The Sacred Middle

“Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” —Isaiah 53:10 (NLT)

Yet…

A single word with a resounding voice; it’s seen too much to stay quiet. It explains but doesn’t apologize. It stands in the gap between the tension of what was and what, contrarily, is also true. It holds paradox without flinching. It’s a threshold that marks a sudden change in the landscape. It forces a comfortable perspective on a narrowing bridge, making it impossible to ignore the refinement necessary to continue the journey. Its defiance carries readers to the edge of an almost unbearable thought. But also catalyzing growth, it keeps tension alive long enough for revelation to bloom.

…it was the will of the Lord…

The will of the Lord is not a force moving through history indifferently. It’s not like the intangible movement of wind, which blows past all but cares for none. Rather, it’s a will with a heart filled with perfect love and beating in holiness. It’s a will that chose, even when choosing had a cost, to give entirely to what it loved. It doesn’t negotiate with chaos. Rather, it authors the outcome from within it. It’s not reactive. Rather, it was released before the beginning of time, and it will reign for all time. It cannot be outrun. However, to be caught by it is not to be trapped, but to be found. It has never once been surprised. It’s the steady current beneath the surface of every story. It’s not fragile nor dependent on any condition, especially not on those that bring fickle minds counterfeit peace. It sets conditions, accomplishing what many continue to misunderstand. And it carries the weight of that misunderstanding without strain, dubiety, or discomposure.

…to crush him…

Crushing is the language of suffering. The experience of pressure bearing down until all that was once enough becomes insufficient. It’s not just a wound or a quick strike. It’s slow and deliberate. Grapes know it well, as they become wine. Olives know it well, as they become oil. The flower knows it well, as its bruised petal produces a fragrance. Being crushed is not the absence of purpose. It is purpose at its most severe and uncompromising. It reveals what could not otherwise be seen in what looks like ruin—to the outside world and to the subject of its grip. Sorrow is not softened, and joy seems harder. The winding of the wilderness feels never-ending. Deep, blood-fused, tearful prayers are met with silence. The body is weighed down with an increasing record of pain. The darkness sings a song of victory, believing it has the final say.

These three concepts combined paint the picture of what all God’s chosen are guaranteed to find themselves navigating: the sacred middle. 

At the beginning, the call was clear, but the cost was still abstract. The plan remained a mystery. One that prophets, scholars, and the like worked their understanding to uncover. What they knew and what they heard had only been known and received in part. They carried fragments of a story whose ending they could not yet see, speaking faithfully into a future whose arrival could not be estimated. Revelation continued to arrive in pieces, but in the sacred middle, the puzzle still took no shape.

At the end, faith becomes sight. What was once trusted in shadows stands fully revealed in the light. Questions that tested the soul’s belief, circumstances that seemed to contradict understanding, and promises that felt distant finally gather into clarity. What had only been received in fragments is finally seen in fullness. And its fullness activates the beauty of rejoicing. What began as a word has sprouted into a testimony. No longer does the sound of it cause a weary heart to break. Rather, it encourages and ignites the fire of desire to see more.

But the sacred middle is the place between the yes of the Lord’s will and the yet of its fulfillment. The long, excruciating, disorienting, and ugly corridor of crushing. Where faith transforms from a feeling to a posture. Where the journey becomes daily decisions of endurance in the face of the illogical, irrational, and unclear. It is Saturday, the silence between the cross and the empty tomb. It is the place suspended between what was promised and what has not yet arrived, with nothing to hold onto but the character of the One who ordains it.

The One who ordains the suffering and refuses to leave it. 

He enters in, doing a work that can’t be seen.

Yet.

That is what makes the middle sacred. His presence. The pillar of cloud and fire guiding a people through unfamiliar territory. The Man whose feet sit atop the waves with an outstretched arm. The tomb in Jerusalem overlooking Golgotha where its occupant hung. The God of the sacred middle is not watching from afar.

For that reason, the sacred middle is not hope’s end. The sacred middle is where hope becomes stronger than optimism. It’s tested and transformed. It’s fortifified.

So the middle must be part of the process.

It’s the will of the Lord.

The middle is equally as vital to the Lord’s plan as its conception and its birth. Conception plants the seed of what will be, and birth announces its arrival to the world, but the middle is where the seed is fortified to survive its announcement. It’s often reduced to the part of the process that’s deemed too insignificant to the final testimony—too raw to be summarized neatly. 

Isn’t that the reputation of Silent Saturday?

On Sunday, it will be seen, it will prolong, and it will prosper. But Isaiah 53:10 presents a sanctifying truth. 

The Lord was pleased to cause suffering.

To crush Him.

Not reluctantly. Not with a grieving hesitation that needed to be overcome before the plan could move forward.

Pleased.

Pleased to crush Him.

Pleased with His human body’s submission to the sacred middle.

The current culture is conditioned to associate the pleasure of God with blessing—abundance, open doors, and answered prayers meeting every expectation. But the current culture often finds itself unprepared for this: the idea that the same God whose pleasure is expressed in tangible goodness also found it pleasing to crush His servant. The idea that the approval of Heaven and the weight of suffering are not always opposites.

As Holy Saturday exemplifies, there are sometimes—in the sovereign and providental wisdom of an all-knowing God—the most profound expression of divine pleasure is the willingness to wound what it loves most, to make more fruitful what it loves most deeply.

This is not cruelty wearing the mask of theology.

This is love operating at a depth that human knowledge couldn’t ever reach.

The sacred middle is not incidental to the plan; it is the plan. It’s not the price reluctantly paid for the outcome; it’s the means by which the outcome becomes possible. It’s not good in hindsight; there’s goodness throughout.

Sunday is coming. The seeing, the prolonging, and the prospering are all coming. 

But Sunday arrives bearing the scars of what it cost to get there.