Tag Archives: Easter

Fight, Flight, Freeze: Holy Week Unraveled

We work so hard to keep Holy Week well-orchestrated: bulletins pristine, lilies in place, songs rehearsed. It’s an important celebration in the life of a church – in the life of The Church; a highlight of the liturgical calendar. We should have our vestments ready, Easter baskets ready, shoes by the door, hearts rightly adorned and aligned. Ham or lamb or lemon something waiting in the refrigerator.

In the space between the eggs and the hunt, something moves, caught by peripheral vision, sensed by hyper-alert ears. It’s probably fine; you’re probably safe; but the nearly-ignored motion is unsettling. Maybe it was the quickly darting shadow of someone off to sell out their friend and meet tragedy. Maybe it was the slow-motion wave of a drawn sword slashing lethally toward the head and neck, managing only to find a subordinate’s ear. Maybe it was the flick of water from dripping fingers washed in refusal of responsibility, dried of moral imperative, patted with averted gaze while a haunted wife’s warning was ignored.

From start to end, Holy Week was a chest-thumping rush and slide and crest of adrenaline. Crazed crowds pressed, desperate for rescue – hosanna, save us, rescue us, get these occupiers out – the welcome parade had the glee of a crowd watching an existential buzzer-beater three-point shot. A patient Christ sat in cold rage braiding a whip before overturning tables, the carpenter splintering any woodwork that supported oppression. Before Pilate reached for a basin, Jesus reached for one; away from noise, people, intrusive eyes, requests – between welcome parade and death march – before the disciples scattered like chaff on the wind, one lost forever – Jesus pulled sweaty, dirty feet near and tenderly cleaned his friends’ calloused heels. Later, Jesus’ distress wrung blood from his forehead while he faced the slicing weight of darkness. Sleepy friends – ashamed to be caught off-guard? – surged with adrenaline again. The sounds of the crowds, the waving palms, the smells of the city, the sounds at the temple, the crack of a whip, the pouring of water, the breaking of bread, the breaking of fellowship, and here is Judas, friend, fellow traveler, not meeting their gaze, not looking them in the eye, not admitting he knew why the money bag always felt light. Everything unraveled.

Fight, flight, freeze – Simon reached for his sword, disciples ran and scattered. Some froze, then followed at a distance.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.

It was supposed to be a victory lap, a coronation, a revolution, a vindication, a proof.

Across the street, a bent and broken palm leaf lies dusty and abandoned.

What did Judas just do? Surely not. He was one of us.

What did Simon just do? The flash of the sword, the yell, the splatter of blood-red, the ripped body; the tone of command, the severed ear fused seamlessly in place, vessels re-knit, nerves reconnected over a bloodied neck and shoulder.

The pulse doesn’t lie; words may deny the Christ, sever him from acquaintance, claim not to have cast out demons in his name. But the quickened heartbeat betrays the liar to himself. It does matter; he does know; he is known.

Everything unraveled.

Fight, flight, freeze – adrenaline surged early; nurses donned their gear. Teachers logged on to a box of squares. Chaplains held iPads, screens for goodbye.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.

The beeping wouldn’t end, the oxygen alarms kept blaring, the sounds wouldn’t still. Coding, and coding, and coding again. People got testy. Pastors got yelled at. Budgets were torn up and cast aside like yesterday’s palm branch – useless now.

Everything unraveled.

But the pulse doesn’t lie; lying awake, tossing and turning, isolated and cooped up, tired but wired. What started as a wave of energy slumped into a numb blur. Out of nowhere, unneeded adrenaline burrowed up at inconvenient moments, startling at shadows instead of substance, leaving a shepherd shaking through what surely was a heart attack. No; the panic would ebb, drained weakness in its place.

Severed – not just ear from head.

Voices cried out from cities that had street-view peeks of coffee shops, parks, hospitals with patient reviews. Google Translate shifted the familiar but unknown alphabet into familiar characters: the neurosurgeon here was very good, they were helpful, I have recovered well; whether the former patient in eastern Ukraine is still well – who knows? Where concerts had rung out, air raid sirens blared with uncanny dissonance, folding 70 years like accordioned paper, bringing past to present: buildings smashed to rubble, civilians starving. Severed – the illusion of peace; the illusion of fellowship. A pastor on one side of the border pleads for support for refugees; a pastor on the other side denies their nation is responsible.

The explosions wouldn’t end, the alarms kept blaring, the sounds wouldn’t still.

Fight, flight, unraveled –

Everything, freeze.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to –

Surely not.

The numbness creeps, the slump insists: no more. More? Hasn’t it been enough? How can we bear to bear witness?

But the pulse doesn’t lie. The quickened heartbeat betrays the truth. It does matter; we do know; we are known.

Judas was undone; he tried to unravel the web that choked in around him, tried to return the money that burned a hole in his psyche. Face to face with Christ, he had splintered, shattered; later, he spilled out in a field.

(But – he tried though; tried to give the money back, take it all back, rewind, undo the damage. He couldn’t; but he wanted to. Wanting to is not for nothing.) Judas took flight, unspooling along the way like a human banner of confession.

