Abide

Yesterday was Good Friday.

If you have friends and family like mine you probably saw a lot of "It's Friday, but Sunday is coming" posts online. And I get it. For years even as I tried to sink into the meaning of Friday I always consoled myself that Sunday was coming.

Good Friday two years ago I first heard of thinking otherwise. It was right after the veneration of the cross–pretty scary itself to a girl who grew up Southern Baptist. The priest said that Good Friday and Holy Saturday were more than stopping posts on the way to Easter Sunday.

No, she told us it was for abiding in the sorrow, the brokenness, the heart-ache.

That felt like someone tearing a life preserver from my hands– how could I survive the weekend without clinging to the approach of Sunday? Wasn't that what Easter was all about–not having to wait with death? That weekend I wrestled more with my understanding of God than I had in a long time. And it was good.

 Two years latter I'm still wrestling with God and crying out like Jacob, "Bless me!" What does that wrestling look like? I don't know as much as I did two years ago, but I'm learning how to abide with God. I'm learning how to sit in the rubble of my plans and see God there.

Good Friday and Holy Saturday are about waiting in darkness and doubt. About having our idolized ideas of God smashed before our eyes.

This year I encourage you to stop rushing to the comfort of Easter Sunday and abide in the mystery of the cross.

I don't know what that looks like for you. Abide by the Quaker singer songwriter  Carrie Newcomer captures what the time in the shadow of the cross is like for me this year. You can hear it and read the words in the video below.

Maundy Thursday

"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:34-35

Mandatum novum – New Commandment – this is where we get the "Maundy" of today from. And how easy this new commandment sounds at first, "love one another." Especially after "love your enemies," loving one another – those with us –sounds easy. But leave it to Jesus to say something else to shift our understanding: "Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another." And just how is it that Jesus loved the apostles?

A few verses earlier in John 13 we see Jesus wash their feet. Foot washing may seem strange today, but it was a standard service that any good host would have offered to a guest – to be performed by a servant of course. But here is Jesus in the middle of celebrating Passover taking off his robe and doing dirty servant's work.

Jesus says he's going to wash the apostles's feet and Peter says "no way." Why this response? Because Jesus – the Messiah – was doing the work of a servant? Yes, but the bigger issue was that the work Jesus was doing required seeing how dirty Peter was.

Following Jesus around dirt roads on foot, Peter was probably pretty filthy. It's no wonder he didn't want his Messiah to see, touch, hold his feet. It seemed both beneath his idea of the Messiah and a shameful revelation of his dirt. But this dirtiness was no fault in Peter, it was the result of obedience – literally following Jesus on the road. And in his love Jesus sees the full filth before him and washes it away.

So what does it mean to love one another in a foot-washing way? Might it mean sharing the places where the daily dust and dirt of brokenness and hurt cling to us?

Retro Satana

Retro Satana. Get behind me, Satan.

I was seven, maybe eight when I was taught how to rebuke Satan.

Perhaps my teacher meant that I should tell spiritual attackers to get behind me in the name of Christ. But at that age I heard and believed that any attacker should be addressed such. I believed with the passion of a child who wanted to understand the world.

Thankfully no one tried to do me physical harm while I still believed that rebuking Satan was a better defense than running.

For many years I understood the passage in Mark 8 where Jesus says to Peter, "Get behind me, satan," in that context. A rule to follow. An example of how to handle danger. A Jesus-approved response.

When I was a little older I considered the passage anew. By then I had relationships I valued with those in authority over me. I was horrified for Peter. I couldn't understand why his concern for his beloved teacher was so violently rejected.

And Jesus's response sounded like a violent rejection. "Get behind me," read an awful lot like "get out of my way" or  even "get out of my sight." I could just see Jesus's face turn hard with disgust as he spoke. Then there was that cutting epithet of "Satan."

But this passage isn't what I thought at eight or even at eighteen.

Peter kneeling before Jesus

You see Peter had just announced his belief in Jesus as the Messiah. This side of the cross it's easy to think Peter is retracting here. As if at his first belief he understood all that was coming, but changes his mind when he actually hears it. The tradition of my youth even suggested that Peter was briefly possessed.

Peter is speaking out of concern or his beloved teacher. Yet this isn't concern like "have a snack, Jesus." No, Jesus has just announced the way of his work is through suffering death. Peter says, "Don't talk like that." Jesus says, "Get behind me, satan."

I don't know for certain what Jesus was getting at with the "satan" epithet, but I do know it wasn't the idea of Satan I grew up with.

How do I know?

Well, Jesus was a Jew. Obvious, I know but so easy to forget when we are trying to understand his words and parables. A Jew talking to Jews. They wouldn't have had a pointy-tailed being in mind.

The oldest reference to "satan" in the Hebrew scriptures is in the book of Job and is actually "the accuser."  The prosecutor. A title, not a name. A role in the court of the Almighty. Not a being vying for power with God. 

So Jesus isn't call Peter an evil being, but what about that "get behind me business"?

What has Peter said that's worthy of this response?

Mosaic of:  (L)  the divine visitors promising a child to Abraham & Sarah (R) Abraham & Issac

One of the great benefits of the lectionary is that passages like this aren't read alone. Gospel passages are interpreted alongside Jewish history. This passage is paired with Genesis 17 where Abraham is promised offspring from his wife Sarah. They laugh. They fall on their faces laughing at what God has said. Then they try to make God's promise true.

You see Abraham is nearly one hundred "as good as dead," and Sarah has been barren her whole life and is now post-menopause. They cannot imagine how the promised end (offspring like the stars) can come through the way described--through people like them. People lacking in everything they thought required.

So they try other means.

Of course we know what happens after they've tried other means. After they've forced Haggar, a slave woman, to have a child by Abraham. After she bears a son and relationships get really messy, then the unimaginable happens. Sarah has a son by Abraham.

That's what I think is going on with Peter here. He can't imagine the messiah coming to glory by way of suffering death. "Surely not," he says. This is unimaginable. We will find another way. This can't really mean your death, Jesus.

That's when Jesus says his famous line.

I'm told that "get behind me" here is the same Greek phrase used when Jesus first calls Peter. It makes sense -- to follow is to get behind. "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men" might read "get behind me and I will make you fishers of men."

This deeply changed my understanding of the passage.

Jesus is calling Peter to follow him again -- just as he did by the Sea of Galilee. Peter has been following Jesus physically. He's tried to follow Jesus mentally too. Peter even came to believe in Jesus as the messiah. But then he had his own understanding of what being messiah would mean.

He can't imagine how the promised end can come from death.

So Jesus calls him back. Calls him from the role of accuser or tempter back to the turning of his heart toward God. Calls him back to all he has learned about the ways God works.

Get behind me, satan.

Follow me, accuser.

Follow me and see what unimaginable will come to pass.