Losing a Grip

“Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.” Luke 23:44

Age is sneaky and has a subtle way of reminding one of its omnipresence. I was working on a project that required some hand strength recently and discovered that my left thumb had lost some of its iron grip. The pliers supplied a suitable substitute.

Winter was officially over March 20th, but it lingered, making one last assault this week with snow flurries in Atlanta and cold winds on the coast. Its grip was weak, and Spring has now broken its iron-fisted grasp.

These revelations caused me to think about “losing your grip” on things. We’ve always heard the cliché, “Get a grip on yourself,” meaning, of course, “Come back to reality.” But that’s harder to do than you can imagine. We get caught in the grip of mindsets and miscalculations, circumstances and consequences, depressions and dispositions, and comforts and conformities. It’s just not that easy to “get a grip.”

Easter is Sunday. But to experience Easter, the grip of something that’s hard as steel has to be broken. It’s the disposition of our innate humanness, a condition we each inherited and had no say in receiving. In the Christian Church we explain this disposition as the consequence of “The Original Sin.”

Fortunately, according to our collective Christian faith, we have an Intercessor who has broken the grip of the heinous but inherited disposition. During the 40 days of Lent, the crucifix is draped in purple linen. It is our symbol of the victory that occurred on what we refer to as “Good Friday.” From the 9th hour on of that day the grip of death held Jesus fast, until Easter Sunday. On Easter we celebrate The Resurrection, the evidence that the grip of death has no hold henceforth and forever more. What better news today than this!

Sooner or later we all “lose our grip” on things mental and physical. But be of good cheer, my friends, there is One who has us in His grip from which nothing can be wrested. The door of this Eternal Grip is The Cross, and while it portrays an instrument of death on “Good Friday”, on Easter Sunday it personifies our victory.

For one weekend, why not relax our grip on things that trouble us, and rest confidently in the grasp of The One who has promised, “I will never leave you nor forsake you!” May our collective faith be sufficient to grip the enormity of this eternal truth!

May the joys of this Easter, the beauty of our world and the blessings of family and friends give each of us new life now and affirm our faith in our ultimate destiny.


Bud Hearn
April 9, 2009