Passing beneath Christ’s outstretched arm

Part 3: Changed forever

That look of love, if you caught it, if you chose to pass through rather than turn aside, and if you paused to look as you passed through, rather than simply rushing into freedom regardless of the cost paid for your freedom – though perhaps anyone who did not look would discover that they have not truly passed through – that look of love is indelibly marked into our souls. Whatever happens afterwards, it remains true that once we shared a look of love with him who is pure love. And, I have to say, if you press me, that I think that is enough. It is that shared look that has redeemed us. I want to say that it is Christ’s outstretched arms that have redeemed us, but that is what has made possible the opportunity to be redeemed. True redemption happens when we look, and see that he is looking at us. That should be enough – and perhaps it is, but there is more, so much more – needed because of our immense weakness.

As we passed beneath his arm, a drop of his blood fell into our souls. An antidote against the poison? Immunisation from the disease? The elixir of life? The savour of life touching our tongues? The scales falling from our eyes? The kiss of love that wakes us? How may we even begin to express what is happening? It could be as simple as a drop of dye transforming the whole colour of life. Or the stamp of authenticating entry on the reveller’s wrist. But if a look should prove insufficient, this drop of blood will not. It was too costly in its pouring to ever be valueless or ineffective. The receptacle that holds it is too precious for the effect of the falling to fail.

It was real blood that fell, and our soul is a real chalice into which it falls. It must be real blood that was shed. If we were more principled, then perhaps a principle of love, falling from Jesus’ lips might have saved us. But we are not. I understand the horror of blood – but it is blood that makes us live. And talk of sacrifice and transactional debts that must be repaid is offensive to modern ears, though it was a fair attempt to understand. But really all this is beyond clear explanation, beyond full understanding – but not beyond us. What has happened is within us.

If you do not believe you have a soul, you have nothing to hold out to catch your drop of his blood. Or rather, if you have a soul you have one whether you believe it or not, so perhaps for you the image is that you have turned your chalice upside down. Inverted, the drop of blood cannot be caught and so you lose your invitation, and anyway, you did not draw close to stoop beneath his arm. But still his blood was shed for you.

Passing beneath Christ’s outstretched arm

Part 2: Born again

Jesus said we must be born again, and no-one is quite sure what that means, certainly not me. But perhaps it means this action. That, as once we entered the world through such a confined channel, to the pain and joy of our mothers, so now, if we are to live, we must pass through this narrowest of channels, beneath his arms, barely enough room to breathe, yet in agony and exaltation, the path between hope and despair, peace and fear, compassion and hatred, forgiveness and anger, life and death is open, and somehow we squeeze through. But we do not realise till we are through that this path is only open because Christ is exerting all his force of love against the forces of fear and hatred and anger and death. As his life ebbs away, he gives his all to ensure that the way is open for us.

So, if we will let go of our dignity – as though we had any of that – and bow our heads beneath his arm, under his gaze, if we will squirm and wriggle and scream in fear but still struggle through, and most of all, if we pass beneath his arm and look upwards into his face of love, then we pass through, and the whole of life opens up to us. A new life, unimaginable if we had not seen the look of love on his face, as he looked at us. Christ’s arms are stretched out, and we must pass beneath them if we are to live.

(A devotional reflection in 5 parts, taking up a thought from “Jesus holds open a door”)

Passing beneath Christ’s outstretched arm

Part 1: A look of love

Passing beneath Christ’s outstretched arm, a drop of his blood falls into our souls and this, to us, is pure grace.

The life of Christ, in agony, drips away, but with each drop he imparts life. Aching with pain I look upwards, desperate for hope, or maybe relief of my suffering, or, if there is nothing else, a peaceful end. I don’t know why this man means so much, yet, when there is nothing else – and everything in my life tells me there is nothing else – I am drawn to him. Perhaps that is why he was lifted up, so that through the crowd, through my despair, I would see him. And as I look up, surely in vain, to my amazement, beyond all hope, he is looking down at me. I cannot bear his gaze, yet neither can I draw my eyes away. The exercise would have been pointless, my hope futile, if he had not looked down at me, but look he did. His suffering never left his face, but that did not prevent him looking at me with love. And that is all I needed; it is everything. It is that look that has set me free, that even in that moment, he should look at me with love. Yet that is why he chose that vantage point, that he should be able to see us all. But not all look at him.  But if you do, you also will see him looking at you with love.

Trembling on the brink   :    A devotion for Easter                    

(This Easter devotion is being published all in one go. Happy Easter!)

Trembling on the brink of life and death, the last breath ebbs away, a sigh of loss so heavy it cracks the earth, and darkness slams shut on all who were looking in love and sorrow, till the last. Now, only crushing weight of despair remains; all else is lost.

