Blue Christmas: The Wound, The Route, The Gift

John 20:24-28

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hands in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later, the disciples were again in the house, and this time Thomas was with them. Jesus came, again, and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” And he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand put it in my side. Do not doubt, but believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord, and my God.”

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David Brooks, in his book, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, the inspiration behind our Advent journey this season, tells some beautiful and hard stories about grief and despair and suffering. He gives some sad statistics about how and why we are such a disconnected people these days – and about what it means to experience hardships ourselves, to learn to see them in others, and to walk with others – and each other – through the struggles of this life.

If you’ve picked up the book, but haven’t made your way into it, yet – and you’re here tonight – maybe Part 2, Chapter 8, page 97, is a place you could begin reading. (If you don’t have this book – or don’t know or care about any of that – fear not; none of it is necessary. I plan to fill in all the gaps you might be missing.)

But in discussing what it means to see one another in our struggles, David Brooks tells part of Frederick Buechner’s story. Buechner was a Presbyterian minister, theologian and very prolific author – a few of who’s books were required reading in my Pastoral Care and Counseling courses back in seminary. When Buechner was just ten years old – and his younger brother, only 8 – their dad peaked in them early one morning in their bedroom before they were set to go on a family outing about which the brothers were quite excited.

It was too early that morning to get up so the boys stayed in bed, in their room, anticipating the fun day they had planned. As Brooks writes it, “A little while later, they heard a scream and the sounds of doors opening and closing. They looked out their window and saw their father lying in the gravel driveway, with their mother and grandmother, barefoot and still in their nightgowns, leaning over him. Each woman had one of his legs in her hands. They were lifting his legs up and down as if they were operating two handles of a pump. Nearby, the garage door was open and blue smoke was billowing out.

“… their father had gassed himself to death. It took them a few days to find the suicide note, which their dad had scratched in pencil on the last page of Gone with the Wind. It was addressed to their mom, [and said]: ‘I adore you and love you, and am no good … Give Freddy my watch. Give Jamie my pearl pin. I give you all my love.’”

Within just a couple of months, Buechner’s mother moved them to Bermuda, where they started a new life, and little Freddy effectively avoided and denied whatever grief he would have/could have/should have probably wrestled with until he couldn’t avoid it any longer – when he became a young adult. His work as a teacher and author helped with that, as did more life experiences and research into his dad’s past and family history. Sadly, and surprisingly, it wasn’t until he reached middle age that Frederick Buechner was able to cry real tears – to actually grieve – the loss of the father he loved very much.

I picked this story to tell, because I agree with David Brooks: that the trajectory and experience of Frederick Buechner’s grief is a familiar one for many people.

See if this scenario sounds familiar:

Some sadness, struggle, or even tragedy strikes. There is a period of shock and grief that feels too great to face or engage, so that grief – and all the emotions that come along with it – are packed away, avoided, denied, whatever. We suck it up and move on, because we think that will be easier. We brave the grief alone, or quietly, because that looks like “strength” to us – and that supposed “strength” is often affirmed as such by the world around us. At the very least, maybe we minimize whatever grief or struggle finds us because we are needed by others – children, parents, spouses – or because we don’t want to appear weak, or to be a burden or a buzz-kill, or something of the like.

(Again, not that anyone here would ever … but does any of this sound familiar?)

Whatever the case, this can go on for quite some time … until it can’t anymore. In Frederick Buechner’s case, it took decades before it caught up with him and before he was finally able to find meaning and new life through the grief he learned to experience and engage over having lost his father so young and so tragically.

Anderson Cooper tells a similar story. (I know I am a broken record about Anderson Cooper and his podcast “All There Is,” and I’m sorry – not sorry – that I bring it up every chance I get. If nothing else I have to say tonight resonates or sounds encouraging or helpful to you, make listening to that podcast part of your holy homework soon and very soon. I propose – I almost promise – it will either help you find some words and wisdom about whatever grief you’ve already experienced, or it will prepare you for the grief that will find you – as it does us all – at some point in our lives.)

Anyway, the whole reason Anderson Cooper started this podcast a few years ago, where he interviews others all and only about their grief is because – at the age of 55 – he realized he had never been taught or encouraged to engage, let alone wrestle with or mend, the deep grief he endured by losing his father to heart-failure when he was just 10 years old (like Frederick Beuchner was); or the grief he suffered after losing his 23 year-old brother to suicide when he was just 21.

Instead of grieving well, Anderson says as a young adult, he traveled the world, risking his life to report on wars and tragedies and disasters – literally on a global scale – so that, while simultaneously running from and avoiding his own grief, he could subconsciously measure that kind of horrific sadness against his own, and maybe see how other people survived in the face of it.

