Tennebrae: Darkness and the Universality of Paradox
I was asked to deliver a devotional to the cast of about 15 people before the service “The Reign of Darkness” which tells the story of the passion of Christ. My Dad composed it by choosing the scriptures and songs to be recited or sung in a dark sanctuary. Last night both Molly (14) and Anna Cate (18) had parts and were in the room as I shared a message about my personal history with a Tenebrae service and my faith.
Marcus J. Borg, a New Testament Christian theologian said “Myth is stories about the way things never were, but always are.”
Once I shared that struggle with my Baptist minister in Virginia and I love his interpretation. Larry said to think of it like Jesus saying “I have the way to the Father --- follow me.” So I’ve embraced that Jesus is my way as I learn from His experiencing the human condition and showing me the way to the Father.
I remember the first one I ever attended -- I was probably around 14….we went to Nashville to the Scottish Rites lodge and I remember Daddy explaining that both Jews and Christians find this service meaningful. That resonated with me as one’s religion or path to God shouldn’t really matter in our ability to appreciate the story of Jesus’ human suffering.
Then as for this service…I was in the original cast, I had the part of the trial. I remember my brother Douglas a middle schooler who crawled on the floor to light up the cross with Miss Janie in the choir loft. Then when I went to college… I lost my part:)
In college, I was active with the Presbyterian church there in Mount Vernon, Iowa, and became dear friends with the minister, Emory. And, my Senior year, I worked with her and a religion professor at Cornell College, who also attended church there, to put on this service. I just wanted to share it -- and to be honest, experience it. As you all know, the reason this is so useful is because it makes Sunday more joyous.
To be honest, I have always struggled with the exclusivity of Christianity. I know this might be hard for some of you but I just can’t get behind Jesus’s words: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
My faith and understanding of the Divine is larger and more encompassing. …. A lot like this story.
…
I think of how sacred last meals are with friends. Sometimes we don’t know when it is a last meal, so the remembrance of the time together is what matters.
I think of times when I’ve needed friends to stay awake….. how there have been times when I’ve been the friend who couldn’t show up awake to the needs of others.
I know how it feels to be alone, to feel betrayed.
Unfortunately, I also know how it feels to betray someone, how it feels to think that my way to the kingdom building should replace what is actually happening.
AND…. at 35 my husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. We are in our 10th year of dealing with this blow.
I look around and think “Do you remember what our life used to be?” We went back to Virginia in December and I shared with my friend Laurie how for some reason it feels like our church family there knows our struggles more and she said “It is because we knew BJ before he was diagnosed.” They were there.
And then I think about the struggles and pain we have faced, and I can not say I would change things. Are there disappointments? Absolutely -- but like the song “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”? Who am I to say what is gain and what is loss?
Also, I think about the strength of my daughters -- Anna Cate and Molly who seem to show up for me to be beacons of what the faith of a child or of a woman should be. It is the women … at Jesus’s feet or at the foot of the cross who show us so clearly the meaning of life. It is the women who show up and stand witness to whatever life deals them.
Carl Jung said, 'Only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life.
Yesterday driving to school the sun was so bright I couldn’t see before I put my vizier down. Get it…. We need light to see but that light is blinding.
Sort of like how we want to escape the trials of being human and of being hurt by others….. but it is precisely because of our human frailty that we know the need for God. Our human experience is like the vizier that allows us to see the divine.
Jesus shows us how to be human as the way to the Father. I think about his life and how his experiences are the opposite of exclusivity. In the days of Holy Week, I find everything and anything possible in the essence of what it means to be human: living and searching for the presence of God. There is excitement on Palm Sunday and there is paralyzing grief in the way things are turning out.
Yet I think about this: is there anything more universally human than darkness? Is there any place where it is more common to feel the palpable need for God than when we feel alone or betrayed or in physical pain as we face mortality or watch people we love face such? And ultimately is there anything we all want more than Sunday morning? Darkness is universal but SO IS JOY!
Sunday morning is only joyous because we dare to face the darkness tonight. The story of the passion of Christ is the ultimate story of Christianity. Not because of what we get out of it…. But because it shows us the way. The way to God.
For me, Christianity isn’t about salvation or getting into heaven…. But a practice and a story teaching me that my only goal is to seek God. As Marcus Borg says “So, is there an afterlife, and if so, what will it be like? I don’t have a clue. But I am confident that the one who has buoyed us up in life will also buoy us up through death. We die into God. What more that means, I do not know. But that is all I need to know.”
The story we are about to go tell of Jesus is about the human condition wherein Jesus shows us the way to God…. to pick up the cross, to have compassion for our fellow suffers, to forgive our friends, and to find meaning greater than this human body.
Jesus saves us from a life without meaning by his example of how to live and how to die in a relationship with God. It is because of our humanness that our need for the spiritual divinity is so profound. To skim over the human experience would have us miss the greatness of God. To skim over the darkness of the story would dim the joy we will feel on Sunday at an empty tomb. In the painful parts, Jesus shows us the way to forgive, or to ask for it, to muster courage, to find acceptance and ultimately . . . to be in relationship with others and with God. And I think that makes this story and our God the opposite of exclusive.
God open our hearts to both the experience of being human and our need for you, to find you in all of our humanity, in our shortcomings and hard times, and in our collective joy with the discipline to be present in the darkness and to have faith in you as we experience both the defeats and the joys…. May we be brave enough to show up in our lives and in our stories the way Jesus did in his, and in ours, and in Yours. Thank you for sending us your Son…let us remember how he lived and how he died.
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