A Long Good Bye

Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.  And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.  Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death… Matthew 26:36-38 (KJV)

When I was being shipped out for the first Gulf War, the hardest part was the waiting to go and the long good byes.  I remember calling my parents and my Dad, with a quivering voice, tell me to watch out for the gas.  I don’t remember what else he said, if anything, I just remember his voice.  Then the night before I left, my wife and I stayed up all night holding each other, crying, and watching North by Northwest.  It was the longest night. 

The next day two things stuck in my mind:  we had this sergeant in our unit who was the meanest SOB I’d ever met.  He wasn’t a particularly big guy, but he was hard-as-nails tough.  He had been in my unit for three years but he wasn’t going with us because he was leaving the Army within a month.  So as we marched out the gate of our little post, Sergeant K stood and shook each of our hands as we went by…tears streaming down his face. 

The other thing I remember was marching through the airport in Nuremburg with civilians lined up all along the walls.  There was no cheering or flag-waving, just these somber stares and tears.  I’ve come to hate long good byes.

Gethsamane haunts me.  With Maundy Thursday coming, I spent some time thinking about Gethsamane and reading it over and over again, praying over it, chewing on it.  It spooks me.

I see Jesus with the figuratively literal (huh?) weight of the world on his shoulders, going to a garden with some friends to pray.  But it’s so much more than that isn’t it?  It’s the middle of the night, He’s already told his friends he’s gonna die.  Matthew tells us that when he got to the garden Jesus became sorrowful and very heavy.  And herein lie the thoughts that trouble me. 

I can’t begin to fathom how the whole God-intertwined-with-man thing works, but I wonder if part of the sorrow was the long good-bye to his friends.  I wonder if he went to Gethsemane looking to the Father for comfort.  Did he get it?  He knew that in a matter of hours the Father would betray him – what anguish!    Where were the angels to minister to him this time?  Was the Father already grieving?  Was He looking at Jesus and thinking 'I just can't watch this'?  He asked twice (!) if the cup could be passed from him, when the Father answered...was His voice quivering?  Peter and the boys were sleeping...was Jesus already alone in this whole thing?  

There are lessons here.  But sometimes I don't want lessons.  Sometimes I just want to think of Jesus and let that be enough.  I can’t put it into words except to say that I cannot, not even once…read the story of Gethsemane and not find tears on my cheek. 

Something Funny Happened On The Way To The Diner

…follow thou me.  John 21:22 (KJV)

I’m in a hotel again.  It seems so long ago that I was writing of being in this same hotel and the loneliness I was feeling after all the chaos and intensity of Ashley’s accident.  I wrote about a diner and what it would be like to meet Jesus.

It’s different this time.  I can look out my hotel window and see that same diner, but I’m in a different section of the hotel so my view of the diner is different.  It made me think back to that long lonely night and contrast it to how I feel tonight.  A lot has happened since that night.  Ashley has had a truly miraculous turnaround.  I have been through a glimpse of my own personal hell, but it seems different now. 

At least for this moment, I don’t have that desperate feeling of wishing I could meet Jesus.  I feel like I have met Him!  Through all that’s happened, even since that “Diner” moment, somehow I, for the first time ever, feel like I have met Jesus.  And I gotta say – it sure isn’t because of anything I have done.  On the contrary – this whole thing has been so out of my control, so in spite of me; trying to overthink it, fearing I’d find some way to screw it up, fretting it would all somehow just evaporate and I would just be left with, well - me.  But it hasn’t.  Jesus seems as near now as when I met him in the diner.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what it was all supposed to look like in practical terms.  How am I supposed to live out this thing called faith?  What am I supposed to do?  Good grief!  That thinking was so anxiety-producing!  I think I have an answer.  I don’t know if it’s the answer, but I have to say – I give up.  I don’t know what it will look like.  Don’t know what the plan is.  But, Jesus is alive and well.  I have seen Him, so I have seen the Father, so I suppose I’ll just have to stop worrying about what it looks like and just follow Him.

I mean really!  How much easier can this part (I don't delude myself about ease) of it be?  I don’t have to figure it out, or devise a plan.  I don't have to pave the way.  I can try to simply trust an Almighty God to lead the way.  I just gotta follow.

Et Tu George?

