Light and life. Darkness and strife. Who was there to see it?

In the beginning, or so the story goes, God created the heavens and the earth.

In the beginning, or so the story goes, there was a word.

But what kind of word? What kind of word would it be? And what would this word do? Was there more than word, in the beginning with God? Was there more than one?

Perhaps not just one solitary word, but a couple, a few. Not one, but two or three.

Into the darkness, into the chaos of it all, three words emerged, harmonizing the absurd, with the faithful chorus, “let there be.”

Light and dark, night and day.

“Let there be” heard twice; and firmament, skies, earth and sea are made.

“Let there be,” bright moon and stars, and sun in the skies. Brother sun and sister moon to mark the years, the seasons and days.

“Let there be,” living creatures of every kind, fish and birds fruitfully multiply.

“Let there be,” the earth is full of the goodness of God, animals, livestock and keepers for this unbridled zoo.

And yet this coursing humanity finds itself heading towards calamity, towards life and love, and the deep-seeded vanity that would tear them apart. Leaving the nest, the garden, the communion of saints to roam. To roam incessantly, only to find themselves wandering and yearning for home. A home they’d always hoped for. A home they’d once had.

A home, a gift that was wasted.

A home, a gift they wish they still had.

What the camp does is challenge the church with the problem of the incarnation – that you have God who is grand and almighty, who gets born in a stable. St Paul was a tent maker. If you tried to recreate where Jesus would have been born, for me I could imagine Jesus being born in the camp.

- Rev. Giles Fraser, Former Canon Chancellor of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London UK.

I wonder if it could be true. You know, that the saviour of the world could have been born in an Occupy camp. What does that do to my imagination? What does it stir up in me? In what ways does it cause me to think?

It’s all terribly inconvenient, this Occupy nonsense. Terribly inconvenient to the way I live my life. Or it would be, if I thought about it much. If I thought about what it might represent. If I cared to think about the ways in which the stories of this kind of encampment might intersect with the story of God’s grace and mercy.

“What are these people doing,” some taunt, “don’t they have a job?“

“Couldn’t they find something better to do, like volunteering at a soup kitchen or picking up trash on the street?”

Betrayed in these kinds of sentiment, of course, is the notion that for people to be of any value, they have to be economically productive citizens. They need to contribute to the economy, to the bottom line, to what makes our society tick.

And yet. And yet, isn’t this precisely the point? Isn’t it precisely the point of these protests that our government, banks and major corporations have crucified human dignity with their unwavering emphasis on an economic bottom line ignorant of human suffering?

What then do we do with our story?

The story of Jesus, the no-good dirty child from the backwoods. With a mother who had a habit of seeing visions. Could have been the drugs. Baby daddy nowhere present, and stand-in Joseph, a rough-around-the-edges carpenter does his best, but can’t find, probably can’t afford a decent room.

What then do we do with that?

Have we seen Jesus this week? Have we seen his mom and dad? Were any of us there when they crucified our Lord?

Equally pressing. Have we seen the church? Have we seen the church present and active? Have we seen the Christians who worship a homeless man who was murdered by the elite of his day in the midst of this fray?

These camps certainly do challenge our church with the problem of the incarnation. And for those of us who read the words of the Apostle Paul, tent maker that he was, there may be some other necessary connections to make.

Yet all too often, even we Christians default to incredulous, ignorant commentary. We have become so entirely enculturated that we won’t try to understand what’s going on, what issues are at play, that we join those who point a finger.

Yet what would happen if we attempted to make friends amongst those who have been made poor? What would happen if we looked Maria or Yusuf or Yeshua in the eye? What if we engaged them in sustained conversation, came to know their stories over the course of days, weeks, years, a lifetime?

Would we respond differently?

I wonder if our response would change through friendship. I wonder if our responses would change through mutuality and respect. I wonder what would happen if we let down our defences and let others into our highly protected lives.

Yet we worship a crucified God. As Peter Dumitriu puts it

Jesus is always on the side of the crucified ones, and I believe he changes sides in the twinkling of an eye. he is not loyal to the person, or even less the group; Jesus is loyal to suffering.

We worship a crucified God, yet all too often we skip ahead to resurrection. We skip ahead to new life and restoration.

We are a crucified people. Or, rather, we should be. We should aspire to be. Yet, I think Richard Rohr might be on to something when he shares

We would sooner have control than real conversion; we would sooner have well-oiled church societies than transformed people. Cosmetic piety takes away our anxiety about God and about ourselves, but it does not address the real and subtle ways that we “lose our soul.”