Simon was undone; he did what zealots do, tried to use muscle and steel to defend the Creator of the universe. Maybe he was slow or the servant was fast but Jesus didn’t refasten a head, only an ear. Simon’s adrenaline was quelled by Christ – what? Why? Wasn’t it time to impose the kingdom? It was supposed to be vindication. Simon was undone; enraged by simple questions that poked at his pride. He was like a fish flopping in one of his nets, a fish out of water. He’d waited for bigger things, he’d seen the miracles, he’d collected baskets of leftovers, and now at the point of proving himself, swore at servant girls and denied he’d ever dreamed of being anything other than a fisherman.

Mary was – surely not.

Mary was –

(This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.)

Mary –

Mary knew fight, she’d fought stigma and rumors and whispers and gossip.

Mary knew flight, she’d gathered him up and with Joseph run to Egypt as refugees escaping a vindictive tyrant.

Mary – did she know freeze? Maybe; she didn’t freeze at the wedding in Cana. If she knew freeze, it wasn’t inability to respond, for her. It was frozenness; being rooted to the spot; rooted, watching her boy die, unable to –

Watching her beloved son, in whom she delighted, suffer because of soldiers who were “just doing their job.”

Mary was undone.

Like mothers before and since, undone. Like survivors who glance instinctively to smile at missing loved ones. Like children who reach for the hand that isn’t there.

Undone.

And when she ran out of clothing to rend and tear in grief, God took pity and tore the temple curtain clean in half.

The Spirit howled and churned up rock, dimmed the sun, and let Creation scream. In the shockwave, some of the dead were ransomed back, the universe reeling.

Something deep, undone.

There can be loveliness in an elegant Holy Week choreographed for worship, ultimately for celebration.

But there is no shame in a Holy Week smeared in mud, numb, ears ringing, drained, undone.

There is no shame in fight

or flight

or freeze.

There is no shame in finding that you are undone.

Something moves in the space between.

Wrap up what has died; buy the spices, pack them up. Cry, or having cried all your tears, wait in the darkness for morning. Don’t obsess over whether you should have fought instead of fled, or frozen instead of fought, or fled instead of freezing.

Something moves.

Like the dry scrape of stone against stone,

like a boulder shifted – and moved –

we are all undone.

One day at a time, one thread at a time, like a bird twisting twigs for a nest perched over a naked tomb,

hope darts

stitch by stitch.

Featured image courtesy Mel Poole via Unsplash.

Wesleyan Accent ~ Not Yet Fully Awake: Dr. Matthew Milliner

Note from the Editor: As Christians continue into Eastertide, Wesleyan Accent is pleased to share this profound Easter sermon by art history professor Dr. Matthew Milliner, which was preached in All Souls Church in Wheaton, Illinois. You can see more from him here.

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

It’s exciting news when the most brilliant disciple of the atheist Sigmund Freud sees the need for belief in God. As many of you know, the name of this student was Carl Jung, and there is a lot one can learn from him. But here is one thing he really got wrong: “It is funny,” Jung tells us, “that Christians are still so pagan that they understand spiritual existence only as a body and as a physical event. I am afraid our Christian cannot maintain this shocking anachronism any longer.”

And so having cited this unfortunate remark of the great Swiss psychiatrist, please indulge me again, maybe with an Alleluia at the end this time.

He is risen. He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

The field of Biblical studies is wonderful. You can learn all kinds of things about the Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman contexts in which the Biblical books were originally written, you can learn the original languages. But as in any field, some people in Biblical studies make some miscalculations. I speak of the Biblical scholar Gerd Lüdemann: “A consistent modern view must say farewell to the resurrection as a historical event.”

Having heard that, please indulge me once again.

He is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

The notion that you can keep Christianity without resurrection has aged about as well as pay phones, in-flight ash trays, spitoons, hoop skirts, zuit suits, and those massive televisions that we used to have to cram in our living room and the gargantuan pieces of furniture we used to hide them before the flat screens came along. You still sometimes see those huge TVs on the curb, usually with five garbage stickers on them because no one wants them! And who would want a Christianity without resurrection either?

It’s often said if the resurrection isn’t true, don’t go to church, go to brunch. Well I was at one of those Chicago brunch meccas just this week and I overheard the bartenders planning the cocktail menu for this Sunday – Easter morning. And they said, “We need to mix up our menu to bring people in.” One employee said, we could change up the Bloody Mary with a bloodless Mary, which I guess is some kind of cocktail. And how I wish I had had the courage to say then and there, “Sounds like perfect cocktail for someone without resurrection hope on Easter Morning! Bloodless Mary.” But because he is risen we’re not at brunch, we’re here instead to drink from the veins of the risen Christ, and today at least we’re throwing in brunch too.

I’m sure you know the great John Updike poem, Seven Stanzas at Easter:

Make no mistake: if he rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

Or better than Updike’s poem is this bald statement of fact in 1 Cor. 15; “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.” Or Acts 10: “We are witnesses to all that he did… They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day.” That is not a pious sentiment, a clever aphorism, haiku or a sonnet – it’s journalism. They killed him, God fixed it, says St. Peter.

