After my recent post regarding my disappointment and disillusionment about Poland, I have received so much encouragement and love from you all. From texts, to emails, to comments on the blog or facebook, many of you have shared your deep, dark disappointments with me, leading me to realize that we all struggle with shattered dreams, the resultant anxiety, and finally the sense of despair and fear over an unclear future. That's why I've decided that our 20's are terrifyingly liberating: we are free to follow a host of directions in our lives, but too much freedom brings terror.
So, back to the antidote. In our trials that take us from total freak-outs to hysterical pity-parties, we find ourselves "stuck in saturday." A friend of mine showed me a poignant and quite applicable blog posting with this title, which you can read here. Basically, when reflecting on Easter, we often remember the sorrow of Good Friday when Jesus died and then skip straight to the joy of Sunday and the resurrection. We forget that all of Jesus' disciples and followers were "stuck in Saturday." Their hopes for salvation, for eternity, for the fulfillment of ancient prophecies, had just been crucified horribly on a cross. They were witnessing dreams shattered and a trial of faith wherein they knew God's promises to raise his son on the third day, but they hadn't witnessed it yet and were instead terrified for their earthly and heavenly futures. Then, Sunday dawned. The worst day of their life was shortly proceeded by the most amazing.
Finally, I read a beautiful posting on C.S. Lewis' writings about Jesus in Gethsemane that you can read here. In his last book Letters to Malcolm, Lewis discussed sympathy in light of an intense trial. Lewis himself had lost his wife, Joy, just a few years earlier. Here's the gem of the piece (oh, to write like this man!). Lewis reminded Malcolm that anxieties are not necessarily a reflection of little faith but are rather afflictions: "Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of the Christ. For the beginning of the Passion - the first move so to speak - is in Gethsemane." Christ, knowing the task before him, suffered heavily under the weight of his burdensome future. In Christ's anxiety in the garden, we see his humanity. As Lewis explained, "To live in a fully predictable world is not to be a man." Jesus had seen men crucified, but I'm sure the brutality of the experience was anything but predictable. Jesus' request that the Lord take the cup from him shows that his anxiety was "equally God's will and equally part of our human destiny." If the perfect man endured it, we can expect deep anguish as well. And, according to Lewis, the Passion's successive movements offer elements of suffering common to many of us:
"First, the prayer of anguish; not granted. Then He turns to His friends. They are asleep—as ours, or we, are so often, or busy, or away, or preoccupied. Then He faces the Church; the very Church that He brought into existence. It condemns Him. This also is characteristic. In every Church, in every, institution, there is something which sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence. But there seems to be another chance. There is the State; in this case, the Roman state. Its pretentions are far lower than those of the Jewish church, but for that very reason it may be free from local fanaticisms. It claims to be just on a rough, worldly level. Yes, but only so far as is consistent with political expediency…. But even now all is not lost. There is still an appeal to the People—the poor and simple whom He had blessed, whom He had healed and fed and taught, to whom He Himself belongs. But they have become over-night (it is nothing unusual) a murderous rabble shouting for His blood." (Lewis)
So, my chagrin, while painful, pales in comparison to Christ's agony. When we don't feel brave, when we hide in fear, when we face tearful impasses, we can find comfort that our Lord felt all these emotions, and probably on a level deeper than we can comprehend. Lewis encouraged, "We are not on an untrodden path. Rather, on the main-road." This Easter, I have been so galvanized through Christ's strength in the garden, on the cross, and in the tomb. While I remembered Christ's promises in my head last week, I feel like my heart again internalized them this weekend. I've never meditated on Christ in Gethsemane, in his grief and sorrow, apprehensively facing the sins of humanity and ultimately finding renewed strength in his Father. I guess you all can tell it was a great Easter weekend for me. Hope yours was great too.
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