I wonder what it would be like to hunger and thirst after righteousness.

To truly want justice to roll down like a river. Righterousness like an ever-flowing stream. To desire wholeness (or the best approximation thereof) not simply for myself, but for others as well. Not just for me, for my family, but for all my relations. For all I am related to, whether I recognize it or not. For all, whether I understand their language or circumstance.

I wonder what it would be like to give myself to trying to understand another’s circumstance – not that I could, fully, but that I could try. Try to enter into their story, and to offer some space that they could enter mine. To explore friendship and mutuality. Not because it’ll get me something. Not because it’ll help me to move on up. Not because it’ll get me what I want.

Because I don’t know that I truly want justice. I don’t know that I can truly embrace what it might mean to crave justice beyond its bumper sticker definition. I don’t know that I can truly embrace something that might require something so deep of me.

Because I’m not sure that I’m willing to die to myself.

Here it is, the confession. As much as I rail against so many things. As much as I write on this blog about the world to come, the world I dream about, the world I think God is calling us towards. As much as I say all of this is important, I’m not sure how much it is that I give up, how much I’m willing to give up to see it happen.

Because I’ve come to understand, to be inspired, and can intellectually assent to the fact that justice is social. That this social justice requires something of me, of all of us. That justice isn’t something simply solved by a little government cash over here, and the relinquishing of excessive profit by those rich white dudes over there.

It includes these things, to be sure. It includes these things, and demands that we as a society, that we as business leaders, as members of parliament, as decision makers, help to implement the systemic changes to allow a new world to be born, and a new way of living to emerge. Yet it neither stops nor starts there.

We can occupy as many streets as we want, yet remain ignorant of the connotations such language might have for the unceded Coast Salish territory from which we type these words.

We can demand that others change, that the system change, that society change. Yet if we ourselves are unwilling to change. If we ourselves are unwilling to see the very social demands of true justice.

If we ourselves are unwilling or unable to see that true justice is not about eliminating pain, but about sharing in the world’s suffering, we’ll get nowhere fast. As Christians, we know that it’s not simply about raging against the machine. There is a time and place for such activism. And yet our faith calls us to embody an alternative community. To live into Jesus’ kingdom in the here-and-now.

What might it mean for our communities if we truly shared in each others’ sufferings. What would it mean for you, and for me, if we found ways to enter into one others’ hurts and pains, to find a way through, together.

I don’t know that I know how to do that. Because that would mean dying to myself. It would require a stronger thirst for righteousness than the one I currently have. It would require a more immediate sense of what it is to truly bear another’s burdens – not just listen to prayer requests, say some fancy words, and call it a day.

Occupy Wall Street? Occupy my heart.

Help me to hear and enter into the stories of my neighbors. Help my heart to break. Help me to break out of my self-imposed isolation, not to fix somebody else’s problem, but to find true friendship and mutuality. To find the image of God in another. To uncover the image of God at work in my very core.

I know you’re in there, God. Sometimes I just don’t recognize you in myself, as much as I do in others. Help me to pay attention. Help us all.

Jesus was and is present on the riotous streets of London, of that I’m firmly convinced.

But whose side is he on?

Read any of the news coming out of the UK, out of her churches, and you’d believe that Jesus was on the side of the state, of law & order. And perhaps he is. It’s widely known that Jesus wouldn’t dare to turn the tables on those in power, or call the established order into question.

He wouldn’t, would he?

By the sounds of a prayer circulating throughout the Church of England, you’d think that Jesus and the state were in cahoots:

Gracious God,
We pray for peace in our communities this day.
We commit to you all who work for peace and an end to tensions,
And those who work to uphold law and justice.
We pray for an end to fear,
For comfort and support to those who suffer.
For calm in our streets and cities,
That people may go about their lives in safety and peace.
In your mercy, hear our prayers,
now and always. Amen

Prayers for peace and justice and calm on our city streets. Prayers for safety. These are all good things.We should pray for peace and safety. And we should do something about the integrity of our neighbourhoods.

For those of us who dare to call ourselves Christians, we should be concerned about the fates of our neighbours. Not just the neighbours who are quiet and keep respectfully to themselves, mind. The neighbours who suffer in silence as well as the neighbours who suffer out loud.

Who, you may be asking yourself, is my neighbour?

When I first read this prayer, and much of the commentary from people of faith in the news, I notice a lack of concern for the conditions that have led to this so-called “callous disregard for the common good of our society” as Catholic Archbishop Vincent Nichols put it.