Trembling on the brink of life and death, looking in, not daring to enter, an empty tomb means desecration not hope. Running away in fear, to tell, to seek help, leads running friends to also come and see, and slowly entering, to understand the emptiness, but not to understand.

Trembling on the brink of death and life, what can be thought, for being dead leaves less room than a grave, and none for thinking or feeling anything? Yet somehow, one moment there was void, and next there was consciousness. Did he think, “Ah yes, as I always knew”, or, in shock, gasping for a first new breath, did he grope in the dark for something to hold onto?

Trembling on the brink of death and life, he must have left, into the light, abandoning the grave, yet composed enough to wrap up that napkin separately by itself – the one, that coming to, had obscured his sight, and covered his mouth and nose, wrapped around his head, as it was. Where was he those first few hours? What did he do? What do you do when once you were dead and are now alive? Though it is all very peculiar, and the accounts don’t make clear sense. Is he still in time and space like us, for he can still be seen and touched? Or is he simply present when and where he wishes now? There is a strong scent of him being in between in these days – not trembling between death and life, but between humanity and divinity. Knowing he will be one with the Father, yet still there are things to do with us, for us.

Trembling on the brink of death and life, his friends are confused, puzzled, disbelieving. They hear messages, but they are afraid. It cannot be true, so they do not accept it. Till she hears her name called. And suddenly the truth that could not be recognised is embraced, as she embraces him. Till he breaks the bread and the penny drops. “The penny drops!”. What an understatement for the astounding revelation that blows their minds away. But that was it, in a moment they step over the threshold from not seeing, to seeing, from having no clue to understanding it all, from grief to joy, from despair to hope. No longer trembling on the brink, they enter life; they choose life. Till, still huddling in fear behind locked doors, he is there with them, in the midst of them, saying, “Peace be with you”. And, when empowered, they will throw open the doors and burst onto the streets to declare their faith: “He is risen!”. But even then, there was one left behind, left out. Tormented for a week, surrounded by rejoicing, but not giving in. Till he was invited to touch the scars. But to him was given the ultimate message, the truth to cap all truths: “My Lord and my God!”.

Trembling on the brink of life and death, death and life, we hear the story. A good story? A ridiculous story? A story? Confused and puzzled and disbelieving, it cannot be true. Do we want it to be true? But just wanting it, isn’t enough. It must be true for me to stop trembling. It is too late for me to touch your scars – that in-between time is over. He is now fully once again with the Father – yet somehow never losing hold of us – or so they say. Please, can the penny drop for me? I want to understand, for it to make sense. I want the hurricane to clean out my mind, for new life to flood in. Though, it was never a hurricane that carried anyone over the threshold; it really was, is, just a moment of revelation – a little light going on in the mind, that expands in a “Big Bang” moment to complete clarity to the furthest horizons, to the deepest depths, to the highest heights – to the inmost place where only I can go – unless he joins me. Trembling on the brink of death and life, I wait for you to call my name.

Jesus holds open the door

Part 8: Do not be afraid; this cannot be taken from us.

That is Jesus, but what about us? Yes, Jesus has played his part, but we acknowledged that we are too weak to take advantage of it. The door may be open, but we will not go through it. Not left to ourselves anyway. And this is the final act of grace. Those who would otherwise have stepped aside at the last moment, knowing, rightly, that they have no right to go through, gaze at Jesus in love, and he invites us through. We pass beneath his arm and are redeemed. As we do, we can see the effort he is exerting to keep the door open. All the weight of human hate and fear and greed is pressing on him, but he is able to bear the pain of suffering and loss to maintain the way clear and free for us to pass through. That is what makes him God. We will fail. We will collapse. We will surrender. But Jesus, filled with God’s love, rejoices in the act of stretching out his arms. His pain and suffering is even greater than ours, we must not doubt that; this is not easy for him. But it is his choice, because the grace of God has filled him and he is intent that we should know grace. Passing beneath Christ’s outstretched arm, a drop of his blood falls into our souls, and this, to us, is pure grace. So, in him, all our failures are turned to victory. Without him, we could not pass through; we would not pass through. But through him we accept the gift and enter. Those who have learnt to love Jesus know at least this one thing, that you come where he calls you; you forget what you want and live to please him. So, in joy, forgetting our failure, we pass through. The door is open. And it remains open, because Jesus is holding it open.

