The reader’s theater proclamation of the Passion of our Lord according to St Luke was going well; each of the readers ably bringing forth the various parts and voices, and the narrator, a young woman with a confident public voice added gravitas to the whole thing. And then we got to the portion where Jesus is abused by the authorities and mocked and flogged by the soldiers and then dragged off to be killed. Her voice broke and she began to sob, unable to continue for some moments.
The waiting readers began to weep and so did most of the congregation. I could tell by the hankies and tissues up patting at eyes. But what was this moment about? Pious emotion overflowing for a time, feeling bad for Jesus, experiencing a bit of heartbreak over what he suffered?
I wonder if, on a deep, mostly unconscious level, we were weeping for ourselves, because so to speak, God showed up. We were caught up in the deep truth of Luke’s passion narrative. The women who witnessed his lurching steps toward crucifixion were wailing for him, and Jesus shouted to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children.”
This is about more than history or Jesus’ biography. The vignette needs to be honored as a vital part of what Alexander Shaia has called the annual church retreat. The examination of conscience, both individually and corporately, will reveal our entrapment in inescapable history and cultural milieu. Especially in this year of our Fourth Path call to service, such reality is difficult to face: not only do we hurt one another, but we are in turn hurt, abused, limited, enslaved to our pasts and mocked by the present. Why wouldn’t we weep?
Every experience of suffering and crucifixion and resurrection are apocalyptic, world-ending, rebirthing moments—truth be told, God moments, times when the reality of Christ as us is all too real. During this Lenten retreat, we have permission, even a mandate, to get so honest about ourselves personally and corporately, that we become able to let go and “weep for ourselves and our children.” Tears, like baptism, welcome us into both the death and the new life of the Christ.
Even Easter includes the startling, frightening presence of Christ, who announces: “Peace be with you.” In that moment, the universe lights up like a neon sign and we see: our journey is not about us, but about God and our neighbor and what happens when both show up in our lives—for real.
