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.
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