The Redemption Project - Normality

The story goes that after everything—the years of travel, the final meal, the death, and the return—Peter is sitting by the water, trying to process all that has happened, overwhelmed by what it all meant. And, perhaps tired of trying to figure it all out, he then stands up and tells his friends that he's going fishing. He's going to go do something he understands.

The night's work is unsuccessful. They cast and drag, but catch nothing. Peter, as dawn begins to lighten the sky, is ready to give up, his attempt at normality left empty.

Like most of you, I have been overwhelmed by all that is happening. The number of cases of the Coronavirus, worldwide, is nearing two-million, and here in the U.S. over fifty-thousand people have died. There is talk of a second wave in the fall. Twenty-six million people have filed for unemployment. The economy is headed into almost certain recession. Add to this just trying to fathom the grief, the exhaustion, the fear across this land and the globe. It's too much to process.

It makes you want to go fishing.

Peter's trip out wasn't a day at the lake, of course. He was heading back to what he knew, his life before he'd dropped his nets and began to follow Jesus. He wanted to go back to normal. Perhaps, on some level, he wanted things to go back to the way they were, when things made sense.

His nets, however, end up empty. His attempt to catch, to capture some sense of how things were before the world went mad, comes up empty. No matter how many times, in the darkness, he casts out into the waters, there's nothing. Normal, it seems, is gone.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've read article after article about how our world has changed and will change in the coming months. And as long as I can think clinically, academically I'm fine. But when I sit here on a rainy April morning, the uncertainty of it all weighing on me, I, like Peter, want to hop into the boat and sail back to the way things were.

However, life and Scripture teach us that there is no return to normality. There is only the way ahead, which is scary and filled with uncertainty. What will we do? How will we live our lives? Will the fear ever subside?

Having returned to shore, Peter has breakfast with the Risen Jesus. Afterward, Jesus takes him aside. Perhaps, Peter thought, he will answer all these questions. Maybe he'll explain what's going to happen, make it all make sense.

Instead, Jesus being Jesus, he asks a question: Do you love me? No explanation of this new economy, how to shape the new normal, or what any of it means. Just a question, do you love me?

Yes, I say quietly. And I find no answers or revelations.

But I know what I'm supposed to do.

The Redemption Project - Blank Pages

Blank pages are frightening, particularly if you're trying to tell a story. They're full of too many possibilities—who are the characters, what is their role, how does the story end. Unlike a test or an essay for class, there's no question at the top to provide a guard rail to hold you between the lanes. It's just an empty road leading in so many directions that, with the wrong turn, you could find yourself lost, wondering where the story was meant to go.

Right now, that's the question. Where is this story going? The narrative of our lives and of our country seemed set. There would be plot twists, turns of phrase, surprises both joyful and tragic, but the words were there, the tale was just waiting to be read. And we knew we were in the story. We knew our place in the narrative.

But, now, we're all left wondering how we fit.

Under their self-imposed lockdown, the disciples of Jesus felt the same way. The story they thought they were living ended suddenly. They would not ride with the Messiah to victory. They wouldn't see the liberation of Jerusalem. They would not see God crush their enemies and set everything right. Instead, there was a real possibility their story might be ending.

Jesus, then, appears behind the locked doors where the disciples have hidden. "Peace," he says. Then he eats a little bread, a little fish. Perhaps, they might have thought, he'll tell us now how this story goes. Surely, he'll tell us the parts we'll play, what we're supposed to do, and how this ends.

He doesn't. He doesn't tell them anything. And when Peter asks if the old story is the one waiting to be written, Jesus tell them it's not for them to know what comes next. It's not for them to know the roles, the length, or the conclusion. He just tells them to go and write the story. No guardrails, no essay questions, go fill the blank pages.

This Easter season we, like the disciples have found ourselves faced with a stack of blank pages. The story which we were once a part of has ended, suddenly. A narrative that included the jobs that paid our bills and the savings against the storms have disappeared. The plans we'd made have been thrown into question. We've found ourselves behind our locked doors wondering where we fit, what place we have in this new story, what characters we will play, what we are to do.

We're not given answers to these questions. If Jesus knows, he's not telling. Maybe it's because, like he did with the disciples, he's leaving it up to us. It's ours to decide who becomes a part of the story, who is the hero and who is the servant. It's up to us to figure out how all of this ends and if love truly wins.

Go then, Jesus says, write the story, fill these blank pages.

The Redemption Project - Moving Stones

I wonder how far along the road to the tomb Mary and Mary Magdalene were before one of them thought about the stone that had been placed there. It was early, they probably both rose, still tired, from a restless night. They probably hadn't had coffee, figuring they'd tend to the body and then come back, sit and share a cup as the week began.

"Who'll roll away the stone," one asks the other. "Oh my gosh," the other Mary replies, "I hadn't even thought of that. Do you think we can?" "No," Mary M replies, "don't you remember. They had to dig a little trench so it would roll down."

They keep going, though. It's too early to go and wake anyone. Maybe there'll be a guard there who can move the stone. Not all the Roman soldiers are bad. Half of them are just boys, far away from home. If not, well, maybe someone will come along later in the morning to help.

In the low light of dawn, neither of them believes what they're seeing. It's still half-dark, and the tomb deep in the spring shadows. It can't be what it looks like, can it? Is it?

In every account except for Matthew's there's no explanation for how or who moved the stone from the tomb's entrance. Mark, Luke, and John tell us that, upon arrival, the stone had already been rolled away. There's no mention of earthquakes or angels or any sign of guards. The how is a mystery, something amazing that is a small wonder in the midst of the greater wonder of the Resurrection.

