Holy Saturday…the space between.
The waiting in the darkness. The fear of shadows lurking just outside the upper room. The collective grief of being together yet so far apart… The memory fresh of Judas’ blatant betrayal and suicide, of Peter’s denial and absence at the cross, Our God, murdered. What God can die? Was he ever God at all? Were all those miracles we witnessed all a ruse? … A shuffle of feet. A stifled sob. A sideways glance. Can I trust any of them? I see Thomas looking at his hands, a vacancy in his eyes. John, who has not stopped crying, always the one carrying our emotions. It is the silence. It is crawling beneath my skin. It is the memory of chaos in the garden, the agony etched into my Teacher’s face, the rage at myself for doing nothing. The emptiness. Yahweh! Where were you? Where are you? Why would you? Silence. A footstep. We freeze. Mirroring the fear in each other’s eyes. Who’s there? Is it time? Have they found us? Will we be crucified too, complicit in the treason? Silence. A collective exhale of breath held. And we wait. And we wait. And we wait. For we know not what. Safety? Assurance? Hope? Because these seem impossible to attain. And so we remain in the dark. We remain in our grief. We remain in a state of utter hopelessness and fear. With no way out of our self-imposed prison in the upper room.
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“Eli Eli, lama sabachthani?” “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
~Matthew 27:46 For many of us who have grown up in Church, we have been exposed to the Passion so many times (and often a curated and sterilized version) that the momentous emotion packed into this story is often lost on us. But if you read this story with a “beginner’s mind” (Shunryu Suzuki), it might just wreck your day. So let’s back up a bit to before Jesus was born, and consider the Messianic prophecy and what everyone thought it meant. The Romans had tyrannically taken over, and the Jewish people were merely tolerated by those in leadership. As their traditions and way of life were threatened, they began interpreting the prophecies in light of what they expected of their Messiah - a warrior leader akin to the great Fathers of the Old Testament. He would come, overthrow the Roman government, and save the Israelites. At the time, there was already a fairly violent and active sect of the Jewish people who were attempting a revolution but were waiting for their Messianic leader. Barabbas and at least one of Jesus’ disciples were part of this radical political group called the Zealots. Nowadays we may think of the Zealots as a terrorist organization, depending on your perspective. Either way, when Jesus arrived on the scene there was an expectation that, despite his peaceful ways, he would eventually become the leader that would overthrow the Roman government and save the Jewish people. But that’s not what happened. What did happen was chaos and confusion that led to a spiritual darkness for many. The first darkness came for Judas. Some Biblical scholars believe that the reason Judas sold out Jesus was because he believed that it would incite Jesus to finally rise up as the warrior King. He did not think Jesus would be killed; and in a desperate attempt to save his leader, he threw the 30 silver pieces back at the Pharisees, but it was too late. The devastation he felt was so deep that he killed himself. The second darkness came for Peter. After Jesus was arrested in the garden, Peter and the other disciples were shocked and did not know what to do. Their entire lives had been given over to following their Teacher; their careers were abandoned, families left behind, and suddenly their Teacher was gone. Peter, burdened by shame and waning hope, finds himself huddled by a fire as close as he could get to his Rabbi. And he is terrified. He was there in the garden and cut off the ear of one of the servants of the Roman soldiers. If they discovered him, he would be punished severely. So when he is recognized and asked if he is a follower of the man arrested, he denies it, three whole times. Striving always for perfection, he betrayed Jesus just as Judas had. Finally, the smothering darkness Jesus experienced. Betrayed by His closest friends and the leaders of His Jewish faith, Jesus finds Himself on a cross, literally the most humiliating of deaths. So humiliating and barbaric that, by law, Roman citizens could not be crucified regardless of how heinous their crimes. This execution was reserved for the lowliest of criminals for the worst of crimes. We know Jesus’ death was a redemption for the sins of humanity, and I wonder if that means that in His last hours He experienced the sins of all humanity, in addition