LENT

The Way of the Cross

shelliwilliams Cross, LENT, STATIONS OF THE CROSS

In this season of Lent, we are called to deepen our own walk with Christ. This means moving beyond what Christ does for us. This means entering the Way of Christ itself, the Way of the Cross. It means experiencing on the deepest Christ’s dying, so that we can experience on the deepest level, Christ’s rising. It means moving from being an observer to being a participant with Christ.

The Stations of the Cross generally refers to a devotion that originated in the 4th century when pilgrims flocked to the Holy Land from all parts of the world to visit the land of Jesus. When they got there, the most popular place visited was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which had been built by the Emperor Constantine in 335 A.D. over what was believed to be the tomb of Jesus. Over the years, the route of pilgrim processions—beginning at the ruins of the Fortress Antonia near the Church of the Flagellation (pictured) and ending at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the tomb)—was accepted as the way that Jesus had walked to his death. It became known as the “Via Dolorosa”, the “Sorrowful Way”, or “Way of the Cross”.

The Via Dolorosa marks the path Jesus traveled as he carried the cross from the place he was sentenced to the place of his resurrection. Through the years, “stations” developed as early pilgrims honored places where events were likely to have taken place. Many of these stations are only a guess since the Jerusalem of Jesus’ day was almost completely destroyed by the Roman armies in 70 AD. But since the majority of Christians throughout the world could not journey to Jerusalem to walk the Via Dolorosa, the Stations became a spiritual tool that would give them an opportunity for a “mini-pilgrimage”. It became a way for every Christian to enter that Holy Walk, the “Way of the Cross”, the way that takes us through the sorrows and despair of Holy Week that we, too, might emerge victorious in the glory of the Resurrection.

So, walk this way. It may not be easy or pleasant or calming to the soul. But by walking the Way of Sorrows, by entering the walk that Christ walked, one will truly encounter the incredible Feast of Joy. Begin your walk with the prayer below and then, as you walk, stop and gaze upon each station. Say the prayer of contemplation. And look…Think about what it means. Place yourself in its center. And when you are ready, move on…The Path is yours to walk. This is the Way of the Cross.

Lord Jesus Christ, take me along that holy way you once took to your death; Take my mind, my memory, above all my reluctant heart, and let me see what once you did for love of me and all the world.  Amen.  (From Victor Hoagland, C.P., “The Stations of the Cross and Other Devotions to the Passion”, available at http://www.cptryon.org/prayer/xstations/egeria.html, accessed 10 February, 2008.) 

A Journey of Thirsting

shelliwilliams Journey, LENT, Thirst

Today’s Lectionary Old Testament Text:  Isaiah 55: 1-3, 6

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David…Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near…(NRSV)

None of us like to thirst.  In fact, much of our life is about chasing something that will quench our thirsts–our thirst for knowledge, our thirst for acceptance, our thirst for recognition, our thirst for security, our thirst for gratification.  Thirst is an interesting thing.  It is a powerful and undeniable signal to us of what we need, a reminder of those things that sustain us.  And yet, the point seems to be to rid ourselves of it, to live perfectly-quenched lives so to speak.

And yet God is not really calling us to “perfectly-quenched” lives.  God has never said to us, “Get yourselves together, people, so that you can come to me.”; never, “Hurry, people, I don’t have time to wait for you anymore.”  That’s not what it’s about.  That’s not who God is.  Instead, God is inviting everyone who thirsts to come.  Timothy Shapiro claims that “hope is preceded by longing”.  God’s desire is not that we perfect our lives but that we desire so deeply to be with God, long for that relationship as the very source of our being, that we can do nothing other than to come to God.  God is inviting all who thirst to come. It is our thirst that draws us closer to God.  It is that thirsting for God at the very core of who we are that is the journey to God itself. As we long for God, our thirst is quenched by the very thirst for God itself.  

