His Pierced Heart

" When the time came for their purification, according to the law of Moses, Mary and Joseph brought Jesus up to Jerusalem to present Him to The Lord. Now, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested upon him. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; Simeon took Jesus into his arms and praised God, saying, ' My eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared for all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles.' And the child's mother and father were amazed at what was being said about Him.  Then Simeon blessed them and said to His mother, Mary,  ' This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed, so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed -- and a sword will pierce your own soul, too.' ".  [Luke 2: 22-35.].

This is Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday.  There is a dreaded feeling about this week. Holy Week takes all Christians through Jesus' march into Jerusalem, with all the accompanying jeers and taunts, and forebodings before His Crucifixion.

 From the time when Jesus was as young as about 8 days old, there were forebodings about His fate. Simeon prophesied that Jesus would be "a  sign that will be opposed"; and Simeon predicted  that " a sword would pierce [ Mary's] own soul too" . - as well as Jesus' own heart.

If you have a sensitive bone in your body, as a Christian, you feel anger, despair, fear, outrage, grief, at Jesus' slow, inexorable walk to His agony. For this IS the Passion.

I am broken-hearted on Palm Sunday. The glory and joy of Easter Sunday seem so very far way, on that day. I feel almost childish and apologetic about my broken heart. After all, unlike the disciples and the early Christians, we know all about Jesus' Resurrection. We know that there will be a joyous ending ---- and we know the deep significance of the Resurrection for us Christians, so many thousands of years later.

And so, what to do with these feelings of brokenness? You know what? I think that we are supposed to be broken hearted!!

If you have ever had a broken heart, you know how black and gnawing and bleak it is. We are enveloped by a pain that feels as if it will never go away.

I had this experience many years ago, as a young graduate student. I had fled my cruel and harsh and abusive family. I had enrolled in a school many, many miles away from my childhood home. Then the unspeakable happened. I was the victim of a violent crime.

I dreaded calling my parents to tell them what had happened. Just as I had feared, my parents went on the attack. They told me that I would be a failure if I came home. I had almost died that day! That rejection by my parents was heartless and grim.

My heart was broken that day. I had been abandoned and betrayed. Where was God in all this? How could He have abandoned me? How could I have ended up alone and broken?

Author Lorna Kelly, in her book " The Camel Knows The Way", writes about the broken ones, whom she meets in working with Mother Teresa's poor in Calcutta, India. Kelly tells the story of a young woman who is brought in to the Mission of Charity in Kalighat.  "No more than fifteen or sixteen years old, she was wearing a filthy torn blouse and sari. Her ears were split where her earrings had been torn out. . . . She was certainly very sick; her eyes were glazed and she could barely lift her head. What horrors had this poor girl been through on the hard streets?"

Kelly writes about cradling this thin, vacant young woman, in her arms. Kelly's task was to shear this woman's long hair, because of lice. Kelly initially objected, because this young woman's long, flowing hair was all that she really had left. As Kelly begins to cut the hair, her own tears flow and she cannot stop crying. Kelly writes about the teen in her arms, " She was not a stranger, she was part of me."

God never does bring a broken heart UPON us. We do that largely to ourselves, or we do it to others. Just as the Crucifixion happened, because of hate and refusal to really see or accept who Jesus was. Just as this young woman in India lost her health, her home, her dignity, because of how little those on the streets respected her.

It seems impossible that God could allow a broken heart among any of his children. But, in Deuteronomy 10: 12-16, Moses tells his people, " So now, O Israel, what does The Lord your God require of you? . .  . Only to fear The Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the  Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. . . . The Lord  set His heart in love on you . . . . Circumcise, therefore, your hearts, and do not be stubborn any longer."

It is by circumcision, in The Old Testament, that God's people are to mark themselves, in a raw and wounding ritual, as God's Chosen people.

And so, Jesus endures the opening of His heart in a radical and painful manner, to mark Himself forever as God's Son and our own Savior.

As life tends to wound us, our hearts are circumcised, wounded but made radically open, to God. God does not Himself wound us. But all of our losses are the well-springs of our hearts, to break us open ever more fully to God's Love. It is only in the breaking of our hearts that we are open to accept The Lord, with all of our heart and soul.

I pray that all of you, dear hearts, will utilize the deep wounds and losses of your life, as an avenue for inviting God more fully into your hearts!

[ Related Postings: " Palm Sunday",  April 6, 2011; " My Palm Sunday Life", March 23, 2013; " The Road To Calvary", April 1, 2012].

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