Beneath the Cross of Jesus: Lenten Reflection Midweek 1

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

        

Beneath the Cross of Jesus I long to take my stand, so begins our theme hymn this Lenten Wednesday season.

         It’s a strange thing to start directly under the cross, and to stay there. I think on Good Friday we are often like the crowds watching Jesus’ death. We watch him walk to Golgotha, watch and listen as he is nailed to the cross he carried there, and then hear his final words and his last breath, witness the sky darken, and then we usually go home to wait for Easter to come.

         But this year is different, we begin right beneath that cross, gathered with the Disciples, Mary and the other women, the soldiers, and the passerby who pauses to wonder if this was Elijah as Jesus cries his last.

         As evening continues on, everyone else leaves, the deed is done, Jesus is dead, what else holds them here. What purpose remains to stay on this desolate hill. And so they return to their homes, life moves on for them.

         But, the disciples? Mary and the Women? They stay, the soldiers stay too, they are charged with guarding Jesus to make sure the disciples do nothing to him or take his body. And with the Disciples and the Women? We also stay. And we stay because we look back at what Jesus told us in his teachings. “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me.” We reflect on that, and we remember Peter rebuking Jesus when Jesus declared that he must go in front of the scribes, Pharisee’s and Chief Priests, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And Peter was so adamant, this must not happen! And Jesus rebuked him, Get behind me Satan.

         We reflect, is this what Jesus was talking about? Did we so misunderstand what it meant to be Messiah? Not mighty warrior, but instead, humble servant who gives himself for us all?

         Peter cries, wishing he had never rebuked Jesus, that he had never denied him three times, he looks and wonders, what will become of the disciples, the women. And finally he hears Jesus words of resurrection, his words of rising again after three days, of no longer being seen, but then that they will see him again. And finally, after all that he has gone through, Peter finally believes and trusts in what Jesus says, and he does not leave, but stays beneath the cross. Finally trusting.

         The disciples and women start to understand as well, they had faith that Jesus would lead them to victory, but now, standing under the cross, they rehear Jesus words, “The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. 33 I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”

         And they wonder, Jesus’ conquering of the world is so different than they envisioned, how will they go on. To what will they cling? They are so weary, and they see no end to this in sight.

         And yet they trust that Christ has indeed conquered, even though they still wonder what that may mean.

         And so we stand with the disciples, the women, and we know, Christ has died, but Christ has conquered, and as the evening moves we wonder, what does this mean. But, like Peter, finally we trust.

Amen.

         Next week we continue our standing beneath the cross as we hear the line, “The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land.”