How common is this good? And if said good is common, should it not be common to all? Should we not all share in the common wealth?

Perhaps that’s asking too much.

What of those who have been compelled to riot? What of those who are victims of the widening gap between rich and poor? What of those who have felt (rightly or wrongly) that the only way to draw attention to such injustice is to use violence?

What if the good is not so common as we have been led to believe?

What if the holes in the social fabric can no longer be patched?

What would it mean to pray for an end to fear, for comfort and support to those who suffer? What would it mean if I stopped seeing myself as the subject of this prayer, and replaced it with the face of young men and women who truly are suffering?

In an opinion piece earlier today, Laurie Penny shared:

Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school. The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalised and harassed by the police, after months of not seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news.

In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:

“Yes,” said the young man. “You wouldn’t be talking to me now if we didn’t riot, would you?

And here I am, pontificating about this disorder. And I’m doing it knowing that there’s a part of me that would find it easy to pray with the church “for an end to fear, for comfort and support to those who suffer,” and to note that I’m the one suffering from disturbances to my workaday life.

And yet my prayer, in the midst of this, is that the church would play a reconciling role. That it would reclaim its mission not simply in preserving the rule of law, (Romans 13, I’m so over you!) but in becoming a voice from and of and amongst and for those who we have pushed to the margins.

As Su McLeod so passionately writes:

Listen to the disenchanted young people, hang out with them, be with them, be vulnerable with them, be broken with them…God knows you might even catch a glimpse of their beauty.

Can this beauty be recovered? Can we see one another as children of God? And if we were to do so, how would that change the way things are?

And so, where is Jesus in the midst of London’s unrest? He’s with the vulnerable. He’s amongst the disenchanted. Oh how he doesn’t condone the violence, but he suffers all the same. He is vulnerable. He is broken and beaten and battered and torn. He’s been wrongfully accused. Perhaps we need to go and find him, and to welcome him home.

Earlier this week, our friend Chris Heuertz (co-international director of Word Made Flesh) shared his reflections on Bin Laden’s assassination on the Q Blog:

In the spring of 1999, during NATO’s bombing of Serbia, I was in the “Tent City” in Tirana, Albania. Floods of Kosovar refugees were pouring into the camps, telling horrific stories of rape and ethnic cleansing. Something needed to be done. The Serbs had to be stopped. But as fighter jets roared above and thundering Apache helicopters flew overhead, I experienced tremendous inner conflict. Could I support violence to stop violence?

The truth is, I prefer non-violence. That’s exactly what I mean. I cannot with integrity say I’m committed to non-violence because most of the champions who’ve made this commitment don’t seem to agree on a clear definition of what they mean by “violence.” And, if the use of force to protect a vulnerable child or my wife is “violence,” then I may not be able to fully commit to non-violence in every situation.

This past weekend Osama bin Laden was assassinated, shot in the head, in what no doubt was an awful, bloody mess.

Immediately after his death was announced, there was a virtual flash mob of social media reactions. It’s not surprising that the collective response was overwhelmingly celebratory; after all, bin Laden was America’s #1 enemy.

But as I started sifting through the Tweets and Facebook status updates from friends, many of them self-proclaimed Christians, I wasn’t sure what to make of the celebration of death.

Chris’ post has stirred up some incredibly polarized reaction within Q’s online community. Dozens upon dozens of comments exhibit displeasure, if not anger, at Chris’ post. We are not, it seems, comfortable wrestling with the ambiguity of the situation or the blatant contradictions of Christians rejoicing at the death of a fellow human being.

Yet these are the kinds of things we should be examining, questioning, and reflecting upon. If our Christian faith is to mean much in this ever-changing dynamic world, we have to ask the tough questions of ourselves, of God, and of God’s church. That’s why earlier this week we posted some initial reflections here, and linked to Miroslav Volf’s own perspective here.

Many of the comments following Chris’ post followed justifications of war based on Old Testament practice, and (as always happens), Romans 13 was cited. For those who don’t remember this passage used to defend our government’s triumphalist practices:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment

One brilliant commenter followed up on the invocation of Romans 13 with this pithy, provocative thought:

I’ll remember that scripture should China nuke the Western US. After all, God appoints all govt’s and leaders, so we must extend to their government and leaders the same grace we extend our own, yes?

