The Journey of the Passion: Walking the Walk

Last year at this very time my wife Debbie and I had the privilege to be in Jerusalem for all of Holy Week. One of the most memorable moments for me – and one of the most moving – was processing from the Episcopal cathedral in East Jerusalem, to the Garden of Gethsemane on Thursday night. Like Jesus, we crossed the Kidron Valley, maybe a distance of a third of a mile, then up the Mount of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane. There, looking across the Valley to the walled and well-lit city of Jerusalem, underneath the Cyprus trees waving in the soft breeze, I closed my eyes and replayed in my mind and in my heart that scene in which Jesus intently prays to his Father, and then is betrayed by a friend. It was a moment I will never forget.

It has always struck me as poignant that after the last Supper, the story of Jesus’ journey to Calvary begins with a betrayal by one of his most trusted friends. What can be more deflating? Last night at our Maundy Thursday service, Roy McAlpine spoke about “acceptance” as the sense of “belonging to someone.” What an empty feeling to realize that even your closest friends and confidantes have abandoned you.

Certainly, we are reminded of times when we have felt betrayed – by friends, by spouses and partners, by business associates, or trusted confidantes. On a broader scale, it causes us – or should cause us – to reflect on forces in society that that undermine the well being of the many in the name of greed that benefits the few – the players in our global economy that brought us to the brink of economic collapse a year and a half ago, and the government agencies that were charged with – but failed in – regulating their excesses. Yes, to be sure, we have felt the sting of betrayal.

But let’s look at betrayal through another lens – the lens of Jesus looking at those who bear his name as Christians. What does he see? Does he see unity? Does he see harmful divisions? Remember that the prayer that Jesus prayed to his Father immediately before he washed the feet of his disciples was that his followers may be one, just as Jesus and the Father are one. Compared to the values that Jesus was most concerned about, and the price Jesus paid for our unity, our differences both within and between Christian denominations seem petty indeed.
But how do we, his latter day disciples, measure up?

In this year 2010, to non-Christians and to Christians alike, we are the face of Jesus. It is not a theoretical or hypothetical role that we play. On this day when we remember the passion and the agony that Jesus suffered for us so that we might have eternal life with Him, we need to be reminded that Good Friday is about more than Jesus dying for us – Jesus’ being the sacrificial lamb for our salvation. Yes, it is about God’s unconditional love for us. But just as certainly it is about making Jesus’ commands to love all of God’s children, to remember that every human being is our neighbor in this rapidly shrinking world, to live the life exemplified by Jesus own life, to remember that Jesus was human – that, too, is part of the Good Friday walk.

So this passage asks us, who are we in the story of Jesus’ arrest and betrayal? Are we Judas – do we, in some aspect of our life, perhaps known only to us, betray Jesus’ desire for us? Are we Peter – who initially responds with bravado by cutting off the slave’s ear, and hours later denies he even knows Jesus? Are we like the rest of the disciples, who seem to disappear into the darkness until after Jesus’ makes his post-resurrection appearances?

As we begin this annual symbolic Journey of the Passion on Asylum Hill, let us mark our steps well. May each step remind us that the way of the cross is not just talking the talk, but walking the walk, and not just once a year. AMEN.