Traditionally, the moments leading to the cross end at the tomb.

They leave us in silence. In darkness. In the ache of death’s weight.
 
And that’s intentional. These meditations are meant to trace the path of descent — of Jesus’ willing journey into everything that is hard, fragile, and final about being human. 
 
But today, we offer a final image: 
Not to tidy up grief too quickly, 
but to tell the full truth. 
 
Jesus partook in being embodied. 
And then — He returned to His body again. 
 
This final image gives us two symbols: 
 
A green shoot growing out of a chopped-down stump — new life from what looked like the end.

A wooden staff, belonging to the Good Shepherd — who still walks among His sheep.  

These are resurrection symbols. Not fantasy. Not metaphor. But flesh and blood hope. Jesus rose in a real body. Not as a ghost. Not as a memory. He stood. He walked. He ate fish. He still bore the scars. And His return to the body is not an undoing of pain, but a redefining of it.
 
The cross didn’t vanish.
The wounds weren’t erased.
But they no longer had power to condemn.