"I Will Follow You Into the Dark"

“I Will Follow You Into the Dark"--March 30, 2018

When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabbachtani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” [Mark 15:33-34]

This holy moment brings me up at a loss for words. Maybe that is a sign of when you are standing on the verge of a holy moment.

In fact, to get any kind of a handle on this moment, any kind of grasp on Jesus’ cry from the cross, I find myself turning to the borrowed words of a love song. It is one of the saddest songs I know, but it is also one of the most plainly beautiful. It’s a Ben Gibbard song, and the refrain goes,

“If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied,
And illuminate the ‘No’s on their vacancy signs,
If there’s no one beside you when your soul embarks,
Then I’ll follow you into the dark.”
That lyric comes to mind for two opposite reasons: one, that the cross is effectively Jesus saying to us that he will go “into the dark” for us, that is, to death; and two, that nobody says the same, nobody makes the same offer, to Jesus. He must go into the dark… alone.

Let’s consider that second one first. Jesus’ cry from the cross is not just about the pain of death—it is about the pain of godforsaken-ness. What Jesus endured on the cross was not only the physical anguish of crucifixion—the sharp stabbing pain of the nails and the weary, dull ache of muscles straining to hold a body up. It was that, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). It is God the Son crying out from the verge of being torn apart from God the Father. It is a callback to that ancient promise that God had made with Abraham (Genesis 15), passing between the torn pieces of animal carcasses and invoking an oath, which carried the effect of saying, “May I—the Creator of the universe—be torn apart like these animals, before I break my promise to you.” At the cross, it comes to exactly that. God—the Triune Creator of the universe who is Father, Son, and Spirit—goes to the very brink of being torn apart.

At the cross, as Jesus the Son cries out that he has been abandoned, at the same time, the Father is grieving in silence to watch the Son in suffering and to lose a Child, while the Spirit groans, as Paul writes, “with sighs too deep for words.” And there is no one to step in and save Jesus. There is no one who can comfort the mourning Father who grieves for the Son who is one with him. There is no one who will step in, to halt the sacrifice the way the angel holds old Abraham back from taking the knife to his son. There is no substitute ram caught in the thicket. Jesus goes into the darkness. God, in fact, goes into the darkness, and there is no one else who offers to follow God into that darkness, the darkness of a cross between noon and three.

And yet, at the very same time that no one is coming to God’s rescue (because, in truth, who could come to God’s rescue?), Jesus is offering to go into the dark for us, in our place. Even though Jesus must go into the deathly place alone, he is willing to go there to rescue us. Sinners that we are, we do die, and we do experience its cold darkness. At the cross, the God we know in Jesus dives head first into death to come and get us, like a lifeguard on stormy seas. getting swallowed up in the waves in order to bring us up for air. In the cry from the cross, it is as though God the Son says to every one of us who are drowning in the ocean, “I will follow you into the dark. I will go into the realm of death for you, to bring you back, to bring you to myself.”

Jesus was willing to go into death—and the point of utter loneliness that comes with death—in order for us not to be alone. He was willing to be forsaken by the Father, so that we could be called precious children, beloved of God. God, the perfect union of the Father, Son, and Spirit, was willing to go to the very brink of being torn apart, rather than be unfaithful to a promise. Even though everybody else abandons him, Jesus the Christ was willing to follow after us into the dark, to bring us into the light. 

Maybe no words can capture all of what that moment was about, but at the very least, I am certain it was about love.

Lord Jesus, for having rescued us by going into the dark to find us; for having been forsaken so that we could be forgiven; for having loved us when we had all abandoned you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Sins of Omission

“Sins of Omission”—March 29, 2018

Pilate spoke to [the crowd] again, “Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?” They shouted back, “Crucify him!” Pilate asked them, “Why, what evil has he done?” but they shouted all the more, “Crucify him!” So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified. [Mark 15:12-15]

Doing nothing is still picking sides. Let’s just be clear about that.

While it’s obvious that the crowd in the story has been stirred up against Jesus, Pilate makes for more of a subtle, insidious opponent of Jesus—a cowardly one. Try as some folks have done over twenty centuries, you can’t make Pilate into a good guy trying unsuccessfully to spring an innocent man, or even a neutral party. And even though he tries to wash his hands of involvement in this mess—literally, according to Matthew’s parallel version of the story!—Pilate can’t get the stain of guilt off his hands. He’s Lady Macbeth a millennium and a half before Shakespeare.

In fact, you could say that Pilate’s crimes are worse than the crowd’s. The crowd at least believes that Jesus is guilty of something. The chief priests and other religious professionals have pointed out to them that Jesus has said and done things that only God is allowed to do. Unless he really is God-in-the-flesh (and of course, that is precisely what we Christians do believe about him), Jesus is a blasphemer, guilty of sullying God’s reputation and cheapening God’s name. And those are serious crimes, by Jewish law. They are Third-Commandment kinds of crimes—a matter of slandering God’s name, at least if Jesus were not actually God in the flesh. And that is an idea that the crowd cannot imagine. So the only option left to them, if they are going to take their own commandments and God seriously, is to call for Jesus’ death. Misguided as they are (because it turns out that Jesus really is who he says he is), at least there are matters of conviction at stake here.

Pilate, on the other hand, doesn’t recognize the crime of “blasphemy” and doesn’t particularly care what Jesus claims to be. Jesus could believe he was Napoleon Bonaparte, a poached egg, or the lost heir of the Russian czars, for all Pilate cared. Pilate doesn’t believe that Jesus is guilty of anything that he can see, much less something worthy of capital punishment. But that doesn’t stop him from handing Jesus over to be killed. It is more important to Pilate to “satisfy the crowd” and keep the masses from getting upset at him than to do justice and set Jesus free. In other words, Pilate is willing to do the expedient thing to keep his job easier and keep Rome’s grip on the people good and tight, rather than the just thing. Pilate thought that by doing nothing directly to get Jesus crucified, he was off the hook. But of course, doing nothing is still picking sides—it is a vote for letting things continue on their present course. Pilate might not have been the one to thrown Jesus under the bus, but he is the one driving the bus, and he had plenty of chances to hit the brakes.

In fact, Pilate steps on the gas. Did you notice that in addition to letting Jesus be taken to be crucified, he has Jesus flogged? All in the name of "keeping the peace" and "ensuring safety" and "maintaining law and order" and asserting Rome’s control over the situation. Pilate doesn’t believe Jesus deserves it, but he has the man beaten and whipped before a torturous execution because it will both show everybody that Rome is calling the shots and it will quiet the crowds. Pilate is the worst kind of coward of all—the kind who wants to make people think he had no choice. He thinks that doing nothing keeps him from being guilty of Jesus’ death, but it is just the coward’s way of picking sides.