Alexander Stuart Baillie says that this age needs to become more realistic. It needs to listen again to the words of Jesus, who said, ‘I thirst.” He who is the Son of Man, the Son of God, is our example. He is the great pioneer in every realm of life. Surely if he thirsted, how much more do we? Humanity needs to get away from the world of “things as they are” into the world of “things as they ought to be.” This means that men and women must learn to live for others. It is only when we can live a life of self-forgetfulness that we get our truest joy out of life. One needs to keep on thirsting because life grows and enlarges. It has no end; it goes on and on; it becomes more beautiful. When one has done his best there is, he finds, still more to learn and so much more to do. [One] cannot be satisfied until [one]attains unto the stature of Jesus, unto a perfect [human], and ever thirsts for God. (Alexander Stuart Baillie, “Thirsting”, in Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2003), 242-243.)

It is only through our thirsting for God that we will find God.  It is only when we thirst that we will truly drink from the cup.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Picture:  The Dead Sea, Israel, 2010

Looking Through

shelliwilliams Cross, Journey, LENT, Sabbath, Waiting

We are accustomed to thinking of Lent as a journey–a journey of penitence and perspectives, of crosses and crossings, of giving up and giving over.  But in those times that we dare to stand still, to really think about things, to really contemplate the place to which we’ve walked, what then?  Then Lent is a space through which we look beyond–beyond Lent, beyond the cross, beyond ourselves, beyond to what it is that we will become once this season has ended.

We 21st century journeyers not only want to know where we’re going; we also want to get there–fast!.  We are not really programmed to just stand still and look through something.  We’d rather keep moving, even though some of the steps along this road are painful.  At least when we’re moving, we have some sense of control, some sense that we can change things–if we only keep moving.  But when we stop–when we stand still–it is as if all the control leaves us.  We stand, exposed to the elements, vulnerable to others who are comfortably and successfully moving through life, and suddenly acutely, and often painfully, aware of our own place on the journey.

And yet, part of Lent and part of life is indeed about standing still.  A journey is seldom completed with constant motion.  We are just not made for that. (You can look up that seventh day concept when you have time!) Sometimes we are meant to move; sometimes we are meant to stand still and savor what God has shown us.  Behold!  There is the cross.  There you are.  And if you stand still long enough, you will be able to look through and see where you are headed.  We are not called to walk blindly into the unknown, never looking, never questioning, never contemplating where we are or where we’re going or where we’ve been; we are called to journey toward that which God has illumined in our lives.  So stop–stand still–and look through it all.  Behold!  And then start walking again…

Grace and Peace on the Journey–the walking and the standing,

Shelli

Picture:  Capernaum, Israel (February, 2010)   

Unless You Repent…

shelliwilliams Calling, Journey, LENT, Repentance, Transformation

This Week’s Lectionary Gospel Passage:  Luke 13: 1-9
At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” (NRSV)

Hmmm!  Maybe we should try the Psalm.  They’re usually a little more friendly, not quite as prickly to the touch, right?  The truth is, we do not like to be threatened and this sounds very threatening.  We’d rather listen to the soothing melodies of assurance and unconditional love and grace.  Repentance is just too stressful, just too harsh and unyielding.  But, unless you repent…
 
I think the problem is that we look at repentance as something negative.  We envision repentance as some sort of self-denial.  We think that we can no longer be who we are but instead we must become some sort of stamped-out “stepford” Christian in order to “measure up” to Jesus Christ.  To quote the old, much-overused, and oft-abused slogan “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD), we use Christ as some sort of divine measuring stick of what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is immoral, and, more importantly, what is it that would win us favor and life with God?  So, what would Jesus do?  Well, I’m convinced that he’d throw that rot out with that batch of bad figs!  Because repentance is not negative.  It does not mean losing who you are.  It means discovering the wonder of who you are meant to be.
 
The Greek word that is usually translated as “repentance” is metanoia.    In Classical Greek, it meant to change one’s mind, one’s heart, one’s soul, one’s life.  Penance was not a part of it.  It simply meant to follow a different road.  I think that IS what Jesus would do.  Why is that so difficult for us?  Is the road that we’re on so grand?  For most of us, probably not.  It is just comfortably familiar.  But don’t we deserve more than comfortable?  We are told of a new life, a new creation, an existence of perfect harmony and shalom.  I don’t think that’s necessarily limited to our next life, or heaven, or the other side of the rainbow, or however you envision it.  I think it’s down that road.  But…unless you repent…unless you change course, let go of the life that you’ve created, and listen to the road that beckons before you, you will remain comfortable and secure and right where you are. And then you will die! But, oh, what you will miss!
 
