Cracks in Life let the Light of Grace In!

‘There’s a crack, a crack in everything. That’s where the light gets in…’ This is part of the chorus from Leonard Cohen’s ‘Anthem.’ There’s a crack, a brokenness to human life and we feel it in our being. As I gaze around or am deluged with newsfeeds, the brokenness of the world rings out, like the bells in Cohen’s song. There is a brokenness to everything; everything is cracked or cracking, but too often we try to hide it, cover it over or pretend all is well. Life cracks open when narcissists arrogantly assert, megalomaniacs accumulate and abuse power, tyrants tyrannise, and people hurt or die. Life cracks open the violent violate and the wealthy hoard and fail to share. Where there is conflict or hatred, fear or revenge, impoverishment or exclusion and people are pushed aside as collateral damage, the brokenness screams out as the cracks break open. There’s a crack, a crack in everything… Life has its moments of deep darkness, when the clouds of pain and despair descend and swallow us. When the medical staff deliver the news we feared; when we experience the grief of death, or when it looks us in the face; when relationships break open and we feel the loss of dreams… the cracks appear, and we feel the brokenness. This is really what the story of Easter is all about. In those last days before his crucifixion, there is the Passover meal where Jesus names betrayer and denier and identifies the broken bread with his soon-to-be broken body and the cup of wine with his blood that will be shed. They go into the garden, and he cries his desperate prayer: ‘God, if possible, take this cup of suffering from me, but not my will but yours be done.’ Jesus is arrested, tried, abused, and then handed over to the Romans for judgement and death. Pilate is confused, finds no reason, but is fearful of upsetting the religious leaders. Jesus is whipped, and carries his cross through the city, a journey of humiliation and pain. Then he is stripped, nailed to a cross and hung up to die a painful and horrible death. For those around him, there is fear, grief, confusion, and overwhelming pain. Everything has come to an end for them, and they are lost. This is brokenness and the cracks are overwhelming, as reality breaks open in the deepest, most painful way. Over many years we hosted a Stations of the Cross art exhibition curated by minister and artist, Doug Purnell. Doug invited leading visual artists to prepare a work related to one of the traditional Stations of the Cross and they were exhibited over Easter. As I encountered these works, where artists reflected on Jesus’ story out of their own life and experience, I was challenged, confronted, surprised and I gained deeper insights into life and death and the Easter story. Some of the artists were Christian, but most were not. Some were from other religions (Buddhism, Islam, Judaism…) and from different cultures. All had a heightened sense of spirituality and engaged the texts deeply and with surprising wisdom. In the works, there was a revealing of brokenness and the cracks emerging in life, in its many forms and in different places. Over the years the various artists engaged very personally with the part of the story they were portraying. I remember one female artist in tears as she shared, for the first time in a public manner, her own story of abuse. She painted reflections on Jesus being sentenced to death and it kindled in her memories of the abuse she experienced and how it felt like a sentence. In another exhibition she portrayed the cross she bore as a female artist in the 1970’s, excluded and not given equal opportunity. She connected this with Jesus’ own rejection at the hands of religious leaders and Rome. She brought in other stories of women who have been rejected and persecuted in corporate or public life, and of the cross they bear. Other artists connected their own stories, or the stories of their people, with the story of Jesus and gave us their intimate works to engage our own story with that of Jesus. There was wisdom, hope, and life as we engaged with each other around this central and profound story. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s where the light gets in. Through this exhibition and the stories of people, I recognised that God’s Light was there, breaking in through the cracks in human life and where the brokenness of the world is revealed. In the stories of artists, reflecting on Jesus’ story and their own story, there were tears and pain through remembered experience. There was rekindled grief – there was also new life. There was this strange and mysterious grace that penetrated into their lives, through their work, and then penetrating more deeply into the wider community of people who reflected on the works they created. As the cracks Reflection Notes – 20/4/25 Easter opened, light flowed through and there was a strange and mysterious sense of healing and hope – even in the darkest places! What I also discovered through these exhibitions was that when the ‘world’ (that is beyond the church) opens the texts and engages with Jesus’ story from the experience of life in the world, its crises, and challenges (and cracks!), there is wisdom for life. Jesus was crucified in the world, by the powers that be. His life was lived in the context of the Roman Empire and the Jewish nationalistic sensibilities and expectations. It was a story that happened in the midst of life in the world. Over the centuries, it has been contracted back into a religious tradition, carefully guarded and protected by religious people until the ‘world’ is largely pushed aside and Easter has become a Christian holy day, relevant only, it seems, to people of faith. The Stations of the Cross Exhibition opened this story up and invited the ‘world’ into conversation with the story of Jesus and it revealed the connections of this story to the life we all lead. It exposed the cracks in life and allowed the Light of God’s grace to flow in and touch us all. Easter holds death and life together. It speaks of God who embraces the deep realities and pain of the world in the body of Christ. This God experiences the pain, alienation, rejection, and death of the world, but does so in deeply profound love. Jesus surrendered everything into this grace and love as the only path that would deliver hope and life to the world. Resurrection, with all of its mystery and wonder, is the reality of hope for the world. It says that death, violence, hatred, injustice, and evil will not have the last word – faith, hope and love remain! Easter speaks into our world, proclaiming that the only way forward through the violence, conflict, injustice and evil around us, is the path and way of love, of reconciliation, and that is God’s mission – our mission. This is the mystery of resurrection.