Theologians talk about sins of "commission" and sins of "omission"—that is, the wicked things we shouldn’t have done, and the good things we should have done, but didn’t. Pilate’s story reminds us that the second are just as awful in their consequences as the first. In fact, his sin of omission—not sticking up for a man he believes is innocent—is just the flip-side of the same coin as the crowds and their sin of commission—crying out for Jesus to be crucified. Pilate thinks it is doing nothing, but he is making a choice. He is picking sides… against Jesus.

There come moments in our lives where choices like that are put to us: to stand with the people who need an advocate, or to walk away. Often, we choose to walk away, to remain silent, or to look the other direction, and we think that our not doing something can’t be held against us. After all, we haven’t done anything wrong… right? But by our hesitancy to speak, our failure to act, our refusal to stand with ones in the margins, we are picking sides already. We are just doing it the coward’s way.

Now, I suppose this raises one vital question: what is the difference between Pilate’s cowardly act toward Jesus, and, say, Simon Peter’s denial of Jesus? Why is that that Peter can be forgiven and reinstated among Jesus’ followers, if his denial of Jesus was hardly different from Pilate’s “do nothing” approach? And should we, then, be more afraid when we look back on our past and see the times we have left things undone and passively picked sides against Jesus?

I would offer these two observations: first, after the rooster crows at Peter’s last denial, he realizes what he has done and weeps over it. That is, he quits pretending that denying Jesus was just about staying neutral and out of trouble. He realizes that by saying he didn’t even know Jesus, he has taken sides against Jesus—and it breaks Peter’s heart. And he realizes that his hands are dirty, too, now. Pilate, on the other hand, keeps himself in the illusion that he is righteous and just, because, after all, he didn’t try to get Jesus into trouble. Pilate walks off the stage of the story (and this is the last we’ll see of Pilate until after Jesus is dead) still thinking he has kept himself neutral and untainted, while Peter breaks down realizing that doing nothing is still picking sides. And so, Peter realizes, it’s all he can do to entrust himself to a God who does not treat us according to what we deserve, a God who can love even enemies, a God who refuses to stay at arm’s length from us trying to stay “neutral.”

When you compare Pilate and Peter, then, it becomes crystal clear: redemption is about the grip of God’s hands on us, and not about our self-declared "clean" hands. It is about a God who chooses our side.

May we today find the courage not to do nothing, the courage to stand with Jesus and his friends at the margins, the courage to admit our past failures. And let us then be gathered to Jesus’ side... since Jesus is what it looks like when God leaves behind "neutrality" to stand on the side of a sinful humanity.

Lord Jesus, we are yours. Let us own it today. Let us never be neutral about you.

Staying in the Silence

“Staying in the Silence”—March 28, 2018

"Then the chief priests accused [Jesus] of many things.  Pilate asked him again, 'Have you no answer?  See how many charges they bring against you.'  But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed." [Mark 15:3-5]

Sometimes there just isn’t anything to say.

Or, let me clarify: sometimes there just isn’t anything to say, but we still try desperately to find some way to fill the silence.

"We chirp theories like chickadees,” writes Walter Wangerin, Jr., “because ignorance is a terrifying thing and we need the noise.”  We seem to have this instinctive need to talk, or make someone else talk, even in moment when there is nothing to be said.

What, after all, does Pilate expect Jesus to say?  Does the Roman governor expect Jesus to play along with this game, pretending it isn’t already rigged?  Does Pilate really expect Jesus to act as if he can get a fair trial?  Does Pilate really expect Jesus to plead for his life like the Empire is really the one calling the shots?  Does anybody think that it is really the ropes or the soldiers that are keeping Jesus there in the room to endure the trial?  Nevertheless, Pilate, the anxious, insecure, blustering representative of the Empire's kind of "law and order," keeps prodding Jesus to speak up, to fill the awkward silence of a courtroom where the defendant won’t… defend himself.

And mark that: Jesus doesn't defend himself.  He is unafraid, unprovoked, and unashamed... so he doesn't get defensive or even attack back those who are wrongly attacking him.  Jesus has nothing more to say.

In our country, we tend to hear about “remaining silent” and think of sleazy businessmen or conniving government appointees refusing to incriminate themselves.  We all know from television and movies (if not from real life, let’s hope) about getting your Miranda rights read to you when you are arrested.  We all know that the arresting officer begins, like a monk chanting a memorized prayer, “You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”  We are, in other words, used to hearing about “remaining silent” or “pleading the Fifth” as an act of cowardice—albeit cowardice protected by our Constitution.  Nobody can make you plead guilty in our system—which means that right often becomes a shield to hide behind in order to make the police find other evidence to convict you on.  But nobody has much respect for the defendant who has to hide behind the Fifth Amendment to slow down the prosecution.  This is not what Jesus is doing.

Just from a historical perspective, of course, the Romans had no “right to remain silent.”  They had no Fifth Amendment to allow mob bosses and corrupt politicians to hide behind.  There was no ancient equivalent of saying, "I have no recollection, Senator..." or "I do not recall that..." the way we have grown used to people saying in our day. So Jesus’ choice to remain silent is not a way of keeping himself out of trouble.  If anything, it is Jesus’ refusal to grasp for any escape ladders out of that trouble. Jesus isn’t a helpless victim, caught between the Romans and the religious leaders.  Jesus won’t let himself be a pawn for them. He refuses to speak because there is nothing he can say to change things, and he will not try and pretend that a few eloquent words can fix what is broken with the situation.  Jesus has never been one to pretend, after all.

And yet Jesus doesn’t run away from the situation, just because there is nothing he can say to change it.  Sometimes there just isn’t anything to say, but you stay put in the uncomfortable silence because your presence is enough.

In one sense, we will never be in a situation like Jesus was here, because he went through this mockery of a trial and his crucifixion to save us from having to stand accused alone.  But in another sense, we will often be in moments like Jesus is right here, moments where our presence is needed for someone else, but not for us to try and fill the silence because we are uncomfortable with it.  Sometimes we will be called to show up in someone else’s life and there will be no “right” words, no words that can fix what is wrong.  Tragic, awful, unfair, and heartbreaking things happen in this life, and no amount of saying, “Look on the bright side,” will change that.  Sometimes we are called into one another’s lives, not to find the right words to make them happy again and “leave ‘em smiling,” but to share their sorrow and to stay in the silence with them.

