He
came at night. Judas came at night, with
lamps and torches. He had walked out on
the Light of the World incarnate, to live in darkness. He’d exchanged the Light of Salvation for lamps
and torches, meager hope to illumine a cold, dark world. Jesus had longed and had acted to set his
heart aflame with burning zeal and fiery love, and he couldn’t take it. It was too much, too daring: to entrust one’s
heart to a man walking to his death, to one who calls us to a love as brilliant
as his, a love that would love unto death, a love the darkness could not
overcome, but could not comprehend either.
So he trades it in, for lamps and torches, barely enough to put the
darkness at bay long enough to stumble to the garden of betrayal.
Peter,
at least Peter would be loyal! But he
seeks to make an exchange too, a subtler one, and maybe even more dangerous
because of that. He would have his Lord
shirk the cup the Father has poured him, refuse obedience to being His loving
Son, turn away from Love, resorting to violence in place of loving self-gift,
refuse to be the Lamb to be slain for us.
And his choices make choices, as so often choices do. He finds himself confronted in the courtyard
by a relative of his victim. Jesus can’t
be justly convicted of anything, but Peter can.
So, he evades. He lies. He exchanges the truth for a lie. He exchanges a relationship of Love with
Truth incarnate for violence, cowardice, temporary safety and a lie.
The
crowd make their exchange too, making their request for Barabbas in place of
Christ: an insurgent in place of the font of true liberation. Pilate cares more about being a Friend of
Caesar, a political honor he’d connived his way to, than the one who “calls us
friends.” Does he have something of an
inkling, when he insists that Jesus’ titulus be inscribed “King of the
Jews” – multilingual for the King of the Universe? If so, he, and the crowd he lets himself be
beholden to, replace the king who could save them with Tiberias Caesar. A despot.
A despot that might have them killed if they displease him, but the
chance for medium term safety doesn’t look much better by aligning with this
Jesus. They trade short-term safety for
Eternal Life as beloved friends of the King of Kings.
And
how about us? What exchanges do we
make? And how do we let Jesus bring us
back from them? We’re here, because we
don’t want to make exchanges. We want
our world illumined by Christ, not replacement torches and lamps. We want to embrace the Father’s Love and Truth
that Christ is, but we do what we don’t want to do, and find lies tempting our
lips. We want to pray “Thy Kingdom
Come!” and mean it with all our hearts, but we still find it within ourselves
to hold back, to not want Jesus to reign in our hearts, to rule us. There are so many other drumbeats that bid
our feet march in step with their tone, that promise temporary relief, easy
love, that shirk the cup, and fall short… don’t lead to resurrection glory.
We
want to cling to Christ, but where is He?
We know, he’s in heaven and he’s gone to prepare a place for us, and we
know the Way: that He is the Way! But
that can seem so distant. So, on the
cross, he gave us what need. He restores
us to life, in his very death.
Mary
and the Beloved Disciple must have felt so alone at the foot of that cross,
however physically close they were to each other, or to Christ. So, from the cross, he forges communion. He bids them behold each other, and behold
each other as kin. And they receive one
another. The Word of God came into the
world, but his own did not receive Him.
Now, the world has changed. Now,
these two receive each other. And we’re
called to too. We’re called to behold
each other, behold each other as kin.
Because that’s what Church is. We
don’t live it fully, even as Jesus prays continually that we might, but we are
given to each other to show the world what love means, as Christ has shown
us. We’re given to each other to be the
sacrament of Christ’s presence in the world, to be restored to life.
And
that’s hard, because we still have it within ourselves to hold back. We don’t have Christ’s eyes of
compassion. We are still plagued by
fear, isolation, enmity, sin. So, Christ
keeps acting to draw us out of that and into communion, and in his very death
he hands over the Spirit. It is
completed. We are filled with Christ’s
own Spirit, his breath, that he gave up that we might learn to breathe anew. And from his side flows water to cleanse us,
water poured out in baptism, water that gives us life. Just as Eve received her life from Adam’s
side, we receive our new life from Christ’s.
Not taken in his sleep, but lovingly given: breath, side… given in love
for us, to show us what love means and saturate us with fuel for that fire.
Breath,
spirit, side, water… and blood. Blood
poured out for us. Blood present to us
every time the sacrifice on Golgotha is re-presented to us in the sacrifice of
the Mass. He is not distant from
us! This act of love becomes a banquet
to which we are invited every day of the year; every day but this day. This day, when our Lord offers himself, body,
blood, soul and divinity, in the reserved sacrament, the fruits of yesterday’s
Mass, the Mass of his Last Supper, when he got down on his knees, raised us up,
and washed our feet.
And it
works. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus
come out of the darkness of secret discipleship and act courageously for
Christ. It works! What is Christ working in us? The good news needn’t wait till
tomorrow. The good news is what wonders
he’s wrought from the cross; how, in his death, he restores us to life. Crux ave, spes unica! Hail the Cross, our only hope.
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