Lent began with a Country Parson column suggesting a lenten discipline of being intentional about bearing the light of Christ in daily life. As I got into Lent, it became obvious that being more intentional about receiving the light of Christ when it came near was as important as bearing it.
It’s especially important to reflect on that thought during our annual remembrance of the week that turned from light to darkness. It began with the enthusiastic, if superficial, welcome of Jesus as he entered Jerusalem. The days turned quickly into a gauntlet of accusations, attempts at arrest, threats of violence, and finally betrayal leading to Jesus’ humiliating, torturously painful death. In spite of it, the night he was betrayed, Jesus ate with his closest disciples, lovingly giving the gift of Holy Communion to the very ones who would betray and abandon him.
It was a week long demonstration of humanity’s inability and unwillingness to receive the light of Christ, even when borne by Jesus himself. The priestly elite rejected him as a heretic. Sadducees feared he was a threat to their relative safety and prosperity under Roman rule. To Pilate, Jesus’ life was no more than the cheap cost of pacifying a restless population. With the exception of a few women, his disciples hid in fear for their own lives. It appeared to nearly all that Jesus was a failure as a messiah of any kind. Enemy and friend, believer and unbeliever, all were unable and unwilling to receive the light of Christ that was in their midst.
It’s not a simple matter. In one sense, it had to be that way, otherwise how could the power of the Resurrection be made known to them and to us. In another sense, the failure to receive the light of Christ by the powerful elite, rag tag band of disciples, and facile public, was no more than a display of the ordinary human condition no different than our own. Fear, selfishness, greed, lust for power, and suspicion that divine love is a fantasy create barriers to the light of Christ among all people in every place and time. Why God so loved the world remains a mystery, but it is that love that came to free us from the bonds of the human condition.
Trusting Jesus is always problematic, and it can be especially difficult in times of war, pandemic, domestic violence, blatant corruption in public life, and feelings of darkness. Yet Jesus is the light that the darkness cannot overcome.
As Christians, we are called to bear the light of Christ even in darkness. It’s something we can’t do unless we are able and willing to recognize and receive it when it comes into our lives. Holy Week is a time to reflect on our reluctance to do that. It’s not that we are bad people, it’s that we are human. No better than all those people in Jerusalem. Our witness to the power of the Resurrection can embolden us to move on and do better without self recrimination, just as the disciples did.