God Has Not Abandoned Us
/Blessed Palm, Sunday, everyone. This week begins the holiest of weeks, and over these days we'll journey through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus, entering into each moment of the story and experiencing every detail with Jesus and his community. On Palm Sunday, though, we get kind of an overview of what’s going to happen, and when I step back and look at it from this wide perspective, I can see its movement. We begin with a parade, with singing and waving palm branches, but then everything devolves into chaos, and we’re in that chaos for a while. Palm Sunday doesn’t bring us to Easter joy, not yet, but it gives us a glimmer of hope. We must simply trust that resurrection is coming, even though we won’t see it. Yet.
So, on Palm Sunday we move from celebration, connection, and joy to chaos, isolation, and disintegration. And truly, it is dis-integration. We see a community celebrating with each other, one which is unified. An argument breaks out at dinner, which may be the beginning of the disintegration, and later, as they’re with Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is arrested and the whole community scatters. In the turmoil, they’re no longer unified. They are disbursed, and each one is alone.
We don’t know where they go, but it seems like wherever that is, the community is no longer together. The story does follow one of them, Peter, who gets as close as he can safely get to Jesus, but then it breaks down for him too. Usually when I read the account of Peter denying Jesus, I’m affronted on Jesus’s behalf. How can Peter sit with him at dinner and then deny him a few hours later? However, now as I think about Peter, I wonder how isolated and afraid he must be feeling to distance himself from Jesus. Someone who loves Jesus as much as Peter does wouldn’t deny him on a whim. This is the action of someone who is devastated and terrified. Maybe Peter feels so alone that it’s as if he really doesn’t know Jesus after all.
And then we have Jesus himself. We see him tortured. We see him ridiculed and shamed in front of a crowd. In the Passion account from Luke, when he dies, Jesus cries out, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” In the other Gospels, Jesus’s experience is a little different. In John he says, “It is finished,” but in Mark and Matthew he cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Maybe he’s simply quoting Psalm 22, which is our Psalm on Palm Sunday, or maybe he really does feel abandoned by God. That thought is the saddest part for me, that Jesus might have given in to the despair and disintegration that moves through this story. Maybe the lie of isolation is the greatest evil in this story – the thing that whispers to Jesus and his community that they no longer have each other or God, that they’re alone.
Even though this story is one of disintegration and isolation, because we can step back and take it in all at once, we can see that its movement is ultimately toward good. God’s presence is all through it. In fact, in the Second Reading from Philippians, we get a beautifully poetic account of this movement – how Jesus humbles himself, taking on our likeness, and God exults him. Jesus is obedient even to death, and God lifts him up. Even though we don’t get to move to Easter yet, this reading reminds us that this story doesn’t end with death and the disintegration of the community. On Palm Sunday we’re left hanging before the end, but this is not the end.
The hymn from Philippians makes it sound so beautiful, and when things sound beautiful, they seem easy, right? However, when I’m in a space like Jesus is, when I feel as though I’m empty or abandoned or I’m in uncertainty, fear, or despair, it doesn’t feel beautiful. Despair feels terrible, in fact. And in the moment, it’s very difficult to have a wide-view perspective. It only seems dark and small. And yet, when we look at the Passion story, knowing the end, because we do know the end, it’s not dark or small at all.
When I’m feeling despair, because I don’t have perspective, I can wonder if it’s because I’m doing something wrong, not morally wrong, but more like incorrectness. When I’m struggling, I can feel like I’m kind of doing life wrong and if I did life better, I’d be happy like everyone around me seems to be. But that’s not real. That’s part of the lie of despair. Despair, isolation, and disintegration have a way of cutting us off from other people, making it feel like we’re the only ones who struggle. However, the reality is that life is hard for everyone sometimes. Suffering is normal. And, like Jesus, God is with us, even if it doesn’t feel like it. We too will move from darkness to light. That’s a natural movement for us as well, and like Jesus, God has given us what we need to make it through whatever situation we’re in.
When I use Palm Sunday as a lens to look at the bigger picture of our world, which also has plenty of disintegration, isolation, and despair, I feel reassured that somewhere God is in that too. There is genuine suffering, even anguish, in people today. In the United States we have a crisis of loneliness, which seems like a result of the splintering of communities, the fragmentation we’re experiencing. Like Peter, people feel isolated and alone, like they’re separated and don’t even know the ones they love. Like Jesus, people may feel like God has abandoned them. But underneath all the sadness and fear and isolation, the Spirit of God is moving. Even if people are feeling their human fragility very acutely, God is with us. We feel disconnected, but the reality is that we belong to each other, and even if we experience our pain in isolation, we are actually connected.
The Passion story does not end with disintegrated fragments scattered all around or even this community scattered all around. It just feels that way for a while. The people in this story move through this disintegration on their way to reintegration with God and with each other. In fact, the story doesn’t really end at all, does it? Jesus rises from the dead, and the community reconvenes. Not only that, but the community grows bigger and wider until all of us are drawn up into this Body of Christ which continues to live and thrive.
But we’re not there yet. And maybe we, too, need to move through this time of dis-integration. As systems unravel and one struggle after another emerges, it can feel disconcerting and frightening. But that doesn’t mean God has abandoned us. Now we are living into this story, the beauty and the heartbreak the love and betrayal. Jesus’s story is our story too. So, let’s enter in as fully as we can with open minds and hearts and see what God has to say to us on this beautiful, excruciating Palm Sunday. Let’s hold each other in prayer, look to God our hope, and trust the reintegrating movement of the Spirit.
For Reflection:
When you look at this story, what resonates for you? Where do you find yourself in this story?
When you’re in a space of despair or loneliness, how do you know God is with you? Even if you couldn’t notice God then in the moment, can you see God’s presence now, in hindsight?
As you consider all of this, what’s God’s call for you? Maybe you could take some quiet time with God and see what God has to say to you.
By Sister Leslie Keener, CDP
Sister Leslie Keener, CDP is the director of God Space, a community-building spirituality ministry in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. She’s a Sister of Divine Providence with a Masters in Ministry and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction and Retreats from Creighton University. She directs retreats, meets with people for spiritual direction, and serves as the vocation director for her community. She enjoys music, meaningful conversations, and dancing.