to the brutal physical pain of crucifixion. I wonder if He experienced being the sinner with all the hate, rage, and shame that comes with that. I wonder if He experienced being the victim of sin with all the betrayal, pain, fear, and vulnerability that comes with that. And I wonder if He felt the absence of God, for the first and only time in all eternity, and if that is why He cried out, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” Because the absence of God is Hell. It is the absence of all that God brings to the world - love, joy, peace, hope, order, beauty. In Jesus’ last moments, when He has been through every conceivable emotional and physical pain, His Abba abandons Him. And darkness falls. And the earth trembles. And the people are left in a heavy vacuum of loss and darkness so profound that even the Roman guards fell to their knees. In this emptiness we begin the dark night of the soul for all humanity. Our Messiah didn’t overthrow the government. Our Messiah did not save the people. Our Messiah was dead. Maundy Thursday is the day we commemorate the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples. Although only the 12 were mentioned in the Bible, there is evidence that Jesus’ female followers were also present during this final gathering. Basically, Jesus wanted one last intimate dinner with His closest friends before His death. It is no coincidence that the Last Supper coincided with the Passover, the Jewish holiday commemorating the freeing of God’s people from enslavement, because Jesus came with a New Covenant and a New Passover to free His people from sin, fear, and death.
The Passover narrative can be found in Exodus, and it recounts the events leading up to the Israelites’ freedom from their enslavement in Egypt. The story tells of ten plagues that God sent upon Egypt in an attempt to force Pharoah to free God’s people, and Pharaoh's stubbornness in refusing to let them go. For the final plague, God sent the Angel of Death to kill every firstborn male in the Egyptian region; but God promised to spare the Israelites as long as they followed specific instructions that are eerily echoed in Jesus’ Passion. Each Israelite family was to select a year-old male “unblemished animal”, either a lamb or a goat (Jesus was a male, in the prime of his life, unblemished by sin). They were to bring the animal into their home 4 days before the arrival of the Angel (Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey 4 days before His crucifixion). The night the Angel passed over, the family was to slaughter the animal at twilight, making sure not to break any of the bones of the animal (Jesus was crucified with no bones broken; the soldiers broke the legs of the criminals around him but did not break Jesus’ because He was already dead). The family was to consume the animal in its entirety (Jesus was taken from the cross the same evening of his crucifixion, which was not customary at the time as the Romans liked to have their dead criminals on display as a warning to its people). The family must take some of the blood of the animal and mark their door, so the Angel of Death knew to “pass over” that home and not cause the eldest male child to die (Jesus, the “firstborn of many brethren” according to Romans 8, is the redemptive lamb that ensures our salvation from the Angel of Death, and his blood marking the wood of the cross also marks us who are saved). On the night of Jesus’ last supper, He and His disciples are celebrating the victory over Pharoah, over enslavement, over death. But Jesus isn’t quite in a joyful mood. He knows that everyone’s lives are about to be turned upside down, that soon His disciples’ joy would be replaced by confusion and fear. So, during this Passover feast commemorating the slain lamb, Jesus makes one final gesture of love. He humbles Himself before His disciples, and He washes their feet. In this gesture, Jesus tells them “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). Jesus knows that the only antidote to fear is Love. In this final gesture, He commands the disciples to keep on loving, especially when things get hard, especially when fear threatens to overcome them and everything they thought they knew. In this command, Jesus promises that the Angel of Death and Fear will pass over God’s people when they show love to one another because Love will always conquer death. On March 24, a deadly tornado tore through Mississippi and Arkansas. At least twenty-five lives were lost amidst the horrible destruction. As happens in the days following a natural disaster of this magnitude, social media and the news began to share stories. One of these stories really stands out for me - the story of Eldridge Walker.
