So yesterday was good Friday. The day when we remember Jesus being crucified.
From 12-3pm at Emmanuel Church we had a series of half hour reflections on different aspects of the story of that day. Below is a short reflection I gave on 'The Path'.
Psalm 23 & Luke 23:26-31
Jesus was a walker
He walked everywhere, up and down the length and breadth of Judea,
Galilee, Samaria.
There wasn’t a lot of choice if you wanted to get around in the ANE at
the time of Jesus. If you weren’t stinking rich, you walked. If you wanted to
get somewhere far away in the distance, you walked for days.
What people might do on a walking holiday or for a charitable fundraiser
today – was a necessity for Jesus and his disciples.
Not on pavements or roads of tarmac or paving slabs, but on well worn,
dusty pathways, littered with gravel, sharp stones and rocks – uneven,
sometimes even treacherous. Not in comfortable walking boots and thick socks,
but in sandals – exposed, with no give at all.
In the Jewish context into which Jesus was born and lived, Rabbis, the
Jewish teachers, would be much more to their students than our teachers are
today. We might not want to use the term ‘student’ to describe their followers,
we might use the term ‘disciple’ – a word that has a more active connotation.
Disciples followed their Rabbis everywhere, where ever they went,
whatever they did, a good Rabbi was never alone. Their disciples learnt not
just from their knowledge, but from their whole life and would try and imitate
that life as much as possible. There are stories of disciples following their
teachers to the bathroom to observe how they washed themselves!
It was the aim of the disciple to be covered in the dust of their Rabbi.
As the teacher walked ahead and threw up dust from the road behind him,
his followers would begin to acquire a thin layer of dust over themselves. The
amount of dust you had on you was testament to how closely you were following
your teacher.
Just imagine for a second walking so closely behind Jesus that the dust
that springs up from his steps begins to cover you – walking in his footsteps.
How dusty are
we? How closely are we following?
In Psalm 23, the psalmist paints God as a shepherd, guiding and
directing his sheep along right paths – paths of righteousness.
Yet in the very next verse the psalmist speaks of walking through the
valley of the shadow of death.
Jesus, wherever he walked, always walked the path of righteousness, but
this was often the harder path to take, throughout his whole life, he walked
blamelessly before his Father in the sight of all the people, and yet his path
leads him here, right up to the cross.
As he is bent over, under the weight of this heavy cross – the path he
is travelling is one of the last things he sees.
As he falls – sharp stones dig in and tear at his already damaged flesh
– he can feel every knick and pull in his over-sensitised state. Blood is
drawn, grit and dust lodges in the open wounds turning them muddy and dark. It
stings and throbs and saps all semblances of energy that remain. Yet there’s
nothing he can do, there’s no relief available. His feet, hardened though they
are from a life-time of walking, split under the pressure.
The valley of the shadow of death.
Yet, in the midst of searing pain, in the midst of being led out as a
lamb to slaughter, he stops.
He stops just for a moment, because he sees something. He sees women
mourning and wailing, he sees their distress, and in his darkest hour, he stops
and warns them of what is to come. Even unto the end, Jesus’ first thoughts
weren’t for himself – even in this state. Jesus thinks of others – what do they
need to hear. Jesus shows us the meaning of compassion.
His dust is righteousness, his dust is compassion – his dust is found in
the valley of the shadow of death. Are we willing to follow wherever he leads?
How dusty are we?
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