One reason that resurrection matters is because it addresses our root anxiety. There are a lot of surface anxieties in our lives, and some that cut a good bit below the surface. But if you follow those anxieties to their root, and ask yourself, “what’s the worst thing that could happen?” The answer tends to be: “somebody could die.” That’s about as bad as it could get. And that root anxiety of our impermanence is what drives so many of our worries, agendas and sins – and so the root anxiety is the one Jesus addresses this morning not just by his words but with his body, by conquering death and replacing it with the root peace of the risen Christ.

That root peace is why Roger Persons, a member of our congregation, when his wife Jean died while they were watching TV together, was able to address her then and there and say, “Walk with the king.” That root peace is why Jason Long and I, sitting at the top of Central Dupage Hospital with Brett Foster as the sunset beamed into the hospital room so strongly that I had to put on my sunglasses, felt strangely, in retrospect, like Brett was preparing us for our own deaths as well. When I think of Brett, my memory now skips from that hospital room to his funeral where we heard these words from the Orthodox poet, Scott Cairns, about the resurrection – not Jesus’ resurrection, but mine and yours.

…one morning you finally wake
to a light you recognize as the light you’ve wanted
every morning that has come before. And the air
itself has some light thing in it that you’ve always
hoped the air might have. And One is there
to welcome you whose face you’ve looked for during all
the best and worst times of your life. He takes you to himself
and holds you close until you fully wake.

And in our gospel passage, Mary of course – like all of us on this side of death – is not yet fully awake. She makes first contact with the resurrected Jesus, and it’s about as awkward as Peter embarrassing himself by trying to pitch a tent on Mount Tabor. Mary’s problem is that she thinks Jesus is dead, and when she sees that he’s gone, she consoles herself by saying, “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

I wonder if it’s her root anxiety in the form of a sentence. It signifies confusion, frustration and maybe even a little panic. I almost imagine her wandering off in a daze reciting those words in some kind of stupor. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then the disciples show up, Peter and John. And of course, the best illustration I know of that moment in all the world is a train ride away at the Art Institute of Chicago. It’s by the African American painter Henry Ossawa Tanner. It shows Peter kind of concerned, almost twiddling his thumbs because he knew he blew it – and John, the beloved disciple has this beaming look on his face, as if to say, “I knew it!” Tanner suffered from racial prejudice all his life – he believed in resurrection. Still, in our passage, neither Peter nor John stick around.

But Mary wanders back, still clinging to the best she can do under the circumstances. Call her the Bloodless Mary, wringing her hands as she repeats, “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” And then she gets what we all think would work for us if only it would happen: an angelic visitation. “She bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.” I hope you’re catching that this is a reference to the ark of the covenant – two angels surrounding a void of presence – the absence that signifies that God cannot be contained. And the angels, puzzled, say to her, “woman, why are you weeping?”

And her reply? “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” The presence of the angels doesn’t clear up her confusion, so the Lord himself explains it to her. “She turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Now that is a reference to the mystical treaties the Song of Solomon if there ever was one – God’s pursuit of the soul. “Whom are you looking for?” God asks this to all of us this morning.

But it doesn’t work! Mary thinks he’s the gardener. And she offers her good intentions and pious objectives one more time. “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” She still clings to her pre-resurrection agenda. On Friday one of our speakers said that Jesus was LOUD on the cross and I think he’s loud here too. He has to be loud enough to snap her out of her pious plans to anoint his corpse. And so he shouts with a smile, “Mary!”

There have been a lot of good stories about Notre Dame de Paris this week, but here’s the best one I know of. Denise once told me that when she was there with her mother and sister, they were touring the Cathedral which was packed with tourists, when a mother lost her son. And my wife Denise knows the name of that boy, as does everyone who was in Notre Dame that day because the mother started to shout it. Dimitri! After three shouts the packed cathedral fell silent but she kept shouting, no – screaming, “Dimitri! Dimitri!” until he was found. And that, after all, is what Notre Dame’s architecture is – it is the risen Christ shouting to you through beauty. Shouting your name and mine, trying to snap us out of our own agendas, even our own ambitions to serve him. That’s what beauty does, what pain does, what tragedy, suffering and joy do. They’re all the risen Christ shouting our name again and again in the Cathedral of this cosmos while the cathedral lasts.

And like Mary, we wake up, “Teacher!” and we cling to him, as any of us would. That’s what coming to church is about. But then comes Jesus’ famous lines to Mary: “Don’t hold onto me.” He does not mean back off. He tells her to stop clinging to him because he has something for her to do. Not her agenda this time but his. Namely, go tell the boys. In all four gospels the women are first, the only difference is the number of women who are present. And each gospel, the mission of the women is the same – and it is from them that we get the message with which we began.

He is risen: He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Philip Tallon ~ Make Buildings that Won’t Be Burnt Up

A wise art teacher used to say, “Make art that won’t be burnt up.” He meant, make art that will outlast the last judgment. Make art that will count as one of the “glories of the nations” brought into the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:26).