When you do find yourself in one of those moments—at bedside in a hospital room when the doctor walks in with a stern look, when your friend’s heart is breaking, when a loved one walks in the door with the sentence, “I lost my job,”  when someone you care about simply needs to unload the weight of the day that has worn grooves in their soul—we will find that being Christ-like doesn’t necessarily mean finding something vaguely religious to say because we are uncomfortable with the silence.  The Christ-like response may just be to stay in that silence, and not to stumble around looking for inspirational words, but simply to let your presence say, “I am not leaving you in this.  I will not take an escape hatch to abandon you.  I am with you.”

That is, after all, what Jesus said to us with his silence. Actions, as they say, speak louder than words, and Jesus spoke volumes in the act of laying his life down for a world full of us who were holding the nails.

And beyond that, there was nothing more that needed to be said.

Christ our Savior, give us the courage and compassion to be present with those who need us today, and give us the grace to know when to let our mouths stay shut.

The Power to Lay It Down

The Power to Lay It Down--March 27, 2018

[Jesus said:] "For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay my life down in order to take it back up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.  I have power to take it up again. I have receive this command from my Father." [John 10:17-18]

Everybody knows the cliché about the half glass of water, right?  The optimist sees the glass and calls it half-full, and the pessimist sees the same glass and calls it half-empty, right?  It's an old saw, but you get the point: the same object or event can be seen in two very different ways depending on one's perspective in looking at it. 

And while we are dusting off old illustrations, I'll bet you remember this one from your childhood book of brain-teasers:

That's the old "do-you-see-a-vase-or-two-faces?" optical illusion, and of course, it's the same as the glass of water: the same image, the same phenomenon in the world, can be "read" in different ways, depending on one's focus.  Does your mind center on the black shape?  Well, then it's going to look like a vase for sure.  Do you see the silhouettes in the negative space (the white space)?  Then you're looking at faces.   But either way, your brain is already doing some interpreting of the data in front of it.

Now in a lot of cases, it doesn't really matter in the big scheme of things which you pick to focus on.  Faces, vase, who cares?  For that matter, whether you call the glass half-full or half-empty is far less critical information than whether the glass contains water or arsenic.

But there are times when there is a right perspective, even if there are many competing theories out there for what is going on.  In the old poem, it may well be true that you can make the case for the elephant's trunk being like a spear, and the elephant's leg being like a tree trunk, or the elephant's tail being like a rope.... but you can't call it an apple pie or the Brooklyn Bridge.  

For the followers of Jesus, the cross is one of those events that calls for a truthful reading, even though there are many ways I suppose you could interpret it.  And we should be honest, too, that for two millennia now, Christians have been insisting on an interpretation of the cross that doesn't look like "common sense" to the rest of the world.  Christians have claimed now, lo these twenty centuries, that at the cross, Jesus willingly surrendered his own life, his own dignity, his own rights, and his own power, as his choice... and that this same Jesus has (and used!) the power to take his life back from the powers of death when he so chose.

The world looks at the execution of a criminal for being an enemy of the state and says, "This looks like... well, the execution of a criminal for being an enemy of the state."  The world further looks at the cross and says, "Poor fella--he was a helpless victim who got crushed beneath the wheels of the empire by making the wrong kind of enemies.  He never had a chance.  Rome had it in for him, and it sounds like the well-connected religious leaders had it in for him, too.  Poor schmuck."  The world looks at Jesus and says, "Whether he was innocent or guilty I can't say, but he clearly lost in his fight against the powers."  The world looks at the cross and says, "No offense, but he kinda had it coming.  This lunatic preacher actually told people to love their enemies, AND not to return evil for evil, AND to let the government force you to walk a mile carrying a soldier's gear--in fact, this crazy guy taught people to willingly give up fighting against that and instead to offer to carry all that stuff a second mile!  No wonder such a loser ends up getting killed--he gave up his rights and means of fightin' those bad guys off!"  

To the logic of the world, Jesus is a fool who got what he deserved because he wouldn't clench his fists and clutch onto what was his: his life, his rights, and his sword--and so it's no wonder that a bigger, more powerful threat came and took it from him.  He got what was comin' to him... right?

That's how the world has looked at the cross of Jesus for two thousand years.

And Jesus has spent the same last two thousand years trying to teach us to see the picture differently... his way.

As John's Gospel gives us Jesus' words, that way is diametrically opposed to the way "conventional wisdom" reads the cross of Christ.  "I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord," he says.  Notice that--it is powerful... and radical.  Jesus refuses to be regarded as a helpless victim.  Jesus does not allow us to see him as an unwitting country rube who didn't know he was making enemies.  Jesus doesn't even allow the interpretation that he was merely a social revolutionary or first-century militia leader (they called those "Zealots" back then) whose revolt went off too early and was crushed before it could build up steam.  Jesus doesn't give us the option of seeing the cross as anybody taking his life... or his rights... or his dignity... or his power... away from him.  Nobody intimidates Jesus.  "Nobody puts Baby in a corner," like the movie says, and certainly nobody can put Jesus on a cross he doesn't willingly go to.

And yet... (and here is the thing that, in all honestly, even bothers a lot of the church-going respectable religious folk I know) Jesus still goes to the cross.  He still gives up his life.  He still gives up everything else on the list--his right to resist the governor of Rome, his circle of friends and followers who want to start drawing their weapons in the garden against Jesus' orders, his reputation as a good, decent, law-abiding person, even the clothes off his back.  Jesus gives it all up, and as he emphasizes here in John's gospel, this is not something to pity or scorn him for.  This is precisely what he intends.  "I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again."

The "power to lay it down."  That is the thing that confounds the watching world, and for that matter even the church-going religious folks who have unwittingly swallowed the Kool-Aid the world has been peddling. The "common sense" way of looking at Jesus' crucifixion is that Jesus must not have had any power at all, since the Romans nailed him to a cross--they gloated in his torture and death! They must be the strong ones--and even if you think Jesus was a nice feller with good intentions, the world says you have to still reckon him a loser because he couldn't stop Rome from killing him.  But that is exactly the opposite of what John says here: that laying down his life is in fact the sine qua non of Jesus' power!  It is precisely because Jesus has true power that he can lay his life down and then take it back up again come Sunday--Rome doesn't really have power over him!  Jesus ain't afraid of what they can do to him!  And death and intimidation were the only big hitters on Rome's team.

