We are about midway through lent. Before
the month is over this March of 2016, we will celebrate the Resurrection. We will breathe a sigh
of relief, and think, “Thank goodness that is over now for another year!” But
don’t be so sure.
The Passion begins with the Infant Christ. The first step
down is the Word confining itself to the virgin’s womb…the size of a man’s
fist. The Word incarnate thinks it’s just fine to slowly be clothed in
humanness for the usual nine months. Infinity confined to a small space. We
celebrate this wonder in the Advent and Christmas season.
But there is another step down. There is the day-to-day
frustration with companions who just don’t get it. They need to be shown that
leadership means washing feet, that we all are called to become a new kind of
family where no one is excluded, and that the poor are the primary members of
this new “kin-dom.”
Then another step down into the chaos of agony, sin, and
death. Doesn’t this Holy One realize he doesn’t belong here? After all, he has
engineered the cosmos. Could it be that he goes there because he knows that’s
where he will find us, and he just has to be where we are? Crazy. And then grasping
us safe, he springs up from the depths of death like some Olympic athlete,
shining with the glory-sweat of victory. But he still does not know when to
quit.
Another step down. Bread. Kept in a box, waiting to be
eaten. Taking on the appearance of a “thing.” Does this self-emptying never
stop? Is this what he is “passionate” about? Be careful. To eat him is to become him. Surely you don’t want to go
up in flames loving like this…or do you? Eucharist is inch-by-inch being
transformed into your own resurrection down the road a bit…like the butterfly.
In the meantime you might find yourself baked, cut, chewed up…because that is
what you are resurrected from. That
is what resurrection is all about.
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Loving Lord, your earthly passion began when you entered our
time and space world. This is the “baptism” with which you longed to be
baptized. What kind of love is this, that you will bond yourself with each of
us, holding us tight as we ride the wild ride of what life dishes out to us?
What kind of love makes you so “passionate?” No “atonement” here…no “pound of
flesh.” Pure revelation of a God who will go to the depths of death to wisk us
from the jaws of hell. Suspended between heaven and earth like some majestic
lightning rod, you draw the very lightning flash of justice to yourself. You
absorb your justice, making it one with your mercy. Keep holding me
tight…during the rollercoaster of today.