And that, perhaps, is where this whole things falls apart. This commenter takes Romans 13 to its logical conclusion and demands that we count the cost of following this scripture in this way. Do we really mean what we say we mean? What happens when another superpower supplants ours? What happens when we are not the world’s policing agency?

Will we fall in line, or will this convince us of what Jesus was up to, and what Paul really said when he wrote Romans? What did Paul really mean? I’m not suggesting he’s the final arbiter of truth, but Brian Walsh takes this passage on in his challenging 2008 post “To Hell With Romans 13.” If the title offends you, just wait till you read the content:

Let me put my cards on the table right from the outset. I am sick and tired of hearing Christians who have something at stake in the status quo of economic, social and political systems of injustice appealing to Romans 13 to legitimate unswerving obedience to oppressive and deceitful regimes.

I speak a fair bit in the US and whenever I am addressing the question of the meaning of the gospel for our political lives someone invariably asks, “yes, but what about Romans 13?”

What about it? I reply.

“Well, how can you use language of subverting the empire when Paul says that we are to submit to the governing authorities?”

And for years I have attempted to be patient in my response. My patience has run out. In the light of Guantanamo Bay, the deceit of the administration in leading America into war in Iraq, the refusal of that state to submit to almost any significant international treaty, and the idolatrous protection of the revered “American Way of Life.”

read the rest…

I don’t know that I know where to begin.

“A measure of justice” said Harper.

“Very, very good news,” echoed Ignatieff.

But is it?

A stark image circulating the web over the past few days depicts two very similar victory parties. Neither of them have anything to do with the Canadian election.

The first in Palestine, taken following the 9/11 attacks. The other in DC after Osama’s assassination on May 1st.

Anyone see the resemblance? The connection? It doesn’t matter what side of this thing you’re on, you’re still wrong. Darkness will not be overcome with darkness. Just saying. MLK might have my back on that one. The apostle Paul, too.

At least we can be thankful nobody’s going to tell Al Qaeda to prove everything’s cool by heading out to shop. A stand against idolatry – how novel to these Western eyes.

Meanwhile, hours later on Oprah, Obama’s rapping about the American Dream. “The American dream is slipping away,” he says, “I want people to once again feel like, ‘If I’m working hard and doing the right thing, opportunity is right there for me to grab.”

Because it’s all that easy. We work hard, we get what we want. Welcome to the church of Joel Osteen. Those two ought to take their show on the road or work out a cross-promotion of some kind. Is it strange that Obama’s dream sounds eerily like this passage from “Your Best Life Now”?

Keep doing the right thing. God is building character in you, and you are passing that test. Remember, the greater the struggle, the greater the reward.

Appropriate for Oprah, I suppose. Appropriate for the guardian of the American dream (if that’s a dream worth guarding). Completely inappropriate for a Christian or a supposedly Christian nation (whatever that is).

Driscoll declares, “Justice Wins,” poking at Rob Bell, while reveling in God’s judgment executed at the hands of American Special Ops. This Jesus could kick my ass. Bin Laden’s been handed his, and I’m wondering if I have to retire my Birkenstocks or suffer a similar fate.

As I said before, I don’t know that I know where to begin.

This morning Mike Todd shared these reflections on his blog:

Obviously the killing of Osama bin Laden has been a topic of discussion. One American friend shared of her experience at the airport n Nairobi yesterday. Picture this visual if you can: CNN playing video of Americans rejoicing on the TV set up on the wall, while an older Muslim man knelt on his prayer rug just beneath the TV at the gate. She shared that this was not her proudest moment.

Another friend, a South African living and doing amazing work in Mozambique, shared an experience from last year when Terry jones first started threatening to burn a copy of the Koran. My friend was in a shop in a very Muslim part of town, talking with the shopkeeper. He wanted to know what my friend did, and although he wisely tried to avoid the question, it eventually came out that he was a Christian. Before he knew what was happening, the shopkeeper’s elderly mother came out from around the counter and started to beat him with half a broomstick they used for security. He told us of the setbacks he has experienced in his relationships with Muslim friends.

Here, half way around the world, actions still have consequences.

Actions still have consequences. Lest we forget. Lest we forget the consequences of actions that resonate around the world. Lest we forget the peril of creating martyrs. Lest we forget the legacy of war and bloodshed and murder.

But then, it seems that perhaps we have either forgotten, or swallowed the emperor’s Kool-Aid.

In the garden, just prior to his arrest and execution, Jesus chastises his disciple for cutting off the High Priest’s servant’s ear. Jesus restores the servant’s ear, as if to echo the refrain resonating throughout Matthew’s gospel: “Let those with ears listen.”

