We threw a lot of traditional holiday parties when we lived overseas. At the thanksgiving parties we often read part of Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation. I had never, to my knowledge, read this proclamation until encountering it in a distant land.
Written in 1863, a time of great bloodshed in the middle of the Civil War, Lincoln’s address and desire for people to give thanks for what God provided in the midst of such violence is moving and worth a read over the holidays. It reminds me that thanksgiving in times of strife is worship, a sacrifice of thanksgiving.
I mull over the concept of a sacrifice of praise or thanksgiving often. It’s a strange idea that sometimes seems just out of my mental and emotional comprehension. I know what sacrifice means and I know what praise and thanksgiving means, but the two together pose a challenge.
This year I have much to give thanks for but much of it is because we experienced a measure of suffering and walking through difficulty and trial. Walking through valleys meant that I cried out to the Lord often and desperately. Many prayers and pleas He answered and many He has not. He sustained and is sustaining me but I am not comfortable with my deep need for Him.
To sacrifice is to give what is costly. Praise and thanksgiving in tumultuous times is a sacrifice–it is costly. It causes me to face and acknowledge the good that I know He is and Has done even when there is much more that is not realized.
Ultimately, I notice it costs me my pride. I must give up my idea of what He owes me that I want to praise and give thanks for and accept what comes from His hand which is good, just not exactly the good I wanted for the here and now. I also must accept the reality that He has not come back to take away the tears yet. So the sacrifice of thanksgiving means letting my agenda burn up in faith that God is actively at work to bring about good even if not for me, or not in my time.
I know many this holiday that face the reality of sacrificial thanksgiving. I’m sure those that read Lincoln’s proclamation with their sons, husbands, and loved ones on the battlefield or lost on the battlefield gathered with tears and longing. A feast with tears feels out of place, but maybe it is more on point than I’d like to accept.
Sacrificial praise this year is leading me to a new hope for the future day when healing is complete, tears are wiped away, justice wins the day, and I am with Jesus. But for the here and now, it is thanksgiving that costs me, brings on the tears… and I am thankful that it matters to the One that came to take away our tears one day.
My dad died during the 4th watch of the night. The darkest time before the sun rises. We sat on the back patio watching the sunrise as they took his body away.
The Grand Canyon at sunrise…
It’s usually the 4th watch when I wake up and wrestle with worry and fear, anxiety. Sleep eludes me and hope feels far away. I’m convinced the fourth watch is a time of deep darkness physically and spiritually.
I wonder if Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane during the 4th watch. Was it during that watch that His disciples failed him in their weakness and fell asleep three times? I’ve often thought Jesus suffered multiple betrayals that night.
Was it the fourth watch when Jesus calmed the storms, displaying His authority over creation?
It was most likely the 4th watch when Peter did what he was convinced he’d never do. He denied knowing Jesus three times. In the 4th watch, Peter met himself in a way that crucified the pride that he could never seem to see. He couldn’t stay awake for Jesus and now he willfully left him too.
When Jesus passed by His disciples walking on water, it was the 4th watch. The darkest hour, the time when the storms are strong and the waves are high, and the effort of fighting the headwinds of life threatens to overwhelm them. They look out, exhausted. All the wonder of the miracle of Jesus feeding 5,000 people and the excitement of being sent out and coming back with stories of God’s power at work through them had faded.
They rowed against headwinds through the night and looked up and saw a figure walking on water…and fear overcame them. They thought Jesus was a ghost and it scared the crap out of them, a bunch of tough fishermen who had seen a fair share of evil spirits cast out of people.
They basically miss the object lesson Jesus intended to show them. Calming of Storm + Healings + Feeding of 5,000 + Walking on Water = ?
Jesus’ reaction to them is of great comfort to me. They still couldn’t put it together and instead of peacing out in frustration and meeting them on the other side, Jesus gets into the boat and is who He is. He is Immanuel. God with us even when we fail the test. He calms the headwinds and accompanies them in their fear.
And so in the 4th watch, when the headwinds are strongest and the fears, failures, and frailty pounds us, I want to remember the Jesus gets in the boat with His disciples. He gets in it with me too.