As the Mayor of Rolling Fork, the worst hit city in Mississippi, Eldridge Walker immediately began coordinating rescue efforts and supporting his community. As the funeral director of the worst hit city in Mississippi, Mayor Eldridge Walker also began the emotional work of comforting families and burying their dead. Yes, Eldridge Walker is both the Mayor and Funeral Director of this small town that was absolutely decimated by the tornadoes last weekend. This is Jesus-type leadership - providing coordinated administration and empathy to simultaneously rebuild a community while walking with families and friends as they say goodbye to loved ones, all while grieving the loss of his own home and neighborhood. Walker’s story reminds me of the story of Jesus when He learned of His friend Lazarus’ death. In the midst of Jesus’ and Walker’s own losses, in the midst of the empathy required of them to comfort friends and families of the dead, these leaders took charge of their situations, raising a man from the dead and a community from the rubble. As we pray for the many communities this week who were impacted by the recent storms, let us also remember to pray for the fearless leaders who weep. May God give them courage, stamina, and compassion as they make difficult choices and walk with survivors. After I finished writing this blog, I heard news of the school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee. I would be remiss to end this blog without a moment to pray for that community and its leaders as well. They, too, remind us of our need for a Savior - our need for a God of life and resurrection - our need for a Spirit who weeps with us in our grieving. For behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. - Song of Solomon 2:11-12
On Tuesday, we welcomed the first day of Spring and a New Moon. Lucky for us, Florida gave us a tiny taste of Winter earlier this week so it actually felt a bit like Spring. When you live in the Sunshine State where flowers bloom year-round, it’s sometimes difficult to relate to Solomon’s poetic reflection on the Earth arising from the dead of Winter. Still, we can all appreciate the subtle shift into the Season of New Beginnings as we look forward to warmer months and dramatic rainfall that bring about color and new life. This year, the New Moon coincided with the Spring Equinox, and I am reminded of God’s words that spoke the Universe into being: “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years” (Genesis 1:14). For me, 2023 holds so many new beginnings, and I cannot discount God’s symbolism in this serendipity of a Spring New Moon. The Bible is filled with new beginnings. It is filled with the intentionality of rhythm and transition built into the fabric of our being. It is steeped in poems about Divinity written into every aspect of Nature - The Word made flesh dwelling among us. We honor the Creator in our observance of her Creation - the warm Spring breeze that whispers of new beginnings; the bated breath of a dark night sky when the moon is hidden behind Earth’s shadow, anticipating the lunar cycle beginning anew. Now, all Creation awaits the Paschal Full Moon, which heralds Easter Sunday, the New Beginning of a New Covenant. We remember our Savior’s great sacrifice in the death of Winter, in the solemnity of Lent; and we look forward to beginning life anew with His resurrection and redemption on Easter. This season, may you revel in the miracle of Spring and God’s promise to make all things new. If you’ve attended church at The Hearth or read our newsletters recently, you may have noticed a theme of breath. We start worship with a collective, community breath. We speak about stewardship as exhaling our time, talents, and treasures as a means of creating space for receiving and inhaling. Breath is a spiritual practice. God breathed into humanity to create life (Genesis 2:7), Jesus breathed into the Apostles to commission them into Holy work upon His resurrection (John 20:22), and the breath of God is mentioned at least eight times just in the book of Job. Breath is important to God, and it is deeply important to me.