We Christians have been given the challenging task of teaching ourselves, our children, and the watching world a different way of seeing the cross of Jesus.  Where the world has only seen the trophy vase of Rome's defeat over Jesus, we point to the shape in the negative space and see the face of God that has been there all along... the world has just lacked the eyes to see it.  Where the world sees foolishness and nonsense in Jesus' way of willingly surrendering what was "his" for the sake of others (us!), the gospel dares us to see differently that Jesus willingly chose to lay down his life, and that this is not a mark of weakness or idiocy on Jesus' part, but his greatest strength and wisdom.

And that will mean, too, that we dare to see our lives differently.  There are a million voices out there convinced that it's just plain stupid to lay your life down for someone else--"No, you gotta look out for Number 1!" they say.  There are countless voices who would have us believe it is foolish to willingly lay down our power and our privilege, our comforts and our security, our reputations and our rights, for the sake of the lives of others.  And if we listen long enough, we will buy into their logic--perhaps we already have in some ways.  But Jesus has been saying all along that true power is the power to lay down a life, to willingly surrender what we have in our hands, so that it may be used for the sake of all.  Whether we listen to Jesus or to the perspective of the world will affect greatly what we do with our lives, and whether our hands are open in self-giving, or clenched in petty fists in this life.

Nobody "makes" Jesus do it--it is his thoughtful, careful, well-reasoned out choice to give up what is his for the sake of others who do not know him and may never say thank you.  And nobody "makes" us or "cons" us or "fools" us or "cajoles" us into laying down our lives, either... or our privilege... or rights... or comforts... and all the rest.  We do it because we are Jesus' followers, and he has taught us that we do not have to be ruled by fear any longer--not of Rome, not of any other empire, not of death itself.  

Jesus is teaching us to see the cross his way--and it makes all the difference in the world.

Lord Christ, as we thank you for having laid down your life, give us the courage and love to lay ours down for others like you... because we are no longer afraid.

Who's Holding Whom?

Who's Holding Whom?--March 26, 2018

While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant-girls of the high priest came by. When she saw Peter warming himself, she stared at him and said, “You also were with Jesus, the man from Nazareth.” But he denied it, saying, “I do not know or understand what you are talking about.” And he went out into the forecourt. Then the cock crowed. And the servant-girl, on seeing him, began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.” But again he denied it. Then after a little while the bystanders again said to Peter, “Certainly you are one of them; for you are a Galilean.” But he began to curse, and he swore an oath, “I do not know this man you are talking about.” At that moment the cock crowed for the second time. Then Peter remembered that Jesus had said to him, “Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.” And he broke down and wept. [Mark 14:67-72]
This may sound odd, but the more I think about this scene, the more and more hopeful I am. This story is proof to me that salvation is not so much about my grip on Jesus as it is about Jesus’ grip on me. My grip will fail, will slip, will loosen and get slack. Jesus’, however, never will.

Remember, for a moment, what it was like to be the young child in the department store with your mom or dad. Children are squirrelly enough, just by nature, and then putting them in an environment full of enticements, distractions, and often, toys, makes them even more antsy to get loose and get lost. Sometimes, of course, mom or dad would let you go, knowing they could keep an eye on you from wherever you were. And sometimes, they would insist on holding your hand. And in those moments, it wasn’t really about your grip on mom or dad’s hand that kept you from being lost (or knocking things over, or running the risk of abduction). It was all about their grip on you. If anything, you in all your squirrelly department-store wanderlust made it harder to keep from getting lost, trying to pull away, or dragging behind mom’s pace, or jumping up and down like a monkey while dad shopped. But none of those things could separate you in the end—not even when you let go completely from your side. They still could hold on to you, to keep you safe.

The story of Peter’s three-fold denial of Jesus is evidence to me that things are much the same between us and Jesus. Here in these verses, as painful as they are to read, we see a reflection of ourselves in Peter’s letting go of Jesus’ hand. Let’s be crystal clear about that: Peter leaves no room for ambiguity or uncertainty—he flat out denies Jesus. He has burned the bridges of relationship with his man, his teacher, his rabbi, his lord, repeatedly. Peter not only denies being one of Jesus’ disciples, but even knowing the man. He has, as they say, terminated his rights in relationship to Jesus. And the fact that he does it three times is a sign that, at least in the moment, Peter understood what he was doing and chose to do it to save his own skin. It’s not that Peter misheard the question or misunderstood what they wanted to know. He just doesn’t want to be associated with Jesus anymore, because he is afraid that they’ll string him up, too. In other words, even given multiple opportunities that night to come to his senses, find his courage, and confess his allegiance to Jesus, Peter just doesn’t do it. He fails. He lets go of Jesus, like a kid determined to shake and squirm his way loose of dad’s hand, because he thinks it would be better on his own.

Now, if this reality we call “salvation” were a matter of how tightly we are holding onto Jesus, this should be the end of Peter’s story. And what a damnable end it would be. These are the last words Peter says about Jesus before the cross, the last thing he says about his relationship with Jesus before the Messiah dies. Peter has been given not just one, not just two, but three chances in that night to profess his faith in Jesus and name him as Lord, and with all three, Peter struck out.

And yet, we know that Jesus had not let go of Peter. Not then, not at the resurrection, not ever. For one, when we do get to the story of the empty tomb, the angelic messenger tells the women at the tomb, “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” Peter is included. Peter is, in fact, specially mentioned, as if to say, “Even though Peter thought he had removed himself from the relationship and burned all his bridges with Jesus, Jesus has rebuilt them from his side. Go and tell the disciples he is alive again—and that includes telling Peter.” You see—it is a matter of who is really holding onto whom.

Beyond that, of course, we know from the book of Acts and other New Testament writings that Peter not only continued as a member of the Christian community after the cross and resurrection, but in fact was a central leader of the early church. Jesus did continue to appear, and he met up with Peter and the rest, and poured out his Spirit on all of them, including Peter, and used Peter to bring the Good News to countless thousands. Even though Peter had cut off ties with Jesus and let go of the Messiah’s hand, Jesus never let go of Peter, not even when his hands had nail marks in them.

As the song by Mumford & Sons puts it,

“It seems that all my bridges have been burned/

But you say that’s exactly how this grace thing works/ 

It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart/

But the welcome I receive with the restart.”

Even when the bridges are burnt from our side, that isn’t the end of things between us and Jesus. He’ll walk on the open water to cross over to us. He'll even come back from the dead.