Like most people, I watched in horror as one of the glories of the nation of France was nearly burnt up last week. Someone put it well in Twitter, “Had to turn the tv off. Can’t take it anymore. Like watching someone in real time smashing everything in the Louvre with a sledgehammer.”

The world mourned in real time, only to discover in the following days that much of value survived. An early echo of Easter’s surprising good news, the medieval vaulting protected the sanctuary from much of the fire. If it were not for the much later addition of the spire, the damage to the inside would have been even less. My children will get to see Notre Dame’s sanctuary in much the same state as I have.

The news made much of the response of the French people. The French are marginally church-going and the country ranks as one of the least religious in the world. It is easy to imagine that France will be, in the near future, more meaningfully Muslim than Christian. Yet the world, and the French people, love this cathedral. In many ways it is the heart of Paris.

As the burning was happening I, of course, noticed the occasional dunking on church-obsession by Christians and secularists, for opposite reasons. The Christians looked to score piety points by signaling that “the church is people, not buildings.” The secularists signaled superiority by (often mistakenly) noting that such churches were built on the scaffolding of injustice, superstition, and colonialism. There wasn’t much of this, though. It was mostly a unifying moment.

My thoughts turned to my own town. I wondered what sites here in Houston would warrant such an outcry with their bloodless destruction. The answer was easy: none. Few such places exist in the world. Few buildings are as grand or as famous as Notre Dame. The closest Houston comes to a landmark is its sad, abandoned Astrodome, which the city can’t bring itself to get rid of, but also has no use for. Our dome will never compare to “Our Dame.” We could try awfully hard and still fail to create such a work of beauty. There is, of course, the additional problem that we aren’t trying.

This week it so happened that I had the pleasure to lead a discussion on Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. As anyone familiar with the work will recall, much of what Burke bemoans is the way that the French revolution cut out the heart of civil life: the nobility and the church. Left with denuded rationality, Burke foresaw the likely result. Reason unaided by sentiment will quickly degrade into cruelty. And Burke was right. The reign of terror followed soon after the book’s publication. Despite its coincidental bearing on France, the part of the book that touched most directly on the burning of Notre Dame was a point that Burke made with reference to manners: “There ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.” The connection here between beauty and loyalty is apparent. Beauty attracts us, even when our reasons are unconvinced. When our nation’s politicians act in ugly ways, it helps that our nation’s capital is still beautiful.

The connection to Notre Dame is obvious. This troubled world still hungers for beauty, even as it has become confused about truth. On cloudy days it seems like the church only cares about truth and goodness (and sometimes not even those), but has left the beautiful to fend for itself. Our love of “Our Lady” reminds us of a truth that the builders knew: to help us love God the church ought to be lovely.

Karen Bates ~ Egg Salad and Easter Sunday: Preaching the Messiness of Hope

Holy Week is a special time to reflect as Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection are commemorated.

I also get to remember how deeply loved I am, when I consider Jesus willingly suffering and dying on the cross for me. I love guiding people through the significance of Jesus’ journey to the cross and his resurrection.

Once during a ministers’ conference, the speaker said that on Easter, too much talk about the crucifixion and the events surrounding it is “a downer.” Talk about the good parts, we were told, because it gives people hope — focus on the resurrection. People are not coming back to the church to hear about the crucifixion, the speaker claimed.

But I wonder: Are there any bad parts to the story?

Talking about Jesus being denied by a friend, betrayed by a disciple, and turned on by a crowd is not bad. Isn’t it an opportunity to allow people to meet Jesus in his humanity and divinity? Jesus experienced the same messiness of life many of us are experiencing or will experience. But he knew his destiny; and though he could have walked away from the divine assignment, he didn’t.

Jesus had a choice and decided I was worth the torture and pain he was experiencing. He knew he was going to be resurrected. He knew the resurrection would be a bridge connecting me to his Father — our Father. When people understand the depth of love exhibited by this act, it draws them to the Savior.

Recently, while picking up coffee, I heard a store clerk shouting at a man in the aisle to bring the candy he was putting in his pocket to the counter to pay for it. He put the candy on the counter; however, the clerk did not see the sandwich and treat he was holding in his other hand. When she realized it, he was running out of the store. The clerk prepared to chase the man while the store owner called the police. A customer agreed to pay for the items if the owner would not call the police.

When the man realized no one was chasing him, he looked surprised and scurried up the street.

I wondered how hungry the man was to steal an egg salad sandwich from a convenience store. I also wondered how he would have reacted to the customer’s kindness.

He left without knowing his debt was paid. He was free to go. The food belonged to him.

That information probably would have surprised him. A stranger thought enough of his plight to free him from arrest (even though the man likely deserved the punishment for taking the items).

I thought about the spiritual implications, too. What the customer did for the man was what Jesus did for me. It made me sad because the man did not know he was free to go. I wondered how many people live with the burden and guilt of sin, but don’t know they are free to walk away from it.

Commemorating Jesus’ last week on earth reminds us of John 16:33: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” That is why sharing all that happened to Jesus leading up to the crucifixion at calvary is important.

