The Choice of Rest

I do not rest well in this season of waiting and healing. I have not spend hours in contemplation and prayer. I find writing and reading difficult and tiring.  I waste time looking for my misplaced reading glasses so I can see what's on my phone or computer or plate. I put drops in dry eyes and cry when I can't distinguish the clothes in my closet. I'm nervous of the prognosis of my long term vision.  If this is a test, I'm failing.

But this week has been a quiet respite from my agitation. Last weekend I met with a small group and read the Scriptures, sat in silence, walked with them, did some art. It was a pause, a holy Saturday.

All these years of observing the Easter season, Saturday was just a throw away day. We attended dozens of churches in our mobile life. We occasionally had a Maundy Thursday service, once or twice with public foot washing. Another humbling practice and I've often wondered why we seem to ignore that example of Christ's or pull it out once a year.   Most churches had some sort of Good Friday observance. Clearly we were of the "low" churches crowd.  But in all, Easter Sunday was the big celebration.  Some churches had egg hunts, some had productions- one with life animals.  But Saturday? That was my day to figure how if the boys' pants and my Easter dress from last year still fit and if Abby had clean white shoes.



But the Scripture tells us that after the exhaustion of pain and confusion and anguish on Friday,  Jesus...well, it turns out we Christians disagree on what exactly He did on the Saturday.  But we know His disciples observed their Sabbath and rested.

“In honor of Creation and at God’s express command, 

the Jewish people observed the Sabbath as a day of complete rest.

 But its most profound meaning is contained in this particular Sabbath in which,

 having laid down his life for the human family, Jesus, the Son of God, rested.

   Out of respect for the death of the Redeemer, there is no liturgical celebration on Holy Saturday.  In honor of Jesus’ body resting in tomb, the church also rests. 

There is nothing more to be said, nothing more to be done. 

On this day everything rests.”

Thomas Keating

The Mystery of Christ

I like that. It's not an empty day. It's not merely a waiting day.  It's a resting day. A day to sink into the pain of Friday and to anticipate the joy of Sunday.  But clearly it's also a day of it's own activity. It is a day to rest, to breathe, to pause. 

 

"Praying around the Cross"
Trinity Lutheran Church
 Rapid City, SD

So I am remembering my own small pain and looking forward to whatever is ahead for my vision, and I am choosing to rest in the middle.  Are you in an in-between place as well? Not yet there but in a time that may feel useless or  unproductive or wasted?  We all have moments and seasons that can feel this way. Perhaps this Holy Week, we too can choose to rest.  To know, at some level, in all things...

There is nothing more to be said, nothing more to be done. 

On this day everything rests.”

The Humiliation of Frailty

The cantata finished and we sat in silence. One after the first, the two pastors walked quietly down the long aisle, their heads down, no eye contact with the people.  We sat and absorbed the sorrow of Holy Week. The small choir filed out until just one older man remained seated.

Then began the arduous process of his departure. The narrator brought over his walker and gripping his arms, pulled him to his feet. Clutching the walker handles and with her hand on his broad back, he pushed and shuffled his way to the edge of the chancel and out of sight of the watching congregation. Age may have left him his voice but inevitably, it was stripping away his dignity, along with his strength.


I've been stripped for a season- of my strength, my self-sufficiency.

I've been led in public places. Once I stood gripping a shopping cart, staring down at my hands on the handle, at my feet on the floor and unknowingly blocking the aisle.  My eye surgery required almost three weeks of lying flat on my stomach or holding my head down gazing at my lap or feet. It's easy to feel invisible when you don't look up.

Even now, almost two months since my retina detached and was surgically repaired, I am hesitant when I walk, nervous without normal depth perception.  Fumbling for reading glasses, I peer closely at jewelry or sweaters to determine what to wear in a slow process that used to take seconds. My compassion for the elderly has expanded and I understand more their fear of falling.

When I feel sorry for myself, I feel frail and fragile.
And I hate it.


Interesting timing of this frailty in my life with the Christian Holy Season.  Easter vigil reminds use Jesus was weakened by a scourging and humiliated by his tormentors. He chose frailty when he set the power and privilege of His divinity aside and become human in the first place.

Fully God, yet fully man. 

And in becoming fully human, Jesus also became those frail parts of humanity—the hungry, tired, lonely, disappointed, painful parts of our existence. Perhaps he too had moments of fear.


He never rebuked His followers for being weak, for being frail, for being human.

He rebuked them for lack of faith, for doubting, for falling asleep when he needed them.  In my Bible I haven't found Jesus saying in red letters, "You are so human.  Why do you feel pain and experience confusion? Get a grip!"

Instead, His words are familiar in their compassion,

Come all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? 

Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father's care.

When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it,

When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby,

He said to His mother, "Woman, behold, your son?"

Being frail can be humiliating. Our elderly tenor was once a strong and vibrant man and today he needs help standing.  I'm frustrated by my weakness in this healing process but Jesus is my example of divine willingness to be frail, to be humble, to be comforted.  Jesus was what humans needed to see and, in turn what we need to become.

He embraced the human experience. He understood when his disciples were weak. He saw to the needs of his mother at his most vulnerable time. The complete expression of God in human form.

Humiliate and humble both have the Latin root of humilius- of the hummus, or earth, human. 

Perhaps we aren't humiliated by our frailty, 

just revealed to be fully human.