
It’s taken me all day to articulate what this weeks Gospel says to me. Jesus’ rebuke seemed unusually harsh, and it didn’t sit well with me. His words would have stung Peter, like a hard unexpected slap. So the point had to be important, in fact crucial for Jesus to make it so strongly….and after I sat with it some time I recalled a time when I thought or wished to protect Jesus, as if that could ever be possible. “Let me take a little of that scourging for you Lord” I’d pridefully said and yet the smallest trial had me running back to Him wailing and begging for relief. I couldn’t stand a moment of the suffering, not even for Him.
You see the cross He asks us to carry is the burden of being loved like this. The almost unbearable weight of being cherished despite our sins, despite our weakness, despite our infidelity to Him. Do you too, read the passion and cry, please, please don’t do this for me? I don’t want you to suffer for me. Yet He continues still. The truth is to love Christ we have to permit Him to love us first. Our acceptance of having nothing to offer except a willingness to give ourselves over to an uncomfortable and undeserved depth of love is the only way to return it. A love that freely suffers being nailed to a cross for a beloved too broken, too selfish, too cowardly to ever properly respond. Yes this is Gods way, this isn’t mans method. When He comes with His angels I believe we will be judged on how much we permitted Him to love us, for it’s from this place all other things will flow.
Perhaps the poem below explains this better….
The whip comes down to tear your flesh
Though they are not your strikes to take,
Yet every lash you bravely bare
And all for my own sake
I try to stand and shield your back
To save just one more wound,
But I can’t love the way you have
Your strength I have not found
In my frustration and angst to make it stop
I utter a desperate cry
And I find myself before your face
Seeing you are the saviour, not I
I begin to see the depth of love
That freely bears this pain
Not to take this gift your giving
Is to make it all in vain
So I stay in adoration
My hands they stroke your face
While still your back is whipped and raw
You hold me in this space
This depth of love cannot be shown
Through comfort or through ease
Show me how to love this way
Let me return this please
My eyes are drawn to the one behind
The one still casting blows
I hold his gaze as you’ve held mine
And in that glance im’ shown
To love the one who holds the whip
To kiss the fist that’s clenched
To embrace the one who throws the stone
Is how your thirst is quenched
When having loved the inflicter
I can then fully embrace my king
I am wrapped around his wounded frame
My arms withstand the sting
I can love the one who hurts and wounds
As by this, I love as He
For when it was I that struck your back
My God how you were loving me.