Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I have often said that when there is a tragic death (from suicide or accident or murder or war or abuse or poor choices or just a random unfolding of events…or really anything), that God’s tears are the first to fall. But I’m not sure I’ve ever tied that to God’s own self with regard Jesus’ life and death. I’m reading a book titled Separation of Church and Hate, by John Fuglesang (Well honestly, I’m mostly listening to it as I drive from place to place…But I choose to count that as reading.). And something in it got me wondering about the grief of God, watching as Jesus grew and lived and moved closer and closer to and through the inevitability of Holy Week and on through his trial and execution.
Admittedly, it’s always a bit of a balancing act to hold the Trinity together theologically – not separating the Father from the Spirit from the Son from the Father in the divine ongoing dance. And it’s really really easy to get stuck in the theological conundrum of it all and so never get beyond the debate. But even when we miss the theological mark, the over-arching of God holds throughout.
In any case, I’m thinking that in sending Jesus, God (from the outset) intended him to embody the reality that there is no length to which God won’t go in order to be present with us. Nothing so horrible that we can do or have done to us. Nothing which will keep God’s love from being fully present; even if it means that, in the process, God’s own heart gets broken and God grieves and cries great divine tears over his torturous death. It costs God everything and God does it – not because God is angry and demands a sacrifice in order to be appeased (ala Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God) – but because God loves us that much and so knows firsthand the deep sobs and silences and love and weight of grief.
That feels really relevant right now, in a cultural climate that claims that God is a warrior who delights in the death and destruction of “enemies.” We have a different take on how God’s heart breaks with love whenever any of God’s children suffer.
To be fair, these are just your Pastor’s Ponderings and whether or not what I have said holds theological water I, honestly, am not sure. But (in this season of “Praise-the-Lord-resurrection” joy) if you feel overlooked and are grieving, know that you are never alone, but that the God of all creation knows your grief and has experienced it and is with you and will never leave you – but will sit beside you in the darkness of Holy Saturday and add divine tears to yours and hold the promise of the Light for you, until you can see it for yourself.
Blessings and much love in this season,
+ Pr. Sara