First, let’s find our bearings this cold, wet, and dreary morning. Today is Christ the King Sunday and I wear white, representing holiness and celebration. Appropriate as we dedicate our pledge cards for the 2014 budget. Oh yes, 2014 is just around the corner. Thursday is Thanksgiving, of course, and then Black Friday. Advent begins next Sunday and we are four and one half weeks away from Christmas.
I know, I know. In finding these bearings there may be a touch of apprehension, a nudge of anxiety, a morsel leading to full on pre-holiday panic. So, we come to church for a moment’s peace, a bit of good news to stem the tide as our lists of things to do creeps, or leaps, to page two. As getting ready smothers us with more than we can possibly do.
Then the gospel is read and our shoulders droop, our countenance slumps, our peace becomes panic. Jesus is crucified. This isn’t passion week! Jesus is crucified and we are consumed with getting ready for the holidays. Our getting ready has now taken on a hopelessness we had not expected. Perhaps we should set the white stole aside.
Or, could it be that is exactly the point? Could it be there is something more important than the holidays, something more important that we need to get ready for? Should we set the list of today’s priorities aside, just set it aside for a bit, and listen again to Luke? Because this just may be the most important time of the year for us.
Might this time be the threshold to preparing ourselves for both the obvious and the not so obvious, where we might grow, strengthen and explore the boundaries of the soul.
For the obvious, it is too late if we are not in a “get ready” mode. Do you know someone who is a seasoned midnight madness shopper? Jumped through Advent to Christmas and the tree is up, perhaps more than one. The stores still have turkeys for Thursday you know. Macy’s in New York has dusted the floats for their parade, and, yes, Santa will be there. The movie, “Miracle on 34th Street” proves that!
The painfulness of the obvious is, it is too late to turn back now and hope we catch up later. The costs are adding up. Not just financially, in other ways as well.
We obviously have much to lose if, as Suzanne Guthrie has written, we skip over our “season of longing, deep chance, and dark anticipation. Without Advent, without the soul’s journey in tandem with Mary and Joseph, will we even notice the Divine interrupting our ordinary life? How will we discern that gentle star rising upon the horizon obscured by premature holiday glitter? If we do not enter deeply into Advent, how shallow will our transformation journey be toward Galilee, Jerusalem, the cross, the empty tomb, Emmaus and “the ends of the earth”?
We either prepare for God’s grace, or, like the unprepared bridesmaids, we will have lamps, lives, empty of the essential fuel needed for our eternal truth, Jesus Christ.
Could this be our calm before the storm to take that hard necessary look and do an about face, preparing ourselves for life with Jesus in ways not so obvious. Could it be something is hidden. Could it be that woven into the fabric of the costs this time of the year generates with our efforts, physical and emotional, to please the world, God has provided a balance we have missed?
We worry about getting together, but we feel God’s grace when we do. We worry about old wounds being reopened, then we find again the love that has been lost by our separation. We worry about the house being clean, the food coming out right with enough for everyone, then we find our bodies full and our souls enriched.
Then, perhaps more importantly, and this creeps in at a deeper level each year, there is the cost to our hearts. We miss more folks who are not going to be here with us. We will never be ready or prepared for that truth. How can we?
Jesus is as prepared as any human can be for this time in his life, for the place and the gathering of people where he was crucified. But he too struggled with the possibilities of separation from loved ones, even crying out that God might spare him from this time. Yet, Jesus is obedient. He is forever praising God and praying God’s will be done. Hidden there in the presences of the cross is his faithfulness balanced with love.
In our story, it was a crowd of people who crucified Jesus. His crucifixion was not the act of any one person. There were many that day. They cast lots to divide his clothing, they stood by watching, doing nothing to prevent his suffering. They scoffed at him and mocked him.
Though loved by many, Jesus was about to die. He was about to be taken forever from them. We are never ready for the raw pain of that truth. How could we ever be?
But Jesus knew the way. He knew the way to prepare for ultimate and utter despair. It is a way that may not be so obvious. By first being faithful, then living every day with love in our actions, not for ourselves, but for others, we ground ourselves in the only way possible. For Jesus is that way, that truth, that life.
But the hardness cannot be avoided. In his final human act, his death, Jesus paid a great cost. He lost everything. His life, his family, his friends, his life’s calling. Lost, gone forever. His lesson is our lesson. We will lose it all too. We will lose the “I” that is “me.” And we are weak and afraid.
“One of the criminals who hung there kept deriding Jesus and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we have indeed been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
The other prayed, “Jesus, remember me.”
Holidays are filled with memories. Good and bad, joyous and sad, we remember them all. This time of the year draws those memories back from their slumber to rekindle and re-flame and stir us again. Jesus remembers them too.
He remembers the group of people, the “they” who persecuted him. He remembers his family and friends who were there that day. He even remembers the two criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Jesus remembers them all.
He remembers them all and he died for them all. And he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do now know what they are doing.” And miracle of all miracles, they were all forgiven. Every one of them, forgiven. How do we get ready for these amazing truths? How do we get ready for “Advent’s call to simplicity, poverty of spirit, and conversion”? We get ready by doing the one thing that will always save us from ourselves and our anxiety.
In humility and with honesty, we ask Jesus to remember us. We fall on our knees, we bare our soul and we pray, “Jesus, remember me. Though I am not worthy, remember me, and help me. Help me pledge my life to you and help me prepare my soul for your coming again into my life.”
When we ask Jesus to remember us we are assured time and time again, Jesus does remember us. And even more amazing, time and time again, Jesus loves us to forgiveness, each and every one of us, even when we do not know what we have done.
Isn’t it the truth? We do not have a clue what we are doing trying to live a relatively decent life. Trying to live faithfully what we believe God would have us do. Truly we are like those others Jesus prayed for, we do not know what we have done.
Yet, Jesus knows us, and Jesus forgives us. Again. Because Jesus remembers us. He remembers us from our being prepared in our mother’s womb to our first day on earth and until this very moment. He remembers us and he loves us warts and all.
So we do the best we can. Life will not wait for us. So, we plan for the holidays and for life. We make ready for today and tomorrow and the days to come.
In our faithful desire we carve out a moment to glorify God with what we say and do. We strengthen our soul forgiving those needing forgiveness. We push the boundaries of our soul, and emotion, remembering those needing remembering. We fill our spiritual hunger by loving those needing love.
We do these things in the fog of our existence knowing we are seen and remembered and reside in the arms of the powerful truth of who Jesus Christ is; our God.
“Jesus has no greater friend that the most desperate person who asks to be remembered, to be given one more chance at grace, at forgiveness and salvation. Jesus came into the world to save such a person, a person just like you and me.”
Perhaps Julian of Norwich said it best, God “did not say: You will not be troubled, you will not be belabored, and you will not be disquieted: but (God did say), you will not be overcome. God wants us to pay attention to these words, and always to be strong in faithful trust, in well-being and in woe, for God loves and delights in us, and so God wishes us to love God and delight in God and trust greatly in God, and (then) all will be well.”
He is our Jesus, and all is well. He is the one who replies to our plea for remembrance, “Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
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