Let them not only be hearers of my word, but doers. Swords become ploughshares. What does that mean for JSOC? Nothing, today. We’re satisfied, and so is our perverted sense of justice (albeit in a sober manner). Will love win? Will any good come of this?

Love is not a victory march, but we’ll treat it that way. Bleeding hearts like these will get crucified for suggesting that there is another way to peace. We’ll spin it. We’ll tell the world that Good Has Won The Day.

And well it has. This just isn’t it.

It’s the morning after. Some of us are ecstatic. Others less so. It’s the morning after the election, so now what? Light a cigarette?

It kinda reminds me of something. Of Easter. You know that whole thing about Jesus dying and rising again? Yeah, so that happened. Now what?

No matter what party you voted for, what happens now? Turn over the keys to whoever’s in power, and put it on auto-pilot for the next 4 years?

No matter how many services you showed up to during Holy Week, what happens now? Go on auto-pilot and let whatever happens happen? God’s got it covered, right? No need for anything more until next year.

We are a resurrection people. Some of us say we are. But are we? Do we live that way? Do we live that way, no matter what happens in our land, no matter who’s elected to office? Where do our primary loyalties rest? In the Kingdom of God, or the government of the day?

Recall these words sung of Jesus:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. (Colossians 1:15-16)

What, if anything, does this mean to the way we live our lives? What does it mean for our politics?

It seems to me that at the end of the day, it should force us to ask serious, significant questions. It should occasion us to reflect deeply on the ways in which we live as citizens of this Kingdom.

The rule of this kingdom is not based on a first past the post system (imagine what a mess that would be!). It’s not based on periodic elections, though it may be true that some of us choose to cast our vote more often than others.

In the coming days, each of us has the opportunity to reflect upon what it means to serve Jesus and his upside down, mustard seed kingdom. How can we draw one another into the question of what it means to follow Jesus? How can we draw one another into conversation about what this hymn from Colossians means for us today?

How are we being challenged to think about the life and politics of Jesus in contrast to the thrones and dominions and rulers and powers of this world?

We have a great opportunity today and in the coming days to ask these questions. We have a great opportunity today, and in the coming days to declare our loyalties. The election may be over, but the voting has just begun.

In the coming days, we have a great opportunity – no matter who we voted for – to embrace the way of Jesus whose kingdom was inaugurated with the announcement of good news to the poor.

Where will that good news come from?

How will it change the landscape around us?

How will it be made manifest in our lives?

If it’s not, what business do we have calling ourselves Christians?

What business have we declaring ourselves followers of Christ?

In advance of a full post reflecting on the death of Bin Laden, please take five minutes to listen & reflect. Today is a day for much prayer.

Lord Jesus Christ, we come before you this morning, in awe of your risen majesty. When all seemed bleak, when we had almost given up hope, you conquered sin and death. This morning, as we revel in disbelief, and glory in your resurrection, we pray saying

Lord, take our hearts and make them brave.

God of all, we come before you this morning with great thanks for a love that endures forever. We pray this morning for your church, that we may live as a resurrection people. As we carry the scars of Good Friday into the world, and as our church is constantly being reborn, we ask that you give us strength to minister in the midst of our ever-changing communities.

This morning we pray for your one, Holy, catholic and apostolic Church throughout the world. We pray for denominational leaders, for pastors, priests, elders, deacons and ministers, and all who witness to the good news of your life, death and resurrection with their lives.

Lord, take our hearts and make them brave.

Take these shoes click clacking down some dead end street
Take these shoes and make them fit
Take this shirt polyester white trash made in nowhere
Take this shirt and make it clean
Take this soul stranded in some skin and bones
Take this soul and make it sing

Yahweh, there is always pain before a child is born. Yahweh, even as we celebrate your victory over the grave, there are many amongst us still waiting for the dawn.

Lord, take our hearts and make them brave.

This morning we pray for the leaders of the nations, and for all in authority. We pray for every community across our country, as we prepare to vote. May we vote as a kingdom people, seeking good news for the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind and justice for the oppressed, as we, with Jesus, proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

Lord, take our hearts and make them brave.

Take these hands, teach them what to carry
Take these hands, don’t make a fist
Take this mouth, so quick to criticize
Take this mouth, give it a kiss

We pray for our local community. For the neighbours who surround us. For refugees, for those in poverty, and those pushed to the margins. Help us to seek first your kingdom here on earth. We pray for all who are travelling this Easter weekend, that you would keep them in your care.

