Are there yet tears?

"Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment.... Then said Jesus, 

Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this." (John 12:3,7)

Are there yet tears?

Imagine then a pavement scored for gaming: counters fit in slots, die is cast; cloak is torn, garments shared out. Shouldering the cross-piece of his death, a condemned man is led, taunted, through the narrow streets of a busy marketplace. The curious stare. The indifferent turn away, or don’t bother. The guards shove the man forward. Stumbling, he drags his sandals up the stones of the street. Twists and turns. There is the city wall, and outside it his fate. And ours.

They lay him flat on a stone, the better to attach him to his engine of destruction. Up and in and down he goes, just another one of thousands, this one in full view of spectators. How long will this one live? More gaming. 

Either side of him, thieves, murderers, rapists - and some are good people. They will all die, one by one, gasping, suspended, a spectacle. And then, the bodies are checked. Thorough work. The soldiers lance his body. They’re sure, and can report.

Down later onto a slab of rock, weeping mother and friends place his violated body, so sweet and precious to them however it appears to the bystander. They prepare it - him - for the tomb, carved in the rock, donated, nearby, perhaps in a garden. 

That’s it for now.

Are there tears yet? Can they still flow? Can we join such sorrow to our own?

We cannot escape it. Shove it down, deny it, however angrily, however numb; it will out. 

And that is why we are here today at the foot of that self-same cross, wanting to touch it, the places of the nails, the binding, the torn and bleeding body. Or feel the sorrow. 

We don’t need to see it; we know it, in our own bones. We too have grieved, will grieve. 

For our world, for ourselves, for strangers and friends. For mothers and fathers, children, hope. 

And that too is why we are here. Because however hopeless and awful this scene of destruction, of humiliation, of death-dealing merchants and military men, the one they sought to kill yet lives. 

Hope there is still, and faith, though all will be taken away. Only love will be left. Only love endures. 

JRL+ 

Passion 2022.

Suzanne Guthrie writes: "In this season, the church encourages her people to grieve and grieve deeply. Why suffering exists in the first place is not the point, at least for now. In Holy Week the church provides the time to grieve, to break open our hearts of stone, to allow shattering and crumbling and the necessary softening to receive the sacred gifts only grieving confers. Hearts of flesh, perhaps. A new life, represented by deep and universal compassion."  http://edgeofenclosure.org/passion2.html

The Arizona Daily Star published a version of this story under the title, “Only love will be left; love endures” on Easter Sunday April 17th 2022 page E3 in the Keeping the Faith feature of the Home + Life section.