I enter the van post-shopping trip, nerves frayed and patience gone.  There was too much touching in the store, not enough listening and obeying.  A young woman greeted me in the aisle and counted aloud, and then informed me that she wasn’t surprised that there were two bottles of wine in the cart.

As we click our safety belts and settle in for the ten minute ride home, a request comes from the backseat for “a popular CD.”  OK, I think…rustling through the mismatched CDs and their cases, in search of something to satisfy the various musical tastes.

Found it.  It’s Holy Week.  Time for a weeklong reprieve in the storage of Behold the Lamb of God.

As we back out of the parking space, Andrew reads to us of The Story, of a young hero coming to rescue the one that He loves.  The children fall silent, awaiting Osenga’s opening chord.  They know it well.  They’ve known it for all of their short lives.  Then Garrett comes in with the steady driving beat, calling them to pay attention…to listen.

And suddenly, I am listening and seeing again.  The music is loud — probably too loud for their young ears — but I don’t care.  They must learn what it is to drive in the sunshine with the windows down, music blaring.  The road stretches out before us, calling us forth.  At every turn, a new color declares its Maker.  The azaleas are showing the first signs of blooming.  The daffodils are showy, delirious in a springy yellow haze.

We turn a corner and I see the border of suburbia, that ludicrous line where the pastureland abuts the building lots.  The white cows are beyond the treeline today, but I can still see them scattered across the green as they eat a late lunch.  Their rural tranquility mocks the stucco house a few hundred yards away.  A bradford pear demurely shows its last few blossoms as the dogwood shouts out a song.

We pass through a construction site and I roll the back windows down a bit further, hoping to bless the signmen with the music.  As we do, the opening strains of “Passover Us” remind me of the reason for my errand.  Enclosed within the sacks on the floor are horseradish, parsley, matzoh, wine and other makings of our annual Seder supper.  We will celebrate as the Jews did, but with a different ending.  We know the fulfillment of the prophecy personally.  The herbs are bitter and remind us of the pain of slavery, the saltwater reminds us of the slaves’ tears, but the wine becomes sweet as we anticipate drinking again at the marriage supper of the Lamb.  “Next year in Jerusalem!” we cry out in Hebrew with raised glasses.  Lord, come quickly.

We turn the corner into the neighborhood and Andrew, Jill, Andy and the rest are belting out the chorus a few more times as Garrett hammers the drum solo home in the background.  There’s a part of me that wants to keep driving, but babies need naps and preparations must be made for our dinner.  I give thanks for this short moment, this window into the eternal, this showing forth of glory seen and unseen.