The Costly Vigil

“The Costly Vigil”—April 17, 2019

"There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome.  These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem." [Mark 15:40-41]

It is a costly gift that these women have given to Jesus, a costly and difficult gift. 

It is a painful, heart-rending thing, to walk with someone all the way to the last breath.   It is painful, sometimes, for the person who is dying—certainly.  But it is difficult, too, to be one keeping vigil with them—knowing the elephant in the room is named Death, and that it is not in your power to save or fix or rescue, only to accompany.  It is a privilege, too, perhaps.  But it is a costly privilege that comes with a high price—the pain of watching someone you care about hurt, and the pain of knowing you cannot fix it or make it better by yourself.  It is a difficult thing to ask someone into that moment, to ask them to sit with you, walk with you, stay with you and keep watch.  And, in truth, it is a difficult thing to be asked to be in that moment as well.  There is no way around it—everyone in a moment like that is going to hurt in different ways, for themselves and for the pain the other is enduring for them.  And that is the way it is with love: pretty much, to love someone is to offer to hurt for them, and to be loved is to allow the fact that someone else will hurt for you at times you wish you could spare them.

“Love is watching someone die,” sings Ben Gibbard.  That is a hard truth, but it is true truth. And if you have had the awe-ful privilege of being in that place, you know it to be true, too.  It is an awful place to be, but when you are in that moment, it is the only place you want to be, as terrible as it is.

Love leads us to keep vigil.  Love leads us to be honest when there is nothing we can fix by keeping vigil, and yet to do it anyway. Love, after all, is not about making ourselves the heroes, but being with the beloved at all costs.

This is the gift that the women Mark names here have given to Jesus.  Clearly, they loved him.  Clearly, they knew that he loved them—they had been welcomed by Jesus into his strange new movement that was open to women as well as men, poor and rich, insiders and outsiders, educated and illiterate, “religious” and “sinner.”  Jesus had met them where they were, and he had walked with them in their own struggles and lives.  Now, it was all they could do to show the same care, the same love, they had received from Jesus.  They could not fix things for Jesus.  They could only stay with him, all the way to the last breath and the bowing of the head, to honor what he was doing.  Maybe, if you would have asked them, they would have said it was exactly where they needed to be, keeping vigil, because love had led them there, even if they couldn’t make it any better or easier for Jesus.  It was their privilege as Jesus’ friends, and it was their gift to him as his friends as well.

And, of course, in a sense, Jesus even gets the last word on that subject, too, since he is the one who walks with us now, each of us, when we are the ones in the valley of the shadow of death.  I am reminded that when my namesake, the first martyr, Stephen, is being stoned to death in Acts chapter 7, among his dying words are “Look, I see the heaves opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” (Acts 7:56).  Jesus shows up in that moment to walk with Stephen all the way to his death.  Jesus is there.  He does not prevent the stones from flying.  He does not force the martyr’s heart to keep beating.  He does not whisk Stephen away with a wink to safety in some undisclosed location where the mobs can’t get to him.  Jesus simply shows up and walks with Stephen all the way, because that is what love does.  Sometimes—yes, even for Jesus—love is watching someone die.  And being there carrying the weight of not being in a position to fix it.

These women, in other words, do for Jesus what Jesus does the same for each of us.  Jesus walks with us in the valley of the shadow of death, and in fact, leads us through and out the other side.  That means even the moments that seem most frighteningly lonely for us—even in the moments when we are afraid of being utterly alone—Jesus does for us what the women do for him.  Jesus keeps vigil.  Love leads him to be at our side, the same way love leads us to be with others, too, when they are walking through that valley.  And we do it, as Frederick Buechner puts it, “because that is the way love works, and when someone we love suffers, we suffer with him, and we would not have it otherwise because the suffering and love are one, just as it is with God’s love for us.”

Maybe that is all we can say about the women who keep vigil at the cross of Jesus.  Not that it was fun, or easy, or pleasant, to be there for him when they could not do anything to fix it for Jesus.  But that they knew it was where they needed to be, because they were led by love the same way Jesus’ love leads him to be with us in our dark valleys.  They did it because, I suppose, they would not have it otherwise.

And when we are the ones needing someone to suffer with us by keeping vigil, neither will Jesus have it otherwise.  Neither will Jesus.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to love in times and places where it is difficult to keep vigil, and to find in those moments your own presence with us, too.