Good Days and Bad Days
Sometimes when you are talking with someone who is in a terrible place in life, and who is diligently maintaining a way to make it, you ask how they are, and you might hear, “Oh, you know. I have my good days and my bad days. Of course, such a statement applies to every human that has ever lived, but you know what is meant. Things are not well, but this person is keeping up his or her spirits by being as positive as possible.
We are vulnerable at all times: to physical illness, circumstantial distress, the cruelty of others, emotional dismay. Not only are these possibilities, but you have also probably experienced some degree of all of these. When a person is in perfect health it is hard to recall the feeling of being sick, and when a person is seriously sick, it is hard to imagine ever being well. Circumstantial oppression, or being harassed or tormented by others is a terrible situation and can leave one feeling panicked and helpless. Depression can make one feel, useless and hopeless.
Look at these five verses from the appointed psalm for The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday. It is a psalm of supplication, that is, it is a voice reaching out to God for help in times of grave trouble. See if you can relate personally to the lines, see if they do not stir your compassion for all who suffer; stir your pity for the carpenter/rabbi from Nazareth, Jesus your Lord. From Psalm 31:
12 I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind; *
I am as useless as a broken pot.
13 For I have heard the whispering of the crowd; fear is all around;*
they put their heads together against me they plot to take my life.
14 But as for me, I have trusted in you, O Lord. *
I have said, "You are my God.
15 My times are in your hand; *
rescue me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me.
16 Make your face to shine upon your servant, *
and in your loving-kindness save me."
Have you ever felt useless as a broken pot? It is terrible to feel set aside and ignored like the world is passing you by. Like you are overlooked entirely, and count for nothing. This is never the actual truth, for you are innately valuable. Your existence, given meaningfully by the creator—your place as one redeemed through Christ’s saving love—establishes your worth. Even so, we do not always feel this. The warrior king, David of Israel wrote these lines during his experience of enemies coming for his blood. I see verse fourteen as a kind of pivot. The person has voiced the severity of the need. This act opens up a wave of trust…” as for me, I have trusted in you…I have said, ‘You are my God.” Look at how the psalmist climbs into God’s hands of safety. Can we, like this one voicing prayer (verse 16) ask for rescue from those who approach, intent on harm? Can we request the light from God’s face to warm and illuminate our own, and cry out to be saved with loving-kindness?
Jesus went to the cross, trusting his Father in heaven. He went with nothing from his circumstances and no figure around him showing any reason to trust any rescuer. Nevertheless, he walked straight into the plans set against him in which, as Mark records it, “They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate”. The Roman procurator, Pilate facilitated a whole process for the situation, and it led to the experience of Jesus on the cross. It was not Pilate that was bringing the order of things to any high purpose, but God. It is in God that Jesus trusted, and in God, the ultimate holy purpose was accomplished. The centurion at the crucifixion, after it was complete, caught a wave of clarity and revelation: “Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he [Jesus] breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son!’”.
I am sure if you and I could talk face to face, you could describe one of your very best days and one of your very toughest days. I could do that with you too. Though it is not in the biblical record, I bet we could imagine together a really good day in the experience of Jesus with his friends. Is it possible there was a day when they were eating and talking around a fire? On that day, perhaps they had a little wine to drink, they were recalling stories, maybe kidding each other and laughing, laughing so hard they cried. Can your picture Jesus doubled over with laughter on that good day?
However many good days Jesus had with his friends, in Holy Week we look in-depth at his horrifically bad day. It was a day when he might have prayed as the psalmist had prayed, “My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me.” It was a day of betrayal, denial, and abandonment; a day of injustice, ropes, clubs, swords, and a whip for flogging. It was a day of injustice and none to help; of fists and jeers and a crown of thorns. It was a day of nails, wood, fighting for breath, before, at length, there came that final breath and the stillness of death. Jesus had his good days and his bad. His worst day of all is the day when God knew from the inside out, what it is to be human, at risk within terrible ills. God is in full solidarity with you while coming alongside you offering help. God knows your best days and your worst.