I use breathwork in my mental health practice because deep breathing is one of the most effective mood regulators, tapping into our Vagus nerve system, which makes up our parasympathetic nervous system. When we breathe, we can literally change the chemistry of our bodies to calm down when we are in a heightened state of arousal (anxious, stressed, fearful, angry, etc.). I use breathwork in my yoga practice because that’s what you do in yoga. You breathe through the movements. You keep time with breath, you use breath to regulate your exertion and body temperature, and you even use breath to flow through physical and emotional pain. Finally, I use breathwork in my Spiritual practice because God is in the breathwork and the breathwork is in God. In his article in Jewish Lights Publishing, Rabbi Arthur Waskow describes how the original Hebrew name for God, Yhwh, is often spelled Yahweh because it is easier to pronounce. However, the Rabbi asserts, the name for God takes on new meaning when you attempt to pronounce it in its original vowelless form - Yh-wh. Many people, when presented with this challenge, will pronounce the name with an inhale of breath on the Yh and an exhale of breath on the wh. How fitting that the God who brings inanimate beings into existence through breath would have a name that sounds like breathing and which means “He brings into existence whatever exists”. Breathe in the Divine life God blesses you with every day. Breathe out the love you are filled with onto others. As we venture into the Wilderness of Lent, we have a tendency to see only the mournful aspects - the reminder of imperfection and sin, the looming anticipation of Good Friday and the memorial of the death of our Lord. Still, this Season is such a blessing in our Liturgical Calendar. Like Advent, it is a time to pause, quiet our lives, and reconnect to the Divine. It is a Season of Sabbath. And in Sabbath, there is joy in restfully observing the glory of Creation. There is joy in pausing to reflect on our shortcomings in order to prepare ourselves for a rebirth into a better version of ourselves - the version God intended for us from the beginning. At our Ash Wednesday service last week, we reflected on the purpose of burning and ashes in the growth process of nature. Just as forest fires purposefully burn away the underbrush and entanglements in a forest, so the anger and hurt must burn through us when we are in the midst of the brokenness that we experience and the ways we hurt others from our brokenness. This is a necessary aspect of healing. It’s maybe not our favorite aspect of healing - nobody likes to be angry and hurting. But in the experience of allowing these feelings to course through us, acknowledging the natural grief of sitting with our own brokenness, sitting with the guilt of hurting others, we allow the fire to burn away the underbrush of our excuses, our denials, our minimizations. It is only in facing the fire that we can be truly accountable for our shortcomings. Through this accountability, we are able to fully open to forgiveness and reconciliation. If you’ve ever walked through a forest after a burn, you know the eerie silence of death in the ashes. This is Lent: a pause in the Creation cycle to allow the ash to settle. A pause in the healing cycle to allow for grief after the rage has burned through us. A quiet hope, if you make space for it, in the new life that will be generated from the ashes mixing into the soil like a fertilizer. A light that is finally allowed to break through after the fire has made space in the once solid tree canopy. So, we wait in the ashes, and we observe. We seek stillness in reflection. In the Sabbath of Lent we acknowledge our shortcomings, we admit to our own most grievous faults, we accept responsibility for what we have done and what we have left undone, and we heal. We heal in preparation for the Resurrection and the New Covenant promise of forgiveness and reconciliation. In the stillness after the burn, once the ashes have settled and the rain has fallen, a life struggles through the soil and ash, reaching up for the sun to start the forest anew - a shoot from the stump of Jesse to reclaim His people Ye cannot in your present state understand eternity...but ye can get some likeness of it if ye say that both good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective. Not only this valley but all their earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not only the twilight in that town, but all their life on Earth too, will then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, “No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say “Let me have but this and I’ll take the consequences”; little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven; the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say “We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,” and the Lost, “We were always in Hell.” And both will speak truly.