And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him.  Matthew 26:49 (KJV)

As Easter approaches I have been doing a little thinking every day on some of the key players in the events leading up to the crucifixion.  As a part of this exercise I try to put myself in their shoes and guess what I might have done.  Most of the time I find that I would likely have done much worse.  If I were Peter – I would have cursed six times.  Mary Magdalene – I would have headed for the hills.  Over the years (in years past is probably more accurate) I have done such character studies, but it occurs to me that Judas has pretty much been off limits.  Why is that?  What is it about Judas that makes me avoid him like a case of Anthrax?  Maybe because he is unredeemable. He betrayed Jesus. He is to be spat on, despised, forgotten.  Or, and I fear this is the real reason - maybe I see more of myself in Judas than in the rest of the crew.

Judas is uncomfortably close.  Judas was probably the most educated of the disciples. He was one of the few not from 'up North', and likely saw himself as a cut above, a bit special. He was the only one given a task: to take care of the money, and we can imagine he probably earned that by being more numerate. It is also thought he was likely to be a bit of a Zealot. He probably saw Jesus' mission - as most did - as a political one. Jesus would rise up against the Romans and chuck them out, restoring sovereignty to Israel.

Judas would doubtless have heard that the authorities were looking for a way to trap Jesus. They had also said that they didn't want him arrested over the festival, because they feared that after his triumphant entry to Jerusalem the people would riot. Perhaps Judas spots an opportunity. He will go to them, offer to betray Jesus, and persuade them that he can only do it now - over the festival. Perhaps he hopes this will cause a riot, and thus catalyze Jesus into his political takeover.

Judas attends the Last Supper. And when Jesus hands him a piece of bread - his 'body broken' - Judas leaves. Why did he leave then? Perhaps because he was the only one to understand the huge significance of what Jesus was doing in that first act of communion. If Jesus is going to die and become transcendent, he will slip through his political hands. Jesus – the Christ - dispersed, viral, networked - cannot be controlled. And he must stop this from happening.

So he goes to the authorities. They convene hurriedly and agree to his plan. They go to find Jesus, and a crowd follows them - excellent! He approaches Jesus and kisses him. Maybe he thinks Jesus will be pleased - he is offering him his golden opportunity on a plate to begin his political mission. Things start brilliantly: a fight breaks out, swords are drawn... Then disaster - Jesus commands them all to stop. He submits, is led away, given a mock trial and killed, his followers dispersed. He has failed.

Judas was distraught, he threw the money back, and committed suicide.

So who is this Judas?  For years I thought of Judas as this scumbag accessory to murder, no more worthy of thought than a pile of....  But today I realize...he is me. How many times have I (do I) tried to decide for God what God is going to do?  I find that sometimes, when I kiss Jesus it's more out of a lust for some kind of power, some feeble attempt at manipulating the Creator than it is for the mere gratefulness and love which I should be giving.  I hate to think of it, but sometimes I feel like I am more Judas than any of the others.  Maybe it won’t stay that way.  Maybe I can strive to be more like Mary, I’d even settle for Peter!

At the Gates

…experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully…  Ephesians 3:19 (NLT)

Dante wrote that there was a sign which hangs over the entrance to hell: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”  I’ve heard some people say that hell is right here on earth, others that hell is a very literal place.  When I watch the eleven o’clock news, when I see pictures of the kids in Africa with bellies swollen from starvation and disease – hell, right here on earth.  I shudder when I think of the possibility of a literal, burning hell – frightful.  But one thing both ideas of hell have in common is that they are hopeless.

I have sensed hopelessness, nay even despair a number of times in my life.  So far this year alone I have been acquainted with that feeling a couple times.  Looking back, even at the very recent past, I have seen myself standing (figuratively mind you) at those gates with all hope abandoned, despair having enveloped me, and all because of situations I have in some way or another…created myself.

All this brings me to realize a couple things.  I am my own worst enemy.  I am a (terribly) fallen creature.  Unworthy.  Unholy.  Exceedingly wicked.  Unlovely.  Not so much in a fleshly way, because, well – I’m actually a little teddy bear, relatively nice, and at least a little less than hideous.  But, spiritually speaking – unlovely.

Pulling out the ledger and calculating the sum-total of my life, I find myself utterly lacking in any redeemable way in which a Holy and Just God could look into me and find anything worth loving.  Yet…here I am.  God draws me.  Christ died for me.  Ugh!  HE DIED FOR ME.  Unfathomable.  Not just in a bunch-of-black-pixels-on-top-of-white-ones kind of way, it’s unfathomable in an I-try-to-wrap-my-head-around-it-but-just-can’t-understand-it kind of way. 