As difficult as it is to see this scene today which shows us Peter at his worst and most cowardly, it is this scene that gives us sure hope that our belonging to Jesus, and our salvation, are matters of how tightly Jesus is holding on to us. For someone with a squirrelly soul and slippery hands like mine, that is good news indeed.

Lord Jesus, never let us go. And with that assurance deep in our hearts, make us never want to leave you. Hold us today, Jesus, with your wounded hands.

Another Sinatrian Heresy

Another Sinatrian Heresy--March 23, 2018

[Jesus said:] "Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. [John 12:31-33]

I think we have let too much Sinatra infect our theology.  Seriously.

The obvious example, of course, is the self-important idiocy of "My Way," (which I have often heard referred to over the years as "the national anthem of hell"), a song which seems to claim that all that matters in life is me getting to do what I want the way I want to do it. Now, I know that nobody claims that Frank Sinatra sang "My Way" as an illustration of the Christian way of life, but I do know plenty of folks who think that the two are compatible with one another.  And so let this be one more of those moments to be clear about important things: that's a load of fresh fertilizer.  You almost couldn't write a song that was more explicitly opposed to the way of Jesus if you tried. 

But the Sinatrian heresies don't stop there.  There's another one that I suspect has crept into our pop theology, although, again I know that Ol' Blue Eyes wasn't singing it as a theological treatise.  The song this time around is "Witchcraft," and the trouble is that we have a way of picturing God as a sort of master persuader, but nothing more.  You know the lyrics: "Those fingers through my hair... that sly 'Come hither' stare... that strips my conscience bare--it's witchcraft."  I get it--it's a song about the potent allure of a seductive would-be lover.  I get it--it's about the way she charms and beckons.  And if we could be clear that the drama of human romance is different from the power of divine love, that would be fine.  The trouble is, we tend to picture God as just a religious version of the same thing; we imagine that all God can do is coax, whisper, and invite, but has to wait for us to take the bait, as it were, before we can be drawn into a divine embrace.  

And I think part of the problem for us, really, is that we have a terribly weak picture of what it means to "draw" someone in.  We hear the word "draw" and picture that "sly come-hither stare", or the way the smell of a fresh-baked apple pie can "draw" you into the kitchen, or the way mattress salesman try and draw in more customers over long weekends by calling it the "Presidents' Day Sale," or the "Memorial Day Bargain Blowout."  These are basically  attempts to coax, to persuade, or to lure--but they have no compelling force.  They have no teeth to them, as it were.  The big inflatable balloon men outside car dealerships serve no function other than to get your attention and draw you in--but you have to make the choice to pull into their lot to look around at sedans and SUVs on your own.  And basically, that's the problem with our collectively Sinatrian version of the gospel: we imagine that like the romantic enchantress of the song, "Witchcraft," that the most God does is "coax" but waits for us to make the first move, to accept the invitation, to take the first step.  And we have come to that conclusion because that's what we think it means to "draw" someone in close.

Fresh fertilizer, once again, I say!

When Jesus talks here in John's Gospel about "drawing all people to himself," it's not a weak and wishful curling of the finger, and it's not a marketing gimmick.  Jesus doesn't bake a heavenly apple pie and leave it cooling on the window sill hoping that the scent will make us want to come close.  Jesus uses a word that carries the sense of pulling, hauling, even dragging.  It's the same word they used in Greek for hauling in a fish net, or for pulling on a rope.  It's not about "witchcraft" or "come-hither stares;" it's about elbow-grease and strong arms. 

That's what Jesus says the cross is all about.  "When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself," he says. Jesus doesn't just say, "Come here, world," in a pleasant voice, but actively pulls us into his embrace.  He is like gravity, or like a mama kitten clutching her kittens by the nape of their necks to bring them to safety.  Grace has teeth that way.  

Now, the reason that all of this matters is this: if my being embraced by Jesus depends on my being clever enough to accept Jesus invitation first, or my being courageous (or curious) enough to come toward a divine 'come-hither stare,' then I'll always worry and wonder if I've done enough, and I've really just saved myself by being oh-so-smart or oh-so-brave.  But if it is true that at the cross, Jesus "draws all people to himself," then I don't get the credit for anything.  I'm the kitten; Jesus is Mama Cat.  All I bring to the scene is my blind helplessness.  Jesus does the pulling, the drawing, the hauling, the saving. The cross is that lifted-up place from which Jesus' arms can pull us close and draw all people into the embrace of the living God.  It is a scene of infinitely greater strength and power than God simply setting up an inflatable tube man at the side of the road and hoping it will pique our curiosity enough to make us look around at the inventory.  

This is the crux of it all (literally): the God who goes to the cross doesn't wait on us to "drop on by the store" when we get a chance.  The God we meet in Christ isn't sitting on his hands waiting for us to get in touch.  The God whose name is Jesus pulls us, a whole world full of us ("all people," after all, in Jesus' words) to himself there at the cross, because sightless kittens that we are, we will never come to him first on our own.  We couldn't even see a come-hither stare if God had one.  But we can be carried.  We can be, in a word... drawn.

Lord Jesus, thank you for drawing us to yourself.  Let us see the cross as that place where your love took hold of us and pulled us into your embrace.

Jesus the Human Shield

Jesus the Human Shield—March 21, 2018

“[Christ] has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.” [Ephesians 2:15-16]

Why the cross?

It’s a question that keeps getting tossed around by Christians, and there are all sorts of ways of answering it:  why did Jesus go to the cross?  What was accomplished by it?  What difference did it make?  Why did Jesus—and since Christians confess that Jesus is none other than God-with-us, we also have to ask, why did God—submit to a shameful public execution at the hands of a cruel and decadent empire in a backwater province?

And usually one of the first answers, if not the first answer, that gets offered up is to say, “For our sins.”  Okay, fair enough.  Poke at that answer a little more to find out what people mean by it, and usually the answer comes, “Well, our sins alienate us from God, and so Jesus’ death on the cross makes things right between us on the one hand and God on the other.”  And so we talk about Jesus’ death being like the sacrifices of the Old Testament, or Jesus’ death being like a ransom or the payment of our debt to God.  And there are certainly good, solid reasons for saying all of those things.

But there’s more to it, too.  Paul says that the cross wasn’t just the way God dealt with the estrangement between us and God; it is also the way God absorbs the hate between us humans.  Jesus’ death on the cross is the starting point for a new kind of humanity, where the old lines that divided us are erased away, and the animosity that kept us killing each other and hating each other is all absorbed into Jesus’ body.