Anderson Cooper embodies Frederick Buechner’s suggestion that, even though we long more than anything to be known fully, grief – even though it is utterly universal – may be one of the things that is most difficult to embrace, admit, or share about ourselves.

It’s why what we’re up to tonight is as practical as it is holy to me. It’s why I’m so grateful you’ve showed up. It’s why I wish this place was as full tonight as it will be on Christmas Eve.

See, on a recent episode of that podcast, Anderson Cooper interviewed the actor Andrew Garfield, who talked about the loss of his mother. And Andrew Garfield said something so profound it’s been making its way around the internet, lately. Maybe you’ve seen or heard it.

“The wound is the only route to the gift.”

I wonder if, when Jesus showed up for the disciples after his death – and then again to Thomas, who refused to believe it …

I wonder if he was doing even more than proving his identity … if he was doing more, even, than just showing evidence of his resurrection …

I wonder if, when Jesus showed off the wounds in his hands and on his sides… If, when he invited Thomas to put his fingers “here” and to see his hands, to reach out his own hands and to touch the wounded sides of Jesus…

I wonder if Jesus was offering Thomas healing for the deep grief he surely felt, and if he was showing them all – and us, too – that “the wound is the only route to the gift” that even our grief can be for us, as people of faith.

Not that we would ever choose the grief that comes our way …

Not that we deserve the deep sadness and struggle that finds us, too often, on this side of heaven …

But that, because God shows up in Jesus to walk the way of suffering before and beside us as we go, we can remind ourselves and each other that God does God’s best work in the dark, sad, scary places of our lives.

See, I believe God showed up, in Jesus, to remind us that the only way through the grief that finds us in this life – and toward the healing and hope we desire and deserve – is to trust that it won’t last forever; that we don’t need to fear or deny or avoid or pretend that it shouldn’t exist; that we can come to and through the wounds of our sadness and struggle… We can touch and tend to what hurts us most… (“The wound is the only route to the gift.”)

And we can share all of that with one another, without fear, shame, or hesitation. And we can let the light of God’s grace – the light that shines in the darkness – shine in our direction, too. And we can let it heal what we cannot, on our own … and we can let it bless our lives with the love that is born for us all, even and especially in our darkest days … with thanks for this Jesus – who was, who is, and who is to come.

Amen. Merry Christmas.

Palm Sunday's Anticipatory Grief

Mark 14:1-9

It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; for they said, ‘Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.’

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, ‘Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.’ And they scolded her.

But Jesus said, ‘Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.’

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I promise, I’m almost done inviting you to listen to Anderson Cooper’s All There Is podcast. So much of our midweek Lenten series on “grieving well” was inspired by the interviews, conversations, and insights from that show. I can’t recommend it enough.

And one of the ways of grief we didn’t cover on Wednesday nights over the course of the last five weeks seems so appropriate for today, I just couldn’t resist. It’s called “anticipatory grief” and it’s something I never really wondered much about until hearing Anderson’s interview with a film-maker named Kirsten Johnson, who actually made a movie about her dad’s dementia, as he was suffering, declining, and very literally preparing to die, long before he ever found himself in hospital bed or nursing home, even. More on that in a moment … but keep the notion of “anticipatory grief” in mind, if you could. In some ways it speaks for itself.

Today, this Palm Sunday, is a day full of symbols and story and looking ahead, because it’s all about what is to come in the days that follow Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. In many churches on Palm Sunday – and at Cross of Grace, many years – we simply hear the Passion narrative of Jesus’ last days and hours, leading up to his crucifixion and death. But there will be time for that, later this week. Particularly, on Good Friday, we’ll gather to hear about his last steps and last words, and last breath, even, on the cross.

So today, we’re just getting started – with the parade into Jerusalem before the big holiday for the Jews and now, even closer to the Passover, we find Jesus having dinner and being anointed with oil by this woman who seems to anticipate something others have missed … something Jesus understands … which is that his death looms. It is right around the corner and coming soon.

And, who knows why she understands and anticipates what others don’t? Maybe she was paying attention at that parade, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on that donkey and those palm branches and cloaks were laid out before him.

Maybe she knew that he’d gotten the attention of the powers that be, that his challenge to the Empire would be his undoing.

Maybe she knew her scripture enough to recognize, in those shouts of “Hosanna,” that here was, indeed, this one who had come in the name of the Lord.

