I once read
a murder mystery in which the author
named the murderer on
page one.
It was a different kind of a mystery.
It wasn’t a
who-dunnit.
It was a
why-dunnit.
The motive
was the mystery.
The gospels
are like that.
We all know
Jesus was crucified and we know who did it.
But it’s not
clear why they did it.
It wasn’t
because he claimed to be the messiah.
People were
claiming to be the messiah
before Jesus and they
have done it after Jesus.
It isn’t a
capital offense.
No Jesus did
something else to make people mad.
Basically,
Jesus revealed the character of God;
but when he did that,
it rubbed people wrong.
There are
several godly things Jesus did
that did not go over well.
Forgiving
sinners was unpopular,
because we like to see people get
what’s coming to them.
Healing the
sick sounds good,
but it made people uncomfortable
because it upset the natural and
moral order.
In the
Gospel lessons for last week and this week,
Jesus exhibited another irritating quality of godly character -- serenity.
It’s in the
lyrics of Jesus Christ Superstar:
“No riots, no armies,
No fighting, no slogans,
One thing I’ll say for him.
Jesus is cool.”
Last week we
heard about the storm at sea.
The disciples
were pretty worked up about the weather;
but Jesus was taking a nap.
He was
sleeping like a baby through the storm,
and the disciples didn’t like it one
bit.
They yelled
at him, “Don’t you care that we are perishing?”
So he calmed
the storm and said, “Where is your faith?”
Jesus showed
them the part of God that sees all of eternity
--the God who has watched worlds born and die,
universes arise from a Big Bang and fall back
into nothingness.
This is a
God who takes a very long view of things,
and in that long view, God can see
“it is alright.”
This is a
God who cares for us – but is not anxious about us –
because God is perfectly confident in
the outcome.
The
disciples were pleased not to have drowned,
but they were angry with Jesus for
not joining them
in their panic.
In my family
growing up,
the way you showed you loved someone
was to worry about them.
No worry
meant no love.
Worrying
together was how we bonded.
Our life was
a communion of fretting and anxiety.
Jesus’s calm
would not have gone over well with us either.
In this
week’s lesson, Jairus had begged Jesus
to come heal his daughter.
On the way a
messenger stopped them and tried to send Jesus away
because the girl was already dead.
But Jesus did
not turn back.
He told
Jairus, “Do not fear. Only believe.”
When they
arrived, the place was in a commotion.
People were
weeping and wailing loudly.
This wasn’t
just the family who were naturally distraught.
It was the
whole village gathered for mourning.
Tragedy is
magnetic. People flock to it.
We slow down and crane our necks at car
accidents.
Grief is
awful for the people who are in the depths of it.
But, for
bystanders, a little vicarious grief is very engaging.
Dabbling in
despair is seductive.
It’s what
Shakespeare called “sweet sorrow.”
So most of the
folks at Jairus’s house
were in full tilt community grief.
Then Jesus
came in and said,
“Why do you make a commotion and
weep?
The girl is not dead, just sleeping.”
That did not
go over at all.
The
neighbors wanted to make a commotion and weep.
That’s what
they came for.
If the girl
wasn’t dead,
what were they supposed to do with
the casserole?
It’s like in
Monty Python and the Holy Grail,
when the knight Concorde has been
shot and Lancelot
begins an eloquent
lament over his body;
but Concorde says,
“I’m not quite dead yet sir. I think
I may pull through.”
Lancelot,
however, just won’t hear it.
One day, I
was visiting a hospital death bed
when the patient’s wife arrived and was surprised
to find her husband still breathing
away.
She accosted
the doctor:
“What do you mean he’s not dead!
The funeral is Tuesday.”
Jairus’s
neighbors did not want their grief interrupted
by the inconvenient truth that the girl was alive.
But Jesus woke
her up,
to the delight of those who truly
loved her,
but to the frustration of the funeral
planners.
Here’s the
point: human beings are prone to drama.
Our dramas
are full of wild optimism, fear, loathing, and sweet despair.
That’s as
natural as can be.
It goes with
the turf of being human.
But the next
part isn’t very helpful.
We are also prone
to forming relationships by inviting people
to join in our drama or pushing our
way into theirs.
We meet each
other in the whirling cyclone of life’s emotions,
not in the serene center of faith.
Jesus is the
serene center of faith.
Jesus can
sleep through a storm.
His serenity
is so powerful it can calm the storm
because he knows
that even if the boat sinks and everyone
drowns,
they will live anew in God.
Jesus
doesn’t collapse into despair
because he knows the little girl
isn’t dead;
and even if she were dead;
to him, death is just
another sleep;
-- a sleep from which he will wake
her up
in the fullness of time.
Jesus acts
like God.
He cares –
but he doesn’t worry.
Instead of
joining in our drama,
he takes effective action to do us
some real good.
Jesus shows
us a different way of being friends.
He shows us
how to be the eye of someone’s storm,
how to be the serene center for each
other.
T. S. Eliot
prayed in his poem Ash Wednesday,
“Teach us to care and not to care.
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks
Our peace in his will
Even among these rocks.”
If we practice
faith, basing our peace on God’s will
instead of shifting
circumstances,
if we know that peace in
our hearts,
then we can do each other some good;
then we can truly share Christ’s
peace with each other.
