A crack in everything.

There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
– Leonard Cohen, Anthem

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. 
– Matthew 27:51-52

The death of Jesus was a crack, a huge crack.
Rupturing rock, bone, and spirit.
It tore heaven and earth asunder.
The world cracked, as the Son breathed his last and hung his head in willful defeat.
The death of Jesus did not reveal a crack, it was the crack.
The world at the time was uniform and solid in its state, things had continued the way they had since the dawn of humanity: Selfish, sad, and bitter.
A world ruled by jealous and insecure men, a world of sickness and death where charity and mercy were scarce.
A world built out of the bricks of Babel, out of the spirit of Cain, in the shadow of death.
For generations and generations, the world had been what it was, shrouded in thick darkness, tombs shut eternally.
Every now and then a small crack would appear, a faint and soon to be snuffed out light.
Once or twice a life departed not down to darkness but up to some primordial light?
Some began to wonder, perhaps there was something else?
Perhaps the substructure of the world could be made of something other than what it was?
Maybe there was something outside these walls, beyond these shut tombs and endless dark horizon?
A Land where the law is love and peace flows like a mighty river, where men don’t seek power or compensation, a world where the orphan has a home and healing springs from wells eternal.
Perhaps this world exists, but before such a thought could be embraced in any real sense the small crack of life is wasted and the crack is sealed shut, save for a few words deep in an ancient book.
The darkness at noon over the cross of that ragged Jew: that is the order of things.
The pattern has been played out a million times.
Roll the dice however you will, the results are set, written in the law of stone.
Darkness at noon, at dawn, at dusk – it’s all the same, it’s always been this way.
Off he goes to a tomb eternal.
But the earth rumbles in anger, a crack, a mistrustful crack.
The whole earth - like an earthenware pot smashed yet retaining its shape - looks at the structure of things, but nothing comes, and business and cruelty continue.
Just a false alarm, there is no other world, for good or ill.
But the crack remains, and as the days roll by frailty is seen in the heavy sky.
Then, like a shard of pottery falling the darkness is torn wide open and light floods in.
The tombs throw open their coffins, and life floods the dead places.
The world has been ripped wide open, the order of things has been disrupted by a divine love, by an extraordinary life.
A kingdom of light has broken into the darkened world and the cracks are spreading, the darkness retreats to its icy strongholds.
Once in a glimpse, the ancients saw a reality, behind the fog and haze of mistrust was a pure and giving light. It seemed but a fanciful myth, but now in the blazing day, there can be no doubt, the world was made for light. The death of Jesus was not showing that the world was cracked, the death of Jesus was the kingdom of light cracking open the solid sphere of darkness, sin, and death.
Now, by his power and grace, there is a crack in everything, and that’s how the light gets in.