Life’s problems do not disappear. They didn’t disappear for Jesus. How Jesus handled problems was different. Inviting people to see the messiness of what happened to Jesus and how he handled it is something that gives us all hope — not just the Resurrection.

Jesus loved Peter despite Peter denying him. Jesus washed Judas’ feet even though he knew he would betray him. He accepted the crowd’s praise, even though he knew they would demand he be crucified.

Jesus also knew the end of the story.

In Mark 8, after Peter said Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus talks about his death and resurrection. “He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.”

Telling the whole story is a holy adventure that provides examples of ways to navigate through life’s challenges.

Reflecting on those challenges and the triumph over them is a fresh reminder of how Jesus’ love for others pushed him to endure torture so he could lay down his life for his friends. It is also an opportunity to tell somebody who doesn’t know about the beauty of Jesus’ love. They need to know that the cost of their sins, and the guilt and shame that accompany them, are covered.

People need to know what led to the morning when women, coming to slather fragrant oils on a decaying body, found the stone rolled away from an empty tomb. This is a time to remember why Easter is a celebration. It’s not just about the resurrection, but everything that surrounds it.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ The Terrible Precipice of Knowing: Black Holes, Enlightenment, and the Divine

There is a moment you stand on the brink, or the brink stands on you. The inexorable draw pulls you in, like gravity, like the current; at the moment you must fight to get away or be drawn in forever, you are the most tempted to pause with quickened breath as you weigh whether the knowledge of what lies on the other side is worth the possibility of your own extinction – before you can say what it is you’ve seen.

“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.”

In the quest to see the truth, what if you are blinded? Is a blind woman happy who has lost her sight in order to bear witness to the Beatific vision? Would terrorist Saul have chosen blindness and disorientation to see Christ, or did Christ need to blind Saul temporarily so that he would perceive properly?

Today is an odd moment in human history; scientists have collaborated across continents, in multiple time zones, to set up equipment on the world’s mountains so that humanity can use plastic, metal, and glass tools that fit in your pocket or sit on your desk to communicate with each other almost instantaneously and see images of a black hole. Computing isn’t identical to information and information isn’t identical to knowledge, but today you can pull out a piece of equipment, use a high-powered search engine, type the words, “black hole photo,” and see the results of decades of hard work. Just 150 years ago people learned of the death of their loved one in the U.S. Civil War by checking the newspaper or receiving a letter from the dead person’s friend. It could take weeks, months. Now a mystery in our galaxy is viewable on the rechargeable machine in your pocket.

Black holes are mesmerizing, terrifying, and little understood. Using math, calculations, formulas, equations, scientists guess. What appears to be true is that, in a way, light itself can be sucked down the drain and condensed into a tiny, heavy ball with extraordinary gravitational pull. (Note: this is an inaccurate description of a complex reality by someone who is not a scientist.) What science fiction writers like to play with is the moment – the event horizon – in which light or matter (or a fictional character) can no longer escape the gravitational pull.

You still have time you still have time you still have time it’s too late.

Who can rescue you from knowledge that will be your undoing? No rescue craft can hover at the event horizon, lowering a rope to you.

How can knowledge burn but set you free? There is a knowing that singes you to breaking point, then propels you forward.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

Light, we are told, cannot escape the power of a black hole.

Perhaps not.

Or at least, perhaps not for a long, long time, until that condensed matter explodes outward – propelling, igniting, cascading.

Jesus swallowed up the darkness that appeared to swallow him. The darkness came close; the darkness thought that Jesus Christ stood on the event horizon, and fell in.

On this mountain he will destroy
    the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
    he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears
    from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
    from all the earth.
The Lord has spoken. – Isaiah 25:7-8

What is Holy Week about? It is about Jesus letting himself be drawn into a black hole. It is about the sky going dark, the earth shaking. It is about hours of eerie silence – hours and hours. It is about hope vanishing in the blink of an eye.

It is about a black hole quivering. It is about a black hole beginning to get smaller. It is about the Light of the World swallowing the heavy darkness with such inescapable draw that the darkness cannot escape. It is about the Light of the World entering a hole of black darkness and absorbing it from the inside.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Standing on the brink, looking into the abyss, Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate stood.

The inexorable draw pulls you in, like gravity, like the current; at the moment you must fight to get away or be drawn in forever, you are the most tempted to pause with quickened breath as you weigh whether the knowledge of what lies on the other side is worth the possibility of your own extinction – before you can say what it is you’ve seen.

What does it feel like to betray the Light? Judas held that knowledge. So too did Pilate. And it swallowed them whole as they were consumed by the ever-hungry darkness.

Standing on the brink, looking into the abyss, Mary the mother of James, Joanna, Mary Magdalene, and other women stood, peering into an open, empty, echoing tomb. Comprehension failed them. Lightning-colored beings shouted nearby from an eternity away. Fight or flight kicked in. Hope is deadly, and they did not want to die.

At the moment you must fight to get away or be drawn in forever, you are the most tempted to pause with quickened breath as you weigh whether the knowledge of what lies on the other side is worth the possibility of your own extinction.

Had Light escaped the darkness?