To hear today’s verses from Ephesians, it’s almost like Jesus says to all of humanity (myself included), “You need someone to hate?  You need someone to pick on?  You need someone to pour out all your vilest, angriest, most vitriolic and venomous words and thoughts? Fine.  I will take it.  I will drink that cup of your poison myself.  If you have to throw punches, instead of taking aim at your brother next to you, I will take the hit.  And when you are done and all tired out from flailing your arms around, maybe you can see that the person next to you is my beloved, too, and my gift to you, as well.”

In the first century, the book we call Ephesians was especially concerned with the hatred and animosity that divided Jews and Gentiles (everybody else who wasn’t Jewish), and the tension for the early Christians between those who had grown up in Judaism keeping the Law of Moses, and those who had grown up worshiping any of the myriad Greek and Roman gods.  “How dare these dirty pagan upstarts claim a place at the table when their lives are so obviously stained by the sinful world they grew up in?” said one party.  And that was met with an equally angry retort of, “How dare these narrow-minded ritualistic hypocrites try and keep us out when they can’t even keep the law themselves that they want us to follow?”  Well, you can see how there would be friction between two groups like that, each one sure that the other is the problem.  It’s so easy to scapegoat in life—to find someone else to blame your troubles on, someone else to cast as the villain, so that you can cast yourself as the poor, put-upon, noble and righteous victim. 

My goodness, you don't have to go more than five minutes on Facebook or Twitter or anywhere else on social media before someone you have "friended" or "followed" has lobbed some angry, often pre-packaged, talking-point-style bit of invective aimed at "those people" who are supposedly "the real problem in society."  Technology has done nothing so efficiently in this internet age of ours as making it easier to hate people without really knowing them and to convince ourselves we are right without really knowing what we are talking about.  

Paul says that Jesus has come to defuse both sides of that.  Jesus absorbs the hate.  Jesus forces us to direct our fire at him, and then to see that this is precisely what we have done.  As Frederick Buechner so aptly puts it, "The worst sentence that Love can pass is that we behold the suffering that Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal.  The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one." 

Jesus takes the hit—he places himself as the divine-human shield that protects the ones I was shooting at by taking the bullet himself.  And then he shows me exactly what my hate has done—sent him to a cross.  Jon Foreman sings in a haunting solo song called “Revenge,” these words: “Love had descended and stolen our pain away… We consumed Heaven’s Son, I drew first blood, I drew first blood; my hate was undone, I drew first blood, I drew first blood.”  The idea is revolutionary; it is radical; it is gospel. 

God has dealt with our estrangement—not only our estrangement from God because of our sin, but our estrangement from each other, which is itself a sin—at the cross.  Like sucking the venom out of a snake-bite into one's own mouth, Jesus has consumed into himself all the worst, most awful things we could do, so that we would no longer kill and hate each other.  The trouble is, so often we refuse to believe that the poison is gone and we keep attacking each other for fear we will be attacked.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.  Paul tells us the cross is God’s way of breaking that cycle that keeps us hating and killing each other.

If God is so willing to step in to break up the fights between us, even if it means our punches land on Jesus rather than our intended targets (each other), why do we have such a hard time laying down our arms?  Why do we insist on fueling our hate of each other, when God was willing to be swallowed up in a death between thieves in order to quench our hate and steal away our pain?

Today, let us dare to believe the cycle is broken.  Today, let us give up our arms and lay down our weapons.  Today, let us live as if it were true that Jesus has absorbed our hostility, that our hate really is undone.

Lord Jesus, allow us to love the way you love, without fear, without grudges, without poison in our veins.  Take the hatred from us, and make us new.

Daring to Die

Daring to Die--March 20, 2018

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a righteous person someone might actually dare to die.  But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life." [Romans 5:6-10]

Tom Brokaw famously called them "the Greatest Generation,"--the men and women who survived the Great Depression and fought the Second World War.  And there is a strong case to be made that they were among the greatest in our nation's history, given how much they sacrificed in the name of liberating occupied peoples, throwing down a dangerous, murderous demagogue, and saving the lives of those who were under the boot of the Nazis and the Fascists in Europe, and the Imperial armies and navy in the Pacific.  

We can thank those who served where we know them, and we can rightly honor their service.  It would seem to be the ultimate expression of human serving--to borrow Lincoln's words from Gettysburg, "the last full measure of devotion" to lay down one's life in the aim of  saving lives, liberating the oppressed, and ending the menace of war in the hopes of a just and peaceful future.  It is hard to conceive of some more extreme example of love, at least by human standards. It is, as we sometimes say in our Sunday liturgy, "indeed right and salutary" to honor such sacrifice. And so we hold parades. We decorate tombs. We memorialize the fallen.  All of that is good and appropriate to do.  It is a noble and respectable sacrifice to die for your country, your family kept safe back home, your ideals, and even for the innocent citizens of some foreign land across an ocean... because they are our people, or our principles, our land, or at least on our side.  Such people and places seem somehow innately worthy of giving one's life for, because they are our people and places.

And that is also exactly what makes the cross--and thus the gospel itself--so scandalous.   Paul the apostle lifts up our highest, noblest, most extreme picture of honorable self-sacrifice, and observes that at the cross Jesus pushed it further, even further than we are probably comfortable with.  Because at the cross, Jesus didn't just die for people who were "on his side," but for us, as the apostle puts it, "while we were enemies."  Jesus didn't just risk his life for "good people," but dared to die for "the ungodly."

That's scandalous.  That's reckless.  That's unsettling to our ears and to our hearts.  Because it pushes beyond our concept of what is fair and noble.  Dying to protect your family seems heroic.  Dying to protect and preserve your way of life, your country, and your nation's ideals seems virtuous.  Dying to help innocents and allies seems worthy of praise, too.  But your enemy?  People who are opposed to you?  People on "the other side"?  People who are ungodly and wicked?    That hits our ears like a sour note.  It seems a bridge too far.  It might even qualify as a punishable offense as "aiding the enemy," depending on whom you were helping... and how.  We can heap up laud and praise for those who died for their own country, but we cannot stomach the idea of someone laying down their life to save someone from the "other side."

And yet that is precisely what makes the Gospel Good News, according to Paul.  It is the fact that at the cross, Jesus doesn't die for "deserving" people--but for rotten, no-good, godless wretched miserable stinkers... which is to say, for us. 