When we lived overseas I developed a local habit. If I came upon a group of people, a crowd, I wanted to see what was going on. Usually something exciting was happening in the center along the lines of an argument or a performance of some sort. I much preferred the spectator role than the center role.
a casual picnic that became a spectacle
Being the center of the crowd, the thing to be looked at, was not my jam. As our family increased, we often became the center of the circle, the spectacle. Our children provided the show. No amount of directing the crowds to disperse worked, in fact trying to drive the crowds away only increased the novelty of watching us. I had no authority over these crowds.
I’m pondering crowds right now as I make my way through the account of Jesus’ life in the book of Mark. Y’all, I’ve got to say reading the Bible need never get dry or old. There’s always something new to see and this time for me, it’s the crowds.
The crowds often gather around Jesus. He is a spectacle. Initially, He heals a few people and crowds flock to Him to receive more. I imagine it as quite the scene. Numerous sick, diseased, and demon possessed people draw here to Jesus wherever He goes. They press in on Him and take great effort to be very, very close to Him and then…miracles happen.
I don’t know about you, but that’s would be worth traveling some distance to see. And people did travel far to see what was going on. In a day before cell phones and internet, word of mouth proved a very effective means to pass along information.
And more and more people drew near…
Jesus constantly extended compassion to the crowds. When he saw the crowds when he was tired, he still extended his compassion and fed them, taught them, healed them. He refused to send the crowds away hungry for concern they might faint on the way. He knew their circumstances and how far they came to be near him. He asked his disciples to pray for the crowds and tried to help them really see the crowds.
Pretty quickly, though, the religious leaders show up and their response to the crowds is a stark contrast.
The religious leaders needed the following of the crowds as a way to hold power and command respect. They laid heavy burdens on the crowds that extended beyond what God intended in the Law and tried to enslave the crowds to themselves. Ever seeking more righteousness, they placed barriers that the crowds struggled to overcome and led away from God rather than toward Him. To reveal weakness or be honest about brokenness was not an option for the religious leaders as they seemed to thrive on the power and respect they gained with their self-righteous distance.
When the crowds delighted in Jesus’ condemnation of the religious leaders teachings, the leaders weren’t just frustrated. They became furious. They watched the crowds and the following Jesus drew very closely. The crowds loved to listen to Jesus expose them.
The religious leaders plotted and struck back with riddles and traps rather than actually listening and investigating. Most religious leaders revealed no curiosity in their questions. Instead, each question or situation brought before Jesus was a plot to trip him up. As Jesus met each situation with searing truth the crowds delighted in the show. The religious leaders’ fury and fear increased. They plotted to kill Jesus secretly to avoid the backlash of the crowds in their ploy to retain authority.
another site where a mob formed when local businesses were threatened because more began following Jesus…
The Roman occupying forces also had their take on the crowds. It seems the thrust of how the Roman authorities dealt with the crowds revolved around appeasement. Just avoid a riot or an uprising. Keep the peace. Most of the time, this was an effective tactic for their end goal of occupying the world.
But then Jesus, someone truly revolutionary on a universal scale, came. Roman authorities pandered to the mercurial crowds and the religious leaders, revealing their true authority. Pilate wanted to act on what he heard Jesus say, but he put himself at the mercy of many other forces. Truth could not matter to Pilate because he was under the thumb of other authorities, one of which was the crowds.
In our day and age, crowds are still around, often physically unseen in social media followings. The crowds are still unpredictable and mercurial, flocking around anything gory or any promise of hope to relieve pain and suffering. One minute they’re going this way, one minute going that way. Sheep without a shepherd.
Like any flock, the behavior of crowds can be mystifying until something comes to herd or direct them. Right now I find myself mystified by the crowds, but also distressed and saddened. I can’t keep up with which way the crowds are moving and why. I see the crowds driven and herded but usually the crowds seem harassed and helpless under some form of manipulation.
Sadly, most that seek to hold authority over crowds seem to be motivated largely by personal ambition.
Who has compassion? Who actually leads with an authority not extracted from who follows them? Who is not trying to gain power for themselves but wants to serve?
Even as I lament our situation, I can recognize that there are many who have compassion and they are often overlooked because they are among us as those who serve. And it must be this way, the way of Jesus, the way of servitude if I am truly to follow Him. It cannot be the way of personal ambition or manipulation, it must not be that way among the followers of Jesus.