What does it feel like to witness the Light? Mary and Joanna held that knowledge. So too did Magdalene. And it swallowed them whole as they were consumed by the ever-lifegiving Light.

It is not the brink that is the problem; it is not the cliff’s edge, the event horizon; it’s whether you’re jumping into darkness or into Light. Holy Week brings us to the brink, reminds us of what it feels like to peer over the edge into humanity’s bent toward self-destruction, pushes us toward letting go of all safety railings as we free-fall into the Light of the World.

Featured image courtesy Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration/National Science Foundation.

Philip Tallon ~ How Artists Do Theology: The Resurrection

Note from the Editor: we are pleased to reshare this post from Dr. Philip Tallon that originally appeared a few years ago as a resource for Easter.

During this Easter season, I’ve been reflecting on a number of artworks that depict Christ’s victory over death.

One striking painting by Bramantino (1490) features Christ raised from the dead but still bearing the emotional and physical trauma of the cross. Jesus is alive again but seems to carry the knowledge of the torture he underwent into the new creation. It is a powerful painting, as Jesus’ haggard face seems to remind us that his suffering was no illusion and that the way of the cross will be no easier for us.

“The Risen Christ” by Bramantino (ca 1490)

But the most consistently moving painting, the one that I return to again and again, is Piero della Francesca’s “The Resurrection” (ca. 1460).

“Resurrection” by Piero della Francesca (ca 1460)

Here again, Christ carries the sorrow of the cross in his subtle and composed face, which is aimed directly at the viewer, turning the act of spectating into a confrontation. But there is also silent victory in his powerful stance. One hand holds a flag with a cross, while one foot is perched confidently on the sepulcher that recently held his body. The use of a sepulcher, rather than a cave tomb, is a nice homage to the town of Sansepolcro (“holy sepulcher”) where the mural was painted. The tomb is alabaster in color, as even death has been purified by Christ’s presence.

Like all adaptations of a biblical scene, the painter must act as a theologian. Decisions must be made in depicting the moment. And della Francesca, one understands, takes his task of visual exegesis seriously.

Not only does the moment balance gravity and joy in Jesus’ solemn triumph, but it invites us to understand that the work that has been accomplished is not yet understood by a slumbering world. The guards at the tomb bear all the symbols of power and might: one guard’s blood-red shield indicates Roman authority with its alluded SPQR (“The Senate and People of Rome”). Yet they foolishly sleep, utterly unaware that Rome’s power to bring death cannot defeat YHWH’s power to bring life. The same sleeping soldier with the shield sleepily holds on to his spear, as if clutching the last shreds of domination. Jesus’ hand, meanwhile, grips a flag of triumph with the easy authority of the Messiah whose kingdom does not originate in this world (but does extend to it).

But God’s power is seen not just in Christ’s victory, but also in the image of new creation we see in the picture. Jesus’s wounds remain. A trickle of scarlet paints his side. Dots of red stipple his hands. But his body is restored to the full fleshly life we see in della Francesca’s “Baptism of Christ” (1450). This is a real body, with weight and heft.

Perhaps even more notable, however, is the landscape behind Jesus. A testament to the artist’s thoughtfulness, the trees and hills to the left of the Messiah are barren, but to the right new life has begun. Leaves and shrubs testify to the new work of creation inaugurated by Christ. In this way, Piero della Francesca gets thunderingly right what so many Christians get so stunning wrong. Raised on the first day of the week – a day any faithful Jew would understand as the first day of creation – God in Christ has begun the re-creation of this world. This work of making all things new is not complete, but it has begun.

N. T. Wright’s address, “The Road to New Creation,” could almost be taken as commentary on della Francesca’s painting:

God is not going to abolish the universe of space, time and matter; he is going to renew it, to restore it, to fill it with new joy and purpose and delight, to take from it all that has corrupted it. ‘The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom, and rejoice with joy and singing; the desert shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.’ The last book of the Bible ends, not with the company of the saved being taken up into heaven, but with the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, resulting in God’s new creation, new heavens and new earth, in which everything that has been true, lovely, and of good report will be vindicated, enhanced, set free from all pain and sorrow…God will make new heavens and new earth, and give us new bodies to live and work and take delight in his new creation. And the ‘good news’ of the Christian gospel is that this new world, this new creation, has already begun: it began when Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead on Easter morning, having faced and beaten the double enemy, sin and death, that has corrupted and defaced God’s lovely creation.

Wright has been making the rounds with this point for over a decade now, and has helpfully reminded us of this key piece of biblical theology. Salvation is about restoring this world, not escaping from it. But it’s worth pointing out that paintings like “The Resurrection” have been reminding us of this for centuries.

Matt Sigler ~ Lent with a Wesleyan Accent

Interestingly, John Wesley omitted the Lenten season from the Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America, his edition of the Book of Common Prayer that he sent to the Methodists in America. His omission is likely because of the emphasis he placed on the constant practice of scriptural holiness. Methodists were not to limit their pursuit of holiness to particular times of the year. Wesley’s omission is more of an indictment of the nominalism of much of the Church of England during his day than it is on Lent itself. Yet this was my response when, as a college student, I was asked over lunch what I was giving up for Lent. My rather self-righteous reply was “I don’t need a particular season in order to practice fasting.” Since then, however, my position on observing Lent has taken quite a different turn. Here are three reasons why I observe Lent as a Wesleyan.

One Great Motivation

The Christian practice of observing Lent is motivated by one great longing: “I want to know Christ…” Paul’s words are the cry of all of us who love the Christ. Every attempt at knowing Jesus leads us to the cross. We are reminded of Jesus’ words in Matthew 16 that if we want to “come after” Jesus, we too must go to the cross. This is the godly motivation of observing Lent; something that can all too easily get obscured by the giving up of trifle indulgences on the one hand, or self-flagellation on the other—the type of Lenten practices Wesley rejected.

Full Surrender is the Catalyst for Christian Perfection

Observing the season of Lent forces us to be intentional about dying with Christ. Lent provides us the opportunity to journey with Christ in the desert and remember that all of the devil’s promises are rooted in one great lie: that we can find ultimate fulfillment on our own terms. The spiritual practice of fasting—something Wesley did weekly—is given pinpoint focus during this time. We fast to remind ourselves that only Jesus is enough. And in this time we are called to fully surrender our lives to Him. This is an exercise of our will, a laying down of all that we are. As Wesleyans, we should note that fully surrendering our lives to Christ is the prime catalyst for sanctification.

Amplifying Easter

It should come as no surprise that Wesley kept Easter in the Sunday Service as the primary Christian feast. He, like most Christians, recognized the centrality of the Resurrection. Lent, in fact, is ultimately about Easter. A celebration of Easter without a prior descent into the grave is dishonest and naïve, just as observing Lent without the uncompromising proclamation of the Resurrection is hopeless. The liturgy that bookends the Lenten/Easter journey reminds us of this. It begins with acknowledging our mortality and utter need for the Lord: “From dust you have come, to dust you will return.” Lent ends with the ancient, joyous proclamation: “Christ is Risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!” During the Lenten season, we journey to the cross in hopes that we might die with Christ to be raised to life with Him. In observing Lent as a Wesleyan, I am reminded that John and Charles Wesley were persons clearly gripped by the Story of God. This is what Lent is ultimately about: living more fully into that Story.

About five years after my conversation in the college cafeteria, I decided to dive into the season of Lent for the first time. My desire was simply to follow Christ into His Story. It was a powerful forty days that ended with the Easter Vigil, an ancient service that traces the story of God’s salvation in Christ, marking the transition from Lent to Easter. During the service, I was struck, in a way too deep for words, with the reality that I had died and my life was now “hidden with Christ in God.” The memory of that moment continues to be one filled with grace.

John Wesley did not live to see the significant changes that were made during the Second Vatican Council. He was never impacted by the Liturgical Renewal Movement of the 20^th century. In many respects, both movements sought to reform the observance of Lent in a direction that Wesley would have been quite pleased with. As a Wesleyan, I fully embrace the season of Lent as a season of renewal; not a time of temporarily embracing certain spiritual disciplines, but a season to dive deeper into the Story—an opportunity for God to continue His sanctifying work in me.

This post originally appeared on Wesleyan Accent in 2014.

New Life Springs Up

Christians around the world have been celebrating Easter, a glorious shout of triumph after the muted darkness of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. (This year, it happened that Orthodox Easter also fell on the same Sunday as Protestant and Catholics’ observation of Easter.)

As our Methodist friends in the southern hemisphere would remind us, Easter doesn’t coincide with spring for everyone on the globe – our colleagues in Australia usually enjoy summer strawberries at Christmas. For those of us in the northern hemisphere, we celebrate the Risen Christ while flowers are bursting into bloom, harsh winds are softening, and daylight hours increase. Nature seems to happily coincide with the news of new life.

Recently I traveled to central Asia, where it was a joy to see how God is working in the hearts and lives of people on the other side of the world. I was able to witness baptism while there – death to the old self, rising in new life, a child of God. Whatever troubles us when we tune into the news, there is undeniable new life springing forth in the Kingdom of God around the world.

Let’s continue to pray for the flourishing of new life wherever it is springing up. Let’s celebrate it and share stories of the goodness of God. Let’s come together to testify to each other about God’s faithfulness. Like the women running from the tomb long ago, we are called to tell the story of new life that cannot be controlled or contained.

Where have you seen new life springing up?

Philip Tallon ~ How Artists Do Theology: The Resurrection

Note from the Editor: we are pleased to reshare this post from Dr. Philip Tallon that originally appeared a few years ago as a resource for Easter.

During this Easter season, I’ve been reflecting on a number of artworks that depict Christ’s victory over death.

One striking painting by Bramantino (1490) features Christ raised from the dead but still bearing the emotional and physical trauma of the cross. Jesus is alive again but seems to carry the knowledge of the torture he underwent into the new creation. It is a powerful painting, as Jesus’ haggard face seems to remind us that his suffering was no illusion, and that the way of the cross will be no easier for us.

But the most consistently moving painting, the one that I return to again and again, is Piero della Francesca’s “The Resurrection” (ca. 1460).