We will never really understand what makes the Gospel both so scandalous and so genuinely good until we are prepared to let it go further than we are comfortable with.  Paul won't let us off the hook with a reasonable-sounding religious message of "A good man died for other good men and women because they had shown themselves so worthy of the sacrifice," or even "A decent man died for his own people and country." The gospel pushes beyond what is respectable and insists that at the cross, God chooses to love the "ungodly," the "other side," the "bad guys," and the "enemy."  And, like the comic strip put it all those years ago, "The enemy... is us." At the cross, God in Christ dares to die for a world full of people who have all sworn up and down they don't want anything to do with him.

The voice of conventional wisdom inside us says, "That's a bad deal for God."  That voice says, "God shouldn't do a stupid thing like dying for a bunch of ingrates who are on the other side--God should do a smart thing like leveraging us into good behavior if we want to be saved, or pushing for more offerings and prayers and better church attendance... God should press to get more out of the deal."  That voice, which is an awfully tempting one to listen to sometimes, says, "God should only be looking out for people who are already on the record as being on God's team--nobody else.  That's just good business sense."

And then here is the amazingly good news of the Gospel... which takes all of that conventional wisdom and sweeps it into the dustbin of history to make room for the uncontrollable love that dies for the undeserving, the "other side," and the "bad guys."

It is, as I say, very well and good to thank those brave souls now looked back on as "the Greatest Generation," for the willingness and nerve to liberate death camps, to stop Hitler, and to defeat Fascism.  And perhaps in this age of narrow self-interest and zero-sum-thinking tribalism, that by itself will be a necessary and countercultural act.

But beyond our gratitude for those who risked their lives for "their own" and for "good people," maybe this is a moment, before we hear the story again of the cross and the borrowed tomb, to remember that Jesus' kind of love always thumbs its nose at the boundaries of what we think is respectable or safe, and pushes beyond them.  And then, perhaps we can remember, too, that a God who dies for the bad guys is our only hope, since we are among those "ungodly" stinkers for whom Christ died "while we were enemies."

Lord God, we can scarcely believe the depth, the breadth, and the power of your love.  Let it seep into us so that we can love like you do, and so that we can know your love embraced us even when we were turned away (and when we still turn away) from you.

Sharing with Fred

Sharing with Fred--March 19, 2018

"We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us--and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?" [1 John 3:16-17]

There's this great line of Eugene Peterson's that says, "Jesus is the dictionary in which we look up the meanings of words."  His point is that for the followers of Jesus, even old words and concepts have to be seen again through the lens of Christ.  Things we thought we understood sometimes have to be seen with new eyes, and we discover that, like Vizzini in The Princess Bride with the word "Inconceivable!", there are some concepts we keep using but which don't really mean what we think they mean--or at least not for us who follow after Christ.

So, for example... how about love.

Love is an especially notorious example, because it's one of those words everyone uses with embarrassing recklessness, but because we all use it, we all think we know exactly what we are talking about.  I am reminded of that great, quirky joke of Jack Handey from Saturday Night Live, whose one particular "Deep Thought" on love goes like this: 

"Love can sweep you off your feet and carry you along in a way you’ve never known before. But the ride always ends, and you end up feeling lonely and bitter. Wait.  It’s not love I’m describing. I’m thinking of a monorail.”

His joke is absurd, but the truth underneath it is that "love" is so ambiguous a term in our culture that we can get confused whether we are talking vehicles or virtues.

Trouble is, we have let romantic comedies and advertising executives co-opt the notion of "love" so that we tend to assume that love is "a feeling of strong liking that leads you to do nice things for the people you feel it toward."  By that definition, we can love our cars (which we will then take care of dutifully because we love them so much), love people, love a sports team, love our houses, and all sorts of other things that we feel a certain way toward.  And, also by that definition, I am free not to have to love my enemies, because I certainly don't feel any strong liking toward them.  For that matter, I don't have to do anything nice to anybody--even if I have said I love them--if I don't feel like it anymore, because, by conventional wisdom, love is first and foremost a feeling, an emotion, and then only secondarily gives rise to certain actions... but only insofar as we feel like doing them.  If that isn't the unspoken default definition of "love" in our culture, I'll eat my hat.

The only problem with that definition is... everything.

Through the lens of the cross, love is infinitely more than "a feeling of strong liking that leads you to do nice things for the people you feel it toward."  Or, as Luke Skywalker says in The Last Jedi, "Amazing.  Every word of what you just said was wrong."

And as the New Testament letter we call First John puts it, "We know love by this--that he laid down his life for us."  The cross shows us what love looks like in real flesh and blood, not because of Jesus' emotional state on Good Friday, or whether he particularly "felt" like dying, but because, beyond what he felt like doing, he gave himself away for a world full of stinkers who are often dead-set against him.  The cross of Jesus shows us that love isn't first a feeling you have toward people you like, but a choice to do good even to people you don't particularly like at the moment.  The commitment to give oneself away, to do good without expectation of a return favor, that comes first, and is expressed in action.  It's not a feeling first.

That's why the writer of these verses, "John," doesn't think it is optional for us to then also "lay down our lives for one another."  John doesn't say, "If you feel like it, you could do the same for each other."  That's because this isn't really about what we feel like first--love never was.  The conclusion, in John's eyes, follows inescapably because of what Jesus did for us first, not how we feel about the idea of being nice or kind to someone else.  That's why in the next verse, John can ask, "How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?"  The implied answer is, "God's love, if it's really there in us, will lead us to help others and to share what we have."  It doesn't depend on whether I feel like helping at the moment, or even whether the other person "deserves" it.  It is simply the way God's love operates, whether it is God's love poured out at the cross for me, or God's love poured out in me for someone else.  Like a compass needle will always point north, whether you are in Canada, Cancun, or Kenya, God's love always has a certain orientation--outward, toward the other--and it is God's love that animates both Jesus' self-giving at the cross and our calling to give ourselves away for others.

This vital connection between the cross of Jesus and the self-giving of Jesus' followers is crucial (no pun intended--well, maybe a little) for us to see, because we have a way of wanting to hamstring it.  We have a way of wanting to say, "Jesus gave himself away for me at the cross--that's a lovely spiritual truth.  But nobody can tell me I have to share with Fred over there--he's a real jerk!"  Well, here's the thing--yes, Jesus can tell us that we have to share with Fred.   And guess what? It doesn't depend on whether Fred is a jerk.  It doesn't depend on whether Fred is your best friend, your estranged long-lost uncle, or your worst enemy.  It doesn't even matter whether you or I like Fred at the moment--God's love does not depend on the worthiness or likability of its object. That's how you know it's God's love and not a monorail.