And so I am thankful to receive Jesus’ compassion, teaching, and inherent authority because He is the One who saw the crowds, never pandered to them, never manipulated them, but gave His life for them as they demanded His death…for us…the crowds…the roiling mob of sheep without a shepherd.
The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.
After drawing a bow on Hebrews, I felt I needed to see Jesus again so I began reading through John looking especially for stories of healing. Nothing seemed to make an impression quite the way I wanted. I paused before the last supper scene a little disheartened. I’ll look again tomorrow, I thought, knowing all the healing sections lay in previous chapters.
I pulled it out a day or so later and began reading again and noticed some key words I usually pass over* that begged for more attention this time. Peace. Trouble.
Peace I give to you; my peace I leave with you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27
I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33
Peace be with you! John 20:19
Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. John 20:21
Peace be with you! John 20:26
I loved this modern tapestry from the newly renovated Notre Dame. It depicts the hint of the cross found in the story of Abraham and Isaac. For this post, it illustrates the shadowy way we can see Christ in the circumstances of our trouble.
I felt troubled and was looking for the reassurance of God’s power through Christ’s miracles of healing. Instead I came away with something a bit different. The affirmation that the world is indeed full of trouble. The trouble I feel, its real and its expected by my savior. Healing isn’t always his current plan to bring peace. He is the current plan for peace in my troubled world.
Just Him.
It’s not what I was looking for but it is what I need. To know that Jesus is aware of the trouble in the world is deeply comforting. Nothing I bring to Him is a surprise or overwhelming to Him. I may be overwhelmed but He is not.
To know that the trouble is not really from Him, it is from the world, sets my heart facing the right direction… towards the One who has overcome all the trouble I see.
These passages are in the middle of the abiding section of John so the direction to not let my heart be troubled echoes some strong remaining/abiding themes to me. I need to remove the barriers and relax the constriction in my heart that hinders the flow of His love to me.
Most of the time the barrier is that, whatever it is, it is not going the way I want it to and I try to do it myself. To not let my heart be troubled is to resist the lie that God does not care, that I can control things I cannot, that God is not aware, that He is not powerful.
Curiously the final three repetitions of peace be with you are followed by assurances of Jesus’ physical resurrection when He shows His followers His hands and feet. One repetition is a transferal of a purpose and work to His followers.
He says “peace be with you”…look I am indeed really alive. I conquered death! This is the peace!
The trouble of the world is in the waiting for the peace Jesus to spread as far as it can before the final day.
It’s always surprising to me how soaking in God’s word gives what I need. It’s not always what I was looking for but it is always what I need. I wanted a renewed sense of Jesus’ power to heal and I walked away with Him and with the comfort that the trouble of this world is known to Him.
I’ve always loved Hebrews. Maybe its the mystery of not knowing exactly who wrote this letter or maybe its how its put together in a way that just makes sense to me. As I entered the summer months of routine changes, I realized I wanted to change up my morning time with the Lord so I ordered a study on Hebrews (Jen Wilkin’s Better) and dug in.
It’s a fill in the blanks type of guide to Hebrews and it got me thinking about why that’s just so nice sometimes, to fill in the blanks. To have someone else ask the questions and guide the study is filling a need to not ask myself the questions and be the guide. There’s much that I am feeling my way through this summer and the peace of just opening a study guide and contemplating someone else’s question to me is peaceful.
So what am I gleaning from Hebrews? As many times as I’ve read it, it just gets better, pardon the potential plagiarism! The truth of God’s love and power are sinking in again a little deeper. I think the truths of Jesus grace and mercy early on in our life with Christ can feel a little more like flash floods that uproot our former ways. The grace and mercy and love carve a new and disruptive path in a life-giving way, channeling a new path in life. But that early understanding of His love also needs the steady rains of truth to soak in to the ground of our life too.
What’s soaking in right now is the astounding completeness of what Christ did for us in coming to us as Jesus. We had a dire problem with our fallen nature that we always think we can probably at least help God solve when in reality our help is a joke. That God would take on the complete contract to bring us back to Him, all at His cost, is astounding in a slow-soaking-rain kind of way to me right now.
