Buechner: Remembering Maundy Thursday

Buechner: Remembering Maundy Thursday

“‘WHAT YOU ARE GOING to do,’ Jesus says, ‘do quickly.’ …  Jesus tells them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death,’ and then asks the disciples to stay and watch for him while he goes off to pray. … His prayer is, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will but what thou wilt,’—this tormented muddle of a prayer which Luke says made [Jesus] sweat until it ‘became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.’

Adam Abram

He went back to find some solace in the company of his friends then, but he found them all asleep when he got there. ‘The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak,’ he said, and you feel that it was to himself that he was saying it as well as to them.”—Frederick Buechner, “Last Supper” in The Faces of Jesus: A Life Story (Paraclete Press, 1974).

We continually struggle with our own humanity. So many spiritual friends I meet, including myself, spend a lifetime seeking perfection. Holy Week is a time to remember Jesus’ struggle with his humanity, as best told in the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

On Maundy Thursday in these Gospels, Jesus reveals how complex the human condition is. As he asks for this cup to pass, he sweats “blood.” On Good Friday, we read from John as Jesus suffers more, cries out in anguish, thirsts, and even asks God, “Where are you?”

A massive painting of Jesus praying at Gethsemane hangs at the front of the sanctuary inside the Methodist Church where I grew up in Virginia. This image of Jesus praying in the Garden differs from other references to his prayer in the Gospels. A thorn bush is beside him, and the sleeping disciples in the distance are barely discernible.

Scripture connects us to Jesus's human side this time. This is an image to keep when we pray through challenging situations and feel alone.

We can talk to and identify with Jesus and others who have had similar experiences. I often see this in grief recovery groups, where people listen to each other because the other person has some idea of the pain they are going through. I see this in twelve-step groups, where alcoholics, addicts, and co-dependents listen to others who walk a similar path.

How amazing that our God loves us so deeply that God came to be among us and suffer. This week, we especially remember that God has experienced and understands what suffering and being human are like. There is no greater love.

I visualize each of us praying, sometimes in agony, beside Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Unlike the disciples, we have some idea of the harm before us. I imagine each of us beside Jesus praying in the garden that “this cup will pass.” He is beside us, knowing and experiencing exactly what we are going through. There is no greater love than His Presence.

message of gethsemane st. mary magdalene. gilbert az

Joanna  joannaseibert.com. https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Approaching Maundy Thursday

Let this Cup Pass. Approaching Maundy Thursday

“And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.’”—Matthew 26:39.

Jesus, Romero, MLK, Bonhoeffer

 Romero (March 24), MLK (April 4), Bonhoffer (April 9)

Interestingly, Oscar Romero, Martin Luther King, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, three of the best-known 20th-century Christian martyrs, die close to Easter. Archbishop Romero is shot on March 24 at age 62 at the altar in El Salvador while celebrating the Eucharist after he speaks out against the reigning government’s brutality. Martin Luther King is shot on April 4 at age 39 in Memphis, where he goes to support striking city sanitation workers. Bonhoeffer is hung on April 9, also at age 39, for participating in plans to assassinate Hitler. He is killed 23 days before the Nazi surrender.

Romero is shot while elevating the chalice at the end of the Eucharistic rite. When a death squad kills him, his blood spills over the altar and into the chalice’s contents.

All three men are icons for our Lenten and Holy Week journey, people speaking their truth that offends the ruling authority.

 Jesus also dies when his message offends the temple’s religious rulers, who then conspire with the Roman Empire’s authority to kill him. Jesus is not killed at age 33 by the Jews but by the elite ruling Jewish religious leaders. They convince the Roman command that Jesus’ presence is an impediment to keeping the peace in occupied Palestine.

 Romero, MLK, and Bonhoeffer don’t begin the Lenten journey of their lives as the spokespersons for the truth. They are all three quiet, unassuming men. The Vatican approved Romero as bishop with the El Salvadoran government’s blessing because he seemed “quiet and safe.” Black leaders select King to lead the bus boycott because of his youth and because he is the newest and youngest black pastor at age 25 in Montgomery. Bonhoeffer is simply a deep-thinking Lutheran theologian.

But, in their journey, the three see the wrongs imposed by those in authority on those without power. They die to an old life of quietness, living in the darkness of conformity, and are resurrected to a new life of speaking out Christ’s truth in love.

Eventually, like Jesus, all three realize they will be killed for trying to change the injustices and absence of love in the world around them. Their writings all suggest that they, like Jesus, ask that this cup pass from them, but it doesn’t. So, with a price on their heads, they walk head-on into the turbulent storm.

We remember them today, as we remember the night the one they followed is also about to die. We pray for just a little of their courage and strength to speak out against the injustices in our world supported by authorities where we live, work, play, and worship.

We pray we will be empowered to do “the next right thing,” as Jesus taught Oscar, Martin, and Dietrich.  

Joanna Seibert. joannaseibert.com. https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Taking Up Our Cross

Take up Your Cross

“There is great pain and suffering in the world. But the pain hardest to bear is your own. Once you have taken up that cross, you will be able to see clearly the crosses that others have to bear, and you will be able to reveal to them their own ways to joy peace, and freedom.”—Henri Nouwen in You Are the Beloved (Convergent Books 2017).

We often wonder what Jesus means when he asks us “to take up our cross.” Is our cross the difficult co-worker or family member who keeps us awake at night trying to discern how to love and live with them? Is it a painful physical ailment that has now become chronic? Has a job become our cross? Maybe it is an addiction. Is it the cross of food or financial instability?

Nouwen believes our cross is often the inner pain we bear. We push it into our unconscious, and it bubbles back up, sometimes like an ugly dragon. The pain is produced by parts of our personality we dislike, which we see and dislike in other people instead of owning them.

The deep inner suffering may also live within us because of some trauma or pain inflicted by others whom we cannot forgive. They are still hurting us. We may have forgotten who the person is, particularly if it is a family member, but we still live with the pain.

Nouwen tells us that this inner pain is often even more challenging than all the suffering in the world.

As we meditate on Christ’s wounds this Holy Week, we can believe that the Christ within us can lead us to our own wounds and suffering. Connecting with and feeling Christ’s wounds can bring us to awareness of the inner suffering that blocks our pathway to the God within us.

Nouwen believes that once we recognize and name our inner cross of pain, we will more clearly see the crosses others bear.

I see this in grief recovery groups. The participants realize the pain in others and begin to connect to them. Those who are suffering may know the depth of each other’s suffering best.

The miracle is that those who have experienced this inner pain are the ones who best heal each other.

 This is called resurrection. It happens in community.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com. https://www.joannaseibert.com/