Friday. Good.

I’ve always wondered about the connection between Easter and chocolate. Let me not even get started on the man-size bunny that supplies eggs. Where I live now, in Australia, the spring theme of Easter at the beginning of autumn just adds to the strangeness. At the same time, it’s good to break out of the seasonality of the Christian calendar. The commemoration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is relevant in all seasons, everywhere.

Whatever you make of it, this single execution some 2000 years ago is still news. Controversial, life-changing news for tens of millions. The danger for people like me who grew up in church and have heard the Easter story countless times is to let it wash over us a bit. Crucifixion is a horrible way to die, by anyone’s standards, and to become de-sensitised to it is to risk missing the enormity of what Jesus did.

Maybe to guard against that I have heard a fair few preachers deliver gory crucifixion sermons over the course of my life, doing in words what Mel Gibson did in pictures in his film The Passion of The Christ; it took me years to bring myself to watch it as my own imagination had already supplied plenty of footage, but I was glad when I eventually did.

My lent preparation for this weekend of commemoration, my phase of not complaining, really came out of a desire to get to an authentic gratitude, acceptance and humility before God. Not because I’m superspiritual (a casual browse of this blog will tell you that) but because that’s what God deserves.

Recognising a power greater than myself is not alien. My life, and yours, is full of authority figures, ranging from parents through teachers to bosses. I didn’t prostrate myself before any of these, but it is right and apt that I should do so before God. All the more so when the events of Easter remind me that He actually entered history and let himself be judged and killed by the very people he had created.

This morning in church we had a dramatic reading of the arrest and trial of Jesus. As usual in many churches, we in the congregation were the crowd who had to shout out at various times, ‘Crucify! Crucify!’ It’s always powerful, and uncomfortable, to hear ourselves implicated in his death. A few days earlier, a crowd had welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem as a king. Now a different, or perhaps not so different, crowd were baying for his blood. Perhaps they felt he had betrayed them, sold them short, not given them what they wanted – a great political leader to overthrow the occupying Romans. Sometimes I might still feel something like that. I didn’t get what I wanted or hoped for. And so I reject him. I am disappointed that he hasn’t taken the world by storm, stopped evil dead in its tracks instead of relying on people, weak and flawed as we are, to let him work through us.

But then I remember that Sunday’s coming. And that though the crowd had the power to put him to death, it could not keep him dead.  And if we believe, we are also implicated in this resurrection. Rising from death.  The ultimate victory. The fresh start. New life. He had to die so that he could rise. So that we could rise. That surely makes this Friday the start of something good.

Happy Easter

 

 

Day 40. Meeting The Elephant

I’ve been feeling a lot better since I put the fork down last week. Chronic self-criticism has been a fantastic distraction with years of life in it. A gift that keeps on giving, if you let it. I’ve used it to avoid all kinds of ventures, opportunities and challenges thus far. But it has been most useful in keeping my gaze averted from the so-called elephant in the room, the greatest complaint in my life (and possibly I’m not alone), which is against God himself. For not letting me have my way. For letting bad things happen to good people. For letting good things happen to bad people. For rain when I want my washing to dry. For sunshine when I’m sick in bed. For not letting me be in charge, basically. For being God. Sometimes I wonder if all people who identify as atheists really don’t believe in God, or whether they just don’t like him and would rather he wasn’t there. If I’m honest, and I might as well be, sometimes a small part of me wishes he wasn’t. Or would at least go on holiday from time to time so I could indulge whatever foolishness I had in mind, out of sight.

However. God is, and I know it. And the truth is that he does not have to do things my way. He doesn’t need my permission to act, or not act. And that is the major complaint I have recognised during this Lent discipline. When I started this I hoped to become more aware of my blessings, and expected to be writing about them. It’s impossible to ignore the good stuff when you’re censoring out the negatives. But I have been surprised by the turn this exercise has taken. It has led me into some dark places. I am grateful, though. At different times in my journey with God I have needed to see what’s really operating at my core, what drives my responses and my aspirations, not what I think is there, or should be there. And it is always the case that at the same time as seeing the sometimes ugly truth, I see more clearly the beauty of God’s grace, kindness and patience towards me.

The classic Biblical personality related to complaining, or with apparently every right to do so, is Job. He was a respected man in his community, did everything right as far as devotion to God was concerned and was prosperous. And to prove a point, God let Satan take it all away, his wealth, his family and his health. Job’s initial reaction is amazing. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, Blessed be the name of the Lord, he says. Then his three mates get into some theologising and theorising on the possible causes of his sudden and stark misfortune. Job’s answers to them reveal a strong sense of his own righteousness. Not pride so much as confusion about what’s happening to his life because he’s always done the right thing. This reaction flows freely with his mates. But faced with God, he dries up. I am unworthy – how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth, he says.

My problems are strictly first-world. A broken fingernail in comparison with what Job endured back then, and billions of others deal with every day. It’s interesting to notice that I don’t question the blessings when they come along, only the things I perceive as negative. With this in mind, and still quiet inside since Lent started, I note that I am accountable to the same almighty God as Job. Who has the power to give and take away. So I think I need to continue to watch my mouth. Or rather, my heart, as Jesus said that the mouth speaks out of the overflow of our hearts.

So watching over my heart, I look forward to remembering and re-assembling for myself the events commemorated in the coming week, culminating in God’s greatest act of love towards me and all humanity on the cross.

 

Day 32. Puncture Marks

This week I realised that as well as complaining about the world out there, a lot of the negative, critical thoughts that have gone (mostly) unvoiced in my mind since I gave up complaining for Lent are actually about me. Things done or not done, said or not said. And it’s a tricky balance for a Christian because we are all aware, or should be, that we are sinners who mess up; the reason God had to make a rescue plan in the first place. So yes of course I’m rubbish at keeping it together. I wouldn’t need God otherwise. But I have been stuck in front of my own flawed reflection, and it’s not healthy.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made, according to Psalm 139, and God knows all about me and loves me anyway, whether I’ve got it together or not.

It’s been difficult hearing my inner moaner revealing some awkward attitudes and expectations of life, God and the people around me. However, this past week has been more about hearing what’s wrong with me than anything else. Yes I’ve just repeated myself. Just one of the things I’ve been noticing and criticising more and more of late.

I have 8 days to go, I think. Who knows what cheery revelations they will bring. I can hardly wait. But  – hold on, I seem to be complaining, don’t I. About complaining about I. See where this stuff can take you?

So I am resolved now to bring an end to this hitherto unnoticed habit of finding fault with myself. Of harping on my defects, and all the reasons I can’t do things. When I say this habit has gone unnoticed, that’s perhaps not strictly true. Others have noticed. My parents. My husband. My friends. Almost everyone who gets to know me, in fact. But I have not believed them before this week. Because I could not hear myself. This week it has been loud and clear. And, at times, very hard to bear. I realised that what may have started life as false modesty or shyness had grown into a deep valley of distrust of my own abilities. I need to climb out, but how?

This week has been one the most difficult yet. But I am grateful for it, even though I had no idea where to start my recovery until this afternoon. At my kids’ school assembly, a class of 1^st-Graders shared what they were good at. These accomplishments covered diverse skills like bike riding, singing, playing Minecraft, hiding in small spaces (loved that) and making friends. And I thought, what a great exercise. Instead of finding fault with myself I can try listing the things I’m good at. Some days the list may be shorter than others. It doesn’t matter. Beats stabbing myself with a fork.