He welcomes the broken and the needy to His throne room, not the one who comes thinking they have something to offer. Not the one who has something to show off, but the one who has nothing is the one He invites. Right now, I sense that neediness and my inability to make myself whole or those around me.
It’s also striking me that Jesus prayed and asked for another way for our redemption to be accomplished and God told the One who lived a perfect life, no. The One most deserving of a yes from God received a no. And then that One submitted and accepted the no and chose to do what needed to be done to bring us back. Willingly, for the joy, for me, for you.
I’m pretty bad at no, both hearing a no and sometimes giving a no even if its in the best interest of the other person or myself. To know Jesus can even sympathize with us when our prayers are answered with a no is sticking with me right now.
Can I trust God’s no? Can I take up what is before me in joy and willingly even when I asked not to have to?
Well, the author of Hebrews knows what we face because he (or she) gives us some great direction in our journey with Christ to focus on Him who endured the pain, for the joy set before Him.
And so for today, that is enough, the blank that I focus on filling in…focusing on Him.
I have a love hate relationship with waiting. I love the anticipation of waiting for something good that I know is coming. I resist waiting with hope in seasons of pain, grief, and isolation.
I just finished the Old Testament, except for a few Psalms and Proverbs, and stared at that stark page announcing the New Testament. An impression came over me that at this moment I needed to slow down for a day and reflect rather than plough on through to the gospels.
While I’m waiting a day to move forward, others before me waited 400 years between their last communication from God and the arrival of Jesus. Even that arrival of Jesus wasn’t well known to the community for decades and many never acknowledged or realized that He was the One that they waited to appear.
What must it be like to wait for God in His silence and anticipate all that seems to be coming while also living occupied and oppressed, holding onto a thread of hope?
I’m not sure but as I paused and reflected on my reading of the Bible thus far, a litany of thoughts and impressions occupied me.
Here’s what I contemplated as I paused between testaments:
humanity is a little like a rotten melon–shouldn’t we be better than we are when you actually look inside?
People are hopelessly messed up and keep doing the same wrong things over and over again. In Egypt, God rescues His people with signs and wonders, news of which spread far and wide striking fear into surrounding nations. But it wasn’t enough to permanently change the people’s hearts to trust God. The kings they wanted couldn’t fix them and actually made things worse. Even those that wanted to do good couldn’t seem to keep themselves from messing up.
2500 + years later I don’t see any evidence that people, on our own, do anything different or better. We still face ourselves in all the same failures and evil related in the Bible thousands of years ago.
God communicated with people…a very lot. The shear massive size of the books of the Old Testament filled with the story of who God is, who people are, what’s wrong with the relationship between God and people, how people feel about God, stories of how myriad people respond to God, and the pervasive humanity of it all…it is quite overwhelming.
Besides Daniel, there’s not really a character in the Bible that comes shining through. They all have very real, very human issues and failures. There’s no hiding reality and many parts are just tough to read. The world has been and is and will be a very difficult place to live because of that first point. And yet, God preserved His communication telling people who He is and inviting them, wooing them, even commanding them to return to Him over and over and over in order to live the full life He offers.
Easter eggs. It gets talked about a lot in reference to Taylor Swift these days. But the Old Testament is just filled with Easter eggs referencing a better future, a resolution of the problems in people and between people and God. They’re thrown in all over the place and, again, a brisk read through makes them even more obvious in my experience.
At some point in the future…things will be so different between people and God and it’s going to be amazing. Abundant harvests, peace, joy, feasts, justice, rest, a place for everyone, many from all nations under God’s favor… and an end to all the horror that exists in the people’s current reality.
More of a real egg than an Easter egg
Glittering passages of expectation and hope scattered through vast fields of sadness, despair, and tragedy…easter eggs.
Hope, expectation, and confusion. That’s what I’m left with as I stare at the title page for the New Testament. That title page represents a 400 year gap between the New and Old.
400 years where, if I were those people in Israel, I’d be thinking…now what?
We came up from Egypt and messed up in the Promised Land, royally messed up God’s plan. We got exiled, justly, and God preserved a remnant like He said He would. We thought we learned our lessons. Keep the Sabbath, follow the law, don’t worship idols, worship God at the one place He says. Then, miracle of all miracles, exactly 70 years later, kings who worshiped all kinds of other gods actually let us come back to Jerusalem, build the temple, build back the wall, settle back in the land.