The road ahead looks dark now and even a little bleak.  The skies are blackening and there’s this awful hammering of metal against wood up ahead.  There is shouting and chaos.  It IS tempting to pull the covers over our head and just stay in for the day.  But just beyond that hill, just ahead, through those rocks and trees, there is a tiny flicker of light.  Let us go and see this thing that has happened.  Frederick Buechner says, “To repent is to come to your senses. It is not so much something you do as something that happens. True repentance spends less time looking at the past and saying, “I’m sorry,” than to the future and saying, “Wow!” (Buechner, Wishful Thinking, 79)  But, unless you repent…
 
So, repent and believe the Gospel!
 
Shelli

Picture: Israel (February, 2010)

Facing Jerusalem

shelliwilliams LENT, Transformation

This week’s Lectionary Gospel Passage:  Luke 13: 31-35:
At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

This time at the beginning of Lent is hard for us. We read the assigned lectionary Gospel passage for this week with much trepidation. If we were watching it on a big screen, this would be the time that we would begin to cover our eyes. It is because as we move into this season of Lent, this season of our journey to the cross, we begin to get a sense of what is about to happen. We want to yell to Jesus, “Go back…go back to where you were…go back to what you were doing before…go back and do it differently this time…be safe…be careful.” But we also know that it is too late. After all, how could it be done differently? Jesus is not known for being safe and careful.

The writer of the Gospel According to Luke gives us clues that tell us that the time for “going back” has lapsed. The passage begins “at that very hour”. Time has come together. The future has poured into what is now. Now is the time. It was apparent that Jesus knew that too. Jesus was looking beyond where he was, beyond these towns in which he was teaching and spreading the Good News, beyond Galilee. Jesus was looking ahead. He had to face it. He had to face Jerusalem.

I think that this is part of what this season of Lent calls us to do—to look beyond, to extend our vision, to see past those things that get in the way of being who God calls us to be. It means that we can no longer stay safe and secure and wrapped in the planned predictability of our lives. It means that the time has passed for us to stand looking longingly at the fertile Galilees of our lives with the calmed waves and the fruitful harvest. It is time. It is time to brave the wilderness, to begin our pilgrimage through the barren desert, and to finally, at this very hour, face our own Jerusalem.

You see, one thing that we need to get straight in reading this Scripture is that, with the exception of one boyhood trip with his parents, Jesus had not been to Jerusalem. Jesus’ ministry was in Galilee. In fact, most of his ministry sort of centered around a lake. (We actually call it the Sea of Galilee—sort of a misinterpretation. It’s really a large and very deep fresh water lake.) From the middle of this lake, you can look around to the cities that line its banks—Tiberias and Sephoris, the cities built by Herod Antipas, the ruins of the ancient city of Magdala, Bethsaida, Capernaum—and between the lake and the Mediterranean Sea was Cana and Nazareth. This was the area in which Jesus’ ministry began. Jesus was not commuting to work in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was still a long way off, through the wilderness and beyond the fertile area of Galilee.

And even here, Jesus was probably perceived as a threat by Herod. It would have been much easier for Herod to get rid of Jesus. After all, this was the Herod that had already killed John the Baptist (and getting rid of Jesus would probably have elevated Herod’s somewhat meager ranking as a ruler.) And Herod had his own vision working as he tried to lead the Galilean people to a new world—a world where Rome was the center and where the values were totally opposed by the teachings of Jesus. So, yes, Jesus was a threat.

There are differing notions as to what Jesus meant when he referred to Herod as a “fox”. In the Old Testament writings, the fox was often associated with destruction and Jewish dietary laws classified the jackal as “unclean.” To the first century Greeks, the fox was seen as clever but unprincipled. Whatever Jesus’ intended meaning was, it was clear that Jesus dismissed Herod Antipas as powerless to stop his mission to establish the Kingdom of God. As Jesus responded, he was going to do what he came to do and then he would be on his way. The mission was set. So with this Scripture, we begin to get a sense that Jesus is looking toward and facing Jerusalem.

