I’ve been reading Brian Zahnd’s new book, “The Wood Between the Worlds” (IVP | 2024), this Lent. He describes it as a “Poetic Theology of the Cross.” “I want to be drawn,” Brian explains early in the book, “into a contemplative orbit around the cross.” So do I.
The Gospel doesn’t “yield its mysteries” so much to “analytical methods as to mediation,” Brian explains. Believing that theology is more like poetry than physics, and that the things the Bible tells us about God should be approached more like a painting in an art gallery than a law book in a library, Brian wants a theology that makes him sing. He wants to move past the dispassionate academic ways he was taught to critically analyze an ancient text and be ushered instead into an encounter with the same God those ancient texts report as living, and moving, and acting in the experiences of the lives and world of the ancient Hebrews and the very first Christians. He says he wants his Bible to be a “portal into the divine mystery.” When he visited Brite Divinity School as a guest lecturer when I was a student there back in the mid-1970’s, John Westerhoff, the Christian Educator, said that there are some things about our faith as Christians that are better sung than explained, and this is the same point that Brian Zahnd is making in his new book. Our heads can only take us so far in our journey to God, at some point our hearts have got to take over. As Catherine de Hueck Doherty said, we need to “fold the wings of the intellect to open the door of the heart.” This is easier said than done for some of us.
I am given to explanation. My faith seeks understanding. It always has. This is my ordinary mode. Loving God “with all my mind” comes naturally to me. But just about 20 years ago I came to what I perceived to be the outer limits of that way being and believing. I could argue the case that God is good. I’d read the books, sat through the lectures, written the papers, gotten a good grade. It wasn’t enough. I desperately needed to “taste and see” that God was good too (Psalm 34:8). I needed a faith that was less a theory and more a love affair. I needed to undertake that 12-inch journey from my head to my heart again. It’s a familiar trip for me.
Earlier trips to this boundary on the spiritual journey of my life had gotten me born-again (Evangelical), Spirit-filled (Charismatically renewed), better aware of the inner light who is the indwelling Christ (Quaker), and a heart-strangely-warmed (Pietism/Emmaus). This time I set out on that trail intending to become a contemplative, or perhaps more accurately I should say, to open myself to a more contemplative way of being and believing, for this is the work of the Spirit, and as Jesus told us (John 3:8), the Spirit is like the wind. It blows when, and where, and how it wants.
We don’t control the Spirit’s movements. We can’t schedule the Spirit’s appearances. We don’t manage the Spirit’s work. We can’t engineer the Spirit’s effects. The most we can do is to try to be open to the Spirit’s presence and power, and to try to position ourselves in those places and practices where the Spirit has a history of showing up. The terrain I consciously pitched the tent of my soul on 20 years ago was in the space where silence, liturgy, music, and icons all intersect, and from there the wind of the Spirit blew me eastward, into the world of Orthodox Christianity. And this is where I bumped into Mary. In Eastern Christianity, Mary traverses that same ground, the terrain of silence, liturgy, music, and icons. Twenty years ago she has become my companion on the contemplative way, and my example of what it means to be a contemplative believer.
In his epic 1968 poem on Mary – “A Woman Wrapped in Silence” (Paulist Press) – author John W. Lynch zeroed in on Luke’s description of Mary quietly observing the cosmic events unfolding in her life, and in the life of her Son, and treasuring them, “reflecting on them in her heart” (Luke 2:19; 2:51). Mary is at the Cross, but she is silent. Luke tells us that she “stood at a distance” with the other women, that “she saw these things” (Luke 23:49) but said nothing. “Here a woman wrapped in silence,” John Lynch wrote, “and the words were closed within her spacious heart for pondering.” “Through long years of pondering God’s word and cherishing the memory of these mysterious events in her heart, Mary penetrated the truths they held and her understanding of them grew.”
Every Holy Week I return to a Pastoral Prayer I wrote for the last Sunday of Lent several years ago. I don’t just want to go to church this week, I want to enter into the mystery of faith, and so I pray –
Lord, our journey to Easter has turned the corner and is heading for home. Today we find ourselves stand on the precipice of Holy Week. From here we can hear the shouts of “Hosanna!” From here we can taste the bread and cup of the Last Supper, feel the wounds of the cross, see the sealed tomb and smell the fear and despair of shattered expectations. This is familiar terrain. We know this story well. We know how it unfolds and where it winds up.
Save us, Lord, from familiarity and complacency; from the boredom and inertia of being old hands at all of this. We’ve sung all of the hymns before. We’ve heard all of the sermons before. We’ve gone through all of the rituals before. We’ve prayed all of the liturgies before. Our appetites have been honed by a culture that craves the new and improved, so teach us to love the old, old story. Send your Spirit to close the circuit between the needs of our hearts and world, and the promises of grace that you made for us in Jesus Christ.
Help us to discover the Gospel again, Lord, not just on the pages of Scripture and in the traditions of the church, but in the twists and turns of our lives and in the hopes and hurts of the world.
On Palm Sunday, when we hear about Christ’s triumphal entry, help us to join the shout of the crowd as they cry out for salvation. Come as Prophet, Priest and King into our hearts and into this church to be our way, our truth and our life.
On Maundy Thursday, when we hear about the Last Supper, make room at that table for us; a place where we can love and be loved; a place where we can belong and believe.
On Good Friday, as we hear about the way of the cross, gather up our suffering, and the suffering of the whole world, and carry it to the heart of the Father.
On Holy Saturday, when we hear about Christ in the tomb and the disciples behind closed doors, come and sit with us in our own fears and disappointments.
And on Easter Sunday, when we hear about the empty tomb and the Risen Christ, shift our gaze from then to now, giving us hope for the possibilities of the newness of life, both abundant and eternal.
We don’t need another history lesson, Lord. We need the assurance of your presence in our lives that are filled with struggle, and we need the provision of your grace to continue to live courageously and compassionately in this very scary world of ours. We need to know where you are and what you are doing, Lord, so bring us to Holy Week where your story and our stories can intersect and intertwine once again, and then anchor us there where we can know that “resurrection is stronger than crucifixion, that forgiveness is stronger than bitterness, that reconciliation is stronger than hatred, and that light is stronger than darkness,” we ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
*SOUNDINGS 