It was touch and go at first in the whole obedience department. Some went back to the old ways and Nehemiah had to pull some hair but we think we got it this time. We are going to excel at keeping the Sabbath and following the law and not worshiping idols and worship only at the temple this time. When God sees we got that down, we get our King back, the one in the David dynasty, and we’re out from the thumb of all these nations like we were before. We’re back on the world stage, politically powerful and everyone sees that God is Almighty. We win wars again and we have the prosperity like God promised originally. This David-like King is promised to be something really extraordinary!
Being in the waiting period must be like having an outline of the puzzle but not all the pieces fitted yet…kind of exasperating
We just gotta do better and things will get better for us…except 400 years pass and we have no king, no political power, we’re still dominated by other nations, struggling to survive. We’re desperately trying to figure out what detail we’re missing in the law, what is keeping God from delivering us again? When we rebuilt the temple, why did the cloud and the fire not come down like it did at other times? Where is God? Who is this Elijah like person He promises will come in the future? Why is He waiting, when is it going to happen? When will we get that powerful king? When will He at least talk to us again?
And the people wait and anticipate and hope and try to cling to God…or at least His law.
Sabbatical started a month ago and to be honest it was a rough start. My husband went down day one with a shoulder strain that took a few weeks to work out. Thankfully it wasn’t worse but we didn’t know the first week if he was headed for a much more intense recovery process or not.
My first wrestling match was with entitlement to this season of rest. Is my time really my own…ever? Or must it always be surrendered to God?
Going from pretty full, active, and social days to longer stretches of time without set plans takes some adjustment. I found myself mentally searching for helpful things to be and do for people more to chase away insecurity than really serving the Lord.
Before long I faced another wrestling match with identity. How much does my vocation define my identity? Well, more than I want and more than I thought.
When I read about Sabbath rest in the Bible, the activities seem to revolve around worship, community, and cessation of activities related to providing for ourselves in some way. It was a time to trust that God provides now and in the future. Sabbath involved lots of fun things like corporate worship and eating good food ideally prepared ahead of time so that no one was really working hard on it on the day of rest. Sabbath was for everyone, men and women, moms and dads, sons and daughters, grandparents, and also those who served.
Rest and sabbath in the Bible is really fascinating. Let’s just say, there was a lot of prescribed rest and partying happening! It wasn’t just priests or pastors or educators that took Sabbatical. Everyone was entitled, actually commanded to take sabbatical every 7th year. Every 49th year Sabbath flowed into the 50th Year of Jubilee in Israel which was also a sabbatical rest.
Wildflowers sprouting all by themselves on my daily walk
Every 7th year, the people of Israel were to give the land a whole year of rest. Every 50th year was an extra year of rest for the land and a year of wiping the debt slate clean, zeroing out any land transfers or debts people made during years of trouble. Each clan got their land back from whoever they had sold (rented really) their land to if they came under hard times. These years were also years when no planting took place.
Two years in a row there was no planting, just eating what grew on its own, trusting that God would bring something up. Trusting that the previous years plants shed some seeds into the Land and God would make them grow. God also promised on year 6 or 48 to provide such abundant crops to provide for the next year or years of sabbath rest.
Trust in God’s provision, then, began the year before the sabbath year. Would he provide double or triple like promised? I imagine I’d be pretty anxiously watching plants grow that 6th year.
The sad reality is that the people, as far as I can tell, never really trusted God enough individually or corporately to take God at His promise and rest themselves or the land. Their failure to Sabbath once a week, one year every 7th year revealed their heart’s true posture towards God. And I sense in myself the testing that comes with resting too. I am pretty sure I’d go with the crowd too.
The battles with entitlement as if I earned rest rather than receive it as a free gift. The battles with identity as if I define my worth through what I accomplish rather than receive my identity and worth as another gift from God.
Then another battle with the posture of my soul during sabbath. So much of sabbath from what I can tell was about indulgence in God and His gifts of community and creation. There’s no way to repay Him by trying in futility to devote every moment to something directly “godly” like reading my Bible or praying. I am realizing that is kind of the point of sabbath too. To receive and rest and contemplate that I cannot and am not required to do anything to earn my way into God’s good favor outside of being with Him.