Maybe, as John’s Gospel tells it, this was Jesus’ good friend, Mary, Martha’s sister and the sister of Lazarus. And maybe she came with the oil because Jesus had told her; given her the inside scoop. Maybe she had a plan to show the others something they hadn’t been able to catch onto yet. I wonder, if maybe Jesus had even asked her to do just that. Or maybe her moment of anointing was a surprise – even to Jesus – that set his final days on a new course, in a way that surprised even him.

Whatever the case, the point is clear. Jesus was about to die. This woman knew it. Jesus knew it. And, I think, it was time for the rest of the crew to finally get with the program, and to understand the fullness of what was coming.

But that’s hard news to hear, right – that the end is near for those we care about? that death is coming for those we love? It’s easy stuff to deny, isn’t it? We’re inclined to pretend and to live otherwise, as much and for as long as we’re able, a lot of the time. We are hangers on, “tooth and nail” kind of people, most of the time, when it comes to death and dying.

But, whether he was ready for it or not, I think that’s the blessing Jesus received from this woman who anoints him today. I think she reminded him – and anyone who was really able to hear it, that his death was pending … on the way … imminent. And her anointing becomes a blessing – a teachable moment – Jesus, himself, uses to prepare his people for the truth and fullness of what was to come.

See, in all of that grumbling about the perfume and about how much it cost and about how much it could have done for the poor, Jesus seems to be unfussed. Because, back in Jesus’ day, this kind of anointing with perfume was done when someone died. They anointed the body with oils as a ritual sort of cleansing, as a spiritual sort of preparation for the afterlife, and, quite practically, I imagine, to keep the smell to a minimum once the bodies were left to decompose in those family tombs that got used from one funeral to the next.

All of that is why Jesus doesn’t bother with the others when they pretend to care that the money from that perfume could have been used to help the poor. He tells them to back off, to leave the woman alone, and to let her do with her perfume whatever she wants to do with her perfume. “You’ll always have the poor with you,” he promises. “You will not always have me,” he warns. “You will not always have me.”

Kirsten Johnson, the filmmaker Anderson Cooper interviews about this thing called “anticipatory grief” – the one who made a movie about her own father’s decline into dementia, dying, and death – hosted a funeral service for her dad, while he was alive and still well and able to experience it, himself.

In the family’s church, with all of their loved ones gathered, people who had known him throughout his entire life came and spoke and said what they would want to say at his actual funeral, when the time came. Only, he was able to watch it, hear it, experience it, on this side of heaven. What a gift.

What if, in that moment with Jesus over dinner, that woman was giving her version of a eulogy? Offering him the gift of her anticipatory grief … sharing the depth of her love for him … anointing him as cosmic royalty in the eyes of the creator of the universe … showing whoever was paying attention that nothing was or is or could be more valuable than the kind of love he came to share – not her perfume or her paycheck or her pretending that everything was just fine.

At that funeral that wasn’t really a funeral, for the man with dementia who wasn’t dead yet, a woman stood up and said, “as long as my memory lives, the memory of him will live in me.”

And I wonder if our lesson for today, if our invitation as we enter into yet another Holy Week, is to anticipate the grief that’s on the way in the days to come. And I don’t mean in a long-suffering, masochistic, self-flagellating kind of way. I mean, in a worshipful, awe-inspiring, reverent, hope-filled kind of way that might change our lives – and change our way in this world – if we let that kind of grief have its way with us more often than we’re inclined, so much of the time.

I mean, if we lived every day like Jesus’ sacrifice was just around the corner, instead of just one Holy Week out of 52 in every year… wouldn’t things be different for us, as his followers? And then maybe the world could be different, too?

Would we be more grateful for what we already have and stop coveting the green grass on the other side of every fence?

Would we give more generously, out of our abundance, as Jesus commanded? Or would we keep giving from what we have leftover or saving and striving for a day that may never come?

Would the extent of our social activism be limited to our social media feed? Or might we get out and do more with our hands and with our feet and with our voices and with our votes?

Would we save our greatest expressions of love and devotion for the funeral, or would we say more of those things face to face with words and actions, instead?

Would we ask for forgiveness and offer it more often and with more integrity?

Because the reason we can be honest and real and even embrace the grief that has or will come to us all, is because of the good news we share as children of God, as followers of Jesus, as the baptized in Christ, headed into this Holy Week.

See, this grief we anticipate – ours, Christ’s, that woman who made the movie, or the one with the perfume – none of this grief wins the day. It doesn’t last forever. It invites us to anticipate, too, the new life that follows. Our grief is evidence of the deep, abiding love God has for us all. And it calls us to more of the love, joy, grace, guts and faith with which we’re called to live on this side of heaven and for the sake of the world, our God so loves.

Amen