http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfZcgRFLQtY
(click link above to watch a congregation in Edinburgh singing together)
I have been singing the song "We Walk His Way" during this season of Lent, and especially this Holy Week. It is a song from South Africa sung in four parts to a lively beat. The refrain repeats, "We walk His way, we walk His way, we walk His way, we walk His way." On Palm/Passion Sunday morning the congregation at Greenland Hills UMC walked out of the Sanctuary doors singing this refrain, led by joyful drumming, to begin our walk towards Easter morning. More than any other year, I feel like I'm understanding the paradox of Holy Week. I'm walking through the sadness and suffering, all the while knowing that joyful Easter morning is coming. I've been able to embody the story and the paradox of Holy Week in this one simple, yet profound song.
After last night's Good Friday service, one reading has remained with me:
Immediately the soldiers laid hands on Jesus and held him fast. Then one of the disciples with Jesus drew his sword and cut off an ear from the slave of the high priest; but Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. All who take up the sword will perish by the sword." - Matthew 26:50-52
Every day I read news articles on my CNN iPhone app. Almost every day for months there is an update about how many people have been killed in Syria that day. Over 50 people were killed just yesterday - Good Friday. I felt physically sick when I heard about the US soldiers in Afghanistan urinating on dead bodies and absolutely shocked and dismayed by the tragedy of the killings of children and families by a US soldier in Afghanistan - 11 people in one family alone.
In the moment of terror, the moment of arrest, the moment when Jesus knew it was all happening, he fiercely condemned violence and retaliation. He demanded the sword to be sheathed. This is the Jesus the world needs to know about. This is the Jesus I know - the Jesus of peace. This is the way of Jesus that we should walk. I realize things are always complicated and there is hardly ever an easy solution - and I'm not an out-of-touch, naive dreamer. But, the Jesus I hear people talk about on the news (preachers, politicians, people of other faiths who have been victimized in the name of this "Jesus"), is not the Jesus I know.
On this Holy Saturday - my prayer is that we will put down our sword and repent of our violence and failings to walk the way of peace with Jesus.
 |
| The tree of freedom blooms by his empty grave. We walk His way. photo by Andie Hamilton, member of GHUMC, Dallas. |
Thanks for this Chelsea. In my experience, the focus of Good Friday has been much more on Christ's suffering for our individual sins (substitutionary atonement) rather than his identification with the suffering of the world. In a day where it is "all about me", this is more comforting than acknowledging our complicity in perpetuating the violence even if by our in-attention. Can we really experience Easter until we confront human suffering and injustice represented in Christ's agony? Regretfully, I hear the story recounted as a historical event in the larger narrative, but rarely with your hermeneutic. Thanks.
ReplyDelete