Jesus is no longer merely “preparing” to go to Jerusalem. He is headed there. He has set his face toward the holy city. To Jesus, the danger was not in the Herods of the world but, rather, those things that got in the way of his mission. But he turns toward the city with regrets and heartache. And Jesus laments for Jerusalem.
In The Gospel According to Matthew, this lament is placed once Jesus is in Jerusalem. We have this image of Jesus standing on the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem and lamenting for what could have been. But in the gospel by the writer known as Luke that we read today, the lament is part of Jesus’ Galilean experience. It is indeed a lament but rather than Jesus bemoaning what could have been, it is instead a challenge to the people to become a part of this mission, to “get their house in order”, so to speak, and to become a part of that new humanity that is of Jesus Christ. Jesus does not want Jerusalem to become a symbol of a city that rejects and kills the messengers of God; Jesus wants it to be the Holy City of God that it proclaims to be. After all, this is not an ordinary city. This is the city that claims that the presence of God is in its midst, right there in the temple in the heart of the city near Mt. Zion. And yet, this city, too, has fallen into a different cadence, marching to the beat of prosperity and security and a positioning of power toward those around it. This holy city, the city of the temple, the city that should know better, would be the one that when the time came, would reject Jesus. Jesus knew this. So he turns his face toward Jerusalem and begins the journey toward the cross.

And, once again, lest we somehow lapse into an understanding of Jerusalem’s rejection of Jesus as only attributed to the 1st century Jewish believers, we need to realize that we are part of it. Jesus was not rejected by a religion; Jesus was rejected by a culture and a society that thought that they were so right and so comfortable that they did not want to or have a need to change. Jesus was rejected by a culture and a way of life that is very much like our own.

But there’s another point to the Scripture. Even knowing the rejection waiting for him in Jerusalem, Jesus still expresses the wish to love and protect the people, gathering them together as a hen does her chicks. Jesus never stoops to their level. He never judges or rants and raves about what is right, or what is moral, or what is going to happen to them because they have rejected him. He is the perfect image of God—the loving parent, the mother hen, who more than anything else, just wants to love her children and desires for them that they feel that love.

So where do we come in? In this season of Lent, what does it mean for us to face Jerusalem? Well, my friends, we need to remember that Lent is about more than giving up chocolate. It is also about turning our face toward our Jerusalem. It’s about being honest when we look at our cities, our culture, our ways of living in this world and dealing with our fellow brothers and sisters, and, most of all, being honest with ourselves.
Think about it. Jesus did not back down, even in the midst of numerous warnings. Instead, he kept working toward the vision that God had for the world. The mission was more important than his own preservation. Risking himself, God brought the Kingdom of God into the beloved city of God. He gathered in the people of God and then with deep and profound lament, had to face the very real truth that they were not going to change—not yet. And so he just loved them.

Where is your Jerusalem? Where is your city that refuses to change? What is it that you need to face? What is it in your life that stands in the way of your knowing how very much God loves you? What is it in your life that stands in the way of your loving God enough to love God’s children—ALL of God’s children?

You see…long ago in the holy city of Jerusalem, we saw the face of Jesus. It was the face of a man who longed for and worked for change. But it was also the face of God, who came that we might have life and have it abundantly. In his book The Faces of Jesus, Frederick Buechner says that “take it or leave it, the face of Jesus is, if nothing else, at least a face we would know anywhere—a face that belongs to us somehow, our age, our culture; a face we somehow belong to. Like the faces of the people we love, it has become so familiar that unless we take pains we hardly see it at all. Take pains. See it for what it is and to see it whole, see it too for what it is just possible that it will become: the face of Jesus as the face of our own secret and innermost destiny: The face of Jesus is our face.”

That’s what Lent is about. It is more than reliving Jesus’ journey from the fertile waters of Galilee to the harsh and painful reality of the holy city of Jerusalem. Lent is instead about our own journey, our own pilgrimage from the Galilees of our life to that moment when we truly face Jerusalem. It is about clearing away those things that obstruct God’s vision for our lives, that tie us to our own way of being that we have constructed, and that get in the way of us realizing that when everything is said and done, it is all because God just wants to love us and wants us to feel that love. So, open your eyes, look toward Jerusalem so that you can finally say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”

So, go…face Jerusalem this Lenten season!

