Holy Tiredness

Jesus, I think of you –
Alone in your last hours.
Sweating blood,
Friends asleep.

Even before this –
Your withdrawal to lonely places.
Tears over Lazarus,
Patience with the disciples.

You must have felt very tired –
Tired of crowds,
Tired of disciple rivalry,
Tired of unbelief.

But your tiredness was holy.
Your humanity felt our weakness.
You drank our cup to the bitter dregs,
Even after you fell under your cross.

You remembered your mother
When your body pulsed, torn.
You honored your Father
Near the black shadows of death.

Stripped of strength in the struggle,
You fulfilled every last prophecy.
Forsaken by God,
You endured.

My Lord, you have gifted me
With a taste of holy tiredness.
You’ve given love,
And hope’s agony.

You’ve sown seeds of promise
That died.
You’ve labored in me at times
To give birth.

Is this how I learn your heart,
Feel your longing?
Trust is stretched to the breaking point,
While the spirit groans and waits.

Rise up, Strong One!
Save your anointed!
Rescue from death!
Raise, even multiply, the harvest!

And in the waiting,
When I am faint,
Take me to a vista
Where I see Your holy tiredness.

Your holy endurance,
Your holy sweat.
Your holy submission,
Your holy sacrifice.

Here Your burden
Recalibrates mine.
Here your glorious strength
Soothes my straining endurance.

Your love gives me hope.
Your trust balms my unbelief.
Your aloneness gives me company.
Your death gives me life.

Under the weight of waiting,
The grief of loss,
Make sacred to me,
Holy tiredness.