~C.S. Lewis I love this theory of Heaven and Hell that expands past our limited understanding of physical locations. When we consider Heaven and Hell to be literal places, we lose an incredible depth of meaning in both. In doing so, we dilute them into a simple reward and punishment system God uses to control our Earthly behavior. We lose the nuance of relationship that has no physical manifestation in pillowy clouds and golden gates. We lose the despairing emptiness of the absence of God in exchange for fire and brimstone. What we are left with is a life where all is meaningless except to finish with more positive points than negative in order to end up in the “good place”. And I have a hard time believing this was God’s intent. In the beautiful allegory, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis describes eternity as not only reaching past death, but stretching out before and during our lives as well. Through the grace of God, we rest in the assurance that eternal Heaven means our entire life will be colored in that brightness. So, when you are experiencing sorrow and nothing seems to be going right, know that a Heavenly eternity means that all will be experienced with the full and complete presence of God. For, “even the darkness will not be dark to [God]; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to [God]” (Psalm 139). There is such a deeper sense of hope in this perspective of Heaven. Suffering is no longer a necessary means to earning our way to the “good place.” Rather, it will be but a tiny blip in the expanse of eternity, and we will experience it through a heavenly lens in Communion with the Divine who transforms all darkness to light. “She wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and placed Him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them in the Inn.” Luke 2:7
As Joseph and Mary entered Bethlehem, road-weary and exhausted, Mary may have already been experiencing her first contractions. Joseph had just promised Mary’s father that he would take care of his daughter. He had promised God he would take care of His son. Yet he is facing the reality that he would not even be able to provide a warm, safe, interior space for Mary to give birth. There would be no birthing bed, no midwife, no clean linens in which to wrap the newborn. Joseph frantically asks around as Mary waits patiently on the donkey, in too much pain to focus on much else. He cannot believe he did not consider how busy Bethlehem would be as people from all over traveled there for the census. They should have left sooner. He should have been more prepared. How would he explain to Mary’s father that he had failed? How would he explain to God?? Ashamed and dejected, Joseph returns to Mary to let her know the truth. He was not worthy of her or God because he could not even take care of her in this pivotal moment of their lives. He cannot even look her in the eye. “I’m so sorry, Mary. I asked everywhere. The only place I was able to get for us is a space with the animals outside one of the Inns.” There is silence. Joseph slowly looks up, sure he is going to meet the disappointed gaze of the woman he loves. But that is not Mary’s way. “Joseph” she says, “You did not fail me. You remained with me after the news I was pregnant. You brought me to Bethlehem with you, safely, even though the journey would have been so much easier for you alone. You found shelter for me, even if it is not inside a fancy Inn. You are a good man, Joseph, in my eyes and God’s.” How often do we beat ourselves up for falling short of our own expectations of ourselves or the expectations we believe others (or God) have of us? How does this impact our trust in God, who works through our failures? Because Joseph got to Bethlehem late, because he did not do all the right things, because he did not get a room in the Inn, God had space to work a miracle. It allowed for the humility of a King born in a place fit for animals. It allowed for the symbolism of a baby wrapped in the same swaddling clothes in which shepherds wrap their newborn lambs. It allowed for an open door for visitors to pay homage to their Messiah. Let go. Let God. As cliche as that is. Open yourself to miracles and gifts that only happen when you allow God space to work through your shortcomings. Trust in a God who writes straight with our crooked lines and masterpieces of our mistakes. Creativity is born of the willingness to make mistakes and turn those mistakes into something beautiful. Our God is the master artist. Allow Him to do His work. “No one knows the day or hour…” Matthew 24:36.
Anyone else feel like Matthew may have been talking about that foggy time between Christmas and New Year’s? You’re in a post-Christmas coma induced by Christmas cookies and eggnog. The kids aren’t in school, and half your regular haunts aren’t open. If you’re working, many of your coworkers are not. Nothing has quite made it back to reality and routine yet. Embrace it. If you’re fortunate enough to have a bit of timeless in betweenness, take it. This is our yearly Sabbath. This is a time for reflection, rest, and reset. You do not need to take down all your Christmas decorations right away. You do not need to try and fill time and space. You are allowed to rest. You are allowed to be Mary, sitting at Jesus’ feet, just listening. Listen for the lessons you learned this past year. Listen for the ways you’ve grown. Listen for the ways you didn’t get it quite right. Listen for the ways The Divine loves you anyways. Listen to the stillness of a nativity after all the visitors have left - Mary and Joseph alone with their baby treasuring all of this in their hearts (Luke 2:19) and pondering what is to come. Treasure this past year, with all its ups and downs, challenges and triumphs. In a few days we will celebrate the gift of a New Year and a fresh start. But for now, accept the gift of Sabbath. |
Kaylee Vance LMFT, LMHC
Worship Leader |