What we have left

It’s Holy Week, and we have a compulsion to jump ahead to Easter, the resurrection, the happily ever after part of the story. But, that is not all of the story. This reflection on the aftermath of the death of Jesus is a version of the sermon last week. – Pastor Hugh

For the disciples, Friday was going to be a long night. The second long night in a row.

Thursday night, after Jesus and the disciples had celebrated together, the Romans came and arrested Jesus. Judas had turned him in, and some of the rest of them were convinced that they too were wanted men.

They had spent several years with Jesus. Some of them had abandoned careers; others had walked away from the family business. They risked ritual impurity, public censure, and ridicule as they followed this itinerant Rabbi who claimed to have knowledge of God, who claimed that God desired it be on earth as it was in heaven, who claimed that this God was made most visible in the bodies of the hungry, the poor, and the disposed.

They had seen amazing things.

Because of this Jesus, the blind could see, the lame could walk, the dead could rise again and those who were estranged could be reconciled. They had seen demons flee at the sound of Jesus’ voice, they had seen the religious leaders give Jesus grudging respect and earlier that week had followed the donkey into Jerusalem when Jesus mocked Rome and the crowd shouted “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”. Later that week, they had been part of the direct action in the temple, when Jesus was flipping tables and driving out those who would exploit people’s spirituality for money.

They had seen amazing things over the last few years.

They had to have known it was risky—they were constantly courting treason and Rome did not take such things lightly. Just ask the residents of Sepphoris, who some 30 years earlier had dared to rebel against Rome and, as a result, 30,000 people were killed or sold into slavery, and 2000 men were crucified in a single day. No, Rome did not play.

So the night before last night, the worst happened—Rome finally arrested Jesus. Judas had sold him out—Judas, one of their own. Judas, who had been sitting at the table last night. Judas, whom Jesus, with sadness in his eyes, had handed a piece of bread.

Later that night, in the garden, Jesus had called his closest friends in to him, and had asked them to wait while he prayed—but they couldn’t even stay awake while Jesus was filled with anguish. No, the last thing he asked them to do—to simply stay awake—was too much for them.

And then there was Peter. After the guards had taken Jesus, after he had been taken to the high priest, and after Jesus was charged with Blasphemy, Peter, when given the chance to stand up and declare his devotion to Jesus—after all that, Peter denied even having known him.

Not just once, but three times.

And then? Then they watched him die. They watched him, beaten and bloody, drag his cross up the road. They saw, from the safety of the crowd, the guards spit on him, they saw him fall three times under the weight, and then, to their everlasting shame, they saw a stranger help him—something none of them felt safe enough to do.

And then after the guards stuck him with a spear while he could barely breath, they watched him bleed out, nailed and lashed to that cross.

Jesus was dead. It was over. It turns out Rome won and love had lost. Power and Might had the final say, and for all his talk of loving one another and seeing God in each other, at the end of the day Jesus had just been another guy with lofty ideas that threatened the power structure, so the power structure fought back, and won. They always won.

Last night was so long. The disciples had to wonder, “Are we in danger? Are they coming after us, too? What should we do? How are we going to live?”

But perhaps worse than that was their own personal failures. They had let Jesus down. They had let each other down. They had let the vision Jesus had for a new world down.

It meant that all of their hopes for the new world that Jesus had spoken of—The Kingdom of God, he called it—were gone, too. Jesus had boldly confronted Rome, and here they were, cowed in their rooms, alone, scattered and afraid. Uncertain about the future. Scared for their safety and that of their families.

They had seen love confront power and seen power do its worst. They had seen Jesus refuse to bow to the oppressors, and watched the oppressors kill him for it. They had heard Jesus dream of a just world, watched him preach it and demonstrate it for years, and then watched all hope of it be placed in a borrowed tomb late on Friday.

And on that last day—on a day when they had every chance to show their love for Jesus, their devotion, their true feelings—on that day they had ignored him, had fought amongst themselves, could not stay awake to do what he asked, had abandoned him when it counted.

I can imagine that for years after the events of that day, they would have cause to look back on how they acted and be filled with regret.

Jesus is dead, y’all. The Jesus Movement is dead. All hope for it to be better is dead; all hope that love will win is dead. The future looks bleak.

On the Saturday after Jesus died, all they have is each other, the memories of what Jesus taught them, the knowledge of what they saw, and whatever hope they can muster as a result of those three things.

I grew up on the evangelical end of the Christian tradition. We talked a lot about how much better it is gonna be someday. We talked a lot about how God was in control, how we just needed to let go and let God. How we were not given a spirit of fear, and that if God would lead you to it, God would lead you through it.

I heard references to that footprint poem so many times that I thought it was the fifth gospel. And Tony Campolo would preach a Good Friday service about how it was Friday, but Sunday’s coming!

We loved the Bible, a well-timed cliché, and denial. Because sometimes, things don’t make sense. A lot of time, we feel the absence of God far more than the presence of God. In times like these, we feel alone and afraid and wonder where God is.

Like Jesus, we cry out to God, asking why we are alone. And like Jesus, we don’t get answers.

Because for the Disciples, it’s Friday—and that’s it. They don’t know what Sunday will bring. They don’t know that love will have the final say. They don’t know that two thousand years from now, we will gather and sing “Up From The Grave He Arose!” and shouted Hallelujah.

All they know is fear and desperation and hopelessness.

And that is why I love this story. Because it shows us that doubt, fear, paranoia, uncertainty, pain, disappointment, and hopelessness can also be part of the experience of Jesus people. That it isn’t always about celebrating resurrection, but sometimes about wondering if resurrection is even real. It’s a reminder that the Jesus story isn’t just a story about overcoming the Powers, but also a story about despair at the hands of the Powers and trying to figure out how to survive it.

And when that happens, what we have left to hold us through is just each other, what we have been taught, what we have seen, and whatever hope we can muster as a result.