I see myself on the banks of that river. I have long silvery hair; we’ve already traveled far together and for many years. But now we’re on the bank of the river and I’m on my knees and my wrists are shackled to you. I wear your brand on my heart. You extend your hand to me; there’s a scroll in it and you spread it out in front of me.
These are the cries of my heart, you say. They are the words of my injury at the rebellion of the people I have chosen. My agony. My dirge. My songs of mourning, of loneliness, of desire spurned. Will you eat it? Will you take it into yourself and carry it with you? Will you partake of my pain and bear my burden?
The questions ring like a cracked, dusty bell somewhere inside me. I pause. I feel the weight of the moment. Christ sharing his suffering with me. Like someone pulling me down to the ocean floor, to the deepest of the deep. Will I be able to breathe there? To feel the depth of pain that resides in the heart of God, his fury at unrighteousness, his longing like a mother whose kids have squandered their upbringing and rejected her. Can I bear it? Will it shatter me forever, crush me under its gravity? Will it take me out, overwhelm me to the point that I can’t function? Depress me, make me too sad and internal to engage?
But your eyes catch mine. They are full of tears and love and life and fire. They are full of yearning—for them, for me. I look at the shackles that bind me to you and they become long chains of stems and leaves and bright flowers woven around and through and under. Their scent hits my nose like the first spring shower, like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day. Addictive. Warm. The pull to the ocean floor gets stronger and I release myself to it. I let it carry me down as I open my mouth to the scroll. It goes down thick and slow, sweet like honey and I’m undone by wild eternal emotion taking up residence in my belly. My eyes open to color and motion and I’m breathing as if for the first time though I’m under water. At once I’m in the dark ocean and taking off in flight. I soar with your willingness, your mercy, your empathy, your grace. And I’m sunk in your longing and loneliness, carrying around in my body the dying of Jesus.
Yes. Yes I will eat. Yes I will eat again and again. To be with you in the depths and the heights. To feast on your sorrow.
“Now you, son of man, listen to what I am speaking to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you. Then I looked, and behold, a hand was extended to me; and lo, a scroll was in it. When He spread it out before me, it was written on the front and back, and written on it were lamentations, mourning and woe.” Ezekiel 2:8-10