Shelli

Picture: Jerusalem, Israel (February, 2010)

A Holy Pilgrimage

shelliwilliams Journey, LENT, Wilderness

Last week I returned from a wonderful journey through the Holy Land with a wonderful group of friends–some [not so] old and some brand new! It was my first time to experience Israel and I have already encountered how it so profoundly changes those who have the gift of that adventure. How can I ever read Scripture the same again? How can I ever read accounts of vast groups of people journeying through the desert or waves being calmed on the [Lake] of Galilee during a storm or Jesus traveling from town to town teaching and healing without seeing and hearing and touching what I have once again? I am profoundly and forever changed. How can I be part of a Palm Sunday processional without feeling the uneven pavement beneath my feet and the way it slopes at a somewhat precarious angle as it winds above the city of Jerusalem and ends at the Garden of Gethsemane? I am profoundly and forever changed. How can I ever take the bread or serve the cup without remembering the old city in which that last meal was held, without imagining Jesus and the disciples winding their way through it in the dark trying to reach a quiet place of prayer on that dark and desperate night. I am profoundly and forever changed. Thanks be to God!

One of the questions that we were asked was what made the difference between a “trip” and a “pilgrimage”. I have been thinking about that since I’ve been back as the memories and the feelings make their way deep into my being. I think that one difference is that a trip takes you to somewhere new and a pilgrimage takes you to somewhere that is already a part of you. A trip is temporary as you return to your same existence from which you left; a pilgrimage stays with you and becomes a part of you. A trip allows you to be someone you’re not, if only for awhile; but a pilgrimage…a pilgrimage pushes you into becoming who you are. This trip was definitely a pilgrimage. Oh, sure, I brought pictures (some of them I’ll try to post over the next couple of weeks) and souvenirs and various mementos. But more than anything, I brought a piece of who I am home.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. (Luke 4: 1-13)

This last Sunday, the lectionary Gospel passage was Jesus’ 40-day encounter in the wilderness. I’m pretty sure that Jesus was not just trying to “get away from it all”, as attractive as that may have been to someone who worked the hours he did! He was not escaping; he was becoming. He was on a pilgrimage to find out who God meant for him to be–to find out who he was. It is our quintessential model for this Lenten season. Lent is not merely a time of self-denial. It really has little to do with giving up chocolate, or soft drinks, or your nightly glass of wine. Lent is a pilgrimage, a holy pilgrimage. It is, of course, about clearing one’s life to make room for God to work. But, I think, more than anything else, Lent is about becoming who you are, who God intended you to be. It is about finding yourself and when one finds who he or she is truly meant to be, it is there that one will finally know God in the way that God desires to be known.

In this Lenten season, I wish you a Holy Pilgrimage…Go…become who God means for you to be. It is there that you will finally know that you are home.

Peace on the Journey,

Shelli

Picture: Judean Wilderness, Israel (February, 2010)

When Nothing Else Makes Sense

shelliwilliams Cross, Good Friday, Holy Week, LENT, Transformation

A Good Friday Sermon…

Lectionary Text: John 18: 1-19:42

This is the road that we have all walked before. Most of us would rather not. We would rather just close our eyes and wake up when the whole awful thing has ended. We would rather open our eyes and see that everything is alright or, even better, back where it used to be. This is grief. We have all experienced it. We have all felt loss and despair; we have all felt as if the very foundations of our world have been ripped away and left us standing to fend for ourselves. We have all felt at times like the abyss in which we find ourselves is consuming us and that there is no way out. And grief is the one thing that does not get easier each time you do it. Each time cuts a little sharper and a little deeper until nothing of our lives make sense in light of the way it was before. This is the road we walk when nothing else makes sense.

The road we walk today is no different. Oh, perhaps it seems to be, because intellectually we already know the ending to the story. But it is grief nevertheless. We sit here in this darkened sanctuary contemplating what was done on this day. We can hear the sounds of a world going about its business. That’s always a bit odd for me. There’s a part of me that expects the world, if only for a moment, to stop and grieve my grief, to revere what I revere, and to feel this in the same way that I do. But that does not happen. It is mine to feel and mine through which to walk.

