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Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves
as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.
Don’t search for the answers,
which could not be given to you now,
because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is to love everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps then,
someday far in the future,
you will gradually,
without even noticing it,
live your way into the answers.
From ‘Letter Four‘ of Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
There have been times
when, after long on my knees
in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled
from my mind, and I have looked
in and seen the old questions lie
folded and in place
by themselves, like the piled
graveclothes of love’s risen body.
from R S Thomas’ poem The Answer
This morning’s sermon was on Luke 2:41-52 – Jesus as a boy found in the Temple at Jerusalem. Mary’s a significant character in the account, being maternally exasperated by the boy who walked. One Good Friday service we used this as a reflection where Mary thinks back to the son she lost at 12 and the son she will lose again. It was posted in Getting Lay-ed’s first incarnation, but was lost too, so it’s resurrected here.
Mary, among the crowd
I’d lost him.
I couldn’t find him. I couldn’t see him. People made space for me in the crowd so I could see better I suppose; so that I could be nearer to him. I’m not sure they did it through pity for a mother, through curiosity, or plain spite.
I could feel the fever of the crowd, the press of bodies, the pulse of blood rising. I could almost taste the scorch of their excitement and anger, of their half understood outrage and their fully believed power. I could feel their frenzy, the wild intoxication of being the many against the one. Their turn to be in charge. I could hear their mutterings, the cursing, swelling to a roar of passion, fury and hate. ‘Crucify him. Crucify him’. I saw him then.
There was another Passover I remember. Jerusalem was as full then as now. So full a child could wander away without being seen. So full a son could be lost in the crowd. He was about 12 then, a boy – my boy. I’d lost him then too. But he was never lost – it was us who were lost. He was about his Father’s work; like he is now. And now I’m lost again – a mother adrift in pain and grief for my first born son. Yeshua, Immanuel; the one who saves. The one who was always mine, but never mine alone.
Tell me now Lord, how do you measure a mother’s love?
How much does a heart weigh? Today mine is as heavy as a stone rolled across the hillside tombs.
How much can a heart bear? Today I am crushed by the weight of memory stored up, harvested, treasured over 33 years. Today I hear the voices of the past as loudly and as urgently as the clamour of this crowd shouting at Pilate for my Yeshua. I hear the whisper of Simeon cradling the baby. Looking at me, he speaks across the years:
‘This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your side too.’
And today, I feel the force of truth, of his words made real, lived out by me and through me as the child becomes a man. What thoughts are revealed so cruelly today? I am pierced with the sword of fear – fear for my son. I do not today feel blessed among woman. I do not today feel warmed by angels’ fire. My thoughts are not of blessing and light and signs. My thoughts are dark, blackened by clouds of pain and sacrifice and suffering. I am conscious of cursing, not of blessing.
Tell me now Lord, how do you measure this mother’s love?
I am pierced with the sword of memory. I think back, as mothers will do, to the days around his birth. He was eight days old when I offered him, my cherished first-born son, to be consecrated to YAHWEH, the Holy One of Israel. That day we offered a sacrifice for him, as the law demanded of us. Now today I stand and watch, horrified and awestruck as my son offers himself as a sacrifice for us, as his love demands.
I am pierced with the sword of separation and loss. I have lived some 50 years, over 30 years as a mother. I have talked with angels and have been visited by shepherds and by kings. I have seen impossible things done through the Lord.. And yet, I have rocked and nursed him, sung cradle songs of hope and soothing. I have watched my son take his first miraculous breath, and then watched as he breathed the miracle of life into others.
I have loved him with a mother’s love since before he was born – yet he has loved me forever. My love for him is fierce, yet fearful because I am only human. His love for me is unbreakable, unyielding and everlasting. His love is divine.
Teach me then my Lord, how do I measure the love of the Son?
Because He is risen: a poem for Easter
-
Because he is risen
Spring is possible
In all the cold hard places
Gripped by winter
And freedom jumps the queue
To take fear’s place
as our focus
Because he is risen
-
Because he is risen
My future is an epic novel
Where once it was a mere short story
My contract on life is renewed
in perpetuity
My options are open‐ended
My travel plans are cosmic
Because he is risen
-
Because he is risen
Healing is on order and assured
And every disability will bow
Before the endless dance of his ability
And my grave too will open
When my life is restored
For this frail and fragile body
Will not be the final word
on my condition
Because he is risen
-
Because he is risen
Hunger will go begging in the streets
For want of a home
And selfishness will have a shortened shelf‐life
And we will throng to the funeral of famine
And dance on the callous grave of war
And poverty will be history
In our history
Because he is risen
-
And because he is risen
A fire burns in my bones
And my eyes see possibilities
And my heart hears hope
Like a whisper on the wind
And the song that rises in me
Will not be silenced
As life disrupts
This shadowed place of death
Like a butterfly under the skin
And death itself
Runs terrified to hide
Because he is risen
