A Lover's Pain

I remember the first time I had to get stitches, I was in second grade. Six stitches below my kneecap, from a stick that was driven into me after being tackled while playing football on the playground. I know it was painful. The stick in and the stick pulled out, then the multiple shots for numbing in order to stitch it up at the medical center. But I don’t remember the physical pain. I do remember my teacher running out onto the playground where I lay crumpled up on the ground, crying loudly. She picked me up and carried me back to the classroom. I remember the humiliation I felt, the pain of my classmates staring at my helplessness. That pain I can still feel. 

I also remember when I broke a bone in my wrist playing college basketball, it happened in game before traveling to play in the national tournament. Again, I can’t recall the physical pain but I remember sitting on the table, after getting the result of the x-rays, and the doctor looked me dead in the eye and said he needed to put my arm in a cast immediately, which meant I wouldn’t be able to play for at least six weeks. I can feel a lump forming in my throat just thinking about when I walked into the gym later that day, arm in a brace, and seeing the look of disappointment on my coach and teammates faces.

Intellectually, I know that the physical pain of those injuries were intense, but it is only the emotional pain that I can still viscerally feel. Remembering that pain takes me to a story that historically took place on this day, Holy Thursday, some two thousand years ago. Jesus had just finished a meal with his closest friends and students, a meal that is often referred to as The Last Supper. After the meal, Jesus got up from the table and took a walk into a garden known as Gethsemane. The Gospel of Matthew says it like this:

Jesus took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”  (Matthew 26:37-38)

On the Christian calendar, today is known as Holy Thursday, a day of remembering Jesus’s last meal and the journey into the Garden of Gethsemane. What we also find, as Jesus moves into this garden, is a subtle but powerful shift in the narrative. Up until now Jesus has spent about three years in active ministry. We have experienced Jesus teaching, healing, and performing a plethora of miracles. The move into the garden shifts the narrative from what Jesus is doing, to what is being done to him. From this point on, there are no more brilliant teachings, miracle feedings, or compassionate healings. There is betrayal, arrest, torture and crucifixion. All of this is done to Jesus, which is also known as his passion, which I find fascinating.

Jesus’s passion isn’t what he does, rather it is how he absorbs what is done to him. 

Passion comes from the Latin passio meaning passiveness, non-activity, absorbing something more than actively doing anything. The “passion” of Jesus refers to that time in his life where his meaning for us is not defined by what he was doing but rather by what was being done to him. 

What I find remarkable about this, is how the Christian faith teaches that we are saved more through Jesus’s passion (his death and suffering) than through all of his activity of preaching and doing miracles. It is in how Jesus suffers and perseveres, how he absorbs all the violence and hate, yet is found offering forgiveness and grace within every painful step of this journey. And beginning with this Biblical text, we should take note that Scripture does not describe Jesus’s physical pain, but rather his emotional pain. You have likely heard or seen the description of physical pain through sermons and in movies, but what is found in the text is the description of Jesus’s emotional sorrow and anguish. 

This is a lover’s pain. 

And it all begins in a garden, which in ancient literature is an archetype for delight, the place of love, the place to drink wine, the place where lovers meet, the place of intimacy. The garden is a picture that represents paradise. And it’s here where Jesus sweats blood of sorrow, where he It is falls to his knees with intense grief, and the deepest anguish. We learn of Jesus feeling alone, misunderstood, isolated, and without support. The agony of a heart that is loving, understanding, warm, inviting, forgiving, and hungry to embrace everyone. It is this great love that is the point. 

As a pastor, I lament the times I used a sermon to dial up the descriptive physical pain of passion week. What was the point of pouring over all the intense, physical details? To get people to feel sorry for how Jesus was treated, maybe telling them that their junky living is a few of those lashes raked across Jesus’s back? Well, maybe people will feel bad enough and say a prayer, or maybe they’ll stop saying swears for a few days. Yuck. That is just... too… small.

Jesus never asked us to feel sorry for him, but he did invite us to suffer with him. Of course, because Christianity teaches that the pattern of transformation is not death avoided, but death transformed.

It is when we follow Jesus into a life lived with passion, the passion of a lover, that we are found saved from selfishness and the small life. When we follow Jesus into a life of mercy and forgiveness, grace and generosity, from which we are led into a life of joy. This kind of life is found on the other side of death, which transcends breathing and not breathing. This kind of life is available and starts… now. Right here, right where we stand.

Today is an invitation for you and me to join Jesus in the garden, to discover the profoundly rich life on the other side of pain and death. This is about being fully present to the anguish and suffering within us and all around us. Being present to this kind of pain, a lover’s pain, brings us face to face with Friday. Which is to be face to face with crucifixion. It’s here that we have to recognize and name what will be pinned to the cross. What suffering are we in the midst of, what anguish is calling us to find new life, the truest life?

Welcome to Holy Thursday. And welcome to A Lover’s Pain.