Noticing God’s creation with photo credits to my oldest son.
I’m sure my thoughts are not completely formed on sabbath and may never reach completion. Sabbath rest never ended for God’s people no matter how old they got. They never reached a place where God felt they didn’t need it. I imagine it was always startling each 7th day, 49th year, 50th year…to contemplate our very real relationship with our Creator God.
My boy’s words as we took a short break on our hike yesterday.
What did we hear? Quiet. No sound of machine, car, people, pipes, notifications…just silence.
What a gift to hear only the whisper of wind blowing through trees with leaves hanging on by a thread, waiting for spring to shove them off in favor of the new. The gift of hearing other leaves blowing on the ground, ready to become soil that would grow a new wave of forest.
My boy is one restored by nature and the outdoors and silence in ways others in our family have yet to discover or just aren’t. The other boy is one on the hunt, overturning any rock he can in search of salamanders. Then he looks them up in his classification book astounded over finding one here that only exists…here.
Always ready to go…unless he’s not.
But the quiet one, the one of few words, when he speaks it often gets missed to his frustration. He wants to speak only what needs saying and only once and be…heard. And, sadly, we are a rowdy bunch and often miss what he’s trying to tell us, trying to say. He’s forced to repeat what he wanted to only have to say once, or not at all.
I think he wants us all to learn to read his mind and is disappointed we won’t…not wanting to accept we can’t.
So when he insists we be quiet, that we listen, this time we hear, my husband and I and we do what he says. We fall silent and listen with him and watch as the peace comes over him in a calm place with glorious views. Away from the pressure of AP classes and high school shenanigans he was never young enough in soul to truly enjoy.
A long time ago a mentor advised that I needed to slow down and accept that our family pace needed to include all…even the ones I most wanted to hurry up because they seem to slow. Maybe their pace was God’s gift to me, to us all, and waiting for them was God’s intended way forward for us.
That was at least 10 years ago…
I am not always good at this but over time, I am learning and accepting and seeing that bending to the whole is truly God’s gift to me.
It looks like family vacations where being outside hiking and exploring needs to be central so we all are restored. My intensity, though I’d like to think I’m laid back, is moderated by one foot in front of the other. I am restored as well as I keep a steady pace, putting one foot in front of another…
And another and another.
Pausing to wait for the youngest while another rock is lifted in search of another salamander.
Enjoying the constant, watchful presence of my middle son, an experienced hiker, looking after me, the inexperienced hiker, quietly accompanying me one foot after another. Saying little and much all at the same time.
Enjoying the slow stillness of the outdoors.
What have you learned about yourself and your family on vacations?
Routine and habit can make me insensitive, lacking in ability to feel or notice. They also make it possible to fill up otherwise wasted moments of my day with meaning and the chance to receive.
La Jolla, California July 2023
I don’t know why it stuck out to me so particularly on a Sunday morning a few months ago, “on the night He was betrayed…”, as our church family practiced communion. It is a routine, the first Sunday of the month. A habit, if you believe, you are welcome to participate in this strange, millennia old sacrament begun by Jesus Christ. Your soul can be connected as you physically partake…or it can be disconnected, insensate, dull.
That morning, after decades of ritual and habit, the words hit different, as the youth say these days. On the night He was betrayed. Maybe it is because I am noticing afresh my lack of love at times. Sure I’ve grown over many years in being loved and being a conduit of love. But it is still there, the lack of love.
It is no small comfort that what Jesus’ follower John honed in on as he grew older was love. Love being at the center of all. And not the weak, self-serving, conditional, self-indulgent love of today but the true love of Jesus that sacrifices without thought of what can be paid back or received by Himself.
So maybe that’s why on the night He was betrayed is stuck in my mind and soul these days. Because on the night Jesus gave Himself on our behalf, His whole physical and spiritual self, He was betrayed. Not only that, He knew His followers were going to betray Him. This isn’t an after the fact realization He had–that He would give Himself and then find out His followers failed Him. He knew before and as He sacrificed Himself that it would be a lonely, thankless, necessary, and willing task to give up His life for unworthy people like Peter, John, me…and you.
