Mark 14:10,11 (Part II)
(...)Yet Peter manages to overcome his disappointment and remain faithful. Not perfectly, of course, not by a long shot; after all, he will deny his Lord not once but three times, and it is unclear whether he ever really understands what Jesus is about until it is all over. Yet Peter continues to follow. Even the moment of his denial, as we’ll see, occurs as Peter is following Jesus toward the cross.
Perhaps Mark offers us two options for dealing with disappointment with God: follow or desert.
Following doesn’t have to be perfect, and it doesn’t assume we understand what is going on, but it does imply a simple trust that amid the pain and confusion that sometimes attends any of our lives, when we still try to follow, imperfectly, for sure, but trying to follow nonetheless.
Which is, of course, why we go to church. This road is too difficult to travel on our own. Life is too complex and sometimes too painful to handle alone. So we seek out the company of other “doubting disciples” that we may encourage each
other and in this way remain imperfect followers. Maybe that’s the tragedy here: that when Judas was disappointed he had no one to turn to and, failing to find a company of doubting disciples, he fled for the company of haters.
VC John
No comments:
Post a Comment