But, a clever after-thought of evil: you have passed through, but you did so possessing your human nature. Surely you will recreate hell even in heaven, let alone here on planet earth? And, again and again, we see that that has happened, for there is nothing so good in itself that it is not capable of being corrupted, and many who call on God inflict torture on others. Such people have not, in fact, passed through the door, for passing through is painful, like dying in order to be reborn. So, instead, they passed through an idol of the door, a theme park version to pass through casually, with a selfie to prove it. But we renew the cycle of Christ’s open door and declare that there is nothing so corrupt that it cannot be redeemed Those who have truly passed through beneath Christ’s arms, receive the gift that changes us. Human nature will always have the capacity for good and evil, that cannot be changed. But it bears repeating, for this is the very heart of the matter: passing beneath Christ’s outstretched arm we receive a drop of his blood into our souls, and to us, this is the pure grace of God. Those who do not qualify, who have not passed the test, who failed and will fail again discover that this grace pleads for them, against all accusations, including their own, and it is this grace that prevails. And, perhaps, agonizingly, Christ’s blood in our souls tips the balance a little more towards the good. Yet we do not agonize that the issue is still in doubt. We have passed through the door and are saved. The door is open. And it remains open, because Jesus is holding it open.

Jesus holds open the door

Part 7: There is an answer to evil that cannot be extinguished

How then, is the door open, and how can we enter?

The door is open because Jesus – whoever he was, and is – is a universal person, because he represents the human condition of us all. From all that we can tell, he was a person of supreme compassion, intent only on lifting our burdens, on setting us free from guilt, failure and regret, on uniting us in love, on empowering us to live with truth and justice, and all this by opening us fully to God’s love – his freely given grace. The foundation of this new life is communion with God, which Jesus made possible by embodying the presence of God and inviting us to share in his love.

Yet this very graciousness was perceived as threatening by those who turned to fear and hatred, to closed minds rather than open hearts, to restrictiveness rather than liberty. It is this fact of the love of God being met with the hatred of humanity that makes the life of Jesus encompass the essence of the human condition. And, as we stated earlier, it was God’s genius to turn human wickedness against us, so that our plans to extinguish Jesus became the means by which God set free the opportunity of new life in all its fullness to enter the human experience. Jesus deserves our honour for it seems clear that he understood the suffering he would endure, and chose it because he simply believed that this was the way that God would liberate the human race from the dominion of sin, evil and death. There is nothing more that evil can do once it has declared that it will kill you unless you give up loving, but you choose to go on loving anyway. And that is why, ultimately, love and life win, and hatred and death are shown to be powerless to stop it.

Jesus holds open the door

Part 6: We declare: “Grace and truth have come into the world. There is a redeemer”.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never overcome it”. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. And we have seen his glory – look past the word; we have seen what God looks like in a form that we humans can recognise. It is simply a declaration. It hangs in space and time. It is the spiritual equivalent of the Big Bang. It can have no supporting evidence. It is just there: a declaration of truth. Though it may be a lie. We have to choose. And really, we have nothing to go on. Well, this isn’t quite true; those who want to call it false have all the evidence in the world on their side. And those who believe it true have only a glimpse of a gap in the darkness, a chink of light coming through a door that Jesus is holding open. They have no evidence; it is only a belief, a hope, a commitment. But they are looking at all the other evidence, and especially, they have seen the smirk on the face of evil and they rebel against his triumph; they will not accept that he has won. All they have is the understanding that they hold more true than all else in the world put together: their insight that a door is open, and it is possible to pass through it. Grace and truth are visible through the door, and just enough of it has slipped through into our world, flowing unrestrained by evil’s rage into the hearts of those who see. It is drawing us to the opening.

And here, now, is the fullness of Christ’s work. The door is not a feat of nature; it is a spiritual door. And everything we know about ourselves tells us that the immense force of humanity is intent on slamming that door closed shut. Call to mind the fear, the horror, the hatred and we know that this is true. The door is not like a fortunate cleft in giant rocks that allows the path to cross the mountains; the tide of human nature is rushing in to close the opportunity to reach through to safety, to joy, to peace, to resting in the love of God.

Perhaps you feel a lucky few, gifted by the chances of life, find themselves born on the threshold and they can slip through at a moment’s notice, but even those who have battled through the hatred, greed and stupidity of our kind, find themselves tripping on the last step when their own guilt or hollowness or hypocrisy causes them to step aside, even though the way to enter is clear. There is something in us that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

Jesus holds open the door

Part 5: If we truly look, it is horrific; evil is set to win; yet still there is hope

A person on life’s journey confronts reality.

