There are certain truths in life that we seem to only be able to learn by divine grace, through faith, and often in the midst of trying circumstances. Some truths just don't seem to “sink in” unless, even in the hard times, we “stay in the waters of our baptism,” as we put it last week. The Way of the Cross is one of these truths. It only seems to sink in when, at a heart level, we are turning away from that desire to care for no one but ourselves, and turning toward the One who cares for us more than we care for ourselves. The One to whom we really belong... who seeks to be the very Center of our lives.... and who empowers us to become fully human, like the humanity we see in Jesus. Then the Way of the Cross really starts to make a whole lot of sense to us. We start to see that it is the Way to everything that we truly want. It's the Way to flourish in our lives, even in the midst of hardship.

The really unique thing about us human beings is that we each have within us what one author (Blaise Pascal) called an “infinite abyss” which can only be filled by the infinite and never-changing reality of God's own Being. It is this abyss that St. Augustine was speaking of when he cried out to God: “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are rest-less until they find their rest in you." Some modern writers have spoken of it, more simply, as the “God-shaped hole” within us. Whatever we call it, each of us have this empty space within us that longs to be filled by the Loving Mystery we call 'God.'

And yet, although only God can fill this empty inner space, we are strongly inclined (by our character flaws) to try to fill it up ourselves with lesser goods – with the ordinary temporal pleasures and gains, praise and popularity, that at times arise, at times we seek out, in our lives. We are strongly inclined to imagine that we can make the pain of our spiritual emptiness go away if only we... marry the right person, or drink enough beer, or eat enough chocolate, or shop enough, or read enough, or exercise enough, or have lots of admirers, or lots of money, or lots of possessions, and so on.... What we discover, though, sooner or later, is that these lesser goods never fully satisfy us. They can provide us with a delightful distraction, but inevitably the awareness of our spiritual emptiness returns. There can just never be enough of these temporal goods to satisfy our longing for the Eternal.

Once the light of grace has enabled us to identify this dilemma in our lives – we begin to understand the spiritual nature of much of the pain that we experience. We start to discern what really lies beneath our need for a steady supply of certain experiences in order for us to feel “o.k.” And, then it dawns on us: the futility of imagining that we can make our spiritual emptiness go away by trying to fill it up with anything other than the God who is Love. It is the futility of Adam's apple -- the symbolic one, I mean.

It is a very sobering truth to realize. It's a turning point, really. Because once we discover it, it changes our perception of everything in life, including ourselves. We are just built to not want to engage in things that are futile, things that don't really make a difference. And so, once it sinks in how futile it is to try to satisfy a longing for the Eternal Good that is God, with temporal goods that are here for a moment, but then gone, we become dis-enchanted with the whole enterprise. Those things that once used to work, at least briefly, as anesthetics for our spiritual pain no longer work at all for us. Because now we know what's actually going on in our lives on a spiritual level. We know that what we really need is God. And nothing less will do.

It is a precarious and uncomfortable place to be. But it is also a place where our horizon begins to expand and grow broad enough to take in what Jesus is actually speaking of when he speaks of the Way of the Cross. Because this uncomfortable place is also the place that we discover that God is really real... and that God desires to fill that empty inner space in our lives... and that God's own presence will fill us... as we let God in.... as we stop denying the truth of who we are... the truth that, at our core, we belong to God; we need God; we have no life apart from God; and nothing but God's own Being will satisfy the longings of our hearts. That is just who we are. That is our true human nature. And, it is no coincidence that this true human nature of ours is like Jesus. He is our true nature, the nature we were created to resemble, not physically but on a soul-level, in how we think and feel and act.

And, so, in a nutshell, this is what the Way of the Cross is:

• It is our discovering, through grace, the reality of the spiritual pain in our lives, the pain of that inner emptiness, that longs to be filled.

• It is our consciously choosing to not run away from our spiritual pain, to not block out our awareness of it, to not keep building up all sorts of defensive walls around it, to not keep grasping out there in the world for something to distract us or anesthetize us so that we can't feel it any more, even though it's still there.

• It is staying with the spiritual pain in our lives (even when we're very inclined to run away, block out, build walls, distract or anesthetize ourselves).... not in a way that traumatizes us, but rather in a way that is redemptive & healing.

  • Well how does that happen? How can we “be with our spiritual pain” in a way that is redemptive and healing?  We cry out: “Jesus, Help me! You walked this Way before me; I need your grace to not run away, to just be here with you and to wait, to let your Holy Spirit fill this infinite abyss inside of me with the God who is Love.” And Jesus, who went before us, and who, spiritually, goes before us still, leads us, and shows us the way. To continue being with God, in the midst of things which we would much rather not face or deal with.

We might say that following Jesus on the Way of the Cross is like singing a beautiful song, when you find yourself in the midst of a very dark night, where singing just doesn't come naturally. But somehow, by grace, some part of you starts singing anyway. And in the midst of all the darkness you sing something that is beautiful and true, even though you may feel surrounded by all that is ugly and false. You sing from your heart, perhaps something like that old Irish Hymn:

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,

naught be all else to me, save that thou art;

 

Thou my best thought by day or by night,

Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

 

Be thou my wisdom, thou my true word,

I ever with thee and thou with me Lord;

 

Thou my great Parent, and I truly thine;

Be thou my Bread, and Thou my wine;

 

Be thou my breastplate, sword for the fight;

Be thou my dignity, thou my delight;

 

Thou my soul's shelter, thou my high tower:

Raise thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

 

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise:

Thou mine inheritance now and always;

 

Thou and thou only first in my heart;

High King of Heaven, my treasure thou art.

 

High King of heaven, my victory won,

May I reach heaven's joys, O Bright Heaven's sun!;

 

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,

Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

And, then, in God's time (not in ours), we discover that, right there, within whatever trying circumstance we find ourselves, we are not alone, because that empty inner space in our soul is no longer so empty... That former sense of inner absence has given way to a new sense of inner presence... (for now...tomorrow is another day.)

And, as we breath a deep sigh of relief, and start to rest up from our dark night of the soul, it starts to sink in that God's being “with-us” was never the problem; it was our being “with-God”, rather than elsewhere, that requires the Way of the Cross.

And just like children on Christmas morning, we discover, to our delight, the benefits of having waited through that long dark night. A transformation has taken place. We have new gifts!

• Our faith and our hope and our love are stronger than they were before.

• Our hearts are more genuinely inclined to make wiser choices.

  • We have a greater capacity to say 'no' to those situations in life, which, although they offer pleasure or tension-relief, are actually harmful (such as hostile, uncaring behaviors, addictive, self-destructive behaviors, and so on.)

  • ... and a greater capacity to say 'yes' to those choices in life that are necessary and worthwhile, even though they can be painful (such as commitment, sacrifice, grieving; admitting it when we are wrong, and so on.)

• In other words, we find that we are genuinely becoming more like the persons we were created to be, more like Christ.

   

Thanks be to God.

Sunday, March 4, 2012 /  Lent 2, (Mark 8:31-38)

Trinity Anglican /  Lambeth, Ontario