Maybe, newly risen, Jesus spoke into the darkness and the stone, hearing the voice that had created it, rolled back. Or, perhaps, the very rocks and stones, while humanity lie silent and hopeless, recognized what was happening, and this stone moved on its own. It could be that Matthew's right and an angel opened the tomb.

But one thing in clear, no human hand did it.

Good Friday is filled with humanity's actions: Jesus is seized, struck, and stripped by human hands. It's the same that fashion a thorny crown, place the cross on his back, hold and drive the nails. We hold all that power within our hands. We are able to bring death, even to God.

Resurrection, though, is beyond us. We can devise trenches and mechanisms to move the stone in place, but to move the stone and free those in darkness is beyond us. We are like the women on that morning asking, who will move this stone?

But something amazing happens afterward. In the chaos of the morning, the One, the only one who could move the stone appears to all of them. And he breathes on them. The same breath that filled the lungs of the first human is exhaled upon them.

And Jesus says with a wild glint in his eyes, come on, let's start moving stones.

The Redemption Project - Silence

And after a day of such tragedy and sadness, there is silence.

After the horror, the painful screams of Good Friday, Scripture falls silent; because, everyone has gone to their homes, taking their Sabbath rest and fearing what might come next.

Silence punctuates these days in which we find ourselves. The traffic on the highway and interstate, normally a low hum in the background is barely a whisper. After dark, there are few cars out driving. It is, almost, peaceful.

But it's an illusion. Not far away are hospitals that are anything but silent. The sound of labored breathing and coughing, the beep and hum of machines fills the rooms. Behind the locked doors of the grocery stores, pallets drop, boxes are opened, shelves are refilled as rags brush every surface in an attempt to scrub away this virus.

And behind the locked doors of every house we pass on our evening walks, there is noise. For some, it is the noise of movies or games that pass the hours before bedtime. But in many there is that internal noise, the noise of fear and anxiety, which is louder than a jet engine and cannot be turned down with a knob or a remote. What will happen now? What might happen to us?

Those are the disciples' questions this day. Scattered, separated from one another, they wait and wonder if the Romans would come for them next. Would that woman from the courtyard, Peter thinks, mention me to someone? If caught up in a harassing crowd of soldiers, will she offer me up as trade? I know where you can find one of that man's, that messiah's followers.

Any moment the door could open and the threat that had killed their friend would find its way into their homes.

Throughout the day, even Jesus is silent. He, too, is locked away. In darkness, alone, behind a great stone, Jesus says nothing. The reverberations of his cries yesterday have faded. His voice, God's voice has been muted. The same throat that could bring galaxies into being has been suffocated and stolen.

But that, too, is an illusion.

Christians are an Easter people. Our faith is grounded in the reality that love is more powerful than any force on earth, even death. We proclaim that all things are already being made new, and the dawn is coming. But, we live in Holy Saturday. We live in the silent, anxious moments where death appears to be so powerful, and we have no idea what might happen.

It can seem that God has fallen silent. It can seem that we are all alone, locked behind our doors hoping that this plague does not discover us, that we are not betrayed into its hands. It can feel that Christ is locked away as well, silenced behind stone.

But even in darkness, that voice, the Voice is not silent. And if we listen, into the apparent silence, we find love is there, speaking.

The Redemption Project - Powerless

And when everything has fallen apart, our powerlessness is all that remains.

Peter, a natural at taking charge and leading, tries to hold onto some kind of power. He pulls his sword, slashing into the shadows with a roar of anger, ready to take on the soldiers or even the whole army if necessary.

But all he manages to do is cut off one servant's ear. The soldiers don't even react. Peter's no more a threat or a hindrance to their plans than the breeze blowing through the cool morning air. Their inaction underscores his impotence. Jesus even walks over to heal the man he's harmed, undoing what he has done, as if it never happened.

And, so the story continues. There's a show trial. Jesus is convicted, and he is brought before Pilate, the governor of the region whose power is as much a lie as Peter's. Don't you know, he tells Jesus in the way of all impotent men, that I have your life in my hands? No, Jesus says, you don't. You don't have that kind of power. You have no power at all.

The crowd threatens to report Pilate to his boss. And, proving Jesus right, washes his hands of the whole thing. He couldn't stop this.

This leaves us with the most difficult image in Christianity. Jesus, the One who is God, stripped, beaten, tied and nailed to the wood of a cross, dying painfully, slowly. He is exposed and vulnerable. He is completely and totally at the mercy of the Roman soldiers who mock him, comfortable in the illusion of power they hold at that moment.

This is our God. And it is exactly the One I want and need.

That response surprises me. I have spent much of my walk with Jesus being angry at him for not being the God I want. He refuses to wield his tongue as a sword and set all to right. He refuses, as Lucy says to Aslan, to come roaring in and chase away all the bad things. I have yelled at him for this. I have been angry and hated him for it.

And now, in the midst of so much suffering, so much pain and death I find that this God, this dying and weak figure is exactly what my heart desires right now.

It is not that I do not want healing. My heart aches at the numbers I see each morning. I pray every day for those working hour upon hour to soothe the suffering, heal the sick, give peace to the dying. I long for a miracle to take this plague from us.

But that miracle doesn't take the form of a warrior on a white horse with a sword, ready to put all things forcibly under his rule. Because, I'm beginning to see that's not power. Not the power I need.

What I need looks like weakness; because, love is that strong.