Sunday, April 5, 2020

Lent Six: Opening Our Hands

Entry into Jerusalem, Giotto, 14th century
I started Lent five weeks ago planning to give up sugar: a superficial sacrifice to remind myself of Christ’s time in the wilderness.

Giving up sugar has been surprising easy this year. Far harder has been giving up projects, plans, meetings, schedule, all swept away with no recourse or discussion. Even simple pleasures have been set aside: spending time with family, meeting friends for coffee, a quiet evening out.

I know others have given up far more: jobs, income, personal safety, health, loved one, life itself. These weeks have turned into a global season of loss and grief and uncertainty.

Reading the gospel of Mark I’m struck at all the disciples gave up, sometimes willingly, sometimes with resistance. 

Christ said “follow me,” and they followed. He said “Go preach and heal, but leave your extra cloak, extra food, extra comfort behind.” They went.

They bought in, whole-heartedly, to a vision of the future in which Jesus would lead: the lord, the king, the messiah. Palm Sunday was the high point of that vision: Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem with crowds cheering Hosannah.

Then their vision slammed into something unexpected: Jesus talking more openly about his own death. Jesus walking straight into danger although they begged him not to. Jesus washing their feet as a servant when they wanted to hear more about how he’d oust the current king. Jesus going, without a fight, to trial, then mockery and beating, then death.

Jesus washing the feet of Peter, Jesus Mafa, Cameroon, 1970s
Jesus asked them to give up family, home, predictable future, but then he asked them to give up more. They argued over who would sit next to Jesus when he came into power. He told them they didn’t know what they were asking. Their world turned upside down in just a few short days: hopes crushed, expectations shattered, all sense of their own roles scrambled as Jesus went to die.

In a way, it’s almost funny, to watch Peter, a fisherman, argue with God incarnate about the best way forward, second-guessing a plan in place before the world was formed.

Yet it’s so familiar. I see that in myself almost daily, sometimes almost hourly: surely we could do this differently? Surely there’s a better way?

The disciples had spent three years with Jesus, had heard his warnings and his prayers, but when their world turned upside down, they were caught off guard, wondering what to do next, wondering how to follow when the path seemed so uncertain.

We find ourselves in a similar space: caught off-guard, uncertain, wondering how to help, how to pray, how to plan.

In Renovation of the Heart Dallas Willard talks about abandoning outcomes to God. We “accept that we do not have in ourselves — in our own ‘heart, soul, mind, and strength’ — the wherewithal to make this come out right, whatever ‘this’ is”.

We DON’T have what it takes to make “this” turn out right. So we wait, hands open, empty of all we thought we knew, waiting for what comes next.

I’ve been pointing to songs from the Porter’s Gate project, songs that have taken on new meaning in this unfamiliar season. Today, I find myself returning to one that didn’t resonate the first few times I heard it:
O humble carpenter, down on your hands and knees,look on your handiwork and build a houseso you may dwell in me.
The work was done with nothing but
wood and nails in Your scar-borne hands
O show me how to work and praise
trusting that I am Your instrument.
The words are so simple it's easy to miss the point: the work isn’t ours, but God’s. He uses unexpected tools, unexpected times, to prepare us for praise and service. During these times when we feel most lost, must uncertain, God is already there, already shaping us, to be part of a work far beyond our expectation, a work already complete in the humble carpenter, Jesus.

I  rest in that mystery, captured in this final refrain:
The kingdom’s come and built uponwood and nails gripped with joyfulness,So send me out, within Your waysknowing that the task is finished.The dead will rise and give You praise -wood and nails will not hold them down!These wooden tombs, we’ll break them soonand fashion them into flower beds,The curse is done, the battle wonswords bent down into plowshares,Your scar-borne hands, we’ll join with them,serving at the table You’ve prepared.
May you wait with open hands in this strange season, trusting that the battle is already won, the day of resurrection is coming, and God will show us new ways to serve as we join him at his table.
 



This is the sixth in a Lenten series:
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