This past Wednesday, I had an incredible experience. I got to spend the morning with Scott Brown, an art historian and professor at UNF who is teaching the Bible Challenge with me. Scott took me to an exhibit at the Cummer Museum on The Mother of Sorrows, featuring artwork from the 14th and 15th centuries. This artwork depicts Christ hanging on the cross or dead and his mother, often holding him or weeping. These are such incredible depictions of suffering as I have ever seen. Scott and I are to speak on a panel regarding this exhibit in early February.
For hundreds of years, people have gazed upon the pain of Mary and Jesus and seen an image of God. They have seen God in pain.
In the Old Testament, we have come to the prophet Elijah. One of the greatest of the Old Testament prophets, Elijah fed the hungry and even raised a dead boy to life. He was anointed by God, chosen to be a prophet, and yet his life was lonely and often painful. At one point, Elijah sits down under a tree and begs God to just let him die. Being chosen by God did not mean that his life was easy.
In the passage that we see today, Elijah knows that he is about to die and he shares this fact with his disciple, Elisha. Elijah asks Elisha if there is anything that he can give him before he goes to God and Elisha asks for "a double share of your Spirit." Elijah lets his disciple know that if he is able to see his master go to God, ie watch him die, then he will receive that Spirit. If Elisha is included in that most intimate of moments, then it will mean that forever after, he will hold some of his master in his heart.
Soon afterwards, Elijah does die but not in our normal way. His body is literally carried up to heaven and his disciple Elisha gets to see it all. Elisha cries out in surprise and pain as he watches his master die, but he is blessed with a double share of Elijah's spirit as a result of being present with him when he died.
Often when a person dies, their relatives want to be there when they take their last breath. I will explain that this is hard to orchestrate. Introverts will often wait until they are alone to die. But even I have to admit that actually being present with a person when they take their last breath is something special, something sacred happens. It is a moment of incredible intimacy, of grief and pain. God seems to be especially present at the moment when a person dies.
When John the Baptist saw Jesus coming, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God!" A lamb was a helpless animal that would have been killed on or in front of the altar in the temple. A sacrificial lamb was slaughtered in order to gain God's favor. Somehow the suffering and death of the lamb made things right with God. John saw Jesus as a lamb, someone who would be slaughtered. He foresaw that Jesus would suffer and die.
Human beings want to avoid pain. Of course we do, pain hurts. We dont want to hurt and we dont want to admit to others that we are hurting. But God feels differently about pain. For God, pain is an opportunity to grow closer. It is a chance to hold onto God, a chance to inherit a piece of the Spirit.
All of you who go to the beach know what it is like to swim in the waves. In his book Open Secrets, the author tells the story of Rabbi Akiva, who was once lost in a shipwreck at sea. He alone survived, and when people wanted to know how he did it, he explained it quite simply. "Whenever a wave arose, I bent into it." This is how we are to approach suffering and even dying, by bending into it and allowing it to wash over us rather than letting it sweep us away.
I think of Elisha, watching the person that he loved most in the world be taken away from him, crying out and yet bending into the wave of sorrow that came. And then emerging with part of his master inside of him, emerging a better man.
Jesus let us see his dying, you know. He included you and me into the most intimate and painful moments of his life. Not only did he allow the world to see his death but he allows us to paint about it and write about it and create beautiful art exhibits about it. The Lamb of God let himself be slaughtered right in front of us and for thousands of years we have been picturing and imagining what he went through. We meditate on the cross. We bend into the wave of his suffering and in doing so, we inherit a glimpse of his spirit.
We remember Dr. Martin Luther King tomorrow. He too died for all the world to see and when he died, we inherited a piece of his spirit. This country was changed forever by his death and his dream of justice lives on in our hearts, because he died for all of us.
Whenever you have the courage to let another person see not just your dying but simply your pain, you invite them to share with you in your spirit. You give that person a gift, a glimpse of Christ in you.
We try so hard to act as if we are always happy and prosperous. We pretend to have it all together. But you do not experience Church if you only tell each other the superficial parts of your life and pretend to never suffer. Tell each other the truth. Let someone inside your world. Share your pain. And bend into the wave, not holding onto it and not fighting it but facing it, moving through it, and you will emerge stronger than before.
I wish we all led perfect lives, lives free of pain or suffering. But then I walk into an exhibit like the one at the Cummer and I see the beauty of the cross and I begin to understand that life would not be so holy and we would not grow so much if we all sat happily together. It is the moments of hardship that shape us, so long as we understand how to bend into the wave of pain and not let it consume us. Tell the truth about your life, share your pain with the ones you love. And remember that by speaking of your pain you are neither giving in nor wallowing in it. Rather you are bending into the wave and letting it wash over you. Remember that the waves do pass, calm does come and there is light at the end of the tunnel, resurrection on the other side of the tomb. The Lamb of God did not suffer forever. And neither will you.