Jesus, God incarnate, chose to suffer and die – such was his love.  In a recent moment of despair, at a moment of trying to make out the letters on a sign above a gate:  A   b    a   n    d    o    n  … I was exposed, touched by? the love of Christ in a way I will never understand.  It sounds so trite on virtual paper, yet in reality so profound.  I don’t get it, but wow!

I suppose love is experiential not understandable. Love is something to be felt, joined in, participated in, given, received...but never understood.  How much more so the love of Christ.

Walking Trees

...I see people; they look like trees walking around.  Mark 8:24  (NIV)

Note:  This post was written 3/5/10 but I was too tired to post it on time so it reads a day late.

Ashley went home today!  Exactly two months from the day that a horrible accident nearly claimed her life...Ashley went home! 

This has been an amazing journey.  Of course I'm not callous enough to have wished it on her - oh so far from that.  But through all the pain and torment this precious little girl has suffered...much, much good has come.  Not only for me but for scores of people I don't even know. 

Before the accident I believed myself to have begun some kind of spiritual journey, and indeed I had.  But something much more than that has come from this.  From whining about faith, to catching a glimpse of faith and on to a hunger and intense desire for faith - all in a few short weeks.  I have had the honor to be around several people with a genuine faith, the kind of faith I could emulate - as a good dog.  I have learned much, and been blessed in a way that I not only don't deserve - but don't even understand.

Now for some really bad exegesis.  I caught a glimpse of what faith is.  I saw it, I felt it.  But now I feel like the blind man in Bethsaida.  I have had my eyes opened, and I saw something over there, I can tell it's faith, but my sight isn't quite there yet...it looks fuzzy, it looks like trees walking around.  My guess is that it's not because Jesus couldn't do the job all at once...it's more likely that the fuzziness of my faith is, well - my fault.  Despite what has happened.  Despite the fact that my once nearly dead daughter today was sitting on the sofa in her home with her husband.  In spite of the fact that major changes and healing in families and relationships has begun in earnest.  Even though prayers have been answered in powerful ways...

I have this blurry, out-of-focus faith.  But how sweet to see something!  Someone!  I don't think Jesus gave me a glimpse to tease me, he'll finish the job.  Now if I can just stay right here, scrunching my face and squinting my eyes until...

Why Am I Observing Lent?

Yet even now, saith Jehovah, turn ye unto me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:  and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto Jehovah your God;  Joel 2:12-13 (ASV)

Okay, since my last post in which I hinted (I guess more than hinted) at the fact that I am participating in Lent this year, I have received several emails, nearly all of them asking – why?  So, if you are one of those who emailed me I have this to say – thank you!  I truly mean that.  Because of your simple question, I have (once again) been prompted to look inside myself to find out exactly that – why.  On the surface it was simple…I am participating in a little different church tradition than I had previously, so I thought I should experience it.  But, after some thinking and serious consideration, you get blessed (ha ha ha) with another episode of me trying to work something out!  Lucky you!!

Growing up Baptist, only the Catholics (and the one Ukrainian Orthodox) in my neighborhood participated in any type of Lenten fasting or self-denial. Listening to the kids in my neighborhood, I often wondered what, if anything, I was missing out on - other than the pain of no meat, or candy, or…

I am all too aware of the fears some have concerning the observation of Lent, or other such traditions.  The most succinct statement I can think of right now to summarize this concern is Calvin writing in his Institutes:  “There is nothing which God more abominates than when men endeavour to cloak themselves by substituting signs and external appearance for integrity of heart.”

But I have to wonder – does the simple doing of a thing make the fear a reality?  I mean really, is it possible that we can use a time like Lent to teach us a lesson?  To give us a reminder of an attitude and discipline that we can carry throughout the year?  Is it really wrong to solemnize a relatively short period of time to remember what the Christ has done for us? 

What if it was a part of an observance such as Lent that, while fasting (or any other kind of spiritual discipline), we constantly remember the words of God to tear our hearts and not our clothes?

So why am I observing Lent?  Because I am grateful (how inadequate is that?) for what Christ has done.  Because I will use this time to learn a spiritual discipline.  Because maybe during this time I will learn to rend my heart and leave my clothes intact.