The whole subject of communion and its meaning is one that fills entire books and shelves and rooms, I’m sure. For me, right now, it is enough to reflect on one aspect of His communion with us, His followers.
That He gave Himself willingly, in love, even as those closest to Him, who saw in person the universe altering gift, betrayed Him.
I often wonder who I would embody in the times Jesus walked the earth. Would I be a moralist Pharisee offended as Jesus blocked my desires to earn my way? Would I be the crowd that was just there for the easy food, after all I love giveaways? Would I be the woman forgiven who walks away completely changed?
It’s worth pondering as I seek to know Jesus and myself more deeply that I may be like Him because the tendency is to think we’d be faithful. We would recognize His deity if He walked the earth in front of us. We would rise above all that moralism and materialism that kept people from Jesus. But would we?
Probably not, because Jesus was betrayed by most everyone on the night He was to give us His greatest gift. How could I think I’d be different?
I would betray, have betrayed, will continue to betray Him in my selfishness and lack of love, but my hope is also in this truth. Because on the night He was betrayed, He still gave Himself.
And the hope is deeper and the love deeper as I realize this truth more deeply.
My son plays cello. No matter that we owned two violas, he wanted to play cello. Over the summer he took lessons because I wanted him to have something to do while his older siblings scampered around to jobs, hiking trips, and places with friends in cars.
Hearing him practice is a delight.
Once, his teacher moved one lesson online and a weird thing happened. While he was playing a scale, hitting the notes just right, the teacher’s cello all the way across town began picking up the sound waves and resonating a note. Through air, wires, chips, internet lines, then back through chips and wires and air that note traveled and replicate itself in the other cello.
When you think about it, that’s pretty incredible. Sound and music is one of the ways its hard for me to get out from under believing in the existence of God.
That resonance is what got me. One note moved through the air from one object and caused movement in another object.
Today I read about Peter at the last supper and then at that fateful campfire where he denied his friend, his teacher, the One he believed was the savior of his people.
It struck me that Peter didn’t know what was in himself. He was so sure that he would be loyal, that he would never… That all others might but not him.
And then he did the thing.
And Jesus turned and looked directly at Peter in that moment. When Peter met His gaze, he remembered what Jesus said would happen, what Peter so confidently denied could ever happen.
We don’t know anything about that look Jesus gave Peter. In my humanity I see raised eyebrows with I-told-you-so vibes because that’s how it works with me. Those moments when something comes true that I warned a kid about it takes everything in me not to raise my brows and waft off a distinct vibe even while I hold back the actual words.
What’s even more interesting is the interchange a few hours before. Jesus says to Peter three astounding things:
Satan asked to mess with all of the disciples to see what will shake out
I (Jesus) personally prayed for Peter that your faith would not fail
I predict you’ll come back
I mean, tons of questions here for me. Did all the disciples get sifted or just Peter? I assume Jesus said ok? Jesus prayed that Peter’s faith would not fail yet Peter did fail.
And! Jesus seems to know that Peter will fail or why else would Jesus tell Peter that “when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers”?
That kind of blows my circuits when I really think about it. Did one of Jesus’ prayers not get answered with a yes? Of course we know that in the end Peter did betray Jesus but he also turned back and strengthened others.
Did Peter’s response right after this affect what happened? Did Peter’s following confident assertion that he was ready to go with Jesus to prison and death reveal that Peter needed to know more about himself without which he would not be ready to strengthen others?
There’s so much we don’t know but so much to know as well.
For me, I hate that so much of ministering to people involves living out of weakness, failure and suffering. Why does it have to be this way? Why is it that to follow Him, I must see and embrace those aspects of me that feel like nothing but failure?
I believe it relates to resonance. That phenomenon where some chord strikes the chord of another.
Could Peter ever lead the way Jesus displayed to him without a colossal failure followed by repentance and then restoration?
I don’t think so. Peter’s failure led him to an experience of restoration that transformed him into the humble servant Christ taught him to be.
And I don’t believe I or anyone can connect with the soul of another without the experience of being fully known in that moment of failure and then fully accepted and forgiven there too.
Those who are forgiven much love much, right?
And so it is that embracing our weakness is the striking chord that resonates in the souls of others who also seek the truth.
eternalwaitofglory 