March 15, 2009
Dear Friends,
The life of Jesus during Holy Week contains the substance of the Christian life of faith. It is also is a metaphor for life and faith. Life and faith….
Jesus journeys through exhilarating cheers remembered by us on Palm Sunday, through times of close fellowship with his disciples to equip them for the journey, then into the tender mystery of that last supper in the upper room. He leads us to the poignant solitude of the Garden at Gethsemane. Then, we observe him arrested, beaten, tossed to the mercy of the weakest of human sentiment, and put cruelly to death. Within these, we may recognize Jesus’ experience of the pains of sadness, betrayal and abandonment. Through all these things, Jesus looked to God not to save him from painful reality but to help him sustain his faith and love through them. In this way, he endured until he was restored to that life of freedom and grace that is God’s gift to all of us. This is a story of the journey of life and faith through death to new life.
Each of us begins to fall or drift away from Jesus at different points in this journey to and through the cross. We do this for many reasons -- because we get distracted, anxious, angry, doubtful, confused, self-concerned, indignant, afraid.... For many years, I stopped at the Last Supper. In retrospect, I understand this was for two reasons. I held onto an easy outrage at the crafty cruelty of some people and thoughtless approval of many. I also needed the intimacy with Jesus in those moments. I was afraid to journey on into the Garden where Jesus surrendered his body to the powers of his immediate circumstance, and all the consequent pain. The “Last Supper” sort of faith recognizes our need for the beauty and power of Jesus’ love. It does not, however, endure the crises of love and faith outside the safety of the upper room – forward from Gethsemane.
Though there are parts of the journey each of us must experience alone, the invitation of the church is to walk together with Jesus into and beyond the upper room. We all seek that life of freedom and grace that we believe is God’s gift to us and all people. This is the meaning of Easter. Jesus teaches us that it is for this that God sustains us. A “resurrection faith” lived with “resurrection people” enables us to keep walking, even through death, to life.
Friends, I invite you to walk away from the Lenten metaphor into a rather global experience of passion, fear and a pervasive sense of powerlessness. We are all in a time and place where we are in the presence of innocent death, and we may be inclined to turn our heads. We can observe strategic violence in too many places that, in order to be done, require the devaluing of people. Can we “see” beyond the media images to the grieving-but-surviving parents and siblings and to the pervasive wariness and fear that must characterize their lives? Will we think of and love them all as our sisters and brothers?
If we choose to remain with Jesus throughout Holy Week, consider the people beside whom he will lead us to stand. These will indeed be trying days. However, going forward with Jesus through the life and death of these days ahead will also make it possible for us to experience resurrection and embrace life as full of light.
By God’s grace, may you stay with Jesus.