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Trembling at the gateFriday, April 18, 2014
Isaiah 52:4-5 When I realized that I had pierced hands and feet, and especially that I had a cleft in my side, I understood what it meant to love without trifling. Love is indeed a serious thing, and terribly challenging. When I thought of my past life, even as a child, at that moment I could only feel myself to have been poor and sinful. "Poor" now meant poor in love. "Sinful" meant, "You have trifled with someone who was suffering for you." The weight of this vision of things is awful. And yet, these things are true, and we must not forget them too easily. It is an ugly thing to step across the corpse of the one who died for you, and pass by singing when someone is suffering for you. The law of love demands reparation. Instead, we forget all about it. We should not be astonished if God sometimes makes us stand trembling at the gate. There's no celebration now, nothing "Good" this Friday. Just shame and trembling. Jesus' mother Mary wept and John wept with her. But almost everyone was gone, hiding, angry and full of undone violence. Jesus died nearly alone. We're so quick to leave him too. No. Not today. No dancing today, and no singing. Only the dirge and the nine tailors and, following with my eyes as it walks by, an aimless donkey with no rider. We have lost the celebration edge, Jesus. Hosanna in the highest has been dragged through the dust and lost. You have not led the nation of Israel out of the grip of Rome. No, you've been killed by your own people. I am paralyzed with this surprise. Terrified. Part of me thinks Judas looks lucky out there, hanging. I feel just as alone. Never expected this, Jesus. |
What Francis of Assisi might have said in 1224: