Watch!

Whether you believe in Jesus as God or not, come to the ground where he was crucified. Come here in thought, in prayer. There’s an attraction, isn’t there? This is where fake selves are pulled from our psyches. This is where our questions and doubts and our angst come leaking out. But, in some extraordinary way, this is also where miracle rests in harmony with the ordinary. This is where water is turned into wine. This is where we begin to change.

I used to think I liked it here because I was naturally melancholy. But I have grown to realize we’re not supposed to live our lives pretending bad things aren’t supposed to happen. Walter Brueggemann writes: “In most arenas where people live, we are expected and required to speak the language of safe orientation and equilibrium…. For the normal, conventional functioning of public life, the raw edges of disorientation and reorientation must be denied or suppressed…. As a result, our speech is dulled and mundane. Our passion has been stilled and is without imagination. And mostly the Holy One is not addressed….” (Praying the Psalms).

No, we need this ground of crucifixion to jar us awake! We suffer! Yes, this is a beautiful world! It is a world God designed and has not given over to sin, but, oh, sin is doing one monstrous job in its attempt to blind us. It blinds us to God. It blinds us to who we are. It blinds us to the power we are made to wield now, in this moment, and we find that power in no better place than right here.

Reflection

Bring your suffering, your questions, your angst — and that of the world — to the Garden of Gethsemane, to Calvary. Set it down. Sit yourself down, and watch.

Prayer

Oh, God, I don’t know how to just sit here! I’ve come, with all my complaints and grievances. I’ve come with the sorrows and heartbreaks, my own and others’. I’ve tossed it all down. It litters this ground, some of it falling into the deep hole in the earth made by the cross on which Jesus hung. I’m not sure why I am here, but I will wait. And I will watch. Amen.

Christ Rising, Frederick Hart, (1942-1999)