Thorns on thy brow | Beauty and Hope

Apr 12

7 min read

Inspiration from an 1800's Hymn and a Harvard Professor

"Lord Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine;

For thee all the follies of sin I resign;

My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art thou;

If ever I loved thee, Lord Jesus 'tis now.

I love thee, because thou hast first loved me,

And purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree;

I love thee for wearing the thorns on they brow;

If ever I loved thee, Lord Jesus, 'tis now.

In mansions of glory and endless delight,

I'll ever adore thee in heaven so bright;

I'll sing with the glittering crown on my brow;

If ever I loved thee, Lord Jesus 'tis now."

-William R. Featherstone, "Lord Jesus, I Love Thee," The Methodist Hymnal

"There's beauty and hope in healing," said Dr. Richard Mollica of Harvard & Mass General Research Institute, at a recent trauma informed care in mainstream healthcare conference I attended. Not just in the normal voice in which you would often read that line. No, Dr. Mollica opened the day by sharing "there's beauty and hope in healing" with great gusto and heart and the deep knowing, like a man who had witnessed first-hand the after effects of the Cambodian Genocide and had shown up for survivors of in Sarajevo Bosnia after an "ethnic cleansing" (horrific mass murder, like a worst nightmare becoming your daily lived experience). It really struck me. A man who has worked with the most broken, most deeply hurting individuals, villages, and communities of people, has come away from his time there with a profound sense of knowing that we must communicate to those we walk beside in darkness that there is hope and beauty to be found in the healing.

I think of my time as a Mom to kids in the foster care system. Each one a masterpiece. Each one precious and beloved by the King of Kings. Each one let down in some way that began to work on their belief system about themselves like they were the new prime target for Screwtape in his letters to Wormwood in the well-known C.S. Lewis Classic, The Screwtape Letters. I think of the horrific things these children in our home never asked to be "strong" for, of how these amazing kids never chose "a great God story one day" in exchange for heinous acts done to them by evil-afflicted adults.

I think of different court hearings that caused these children and sometimes us as their safe adults, symptoms like throwing up, anxiety, depression, and profound confusion at a broken system that could fight for these innocent hurting ones to go back into the war they just found refuge from without accountability or expectation for the adults in that war-stricken home to create a better and safer experience this next time around for the children being returned.

What is the purpose of suffering?

Why do we have to suffer?

Why do we have to watch others suffer?

What if the answer lies not in the suffering? What if the answer lies somewhere in the healing? What if the question is the wrong question?

Would we all cast out suffering if we could? Yes. Undeniably yes. But would a God who watched as His beloved kids brought suffering onto themselves, deny His children a better way, even in the aftermath of their violent choices?

"What beauty and what hope do I get discover after the suffering is over?"

"What beauty and what hope does this Jesus speak of, that He would purchase my pardon on Calvary's tree? That He would wear thorns on thy brow for me?"

Please don't misunderstand. There will never be a purpose for violence.

AND. Where there is violence, there is hope and beauty offered freely to us and at great cost to a Messiah who gave everything to be able to offer this to us.

I can't make sense of the violence, but I can train my mind to look for the hope and beauty that wells up when it's time for that healing to happen. And if I'm in a season where I find myself or my loved one or my neighbor to be in a war that is currently happening, I can hold out hope. I can't make sense of Jesus being crucified like a criminal on a Cross for my sake, but I can choose to hold hope in it. I can weep and hold hope. I can hurt, and hold hope. I can sit in the dark lonely place and acknowledge the dark with my child/spouse/friend/neighbor/coworker, and I can hold hope for them.

I can choose to receive what came after Jesus was crucified and buried. After the loud crack and the curtain tearing and eerie silence, when light stepped into darkness for all of mankind's sake. I can take steps away from the tomb where we weep for the one we love who was violently murdered, and turn to the living, breathing, active God who wants to show me something beautiful.

Foster Mom Hannah can turn from the whole-body mind and spirit crushing events that happened to her little loves. She can, if she chooses, if she finds the strength (spoiler alert, she does a little at a time for 5 years and then suddenly a lot all at once...) and she can choose to turn to the new work, new love, ancient hope turned new, new beauty reserved just for these precious ones, reserved just for the family who's hearts and minds and souls have suffered along side, and reserved just for a community who's hearts have been broken stemming from wars inside of homes.

There's hope and beauty that's known in the deep parts, like a gift that can only be received after one's wounds are sewn-up not with 2-0 vicryl like a typical surgeon uses, but sewn up with string made of that very beauty and hope that lies only in waiting for those who have dared to take steps in the nightmarish blackness of human violence, finding themselves survivors, sometimes wishing they were not. This beauty and hope Dr. Mollica speaks of is a beauty and hope that is received after human violence leads to the human suffering of the next survivor who never chose this path but is still found surrounded by ugliness indescribable.

And here, at the darkest, most broken place, here is where the Healer offers the gifts unseen to those who have misunderstood life's purpose as a life where one should gather safety, wealth, and comfort and draw lines around that to keep themselves secure.

Here in the darkest, most broken place, the Lord brings safety indescribable and untouchable to those who don't yet know.

Here in the darkest, most broken place, the Healer brings safety in all circumstances, even in the circumstance of war within the home sparked by addiction and poverty and cycles of abuse coupled with lack of support.

Even in the circumstance of war within the mind,

war within conflicting belief systems between those we are supposed to call our neighbors or within our own church or neighboring churches,

war within the bullying situation at school.

When the Healer is given control, He can bring safety in all circumstances.

He can bring safety even within the gangs of South Bend Indiana or in

war-torn Myanmar.

Safety across the border in Thailand.

The Healer brings wealth surpassing all of the wealthiest bank accounts. The wealth of a "purchased pardon" that could come only on Calvary's tree. The Son of Man, fully man and fully God, brings comfort that settles and warms and stirs up the most numbed of all numb places, by "wearing the thorns on they brow."

William R. Featherstone wrote the Hymn "Lord Jesus, I Love Thee" in the 1800's, likely when he was in his teenage years. I wonder what darkness He had walked through. Was it his is own? Or had he perhaps read the word of God and known at that age the expectation of receiving such grace which is to allow it to flow through us freely to others, and so, had Featherstone chosen to step down into someone else's darkness?

I can only presume there was darkness, and a full and deep comprehension of that darkness, for this hope and beauty Dr. Mollica also speaks of, to have come out of Featherstone as he wrote the lyric "I love thee, because thou hast first loved me. And purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree. I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow. If ever I loved thee, Lord Jesus 'tis now."

It would appear that in some way, the writer of this lyric had spent time considering the Suffering of Christ, and the secret, special, incredibly reserved and precious gifts that Christ shares with us in our own suffering. Gifts received from the Holy One who suffered, preserved and shared through the stitching up and the healing as we suffer because the suffering was chosen for us, or as we step into suffering because the suffering was chosen for someone beside us.

I'm taking a page from Dr. Mollica's book of wisdom and choosing to put the spotlight on the beauty and the hope that comes with healing. He would argue that there is no healing without hope and beauty. I wonder if the question we ask could transform from "how broken is this situation, this person, this child, this marriage, this system, this heart of mine?" into "as we comprehend and appreciate this great suffering, I wonder what great hope and what great beauty lies in wait for us as we seek the Healer and the Healing?"

Where is your suffering? Are you ready to let God in? It hurts. It's personal. It's not easy to open that locked up room in our heart. But he's waiting and ready. And when you're ready to say yes, remember ...