In the Garden & Beholding

It's in the beholding.
It's in the seeing.
Blended with desire
That we choose. Or decide a course of action or a response.


Foreseeing betrayal, He loved.

John 13

It begins with John saying something profound about Christ - about who He was.  Only, it wasn't what others thought.  It's what Jesus knew that John writes. 

His actions flowed from it, were rooted in it ...
He knew God had given all things to Him
He knew where He came from
He knew where He was going

Even the cross, it's gore, He knew
Even the betrayal of friends, He knew

He was completely secure in the knowing.

So he took off his outer garments, filled the basin, and knelt down at his friends' feet...even Judas' feet.  And cleaned them.

Formative. 

Act.

Behold.

He knew those whom he washed.  
He knew the pain their actions (and omissions) would thrust upon his physical body.  And soul.
(Imagine, rejection and betrayal and innocence.)

But He did it securely.  He knew where he was going.

That God would be made known - like never-before-known. 

 In Him.

He in God.

And God in them.  Yes, even in them who bore him ill.  Them who "knew not what they do."

And he told us to love likewise. 

Life batters us.  It gets rough.  But it matters.

I believe that we can love and live like this, like Jesus did, and still (yes, still) maintain justice.  After all, justice is always first on everyone's mind when a wrong or omission is done.  It is on everyone's mind for good reason. For Goodness' sake, yes.

Justice, after all, is about one thing in particular:  Maintaining righteousness, surely; in the face of sin, in its self-absorbed ill-will we inflict on others, Justice Loves.   It sees sin's disregard for another's property or person.   Justice - it's about healing the wronged, and arresting the wrong-doer for the same purpose.   It's for redemption.  It's not about vengeance.  Or it's anger.  It's about a different anger.  And a deeper love.  That doesn't excuse.  Yes, for Goodness' sake.

There is a time for healing. And we can do that, too.  We can heal.

Jesus was betrayed and then the betrayal killed him. And then he rose.  It took him three days.  (Sometimes, it seems like it takes me years to recover, and I did not suffer as He did, not even close, so I know, because He lives and is wholly well, I shall be, too, in Him.)  And in the killing and the dying, yes, he bore justice for all, through bearing injustice.  He loved clean through our sin, completely. 

Sometimes, in living and loving, in healing from sorrows dealt unjustly, it takes wisdom and trust to know that forgiveness is not one more betrayal (of justice, for self); to know that forgiveness fixes itself upon God, upon knowing what Jesus knew; to know that there is a grace that holds it all together, even when we cannot, and we must rest from the effects of someone's sin.  I wonder if maybe Jesus was in some manner "healing forward" in the garden before he took on the world's injustices, its penalties.  Because, because He knew.  And it was agony to know.  There wouldn't be time on the cross to heal.  It was all about the breaking, the dying.  He was supposed to die.  He knew it.  But His soul, His spirit needed to be well, his will to forgive, to go through with forgiveness, strong.  So, he sweated drops of blood, and he gasped a prayer, "Not my will, but Yours be done, Father."

And the angel came
To the Son of Man,
God in flesh,
And strengthened Him

Who knew us.  Mankind.  The betrayals we drown in, he knew.  (Sin is the betrayal of all that is good and right, yes.)  So, He knew His friends.

But he loved completely.
Exposing himself.
Vulnerable, he lived;
Vulnerable he died. 

Victorious he rose. 

And he invites us to rise like that, with him - in him.

To love each other.

---

Yes, it took me a long time to recover from it. 

Maybe I imagine poorly and get it wrong.  Maybe, but I just know how this past year and a painful friendship has fallen like residue across the landscape; of how it reminds me of particular things past, of experiences and events (emotively) I'd forgotten - how like a tempest cast from past sorrows.

I am still recovering, it feels like, at least on some days.  (I tried to tell her, but she couldn't hear me.)

In myself, in my imagining, I choose a response to her. 

I am formed by these two; by imaginings and response. 

I am not locked by bitterness, shut up in sorrow. I am free (in Jesus' love) to love.

I am called, in spite of the hurt and the knowing, to serve her - to love her.   Yes, Jesus knew his friend. Yet (and) he loved him. Yet (and) he vulnerably washed his dust-covered feet.  All 12 of his friends' dirty feet, he scrubbed.  And loved.

He knew.  It mattered that he do it for them.  Yes, it mattered that he love.  So he did.  Why? How? Because he knew something.  He knew from where he had come.  And he knew where he was going.  And that God (his Father, with whom he was intimately acquainted) had placed all things in his hands. 

And, so, because He knew it (and John told us), I know, too.   I am in His hands.  Safe, careful hands.  I am made alive in Him.  I can love with my eyes wide open.  And if I am worn out and tired or exhausted by the effort or the exchange, there is a garden I can go to, to pray.   Where the angels occupy and his own Spirit comes fresh as the dew at dawn.  Before the cross.  And at the resurrection.

Glory (amen)