Hello Friends,
Sometimes itβs exhausting to be strong all the time, sometimes I just want permission to be weak, to not have it all together, to run away and hide, to not have as much faith as everyone around me seems to have.
I think Jesus gives us that permission.
Pull up a chair and letβs chat.
Much love and more βοΈ,
Glenn || PATREON / BUY ME A COFFEE
In Mark 14 as the Last Supper comes to a close and Jesus leads his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane, he tells his disciples that over the next 24 hours or so they would "all become deserters; for it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will scatter."
All of you.
Every single one.
... You will see some terrible things, you will hear some awful cries, you will witness some things that no human should ever have to witness. It will scare the living daylights out of you, and you will run away - you will not stick by my side, you will desert me.
I imagine this would have been a relief for Mark's readers to hear.
Right?
Remember, Mark's Gospel was written to a small community of Messianic Jews living on the outskirts of Rome who were living in the wake of Nero's mini-Genocide. A fire had burnt Rome to the ground and he was looking for someone to blame, and for various reasons the Christ followers fit the bill. Roman soldiers pounded on the doors of their small communities, asked if the head of the household was a follower of Jesus, and promptly executed the whole family if the person said yes or even as much as hesitated.
I'm pretty sure I would desert Jesus.
Just being honest.
I'm a Christ follower (I try to be , anyways), but if someone knocked on my door with a gun pointed at my wife and daughter's head and they asked me if I was a follower of Jesus or the Way or whatever ... I'm about 99.999999% sure I'd be one of the deserters.
"You will all desert me."
That must have been a relief to them because Jesus didn't say, "only the weak ones will desert me" or "only the ones with a small amount of faith will desert me" or "only Peter will desert me" or "only the ones who don't pray enough will desert me" or whatever.
No.
He said "you will ALL desert me."
I will.
You will.
We ALL will.
Perhaps the heads of the households back in 64-ish AD were relieved to read those words because maybe it gave them permission to be weak when the next Roman Soldier pounded on their door. Sure, some were "strong" and some stuck by their faith and many saw their own blood and the blood of their families spread along the streets.
Lots of people didn't desert their faith.
BUT.
I think.
I don't know.
I think we all need permission to be weak sometimes, don't we? Being strong and courageous and fearless is exhausting. Sometimes we just need the guy who seems to have it all together (Jesus) to bend down on his knee, look at us in the eye, and say, "it's OK to be weak and it's OK to run away. Everyone does it. It's only human."
I think Jesus was giving his disciples and those Messianic Jews in Rome permission to bolt if they wanted to because right after he says "you will all become deserters" he goes on to say, "but after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee."
Did you see that?
"You will all desert me."
BUT.
"After I am raised up, I will go ahead of you to Galilee."
In other words, "you will all desert me and you will all run away and you will all run and hide, but I will go ahead of you and I will meet you in the place where your running will take you."
Come on.
That's good, right?
Jesus wanted his disciples to know, he wanted the Messianic Jews to know, and he wants YOU and ME to know - it's OK to run away, it's OK to not want to be strong, it's OK to bolt, it's OK to high-tail it out of here and go hide under the sheets or in a gallon of ice cream or in a glass of scotch or get lost in a video game.
It's OK to not turn to your Bible when life is hard.
It's OK to not turn to prayer when life falls apart.
It's OK to not want to go to church.
It's OK to wonder if you believe in God anymore.
It's OK to get lost in the sea of doubts and questions.
It's OK to not be as strong as everyone else in your tribe who is holding on tightly to their faith.
... It's OK.
Why?
Because the Spirit of The Christ will go ahead of you and meet you wherever it is that you're running takes you.
I've been told that my "deconstruction" journey is dangerous and that I'm weak and misguided and that I just need to "hold on to the faith of my youth" and that my questions and doubts and uncertainties are a glimpse of the larger problem of my desertion of God, my desertion of Jesus, my desertion of Orthodoxy, my desertion of the Bible. I've been told that my questions and doubts need to cause me to white-knuckle my beliefs all the more even if those questions and doubts pound on the door of my heart and threaten to execute my soul ... I just need to believe. I've gotten Facebook messages from "concerned" professors, nasty messages from former church friends, phone calls from seminary classmates, I've heard hurtful words from family, from friends, from random Internet theologians.
"You're weak."
"Your faith is weak."
"You were never really as strong as you seemed to have been."
"The Devil has got a hold of you."
"I'm concerned for you."
Jesus says it's OK to run, it's OK to get lost in the sea of questions and doubts ... because he's going to meet us in the place where we're headed, wherever our running might take us; and I know that, for me, truer words have never been spoken.
I have deserted the faith of my youth.
I have caved to the questions.
I have given in to the doubts.
I have run.
I have deserted Jesus time and time again.
... And yet I've met Jesus in new and fresh ways along every step of the journey.
He truly has gone ahead of me "to Galilee", and he'll go ahead of you too.
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