“Fear consumes me. Horror overwhelms me. Hatred has swallowed me – and hatred for those who harm me is harnessed with the self-hatred I constantly regurgitate and greedily gobble down again. The darkness closes in. Dread rises. Unimaginable torture, realised by the fiendish ingenuity of man, made incarnate for all to see, fills my mind even as I turn away my gaze. Hope has come and gone, and come again, only to be knocked down again, so casually, for this is the nature of evil, that what took a lifetime to build can be destroyed in a moment – and not even deliberately. Though the pain is even worse when it is, and so often it is”.

Yet this hateful human nature, a monster inadvertently set free, like a malignant virus, wonderfully, gloriously still dares to hope, to believe, to strive to reach out for goodness, to find truth, to be compassionate. But we cannot do it. We cannot reach our goal. We cannot overcome. We are beaten, and ultimately we will be beaten. Our weaknesses are too strong for us. And evil smirks with this self-knowledge that it discovered deep at our innermost depths.

But Jesus holds open a door. Ridiculous! Absurd! A fantasy! Impossible! A myth! Not a myth that a man called Jesus once walked the earth, but a myth that one person could possibly have universal significance. His followers call him God to express this truth, but this must be a lie. Perhaps it is a lie that God exists, but even if he does, it certainly cannot be true that a man can be God. He was just one man, living in one place, at one time; he cannot mean anything to me, to everyone. It is embarrassing to monotheists, and laughable to atheists. But it is this absurd claim that makes redemption possible. It is the genius of Christianity and why, taking all things into account as best I can, I declare Christian faith to be the supreme message of hope, and for now I will just lay the word “salvation” gently in our laps, and see what we have to say when we return to it.

Jesus holds open the door

Part 4: See and hold everything together. The dynamic changelessness of God.

We must stay clear-sighted and hold our capacity for both good and evil clearly in mind at all times. Somehow, we have to rejoice at the wonder of life, even while we weep at the suffering of others. If we take seriously the truth that God is with us – with all of us, all the time, that he shares our lives with us, and that he loves each of us to the uttermost, then this is what God must be doing. We, in our limitations, move from times of sorrow to times of joy, we focus on one thing and only later remember another. But God holds all things simultaneously in his heart, all the time. To us, this might look like he is unchanging, but this is again only due to our limitations – as when we look to the sun and it seems to us as a constant glowing ball, but close up it is a raging turmoil of dynamic energy. But God, in his intimate sharing with each one of us, continually resonates with all that we experience, with one person’s joy overlaid with another’s sorrow, with another’s hope, with another’s weariness, so that, if we could see God it would appear to us that he is unchanging, when, in reality, he is utterly dynamic, responding to each person’s needs. Not that God is merely a cipher for us, a recording box for human experience, for to each person he is in relationship, and giving himself to that person, in each moment, adding his own personhood. And ultimately, because God is God, and he gives himself, it is life that overcomes death; it is hope that rises to the surface, not despair; it is love that wins through, not hatred; truth that trumps lies in the final hand; redemption that is victorious when defeat seemed certain.

But this is God. How are we to become like God in this? It is because Christ holds open the door.

Jesus holds open the door

Part 3: The human condition is crushing, but it’s in our nature

So, Christ holds open his arm in love, but what is he doing? He is holding open a door.

How are we, we members of humankind, to cope with the anguish of being human? How do we bear with being ourselves? How do we come to terms with the central truth that we are capable of doing both good and evil, that life can be delightful or terrifying? How do we keep going under the burden of being human? How cope with our sense of loss? With the terrible injustices done to us, with the terrible injustices we inflict on others, with the suffering of those we love? How do we enjoy the wonderful gifts of life, the beauty of creation, the freedom of self-expression – while others suffer agony? How do we cope with the gross injustice that we might have enjoyed all these gifts, but do not? How accept that once these things were ours, but are now lost? How deal with our hatred at those who took them from us? Or cope with our guilt that we lost them through our own greed and stupidity?

Anyone keeping in tune with heart and mind cannot simply congratulate themselves on their good luck, and shrug their shoulders at others: “Bad luck mate”. We cannot just refuse to think about these things and enjoy ourselves. We must not avariciously and fearfully defend our benefits against the claims of those who suffer. We must not glibly dismiss the human lot as all part of the system – again quietly chuckling at our own good fortune – or raging impotently at our misfortune. We cannot just blame others as though we are helpless to act. We must not harden our hearts and close our minds to the cries of others. We must not just give token service to those in need and absolve ourselves – though we hardly dare even consider what that might mean. Neither must we give way to despair, hopelessness or cynicism. Life is a wonderful gift and we must rejoice in it, so we cannot even escape by giving our everything to those who suffer if that entails being lost in anger, weariness or despondency. We must not even salve our conscience with the love of God as though knowing his love is our only priority. We cannot escape into religion, or activism or distraction, or self-indulgence.