And because love isn't first and foremost about feelings, Jesus can tell us to give Fred (or Susan or Farouk or Soledad) our material possessions... or our time (we may find that more precious)... or our "rights" (we can get very fussy and protective when we use the R word, can't we?)... or our energy, to someone else.  And he doesn't have to wait for us to feel like being generous first--Jesus reserves the right to tell us, "You are to give yourself away, because I have first given myself away for you."

The cross of Jesus, then, sets into motion a sort of chain reaction.  Jesus' willingness to give himself away creates in us a new kind orientation in us as well.  And we express that love in our actions and choices because the same power that is unleashed at the cross is at work in us, too.  It is real.  It is tangible.  It is self-giving.  It is, in a word, love--but love as Jesus has shown it to us by laying down his life.

Lord Jesus, let your way of self-giving become our way, too, so that each moment of our lives may be a reflection of your love at the cross.

Disarmed by the Cross

Disarmed by the Cross--March 16, 2018

"God made you alive together with [Christ], when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it." [Colossians 2:13b-15]

When the Empire was being "kind" to you, they just took your head.

When the Empire was mad at you and wanted to send a message, they crucified you.  

Crucifixion wasn't just a means of capital punishment--it was torture, too, and for the Romans that meant it was also intended as a deterrent to other would-be rabble-rousers, brigands, and rebels.  For respectable citizens of the Empire who had been found guilty of capital crimes, beheading was a more merciful way to die--quick and, at least by comparison, less humiliating.  But for those whose crimes were seen as especially dangerous to Rome's rule--those who were seen as threats to imperial security or were subversive of the imperial way of life--they got the nails and wooden beams ready.  It was public, it was horrific, and it dragged on--all of which served Rome's public-relations interests by sending the message, "Fall in line--or else THIS will happen to you."

That is to say, from Rome's perspective, a cross was a way of making an example of someone.

Funny then, that the New Testament said the exact same thing in reverse:  the cross of Jesus was God's way of making an example of them!  In case you missed the reference there in the verses above, the "it" when the text says that Christ "disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it" is the cross, the same cross to which all of our permanent records  and lists of infractions have been nailed (we looked at that yesterday).  So, yes, then, the very cross that the Empire looks at and says, "We made an example of that Jesus!  He was trouble, and we got rid of him!  So there! That should make other people afraid of breaking the rules now!" is the same cross that a guy like Paul the apostle can look at and say, "Jesus made an example of the Empire here!  He exposed how bankrupt and fearful they really are, being willing to use such cruelty and intimidation to get people to fall in line!  And look--Jesus rose!  He came back to life--Rome did its worst, and they couldn't get rid of him! That should free everyone from being ruled by fear of the Empire!"

It's the same exact event in history, but read in two totally different ways, with two totally different perspectives on the world underlying them.  You either look at the cross and say, "This is power: crushing your enemies with pain! This is greatness: making everybody else afraid to step out of line because you are the one holding the hammer!" or you say the opposite: "This is power: exposing the hollow husk of the so-called 'rulers' of the day by not being afraid of their bluster, even at the cost of your life!  This is greatness: laying down your life, even for the ones who are holding the hammer!"  But you don't get to choose both.  The cross forces us to look at ourselves honestly and ask which we way we will read it.

And to be honest, I don't think that we--even we church-attending, hymn-singing churchgoers--have always chosen rightly in that dilemma... or at least not faithfully.  We are much more inclined to pick the Empire's way of seeing the world, and then trying to find some way to shoehorn Christ into that.  Sometimes we say things like, "He came meek and mild the first time... but when Jesus comes again, all that "Father, forgive them..." stuff will be done. He's coming to punish and destroy!"  by garbling a handful of Bible verses and cobbling them together into a more respectable, more intimidating messiah than Jesus actually is.  Sometimes we cheer for Roman-like cruelty and fear, as though the real problem in our day and age were that we were not violent enough.  Sometimes we slide into the "Let's make an example of 'em!" kind of bloodthirstiness that led Rome to crucify those it labeled as threats to imperial security.  Sometimes we catch ourselves advocating torture for our enemies, thinking that our enemies really deserve it... and forgetting that the one we say we believe in as Lord was tortured and then shamefully "made a public example of" by the powers of his day.  Sometimes we do not catch just how much we have bought into Rome's way of seeing the world--we have just slapped a "Christian flag" (which was already a recently made-up invention that always looked suspiciously patterned after the American flag, to the chagrin of most of the world's Christians) on top of the Roman eagle and figured they were compatible symbols.  

They are not.

We forget that Rome thought it was the hero of the story, too--that the Empire was the guardian of all right and goodness, all law and order, all security and peace (that was their literal motto, "Pax et securitas"), and that it was dangerous troublemakers like the rabbi from Nazareth who was the villain.  We forget that Rome was convinced that any means necessary to preserve that "security" and "peace" (which, for Rome, were always generated by war somewhere else in the empire) were justified because they were the "good guys" and the would-be messiahs were the "bad guys" needing to be made an example of.  From the Empire's vantage point, that willingness to do "whatever was necessary," no matter how violent or self-serving, were what made it great and powerful.

But these verses from Colossians compel us to see that we don't get to both confess Jesus as Lord and then accept the Empire's definitions of "power" and "greatness."  Either Jesus is the one "made an example of" as he is stripped naked and strung up by almighty Rome, or Jesus is the one making an example of Rome by bravely insisting that the emperor is wearing no clothes while he dies for them on of their crosses.  But you don't get to have both.  Power is either in the willingness to inflict unspeakable violence and cruelty on others who get in your way and defy your decrees, or power is in the willingness to bear such hate and to respond with resurrection and love. 

But it is not both.

Which way will we see things today? Is Rome the real "power" because it has hammers and nails, whips and weapons, to coerce the rabble and crucify rabbis?  Or is true power in the hands of the unarmed Christ who "disarmed the rulers and authorities" by that very same cross, exposing like Dorothy in Oz that there was nothing but a feeble man pulling levers behind the curtain, after all the bluster and fireworks?  It makes a difference which we choose to see the world through.

The question on this day, then, is what we will choose--whose definition of power will we accept? What do we think will make us great?  

And who, exactly, is making an example of whom?

Lord Jesus, your kind of power baffles us, and your kind of greatness takes our old expectations and turns them upside down.   Grant us to see that you have made an example of all the world's would-be powers and authorities, exposing their emptiness in the light of your strong love.