April 10, 2022
Texts:
Psalm 31:9-10
Luke 18:31-34
Luke 19:28-40
Luke 23:13-25
I will begin by reflecting on the events of Jesus’ final week, and then I will share about my Lenten journey.
The drama of Jesus’ final week was breathtaking.
After two or three years of intense public ministry, Jesus senses that his earthly mission is coming to an end. Three times he warns his disciples that he is going to Jerusalem to suffer and to be killed. Understandably, his prediction is incomprehensible to the disciples who had given up their whole lives to follow him.
For his last week, Jesus makes a point of organizing two events. First, he creates a celebration by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. The crowd praises him as king and honors him by spreading cloths and leaves on his path. This was offensive to the religious leaders who asked Jesus to put an end to the adulation. Jesus gives them a rather provocative response, “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”
As soon as Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, he violently confronts the commercial activity in the temple by overturning the tables of the sellers there. It seems that Jesus exercises no caution whatsoever and might have been arrested right then and there.
If that isn’t enough provocation, Jesus proceeds to tell parables that are sure to offend or responds with his masterful evasions to questions that are meant to trap him. It’s hardly surprising that Jesus enrages the religious authorities. They become increasingly eager to stop him, but he is generally surrounded by a vast crowd of people who consider him their hero.
The second event Jesus plans for his last week is, of course, the Passover dinner. It touches me how, according to Luke, Jesus says at the beginning of the dinner, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” I don’t recall another quote from Jesus where he expresses a personal feeling like that. It sounds like, “I have really looked forward to eating this dinner with you guys.” It sounds so warm and human.
Next follow Jesus’ arrest, trial, and torture. I used to be shocked by the fickleness of the crowd that had celebrated his arrival in Jerusalem but a few days later yells, “Crucify, crucify.” Marcus Borg helpfully points out that those were two separate crowds. The second crowd was dominated by religious leaders who had hated Jesus for some time and had no qualms about putting him through the horrendous public spectacle of the crucifixion. I can just imagine, as a follower of Jesus, staying around and hoping against hope that there would be some kind of a miracle to save him. The gospels of Matthew and Mark include Jesus’ final heartrending cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
A detail about Jesus’ burial that appears in Matthew, Mark and Luke caught my eye this time. When Joseph of Arimathea claims Jesus’s body for burial, two of the Marys who were close to Jesus follow Joseph to the tomb in order to know where Jesus was buried. I find it touching that of all the disciples, two women attended to this vital detail.
So, here we followers of Jesus are at the beginning of the Holy Week almost two thousand years later, remembering this terrible historic event that has been central to our faith.
I am now going on to reflect on some of my own experiences that I have been wrestling with during this time of Lent.
I went through a hard time this past winter.
Sito had scheduled me to give a teaching in January, but the very day when I was beginning to prepare for it, I had a startling stroke-like experience. My mind was confused. For example, I couldn’t remember my daily exercise routine or recognize my credit card for what it was. After drifting around the house most of the day, I finally called Sito and told him that I was in no shape to do a teaching. The next day I felt better but have been a little more forgetful ever since.
Another upsetting thing around the same time was learning from David’s neurologist that David’s neuropathy was threatening his ability to walk. David is now doing all he can to fight the odds, and we are grateful for every day when he can still get up and go.
However, my main struggle was our seven-week stint of hosting a thirteen-year-old girl whose mother was out of the country. I had babysat her after school when she was younger, but I was shockingly unprepared for my inability to re-bond with her and to deal with her eating disorder, sleeping disorder, dishonesty and Covid that never seemed to go away.
I kept trying hard to manage things but got lost in the dark. I felt I was too busy to pray much or journal or read scriptures as I ordinarily try do. After a couple of weeks, I was at my wit’s end. I continued to manage during the day but started looking intensely forward to 7 PM when I could eat and watch TV with David. Our teenage resident was invited, of course, but if she came, she never stayed longer than a few minutes,
Afterwards, I can see it more clearly. In Kayla Mc Clurg’s writing, I found a sentence that describes my condition precisely: “We hunker down and make a cozy nest in the dark.”
That’s what I did, and even after my responsibilities were over, I stayed in the dark. Literally and figuratively, I liked the dark. Getting ready for this teaching has been an opportunity for me to seek light and leading.
Instead of resorting to my comforts and resigning to failure, I should have looked for help from prayer, journaling and Scripture, and possibly from other people, too, so that I could remain focused on my challenging task.
Leonard Cohen said, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how light gets in.”
For one thing, a different kind of prayer was needed that I had forgotten about. We may have to crack open and cry out to God. That can be the beginning of deeper healing.
The Psalms have countless examples of crying out to God:
Today’s Psalm 31 says, “Be merciful to me O Lord, for I am in distress.”
Psalm 38 says, “I’m feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart.”
Psalm 40 has “O, Lord come quickly to help me.”
Psalm 130: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, hear my voice.”
I just go “Help me, God!”
The first time I did it many years ago, I received an answer the same day. That’s, of course not the rule. A prayer of desperation is not a solution, but it may help us see the crack where the light comes in.
Crying out to God means that I come out of hiding and open my heart and mind to enter into possibilities beyond my resources. That’s my Easter hope.
Now I invite you to share something about what you bring to this Easter week.
Maybe you have observed some Lenten practices or have had other experiences that you can tell us about.