thin, dark, pretty girl in the roadside diner
Come away with me…
Crosses by the highway
Words from the language of lost tribes
Speak of both our solitary and communal grief
A crass apparition of the law
Hangs over each of us
Would be angel
Spies the man trudging
along the shoulder
Half-naked
Exile from a violated garden
Fig leaves exchanged
For the skin and blood of
the One who can save us
Along this broken road
We are all
Pilgrims
So Peter is a fisherman, a dude, Jesus’ sidekick and the recent winner of the name-that-king-of-kings contest.
Then this:
Mark 8:31-33 (NIV)
He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. [32] He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. [33] But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
Oh. Bummer.
Things often do not go according to our plans, but few things were going to look more disastrous than the impending crucifixion. Peter said, naw! Can’t be! And Jesus cuts to the truth fast–you gotta see God’s plan.
Nothing takes more faith than believing an obscure Israeli construction worker can save you by dying.
The things of God–mysterious, often dazzling hard to watch. But absolute game changers.
Absolute
Game
Changers.
So Peter is a fisherman, a dude, Jesus’ sidekick and the recent winner of the name-that-king-of-kings contest.
Then this:
Mark 8:31-33 (NIV)
He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. [32] He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. [33] But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
Oh. Bummer.
Things often do not go according to our plans, but few things were going to look more disastrous than the impending crucifixion. Peter said, naw! Can’t be! And Jesus cuts to the truth fast–you gotta see God’s plan.
Nothing takes more faith than believing an obscure Israeli construction worker can save you by dying.
The things of God–mysterious, often dazzling hard to watch. But absolute game changers.
Absolute
Game
Changers.
Many of the traditional Christian catechisms define people as being totally depraved. It is archaic for us–we are used to seeing people through the rose-colored glasses of publicity and media packaging.
I remember seeing a famous person on tv telling an interviewer that she was a wonderful mother (or something like that).
I had a vociferous critic of my parenting so I thought about what the woman was saying. Even without my mother’s voice in my head I knew the catechisms–I am not great, good or wonderful. I am broken. My whole life is broken. The only way it works at all is when I let God in to the broken spaces. He is the antidote to my sin, fear and selfishness.
Jesus was utterly forsaken so I would never have to be.
I used to think that His story could have been more humane–we politely give Him our gratitude and stand by broken by His death on the cross.
Now I realize that the horror of every lonely place and abuse in His story is the way He walks through and bears the trial and death I have earned.
And in return He gives me my life back.
I give Him death, He returns my life to me.
For the first time whole.
Carrying Light 