Lord, take our hearts and make them brave.

We pray for all those we know in some kind of distress, sickness, trial or trouble, naming them silently and aloud [we name our prayers].

This morning, especially, we remember those who have died in this previous year. We remember, especially [we name those who have died].

Bring strength to their families, friends, and all who mourn their loss. Yahweh,we know there is always pain before a child is born. And we beg to know, why the dark must come before the dawn. Even so, this morning we commit all things to you, saying:

Take this city, a city should be shining on a hill
Take this city, if it be your will
What no one can own, no one can take
Lord, take our hearts,
Take our hearts and make them brave.

by Andrew Stephens-Rennie

God, it was awful.

I don’t know if you were there, don’t know if you care or how you’d react if you were. As for me, let me just say it again to be clear: it’s nothing if not an awful, God-forsaken mess.

All I can feel – all any of us can feel – is the oppressive weight of death. How can you not feel it hanging? The air weighs a thousand tonnes.

A millstone around my neck. Dragging me under, crushing me, striking me down. Breathless, lungs screaming for air. Like I’m hanging on the cross next to him, fighting for breath. Fluid in my lungs, salty tears filling my eyes, I can almost feel the spear in my side. It’s nothing, if not an awful, God-damned mess.

In my anguish, in this deep, wounded pain, words come to me from across the divide, across hundreds of years, and I find myself covered in ashes of mourning, echoing Job’s lament:

Poor mortal, born of woman,
few of days and full of trouble.
Comes up like a flower, a fig tree, a mustard seed,
flees like a shadow and does not last.

Is there no hope for a tree cut down? Will new life sprout again? Will this dead grain of wheat bear fruit? I pray it will but know not how.

Doubt and fear haunt us now. Hope’s a bitter pill. There’s a lump in my throat and I don’t have it in me to swallow. There’s not much left, this night. I’ve got nothing left. There’s nothing left to do except wait.

But for what?

Somewhere…somewhere far away from this dismal place, the festival has begun. Only three are left at the tomb – Mary Magdalene, the other Mary and me.

We are all who are left. There’s no-one to keep watch with us this night, unless you, you hiding in the shadows, would join us. I wonder, in the depths of my despair, in the midst of this unknowing, where the other disciples have gone. Have they given up? Have you given up, too?

I wonder, and I wonder again. But if they were here, what would we do? How will we make it through this damp cold night?

All our wondering and watching, waiting and praying have done, is land us here. Here at the mouth of a tomb. The stone rolled in front with a sense of foreboding. Heart’s abrasive road rash like the grinding of stone against stone. In the end, the searing pain decisively punctuated by the hollow, aching thud of empty finality.

That’s all I feel…if I feel anything at all.

Empty.

Broken.

Numb.

Behind that stone, he lies dead in my tomb. My tomb, not his. My death, not his. Behind that stone lies the one to whom we had pledged our faith, our hope, and our love. His broken body wrapped in clean linen cloth, with no time for embalmment. This is not a proper burial. Not for a friend. A teacher. This is not the burial fit for a king, for the son of God.

In my empty, broken, numbness, I can’t help but wonder: Was our hope in vain? Was our faith misplaced? Was our love misguided?

When he said those words, what did he mean? Is it all really over? As simple as that? Maybe it is over. He said it himself. His words still cause me to tremble and quake.

It Is Finished.

Finished.

Finished.

Passover’s begun, and all I can taste are the bitter herbs of suffering. Off in the distance, I hear this song:

In the face of the unknown. When paranoia strikes deep and easy answers are cheap, this is where faith begins. Certainty knocked out from under us, as fear begins to creep over hearts once brimming with love.

Tonight we are called to wait, to listen, to attend. To examine ourselves in this darkest of dark nights.

The Teacher, The Messiah, The King. He’s dead.

Will we remain faithful?

Tonight there is no promise of safety. No guarantee of victory. No assurance of salvation. Not so much as a hint of resurrection.

Will we remain faithful?

Will we, like Joseph and the two Mary’s keep watch, or will we run like Peter into the night? Tonight is the night that faith begins. This is where our fidelity is tested. We followed Jesus in life. Who of us is prepared to drink from his cup? Who of us is prepared to follow him in death?

Who of us will take up this cross? Prepare his grave? Pick up his mantle and continue the mission?

Without promise of reward. Without certainty of victory, who of us will stay true to Jesus’ call? There are no easy answers tonight.

But there’s always maybe.