If we are feeling this today, can you imagine what the disciples must have been feeling? They were on the ground floor of something wonderful; they were part of changing the world. This radical roving man who they had agreed to follow for life was doing something incredible! What was happening now, though? Was it only five days ago that we came to town? Was it only five days ago that we were at the height of these years—processing into town with all those people cheering us on? Was it just last night that we were eating dinner together? And, now this? What went wrong? Surely this would turn out alright! After all, this man works miracles! But there was to be no miracle this time.

Their grief was insurmountable. And, around them the world was continuing on. We as followers of Jesus ourselves have this sense of this execution being a big deal, as if the whole of Jerusalem and surrounding areas shut down for the day to be a part of it. But the truth was, this happened all the time. This was just one more Roman crucifixion in the life of a city that lived in perilous and often tenuous times on the world stage. And, so the life around them did not stop. And they had to face their grief in the midst of it all.

And at this point, they had to also look at themselves, uncomfortable as that may have been. What part had I played in this whole sequence? What would I do now? And we 21st century disciples also have to ask where we would be in the story. There was Peter, wallowing in guilt for not standing up for his friend, for denying his own belief. He had wanted so badly to be part of Jesus’ “inner circle”. But why couldn’t he come through when it mattered? There were the fishermen James and John. They had willingly followed Jesus, giving up everything they knew. What would they do now? Jesus was their everything. What about Mary Magdalene? Jesus was the first person that had accepted her, that had loved her simply for who she was? And now that was gone. And Judas…Judas carried the heaviest grief of all. He didn’t know whether or not he could live with himself. The very foundations of their world were gone as they watched their whole world nailed to a cross and slip away. None of this made any sense at all.

We Christians have spent centuries trying to make sense of the cross, perhaps even trying to take our own humanity and our own part out of the equation. The truth is that Jesus was put to death because we as humans expected something different. It was humans who took control and did this. But there are more theories of the cross and its atoning power than most of us will ever fathom. It has been described by some as a cosmic battle between good and evil, a battle that God seems to lose at first only to pull it out in the end. Then there is the belief that the cross depicted God’s love in such that we humans might be compelled to follow in faith. And there are those for whom the cross is the satisfaction paid to God for the sins of the world, a substitution of the redeemer for the sinful, implying that God somehow demands a ransom in order to release our redemption and salvation. In all honesty, I struggle with all of these. In fact, none of them by themselves really makes sense to me.

It seems, to me that the cosmic battle takes humanity out of the picture, relegating us to bystanders. If there is no humanity associated with the cross, what, really is the point? And while the notion of God’s love depicted by the cross is of paramount importance to us, if we leave it there, it sort of turns it into an overly sentimental description of the incredible mystery and power of God. Is that all there is? And, probably the most popular understanding in our history, the understanding of the cross as a satisfaction paid to God for our sins does not really make sense for me. Think about it. God created us in the image of Godself. It would not make sense, then, for God to have to be talked into loving us. True redemption is not a required sacrifice, but an act of overwhelming love by God who desires us as much as we need God. It is we humans that try desperately to come up with a reason for the cross, with a reason for Jesus’ death. Perhaps there was no reason. Perhaps God truly took the senseless, the inhumanness of our humanity, and made sense of it.

Truthfully, though, there is no single understanding of the cross that has been accepted by everyone. None of them are mutually exclusive. And none, alone, really make sense of something that is so filled with the pervasive mystery of God. In a way that sometimes makes little sense to us, God turned suffering into joy, betrayal into forgiveness, and death into life. From that standpoint, the cross, for me, could be counted as God’s highest act of Creation in all of time. The cross is God’s overwhelming love made tangible and real and accessible for each of us.

