A reflection for Lent 2
I’ll call him Jimmy. Jimmy wasn’t exactly a Sunday by Sunday Anglican. Sometimes you’d look up and he’d be there at the back of the Church, but he would always be gone again by the end of the last hymn. He would phone or drop round just to say ‘Hello’. He flitted elusively but consistently around the edges of parish life. He was always present if there was food at a parish function. One day he popped around for a glass of red cordial and he wasn’t quite his usual self. I just got the sense that something was up. It transpired that after the 2nd glass of red cordial, 2 Tim tams and a home made scone with jam and cream, that he was waiting on some test results. Jimmy astutely described the sense of hiatus whilst waiting. He could not move on with his life in one direction or the other. He said “I don’t mind if the results are nasty and disappointing. I’ve had 9 and 70 years of good life. I’ve raised 2 splendid children and had the privilege of watching them grow to adulthood. I’ve had a wife who has been far too patient with me and I have always had a roof over my head and food on the table. I’ve got a will with the solicitor that I am very happy with and Beryl knows what hymns I want for my funeral. But I simply don’t know what the results are and this sense of being frozen in my tracks (and that is how he described it) a frozen no man's land is just awful.” The waiting was debilitating for him. I offered to go with him when the news was delivered. He accepted the offer and it was a rare and undeserved privilege. I’ll never forget it.
The doctor welcomed Jimmy in. Calmly, with great compassion and with easy to understand words, the doctor told Jimmy that the news was not good. Jimmys response was one of huge relief and he remarked in rather colourful words that must not be repeated here, that at least now he had a path to follow and there was still much to do. He could now get on with things. The truth set Jimmy free and the truth made love possible. I tell you that story because it resonates so very clearly with Jesus' prediction of his own death. The news Jesus delivers to his disciples is not pretty, it is not pleasant, it is not glamorous and sexy.
“Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed”. But it is the truth and the truth makes love possible. Further Jesus said all this quite openly. He doesn’t try to cover this prickly truth with chocolate. I imagine him saying these hard things not in anger, but with compassion, in a gentle way, looking his disciples in the eye. The truth was spoken in that same non-assuming tone that the doctor used when he told Jimmy his news. When Peter hears the truth he understandably throws a tanty. So unwittingly Peter becomes a hindrance to the truth and a barrier to love. And that’s why Jesus' words while seemingly harsh, are well spoken and right. ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’ Truth makes love possible
Jesus then calls the crowds to himself and there is more truth telling that will make love possible.
“If any want to become my followers, there is a three point plan.
- They must deny themselves
- take up their cross
- follow me.
This friends is the cost of discipleship. It is high, but the truth makes sacrifice possible and just as surely as hurt always flows out of lies and hiddenness, so too love always flows out of truth, even when and sometimes especially when, the truth is painful to our ears and our hearts. This is what the love of God is like: it is free and therefore it is both all-powerful and completely vulnerable. All-powerful because it is always free to overcome, but vulnerable because it has no way of guaranteeing worldly success. So what Jesus says to Peter about his mind not on divine things but on human things is that the love of God belongs to a different order. It is not the order of power, manipulation and getting on top, which is the kind of power that can so easily pre-occupy us. But God's way is the way of truth which sets everyone free and floods the world with heavenly love.
For your prayers please remember those doctors who this week must speak the confronting truth which makes love possible and commend them to the Master physician Himself.