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| Georges Rouault (1871-1958) |
Maundy Thursday,
2nd April 2015
Isaiah 53. “By his stripes we are healed.” We hear this
verse a lot this time of year. Isaiah
spoke of a God's suffering servant who would come and save. Centuries later,
the first Christians saw in Jesus a fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision in Jesus of
Nazareth. The words of Isaiah 53 have
been used to describe what occurred on the cross. Centuries after Christ, some Christians
developed a theology of the cross that insisted that in order for God to love
and forgive us, someone had to pay the price for sin, someone had to be
punished for our sins. Isaiah, himself, says, that he “was crushed for our
iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole…” (Is. 53:5). And so this text has been used to describe
what happened on the cross. It’s probably the prevailing view of the cross in the Church today. It goes something like this: someone had to pay the price for the wrong done in the Garden, that
person was Jesus, and the resurrection becomes a receipt that all debts have
been paid, all wrongs between God and humanity absolved, all sins
forgiven.
This is certainly one faithful way to view the cross and resurrection—perhaps it’s yours. But it’s not the only way to view it.
This is certainly one faithful way to view the cross and resurrection—perhaps it’s yours. But it’s not the only way to view it.
Several weeks ago I came across
these words of the poet Walt Whitman (1818-1892). He said, “I do not ask the
wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.” I found myself really moved by these
words, from his poem Song of Myself (1892). They have strong connections with what
we talked about in adult ed early in Lent. We were discussing the first chapter
of Rowan Williams’ marvelous book Being
Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer (Eerdmans, 2013), which
focuses on the meaning of baptism.
Williams writes that baptism means being with Jesus, which means, he says, being “in the depths,…the depths of human need, including the depths of our own selves in their need—but also the depths of God’s love….[To] be with Jesus is to be where human suffering and pain are found, and it is also to be with other human beings who are invited to be with Jesus.” The community of baptized people—that is, the church—receives its life when it’s in solidarity with one another, including “the solidarity with suffering.”[1]
Williams writes that baptism means being with Jesus, which means, he says, being “in the depths,…the depths of human need, including the depths of our own selves in their need—but also the depths of God’s love….[To] be with Jesus is to be where human suffering and pain are found, and it is also to be with other human beings who are invited to be with Jesus.” The community of baptized people—that is, the church—receives its life when it’s in solidarity with one another, including “the solidarity with suffering.”[1]
We are called to go where Jesus
goes and where Jesus goes this night is into
the suffering of God’s people. He
doesn’t suffer with humanity from afar, at a distance, but chooses to enter
into suffering itself, bearing it, undergoing it, and ultimately transforming
it—but not without going through it.
Whitman’s quote takes on considerable
power when one remembers that during the Civil War Whitman tended to wounded,
broken, bleeding, suffering, and dying men, torn apart by sin and evil at its
worst. At the start of the war he visited the wounded in New York-area
hospitals, then he moved to Washington, DC to care for his brother. Overwhelmed by the number of wounded in
Washington, he stayed on as a nurse for the rest of the war.
As we move through Holy Week,
gather at this table tonight and remember him, as we consider again the meaning
of the cross and an empty tomb, Whitman’s insight into the power of grace found
in suffering love is worthy of our attention.
Empathy. It involves empathic love. This is how the Holy One chooses to love us, not from a distance. God doesn’t ask us: How does it feel to suffer? Instead, God enters into the life of the sufferer. God does not look at our wounds from afar, God becomes the wound. And then God chooses in love to remain God, through Christ, there, in the wounded and wounding places, in the places of human suffering, sharing our pain and sorrow and brokenness, thus transforming our suffering with God’s presence. This, increasingly, is what the cross means to me. Knowing that God is found in my own woundedness helps me to be attentive and present to the woundedness of people around me.
Jean Vanier put it so well. Founder of L’Arche (Ark) Community, which hosts communities worldwide for the developmentally disable, and recipient of the 2015 Templeton Prize in Religion, Vanier says, “In each of us there is a deep wound…the heart of each one is broken and bleeding” for different reasons.”[2] It’s true that we are broken, but it’s a greater truth that we are loved. And it’s an expression of grace to know both: that we are broken and that we are loved.
Empathy. It involves empathic love. This is how the Holy One chooses to love us, not from a distance. God doesn’t ask us: How does it feel to suffer? Instead, God enters into the life of the sufferer. God does not look at our wounds from afar, God becomes the wound. And then God chooses in love to remain God, through Christ, there, in the wounded and wounding places, in the places of human suffering, sharing our pain and sorrow and brokenness, thus transforming our suffering with God’s presence. This, increasingly, is what the cross means to me. Knowing that God is found in my own woundedness helps me to be attentive and present to the woundedness of people around me.
Jean Vanier put it so well. Founder of L’Arche (Ark) Community, which hosts communities worldwide for the developmentally disable, and recipient of the 2015 Templeton Prize in Religion, Vanier says, “In each of us there is a deep wound…the heart of each one is broken and bleeding” for different reasons.”[2] It’s true that we are broken, but it’s a greater truth that we are loved. And it’s an expression of grace to know both: that we are broken and that we are loved.
Christ’s wounds are my wounds; my
wounds are Christ’s wounds. And in the blessed
exchange of love in the wounded places we are, somehow, mysteriously “saved,”
healed, made whole. The old hymn gets it
right, one we will sing later this night:
O
sacred head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down;
now
scornfully surrounded with thorns, thine only crown;
O
sacred head what glory, what bliss till now was thine!
Yet,
though despised and gory, I joy to call thee thine.
Therefore,
What
language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend,
for
this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end?
O
make me thine forever; and should I fainting be;
Lord,
let me never, never outlive my love to thee.[3]
What language indeed.
[1]
Rowan Williams, Being Christian: Baptism,
Bible, Eucharist, Prayer (Eerdmans, 2013), 5, 10-11.
[2]
Jean Vanier, Community and Growth
(Paulist Press, 1989). "In each of us there is such a deep wound, such an urgent cry to be held, appreciated and seen as unique and valuable. The heart of each one is broken and bleeding.... An experience of being loved and accepted in community, which has become a safe place for us, allows us gradually to accept ourselves as we are, with our wounds and all our monsters. We are broken, but we are loved."
[3]“O
Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” originally a Medieval Latin hymn Salve mundi salutare, was translated
from German into English by the American Presbyterian minister and theologian
James Waddel Alexander (1804-1859), in 1830, when he was pastor at the First
Presbyterian Church, Trenton, NJ. James’
father, Archibald Alexander (1772-1851), was the first professor at Princeton
Theological Seminary, in 1812.
