Turning loose is rarely graceful. I can’t think that there’s ever the right time to do so, especially the final letting go. Rarely are we ready. I certainly wasn’t. For me, it was a tug-o-war deal, yet the other side wasn’t pulling. My mom, growing weaker from an old illness, got sick over the holidays sixteen years ago now. We all felt that we’d have more time. The practice of surrender might be the hardest discipline of all. That river is far too strong, and I didn’t have the keys to the current.
During this strange and cruel pandemic season, with more than half a million lives lost here, many had to turn loose without holding the hands of those they loved. Saying goodbye through screens, with notes, with calls. Echoing through the halls of every hospital across this land, and around the globe, the sound of tears. Dear God.
My theological well had run dry. I had never felt like that before. I knelt in that lonely, sterile hospital chapel, my last resort, bartering for more time… for this not to happen now… like this. It felt like the end of me. All of my clergy training flew out those stained glass windows, along with every drop of pride I had been clinging to, leaving only a little boy’s honest heart, broken open as wide as the Grand Canyon. But let go, I did. When we told her that it was okay for her to go, we did so with lumps in our throats, yet our faces shone with the brightness of a sun we could not see. And I believe Jesus’ felt the same light in his heart when it was his time. Dear God.
In the wild sweeping story of his final days, with a price on his head and a tempest brewing in his chest, the teacher walks into the teeth of the coming storm.* In the midst of it all: the final family gathering, accusations, denial, and then abandonment. It was there, into that dark and lonely place, that he was called to go. All the teaching was taught, the anointing oil spilled, the wine glasses empty, a kiss from his betrayer that hurt worse than death. He has nowhere to turn, except loose. Even so, he wasn’t ready. Not now… not like this. He asks for another way. His heart was broken open as wide as the river of his baptism. Dear God.
In this breaking, a channel clears. A secret trust pushed through like a river swollen, breaching his banks. In return for him choosing to stay, he would hold the heart of God. And so did I. And so will you. He’s voicing my pain, your confusion, our worry… and leans on a promise like a hand on a lever, wedged against a fulcrum, about to move a great stone. And in so doing, he assures us that we will do the same.
*Mark 14:1-15:47 (The Message)
–Jim Marsh, Jr. Bread of Life Church
