Love Opens the Way

The other side of the scroll

The love that carries Him has brought us here. He knows what the Father desires, and He has come willingly to accomplish it. Within that love is the bride He longs to bring near, the people whose lives we have followed through the generations, and those still to come. He holds their history and their hope together in Himself.

Remember the scroll we have been carrying. In our telling, its substance is the skin of the Lamb, the Ketubah upon which we imagine the covenant written. One surface bears the unfolding of our natural lives; the other carries the eternal purpose we have been trying to glimpse. Christ knows both sides. He exists upon both sides at once, holding together what we cannot bring together ourselves.

Now imagine His blood touching that covenant.

The crimson enters the surface and spreads through the skin. What appears upon one side reaches the other, until the same stain belongs to both. Within this image, the distance we have pictured between the physical and the spiritual is crossed by the offering of the One who bears them. His blood saturates the very substance holding the two accounts together.

We can remain here without following every wound. The love with which He gives Himself is already beyond our ability to measure. Through His blood, Scripture tells us, those once far away are brought near. (Ephesians 2:13) Across our imagined scroll, the crimson becomes the visible expression of that nearness. The covenant bears upon both sides the cost He has willingly paid.

What must this mean to the forces aligned against Him?

For generations, human history has carried the consequences of separation from God. Into that history came Jesus, commanding unclean spirits, restoring broken lives, and calling people into the love of the Father. His presence disturbed what had seemed so firmly established. Even death yielded when He called a man from his tomb.

Then they saw Him die.

Consider the terrible mistake concealed within that apparent victory. They had brought about the death of the man without comprehending the purpose of the One who had entered humanity. Paul tells us that the rulers of this age did not understand God’s hidden wisdom; had they understood, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (1 Corinthians 2:7–8)

From the other side of the scroll, we begin to consider what their victory had actually accomplished. The death they had helped bring about belonged within the purpose God had held before the ages. The One they opposed had willingly entered the condition through which He would break their hold. Hebrews describes Christ overcoming the one who held the power of death through death itself, bringing release to those enslaved by its fear. (Hebrews 2:14–15)

They had made a grave error in the execution of the man. The man was the Lord of glory, and His surrender had carried Him into the very place from which humanity needed deliverance.

Let that discovery have its weight. We need no imagined weapons or spectacle to make His authority immense. We have already seen a little of what happens when He identifies Himself: those who came to arrest Him drew back and fell to the ground. He then gave Himself into their hands. (John 18:4–12) What they were permitted to do proceeded within His willingness to fulfill the Father’s purpose.

Now Paul speaks of rulers and authorities disarmed, exposed, and triumphed over through the Cross. (Colossians 2:13–15) What had appeared to be the removal of the One troubling them had become the disclosure of a purpose they had failed to comprehend. The covenant was receiving His blood, and the two sides of our scroll were being drawn together through His offering.

Then come those three days, over which I can only pause in wonder. I do not know everything taking place beyond the sight of those who mourned Him. Peter gives us the account of Christ’s proclamation to spirits in prison, and I find myself considering how much those few words hold. (1 Peter 3:18–20) The people could know where His body had been laid. They could not stand outside that tomb and comprehend the reach of His work.

We can allow the unknown to remain vast. The risen Lord tells us that He lives forevermore and holds the keys of Death and Hades. (Revelation 1:17–18) Those words give us something to carry through the silence: the authority belongs to Him, and the One who entered death will emerge beyond its dominion.

Here I find another image forming. The Master has the keys, and He is making copies for His followers. That is how I picture the generosity of what He has accomplished—the way He opens access and brings others into the life He possesses. Jesus speaks of giving the keys of the Kingdom, and Hebrews invites us to enter God’s presence through the new and living way opened by His blood. (Matthew 16:19; Hebrews 10:19–22) The victory reaches toward the very people He came to gather.

Return now to the deep sleep of the first Adam. From his side, God formed the woman He brought to him. We have carried that image toward the Last Adam, considering His death as the deep sleep through which He gives Himself for His bride. Paul speaks of Christ loving the church and giving Himself for her, drawing marriage into the mystery of their belonging. (Genesis 2:21–23; Ephesians 5:25–32)

The love that brought Him here has reached beyond what His followers could see. While they grieve the loss of His presence, the purpose of bringing them near is being fulfilled. Their sorrow is real, but it cannot yet tell them what their Lord has accomplished.

Morning comes, and we find ourselves in a garden again. Our story began in a garden, with humanity receiving life from God and then turning away. Here, beside another garden tomb, the Last Adam is alive. Paul calls Him a life-giving spirit and directs our hope toward bearing His heavenly likeness. (1 Corinthians 15:45–49) The life before us reaches beyond the mortal existence we have known.

Mary stands weeping until He speaks her name. In that recognition, the immensity of His work becomes intimate enough for one person to receive. He knows her, and she knows Him. (John 20:11–16) The Lord who has passed through death has come within her hearing, and His voice carries the relationship through what she believed had ended it.

Hold the scroll close once more. The crimson has reached both surfaces, and the same Christ holds them together. What was offered within human history opens into eternal life; what God purposed beyond our sight now invites us into fellowship with Him. We can begin surrendering ourselves to that love today, allowing the life of the risen Christ to find expression in the bodies, words, and actions through which we live.

He has given Himself to bring His bride near. As we walk with Him into the garden, we are only beginning to discover what His love has opened.