at Batesville Prebyterian Church on Palm Sunday, April 1, 2007
We are flying in an airplane over the Atlantic ocean. This flight goes from New York City to Amman, Jordan. On board is the President of my seminary, 25 seminary students and 3 seminary professors. The seminary president is a short man with a booming voice. He is an experienced traveler. After the flight is underway he puts on a pair of ear plugs and covers his eyes with a blinder and reclines his seat. Within minutes he is laying with his arms spread out over his head, snoring loudly. He knows the importance of timing on a long journey. He knows the time will come to stare in wonder at the tomb of Christ in the Church of Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. But now is not that time. Now is the time to relax and rest. So I relax my grip on the magazine and trust the Lord to keep us safe and sound on this flight and on this trip. My fear is deeper than the fear of flying. My fear is that I am not in control. I am a passenger and not the driver. I am really afraid because this trip may change the way I view the world and my faith. No one who journeys to Jerusalem comes back as the same person. Jesus will never be the same after this donkey ride into Jerusalem. He will exit Jerusalem from his own tomb.
I am walking through Manhattan on a Sunday morning in August. I am 25 years old. The walk begins at the Statue of Liberty. There are many people there. A juggler entertains us as we wait in line to climb up into the Statue of Liberty. My turn comes to climb the stairs, one by one, going up to the top of Lady Liberty. From the crown of the Statue of Liberty, I look across at Manhattan Island. It shines like a diamond across Hudson Bay. I climb down the Statue of Liberty and begin walking up Broadway Street through Manhattan heading toward Central Park. The sun is out and it is hot and humid. The concrete sidewalk and empty streets intensify the heat of the sun. Even the skyscrapers seem to be heaping heat down on my head. The soles of my feet are burning from the hot pavement. The streets are nearly deserted except for a stray car here or a taxi cab there. I walk alone in silence infected by intense heat. Something clicks. I have achieved some unspoken goal. I feel my self confidence rising with the heat.
Jesus walks alone on a Friday. On his back he carries a cross. He winds his way down the Via Dolorosa. He straggles up to the hill of the skull. He is so hot. He feels the heat of all the sin, fear, guilt and dread of the human species throughout all history. He feels the heat of hell summoning him down to where he would willingly go after his death on the cross. He descends into hell, as we say in the Apostle's Creed. Jesus is intimate with suffering. He walks alone when he has to do it. He walks from Pilate's quarters to Golgotha. As the great spiritual song says, "Nobody else could walk it for him. He had to walk it by himself."
There comes a time in our lives when we must walk alone. The crowds no longer support us. Our friends provide no consolation. We must walk alone through the valley of the shadow of death. Our family and friends may stand with us during the funeral service but there comes a time when everyone goes back home and we are left alone in the house without our loved one who has died. Or perhaps the problem is that we feel apathetic toward life. Or we may feel spiritually numb.
Gerald Mays explore such times in his book, The Dark Night of the Soul. He says we grow spiritually when what we were formerly doing no longer brings us any satisfaction. Such times are called "dark night of the soul" because God's presence is obscured. It is hard to see at midnight when the lights are all turned off. During times of spiritual obscurity, when the way before us in unclear, the Spirit may be maturing our faith. Certainly Jesus' solitary walk on Good Friday was an experience framed by poor vision. His eyes were swollen from the beating he had taken at the hands of the Roman soldiers who mocked him. There was blood and sweat in his eyes from the crown of thorns on his head as the heat of the day beat down upon him. He vision was blurred. Surely that solitary walk on Good Friday caused more growth in Christ's faith than the joyous journey on the donkey's back down Mount Olives into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
We all long for the spiritual high of Palm Sunday but are less enthralled to experience the pain of Good Friday. Yet we grow more during the Good Fridays of our lives than we do on the Palm Sundays. Part of our growth may involve not knowing what God is doing in our lives. God sometimes works in obscurity. According to Mays, it is not so much God does not want us to know what God is doing in our lives. Rather, God is able to lead us further when we do not know where we are going. During the dark night of the soul, during the times when we are unsure where God is or what God is doing in our lives, God may be purifying our soul and cleansing our spirit. Good Friday was for Jesus an experience of the dark night of the soul. From the depths of his soul, he cries from the cross , "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
The question we have during the dark night of the soul is the same question everyone asked when Jesus rode the donkey into Jerusalem: "Who is this?" We do not always know the answer to that question. God's presence is sometimes unknown and unseen in our lives. We do not always understand who Jesus is or what he wants from us. This is especially true during the dark night of the soul. The key to spiritual growth is obedience to God even when we do not know who God is. We do not recognize the dark night of the soul when we are experiencing it. Later we may recognize a slightly noticeable change in our attitude and behavior. We have more inward freedom. Wehave more compassion for others. We have a broader perspective. These are the fruits of the dark night of the soul.
God suffers with us in the bad times and rejoices with us in the good times. We don't have to be always in control. We can relax. God is leading us onward even when we find no evidence of God's active presence in our lives. During the season in our lives when God's activity seems faint and shadowy, we may be experiencing the liberating power of the dark night of the soul. One thing we know for certain and we take hope in this fact. After every dark night there comes the dawn, and after every Good Friday comes Easter Sunday.
We journey with Jesus through his Passion. We take it one day at a time during this Holy Week. We wax warm in the glow of Palm Sunday. We wane before the mystery of the dark night of the soul on Maundy Thursday. We cry at foot of the cross as Jesus dies on Good Friday. We are surprised by joy at the resurrection Jesus on Easter Sunday. Holy Week is a spiritual passage that commemorates Christ's dark night of the soul. We are making that journey now.