Here again Christ carries the sorrow of the cross in his subtle and composed face, which is aimed directly at the viewer, turning the act of spectating into a confrontation. But there is also silent victory in his powerful stance. One hand holds a flag with a cross, while one foot is perched confidently on the sepulcher that recently held his body. The use of a sepulcher, rather than a cave tomb, is a nice homage to the town of Sansepolcro (“holy sepulcher”) where the mural was painted. The tomb is alabaster in color, as even death has been purified by Christ’s presence.

Not only does the moment balance gravity and joy in Jesus’ solemn triumph, but it invites us to understand that the work that has been accomplished is not yet understood by a slumbering world. The guards at the tomb, bear all the symbols of power and might: one guard’s blood red shield indicates Roman authority with its alluded SPQR (“The Senate and People of Rome”). Yet they foolishly sleep, utterly unaware that Rome’s power to bring death cannot defeat YHWH’s power to bring life. The same sleeping soldier with the shield sleepily holds on his spear, as if clutching the last shreds of domination. Jesus’ hand, meanwhile, grips a flag of triumph with the easy authority of the Messiah whose kingdom does not originate in this world (but does extend to it).

But God’s power is seen not just in Christ’s victory, but also in the image of new creation we see in the picture. Jesus’s wounds remain. A trickle of scarlet paints his side. Dots of red stipple his hands. But his body is restored to the full fleshly life we see in della Francesca’s “Baptism of Christ” (1450). This is a real body, with weight and heft.

Perhaps even more notable, however, is the landscape behind Jesus. A testament to the artist’s thoughtfulness, the trees and hills to the left of the Messiah are barren, but to the right new life has begun. Leaves and shrubs testify to the new work of creation inaugurated by Christ. In this way Piero della Francesca gets thunderingly right what so many Christians get so stunning wrong. Raised on the first day of the week – a day any faithful Jew would understand as the first day of creation – God in Christ has begun the re-creation of this world. This work of making all things new is not complete, but it has begun.

N. T. Wright’s address, “The Road to New Creation,” could almost be taken as commentary on della Francesca’s painting:

God is not going to abolish the universe of space, time and matter; he is going to renew it, to restore it, to fill it with new joy and purpose and delight, to take from it all that has corrupted it. ‘The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom, and rejoice with joy and singing; the desert shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.’ The last book of the Bible ends, not with the company of the saved being taken up into heaven, but with the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, resulting in God’s new creation, new heavens and new earth, in which everything that has been true, lovely, and of good report will be vindicated, enhanced, set free from all pain and sorrow…God will make new heavens and new earth, and give us new bodies to live and work and take delight in his new creation. And the ‘good news’ of the Christian gospel is that this new world, this new creation, has already begun: it began when Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead on Easter morning, having faced and beaten the double enemy, sin and death, that has corrupted and defaced God’s lovely creation.

Wright has been making the rounds with this point for over a decade now, and has helpfully reminded us of this key piece of biblical theology. Salvation is about restoring this world, not escaping from it. But it’s worth pointing out that paintings like “The Resurrection” have been reminding us of this for centuries.

Elizabeth Moyer ~ Easter’s Frayed Red Carpet

Resurrection Sunday was a couple weeks ago, and Christian congregations rolled out the red carpet to welcome all who would come. The “church” was on its best behavior: egg hunts, special music, sunrise services, breakfast, foot washing, and so much more as local churches gathered (mine included), all in the name of Jesus. On that holiest of Sundays I was tense.

I can now articulate the source of that tension.

I was frustrated with the fakeness demonstrated by the “church.” Yes, I, a seminarian, college and young adult pastor, called the actions of the church fake. Why?

Because we, the churched minority, rolled out the red carpet – the same red carpet we put away for this week – and we did not always mean it. On the day when we had the least amount of time to tend to the needs of others, we boldly said come join us. Our families were visiting, our special dinner needed to be prepared, we were in a hurry, or we had brunch reservations, but we still asked people join us. I spent most of Resurrection Sunday thinking about this week. What would we do this week? What face would the stranger see this week? No fancy banners, no breakfast, no foot washing, nope – nothing special going on here…this week.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. Mark 12:30-31 (NRSV)

In the middle of my tension with the church, God inquired of my love for my neighbor.

I had the opportunity to see or ignore a stranger, a first-time visitor. I saw her tears as she bolted to the restroom at the end of worship. I saw her fighting back more tears as she sat in the lobby. Honestly, I was even tempted to ignore her: I was tired and frankly not in the mood to deal with someone else’s brokenness.

But truth, my love for God and my love for myself would not let me ignore my love for my neighbor. I asked one simple question: “would you like me to pray with you?” She said yes. I found a quiet space and we stood silently; I let her cry, and we prayed. I hope she knows that I was sincerely happy that she and her daughter chose to worship with us, and that I sincerely hoped they would join us again.

Here is the deal: the church should not be in the business of rolling out the red carpet if we do not have time to see people and meet them in their brokenness.

If I am not going to show you love, I should not invite you into my home, let alone the house of God.

Be intentional about seeing people; be intentional about meeting people in their brokenness…