now for the real thing

This Easter I’ve entered into the emotion of Jesus’ suffering and death in a way I’ve never done before, and I didn’t even really mean to.

I woke up on Wednesday morning after a very bad night’s sleep feeling somehow wrong. I did the usual dog walk and breakfast thing wondering if it was something to do with burning out recently …or maybe the onset of a terminal disease? Then I sat down to pray. I immediately felt tearful. I felt … what did I feel? It took me a moment to find the words for it, but then they became clear… hated, rejected, ignored.

I sometimes find when I pray that emotions surface which I’ve been unaware of, and they surface because God wants me to recognise them and help me to deal with them. So my first thought at suddenly feeling hated, rejected and ignored was that it was another healing inroad into my soul… but no matter how much I prodded around in my innermost self it just didn’t fit. Then it occurred to me that this is Holy Week, and maybe it’s not all about me…

Emotional torture

For the last three mornings since then, I’ve taken time to meditate on the events leading up to Jesus’ death in Mark’s gospel, and for the first time since I can remember, I have cried bucketloads over every passage. More than the physical torture described in those stories, it’s the emotional suffering that is especially real to me. I can’t stop thinking about his state of mind as he prayed alone in the garden or sat in a prison cell awaiting his sham trial, knowing exactly what would happen to him. Having devoted his life to teaching love and forgiveness and healing the sick, he is about to be publicly mocked, beaten and unjustly sentenced to death in the most cruel and humiliating way possible by the very people he came to heal, defenceless and in peace.

Reading the Bible with this level of emotion is not normal for me. But since waking up on Wednesday morning this sense of grief has pervaded my mood and as soon as I stop to read or think about the events of Easter, I’m a mess. For once, it’s not the Holy Spirit gently exposing my inner wounds, but his own.

What’s the point?

Of course – doh! I am not the first Christian to have this experience. I’m just discovering yet another treasure that has existed in the church for centuries, but got dropped by my own protestant evangelical tradition. While the church calendar has barely meant anything to me for most of my Christian life, for others Holy Week is hugely meaningful. There is a whole tradition of entering into Christ’s suffering at this time of year via fasting, prayer and imagination, like walking the stations of the cross, or meditating on Jesus’ wounds. I know very little about the Christian mystics, but I know that Julian of Norwich’s most profound revelations were about Jesus’ suffering. I’ve been vaguely aware of these practices but never gave them much thought or saw anything of value when I did. Why intentionally dwell on something sad and make yourself miserable? And anyway, isn’t Christ risen now, so we can simply live in his victory, hallelujah?

But my experience this Easter is making me see it very differently. This is something the Spirit is leading me into, not some emotion I’m whipping up for my own self-gratification. In my experience God’s Spirit is mourning, grieving and in pain, and to my surprise, inviting me to share in that grief with him. It’s as if, at this time of year, we are really meant to reenter the past, that these events are somehow still live, still happening in God’s eternal present, and through prayer we can still go there.

But why? And how?

Gethsemane

Meditating on the Garden of Gethsemene in Mark is helping me to answer those questions.

³² They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” ³³ He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. ³⁴ “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”

³⁵ Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. ³⁶ “Abba,^[f] Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

³⁷ Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? ³⁸ Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

³⁹ Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. ⁴⁰ When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.

⁴¹ Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. ⁴² Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

⁴³ Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders. […] ⁵⁰ Then everyone deserted him and fled.

How royally do the disciples stuff up in this passage? They can’t stay awake for even a single hour, at time in their master’s life when he needs them most. Having sworn undying loyalty only hours earlier, at the sight of armed soldiers and accompanying mob, they desert Jesus in a heartbeat. Not one of them stays around long enough to get arrested alongside him and stand with him through that evil night of trumped up charges and fake justice. They’ve all legged it and left him to face his captors alone.

Strange reversal of roles

What I found myself saying to God over and over again as I dwelt on this passage was, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I found myself wanting to comfort Jesus, to be there for him, as he has so often comforted and been there for me. It was a strange feeling of tables turned. Often I have imagined leaning my head on Jesus’ chest for my own comfort. Now I want to do that to comfort him, his suffering seems so present and so immediate as I pray.

It began to dawn on me that this, in some mysterious way, could be a real service we can do for the Son of God, here and now. I can do right now what he asked of his companions two thousand years ago:

“Sit here while I pray… Stay and keep watch…Could you not keep watch for one hour?… Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”

The disciples failed on every count, and I’m not judging them because I would have surely done the same. But now, with the benefit of hindsight, I can do as Jesus asks – in prayer. I can watch and pray. I can sit with him while he prays in agony of soul. I can cry with him. I can try my best to comfort him, in that strange reversal of roles. And I can at least give him one hour of my time to do that, every day of Holy Week. Then, I hope, I will not fall into temptation to desert him when the going gets tough, at some unpredictable moment in the future.

I’ve never thought of my relationship with God in this way before – that I can be of service to him, that I can bring some kind of comfort, that this is a relationship that works two ways. But if that wasn’t the case, why would I be led to pray in this way? I’m reminded of the scene in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when Aslan, knowing he is about to be murdered, asks Susan and Lucy to keep him company for a while. He makes himself vulnerable. They see his distress, and they have the privilege of being alongside him in it, walking on either side of him with their hands buried in his mane. Being called to pray and mourn during Holy Week is like that – the son of God, in his vulnerability, humanity and grief, calls us to reach back through time and keep him company for a while.

A way to pray in Holy Week

I have so much to learn about this (and everything else…). But here’s what I’m doing this Easter, in case it’s useful to anyone else next year.

• From Wednesday to Saturday I’ve fasted by either skipping lunch or breakfast and lunch.
• I’ve started each day with a reading from Mark’s gospel, dividing it up so that by Saturday I’ve read from the garden of Gethsemene to the burial in the tomb.
• I’ve read each passage two or three times, then taken time to think and pray through what I’ve read. If that leads to other passages in the Bible, I follow them up. So Jesus’ devastating words on the cross in Mark 15, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ led me to Psalm 22, which is ideal to read alongside (and quite startling in places – have a look and you’ll see what I mean).
• I’ve also set aside one hour each day to ‘watch and pray’. I have simply sat, as Jesus asked the disciples to do in Gethsemene, in the awareness of his grief. If my mind wanders I bring it back. I might read something from the Bible or play a worship song (yesterday it was Graham Kendrick’s Servant King). But if feels like the point is to sit, to keep company, to be present and not rush away.

Wherever you are and whoever you are, may this Easter be real to you in God’s eternal present. Whether you are suffering in your own life, or identifying with his suffering, may you know the fellowship and comfort of being with him now.