IVP - Strangely Dim

Living the Last Supper

by David A. Zimmerman

I recently read the book Stumbling Toward Faith: My Longing to Heal from the Evil That God Allowed, written by Renée Alston. For anyone who’s grown up in the church and thinks that makes you special—immune from the world or safe from sin—let me warn you: if you read any part of this book, you will be utterly disabused of such a silly notion.

The experience of family and church has an impact on a child’s understanding of God, and as such for Renée, thinking of God as something other than an abuser or a tyrant or an absentee parent has been a lifelong struggle. But she remains in the church today—something keeps her hanging on. A poem from the book leads me to think of Jesus at the Garden of Gethsemane.

o holy god

your will frightens me.

i plead for this cup to pass

to go beyond my lips

that i might not have to drink of its bitterness

that I might drink instead

from the sweet goblet of certainty and control

of choosing my own path

my own destiny.

i am afraid:

to entrust you with my life

my moments of doubt

the fear i cannot explain.

i am afraid:

to believe that you are good

though i long for it

even in this land of the living

and in the dead places in my own soul.

i am afraid:

to rip open my heart

to offer the contents to you to believe that you will

be gentle with them

with me.

i long to keep my privacies close

my yearnings tuck inward

my loves within my own grasp

please be kind to my soul.

be kind to my tremblings

be gracious unto me.

I find myself wondering, as we prepare to celebrate Easter and recall the terror of Holy Thursday and Good Friday that precede it, what attracts people like Renée—who have endured unspeakable abuse in the name of God—to the Son of that God. The short answer, I suppose, is “the Holy Spirit,” for Jesus is fully God, and God surely draws us to himself. And I suspect that some, such as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea and Pontius Pilate and all the upper crust who found Jesus impossible to avoid, were attracted to the presence of someone fully divine among them.

But as I read the prayer at Gethsemane and as I watch the events of Jesus’ passion unfold, I suspect that for common folk—for women who were not allowed full participation in society, for fishermen who were not counted among the elite, for Matthew the tax collector and Renée the author and perhaps even you and me—Jesus’ greater appeal is his full humanity before God.

For us and for our salvation

He came down from heaven.

By the power of the Holy Spirit

He was born of the Virgin Mary

And became man.

For our sake he was crucified.

***

Happy Easter. Have a good Friday.