Hello friends,
This is Mark Gladman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Monk-in-Docs.
Welcoming you again to Through the Wilderness Still Held.
Day 37 of walking through John's Gospel towards Easter as our Lenten Reflection.
I invite you to find yourself still and rested and comfortable.
Take a deep breath in and out.
Allow yourself to become fully aware and fully present.
Keep your ears attentive,
Especially the ears of your heart.
Today we reflect on the reading from the end of John chapter 18 verse 33 through to chapter 19 verse 30,
Which are the events that we will reflect on when we get to Good Friday during Easter week.
And these are moments of deep gravity,
The final moments of Jesus' earthly life,
Where we're picking up the story,
The arrest has happened,
The trial unfolds,
There's misunderstandings,
Jesus' question before the Roman governor.
Pilate asks him,
Are you the king of the Jews?
But the conversation moves past each other.
Pilate wants a political answer because he thinks he's solving a political problem.
But Jesus speaks from a very different reality altogether.
Again and again in this story,
People fail to understand.
The religious leaders misunderstand,
Pilate misunderstands,
The crowd misunderstands,
Yet through it all,
Jesus remains present,
Unhurried,
And incredibly unresisting.
And John's gospel quietly frames the whole story with a single line that we touched on yesterday.
He loved them to the end.
Not a halfway love or a love that packs it in when it becomes too costly,
But to the end.
Now,
The cross is often seen as a tragedy,
And it is tragic.
It reveals what human violence can do when fear and power take control.
But John is inviting us to see something deeper within this moment.
The cross is also the fullest expression of love that refuses to leave,
Love that doesn't abandon,
Love that remains present even in the face of suffering.
Jesus doesn't respond to violence with more violence,
Doesn't try and escape,
Never withdraws his love from a world that has rejected him.
Instead,
He stays,
Even here,
Especially here.
And this reveals something essential about the path of spiritual formation.
Love becomes most visible when it refuses to abandon.
Anyone can stay when things are easy,
But the deeper work of the soul is learning how to remain when the world grows dark.
In the Gospel of John,
Jesus often speaks about abiding.
Yes,
There's my favorite word for this year again,
Abide in me,
Remain in my love,
Stay fully here.
Here.
And the story around this particular Friday in history shows us what that abiding looks like in its most costly form.
Abiding means staying,
Staying with God,
Staying with love,
Even when suffering surrounds us.
The wilderness journey we've walked through Lent prepares the heart for moments like this.
In the wilderness,
We learn stillness,
We learn patience,
We learn not to run from discomfort too quickly.
The wilderness forms us in quiet strength so that we can stand in painful places without turning away.
And the Good Friday story asks us to practice this same posture.
Not to rush to explanations,
Not to hurry towards Easter,
But to simply remain here for a moment with the cross,
With the mystery,
With the love that endures to the end.
Perhaps in the silence,
You might ask yourself,
Where in the world do you see suffering?
That feels overwhelming.
And this could be something that's happening in the wider world.
God knows there's so many things that we could reflect on here.
Or perhaps something a bit closer,
A relationship,
A community,
A personal grief.
And then ask,
What might faithful presence look like in that place?
To simply remain with love.
And then one final question.
Can you allow love to remain even when the answers don't come?
Are absent.
Just take a few quiet breaths here and let the stillness hold you.
Good Friday is a day of quiet reverence,
A day when the church learns again how to stand near the cross with tenderness,
Even when things are uncertain.
And as the story reaches its final moment,
Jesus speaks his last words.
It is finished.
And he bows his head and breathes his last.
May you learn the quiet strength of love that remains.
The love that doesn't abandon.
The love that stays present to the end.
And may that love hold you today.
Amen.
Until tomorrow,
Friend.
Peace be with you.
