Beyond the Patio

Life at it is
The Passion of Christ
Luke 23:1-56

When you come Up against life as it is for the first time, it often comes as enemy.

We are sheltered sometimes from life as it is in our childhood – harsh things are covered up by overprotective parents. Then sooner or later events break through the protective covering, and we learn of sickness, or death, or violence, of grief, of suffering and of hate, and it can come to us as enemy. One of our friends die in an accident. The grandfather or grandmother we loved dies of cancer or it might even be a parent that dies. Disaster strikes: fire, flood, gunfire

We see grownups more disturbed than we have seen them before – they are more frightened, more fearful, more disillusioned, more disheartened, more depressed.

Our little world crumbles under the strain.

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We first react against “life as it is” by building fortress around us against the dirty old world, against the enemy. And sometimes we keep doing that long into adulthood. We say of these fortresses – this is the foundation. This is the real thing.It doesn’t matter what happens we have this. Perhaps it is the family – as long as we have the family everything will work out. It could be a parent or some other person – as long as this person is in my life, I have nothing to fear. I cannot be hurt by the enemy. We do it with Education. Get an education. As long as you have an education, this knowledge, or that knowledge we will be alright. We do it with sex.  When things are falling around us sex is what comforts us.  It is what is real. We do it with possessions – this is security. We do it with our nation — we say that we live in the greatest nation in the world. As long as we have this nation all is secure. We do it with our church, our religion and with the Bible – as long as I have this unchanging reality it doesn’t matter how rotten the world is around us, I don’t have to face it. These are the illusionary fortresses and we keep on building them so we never have to face life as it really is.

But these things begin to fall away before our very eyes. When they do it is rather a traumatic experience. We find that the family isn’t all that secure. Our parents have clay feet. Education fails us. Sex isn’t that real all the time. The nation leaves much to be desired. There isn’t justice. There are riots, demonstrations, assassinations, violence in our streets. The church isn’t unchangeable. Beliefs change. The Bible is not filled with black and white truths and does not have the answer to every conceivable situation. There are always things coming and shattering our illusions. We thought we had this and it is taken away. We keep building more illusions and then we run out of them after awhile.

We either keep on trying to find and hold unto indisputable reality, or we stand before the ACTUAL – the totality of life as it is – with no bottom, no security, no right to survive built into it, with no sure knowledge of what is right and wrong, with no foundation – just life as it is – living before the totality of what is going on. Even the question “WHY IS IT LIKE THIS?” is sometimes an escape from facing life as it is. We can search for WHY all of our lives saying that when I have found why life is like it is all thing will make sense.  However, even if we did know why life is like it is, we would still have to face it.

We have sooner or later to say YES to life. Yes to the total ‘give-ness’ of life. Yes to the ‘nos’ and well as the ‘yeses’. Then, life is not seen as the enemy. All that is past, all that is presently before us has been given and is accepted and the future is open. That is faith to me. Not having all the answers but being able to live with unanswered questions, before the mystery of life.

That may be terrifying at times.

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It was in this spirit that I believe that Jesus was able to accept all that was happening to him including the suffering and horrible death on the cross and still say, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”  God does not save us from life as it is.  God does not save us from suffering and death but somehow God in the midst os if this life and we can still experience God in the muck and marvel of it all. Life in all its tragedy, heartbreak and disappointments is also a series of new beginnings. Sometimes we discover a new beginning even when things are at their worse

I believe that that was part of the resurrection experience for the followers of Jesus. I have sometimes thought of the resurrection of Jesus as a happy ending to a bad scene, sort of like a Hollywood movie where they all walk off into the sunset and live happily ever after. Of course that is not what happened. The resurrection in the accounts that we have in scripture was not just one flashing event. But it was like the dawn of a fresh spring morning – a reality that slowly came upon them. It is interesting to me to realize in reading the accounts again that JOY was not the first reaction of the disciples. They were fearful. They were embarrassed. They were bewildered. In fact they were terrified. Probably for good reason:

Even in death you cannot escape God and the astonishing ways that God acts in the midst of the totality of life.  The very thing that we try to avoid, the very thing that we can call our enemy, is where God is. It was dawning upon the disciples that God does not save us from suffering and death but God saves us and brings us to wholeness through it.  It is in living life in it’s totality with all its disillusionment, suffering, grief, and death that we find God at the depths of our being, bringing us to the wholeness we were created for. This is not the same as going off into the sunset with choirs singing “0 Happy Day”. It is letting God work through us in the totality of life as it is, bringing us to the realization that God’s great love triumphs in all conditions even death. It is said that death triumphs over everything finite but death does not have power over Love. Paul Tillich in a sermon “Love is Stronger than death” says:

Love is stronger.  It creates something out of the destruction caused by death.  It bears everything and overcomes everything.  It is at work where the power of death is strongest, in war and persecution and homelessness and hunger and physical death itself. It is omnipresent and here and there, in the smallest and most hidden ways as in the greatest and most visible ones.  It rescues life from death.  It rescues each of us, for love is stronger than death. (Paul Tillich, The New Being Scribner, 1955, p.174)

That is why Jesus could say at the hour of his death “Into your hands. O Lord, I commend my spirit.”

Can we pray with Jesus in all the circumstances of our lives: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

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