And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look he said,
The son looked. Far off.
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows: a bright
Serpent. A river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime
On a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The sky, many People
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.
Chris Gollon: Women of Jerusalem (2013)
Let me go there, he said.
God’s Son dwells with us. He comes to this small globe – a light of water and light and colour; a place of buildings and shadows. He comes to us; to a people whose arms are out stretched in longing; to a people waiting in hope and fear. Let me go there, he said; to a bare hill and a saddened tree.
R. S. Thomas’s poem captures our human condition. It is both bleak and luminous. Such is the complexity of our world, our lives. God does not just look on – watching us build and create and desire. God comes to us. For God so love the world he sent his only Son. The one who abided with his Father comes to us and dwells amongst us.
Christ walks in our midst. Let me go there, he said. Over the course of his ministry, Jesus has walked the length and breadth of the land. As he does so he encounters crowds and pays attention to individuals; he captures imaginations with parables and arouses wonder and outrage with his acts of generous mercy and transformation.
He walks. And many follow: the lost and the least; the curious and the hopeful; the bold and the restored.
Today the voice of earthly authority is shouted down; Pilate wants to release Jesus. He finds no grounds for the death sentence; he cannot equate the man standing in front of him with the charges against him. He hopes that flogging will suffice. He does not prevail. His verdict colludes with their demands. Political expediency claims another victim. Crucify, crucify, crucify.
This victim is Emmanuel. The one who dwelt with us, walking among us and calling us to follow, is led away to a bare hill and saddened tree.
They led him away. And coming towards the crowd is a Simon of Cyrene. They seize him. They lay the cross on him. He carries it. He follows Jesus. Does he cast his eyes down to the ground, bearing the weight and fearing lest he stumble? Or does he focus his gaze on the crowned head in front of him? He is following Jesus, walking the steps of suffering and humiliation; bearing the weight of brutality and injustice. And he looks ahead, and the crowned head. The thorns piercing matted sweat soaked, bloody hair.
If we dare to look up we see a head crowned with thorns; we see the vulnerability of the nape of his neck; our eyes bore into the back of his head as our footsteps are placed in his.
Let me go there, he said. To a people whose arms are stretched out in need and longing, in desperation. He walks. Simon follows. A great number of the people followed. And there is a double lament.
The women beat their breasts and wail for him. Their lament is gut wrenching and visceral; they rend their hearts as they follow this man who has loved, who has walked among them, reaching out to them. But Jesus turns his head to face them. Daughters, he says, weep not for me. His lament is reproachful and sorrowful.
We too lament: we lament the brutality of conflict and injustice; we lament over the words that embitter us and the people who are alienated from us; we lament the divisiveness of policies that pit one generation against another; we lament the exploitation of the earth’s resources. We weep not just for the one who walks ahead of us; but for those who walk with us and those who follow us.
Do we pass by or mock or lament? Every footstep Jesus takes, is a step with us in the anguish of our world, the personal burdens, all that overwhelms us as we see the scale of human suffering. In every step he takes, bears the pain and sin of the world. We see the love of God meeting us in the midst of all that, whether unsought or self-inflicted; we see that hurt and despair taken up into the heart of God.
We are confronted with a crowned head. Around it lies a purple robe of mockery. We gaze upon the face of one who walked ahead of us, and with us; the face of one we are called to follow as we step back into the world. We too are to weep and to love; to follow Christ, walking our own paths in his way.
And God held in his hand a small globe.
The Son watched them.
Let me go there, he said.
© 2015 Julie Gittoes