God took something so horrific, so senseless, so utterly inhumane, and so personally painful and recreated it. But when you think about, God had done that before. If you remember, in the beginning, there was nothingness, senselessness and God created all that there is, bringing order to the senselessness. And it was very, very good. And now, at the depth of our grief, in the face of what seems to us senseless, God once again creates life. And once again, all of Creation responds. Other Gospel writers depict the Crucifixion by saying that the whole earth shook, rocks were split, graves opened and the temple curtain that had always separated the sacred from the ordinary was torn in two. As the earth opened up, surely seeming to the world that Creation was undoing itself, the holiest of holies spilled into it. In this moment, when all we see are endings, when grief overwhelms us, when our very lives seem to have been swallowed up, God recreates everything. In this moment, the universe has changed. Death is not just avoided or bypassed but is indeed swallowed up by life. In this moment, death itself is defeated. And God looked at it all. It is finished. And it is very, very good.

There’s still a lot in this world that doesn’t make sense. September 11, 2001 still clangs loudly in our hearts, with its almost jarring effects of despair and hopelessness, suffering and death, and its intrusive way that it has affected our well-tuned and carefully planned lives. Communities were devastated, lives were shattered, and the pall of an incredible hopelessness still to some extent hangs in our hearts over Ground Zero.

Like many other landmarks around it, the Liberty Community Gardens in Battery Park were almost totally destroyed on that day, buried in dust and ashes. What was left was later trampled by the hundreds of workers and then finally destroyed when it was designated as the place where the smashed fire trucks and rescue vehicles would be temporarily discarded.
But more than 2,800 miles away, there were some 75,000 people in the city of Seattle who responded to their own shock and sadness of that day by bringing more than a million flowers to the International Fountain in the Seattle Center. By depositing beauty, it was their way of honoring those who had suffered in the devastation. It was there way of creating something new. But we know that we cannot hold life in our hands. And so as the flowers started to decay, echoing their own tales of death and stench and despair, hundreds of volunteers began the painstaking effort of separating the flowers from the paper, plastic, mementos, and wires that were mixed with them and then chopped and mashed the 80 cubic yards of flowers into mulch for composting.

If you garden at all, you know that compost is a metaphor for renewal, a natural part of life and death, a reminder of new hope gained from loss. It is a reminder of rebirth and recreation. From the sadness of the twin towers, was birthed a source of life.

But the story doesn’t end there. One of the volunteers had an idea. And so, in September of 2002, a year after the desolation of the Battery Park Gardens, thirty-two donated boxes were each filled with forty to fifty pounds of the compost and flown to New York City. And on September 28, 2002, the New York gardens were rededicated—to abundance and beauty, and to a future life recreated from present death. Things will never be back to the way they were before, but God has sown the beginning of something new. But we had to wait to see it in all its fullness.

We had always envisioned a Savior that would make the world around us alright again. Instead God in Christ began recreating the world into that which it is supposed to be. That, of course, is hard to grasp as we stand at the foot of the cross watching our Lord writhe in pain and despair. But Jesus Christ came as fully human, with all of the feelings and emotions that we experience. Christ knew what it was like to be human, knew what it was like to feel pain, and knew what it was like to grieve. It is tempting to ask where God was through all this. God was there. God went to the cross first.

After the Crucifixion, this defeated little band of disciples had no hope. As you can imagine, they had no expectation of anything else to come. Everything in which they believed, in which they had invested their lives, had died on the cross. It seemed to them that the world had been right and they had been wrong. Joan Chittister says that “the road behind us becomes what frees us for the road ahead.” In this moment, God was already freeing them from grief and recreating joy.

And us…there is something in all of us that struggles with the thought of God suffering. We instead imagine a God that stands apart from us, shielded from pain, and prepared to pick up the pieces of our lives when we need it. But God, in God’s infinite wisdom rather recreates our lives from the inside, from the point of our deepest pain and suffering, from the cross, and even we become new Creations whether or not we can see it now. The cross is the rebirth of humanity in all its fullness. In this moment, it is death that dies.

It is hard for us to see right now. It is hard to see clearly through the tears of grief. Christ died on a cross in immense suffering and pain. And those who love him grieve a grief such that they have never known. As we sit here in this dark sanctuary and listen to the bells toll, we will once again feel the finality of it all. But Louis L’Amour once wrote that “there will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.” And just when nothing else makes sense, it is in that moment that your eternity has begun.

In the Name of Christ Crucified, in the Name of overwhelming Love.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli