by a Father.
It is while walking through the threshold of my home, reaching for my Brother, that I see it has hurt Him.
My homecoming is not without a cost.
His hands, His feet, His side, His Head… and it is here where I truly find “Where Joy and Sorrow Meet.”