Jack Hardaway
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Changing directions goes against our inclinations.
We gather momentum and turning aside is difficult.
We collide.
Collision repair is a busy industry. The repair shops have a significant backlog.
Whole worlds collide, whole galaxies, the cosmos sparks with the echoes.
There is that old science fiction movie from the early 1950’s, When Worlds Collide. A rogue star is soon to collide with and destroy the Earth so a small ark ship is built to rescue a handful of humanity, and fly to a new world.
Turning aside is difficult, we have so much momentum, worlds collide, the echoes spark, there are casualties, there are survivors, there are those who clean up, there are those who start over.
Worlds collide in the Gospel According to Mark. A world held captive to the thrall of death collides with God’s world where death is overwhelmed by life.
Jesus is the focal point of the collision.
Everyone wants to see. They hunt him down.
Words that heal, hands that lift up, casting out the eroding darkness.
The way of Jesus. The way of the disciple. Starting over where there was only the momentum of death. Changing directions.
The way of the disciple has been described in conflicting ways over the generations.
We currently hear a great deal about the way of the disciple as about being fulfilled, about finding and fulfilling God’s call, finding and enjoying God’s pleasure when we become who we were created to be.
There is a collision with that world view, where the way of the disciple is the way of costly sacrifice, of giving up more, and more until we are stripped bare of everything except our need for God.
Then there are those who say that the way of sacrifice is the way of fulfillment, that sacrifice isn’t really sacrifice.
Then there are those who say, “no”, it is simply sacrifice.
Jesus didn’t nail himself to the cross. His life was taken. His last words were of forsakenness.
Not exactly an easy sell to the self-help generation.
The worlds collide.
Simon’s mother-in-law was lifted by the hand to then serve.
Not to go back to the way things were.
The hand that lifts her into resurrection life is also the hand that lifts her to the cross.
The power that lifts us from death into life is the power that pulls us into servanthood and sacrifice. Giving up on what we were, and what we knew, to become we know not what, not in this life.
Lifting people up, casting out the crushing darkness, bringing good news to bad news hearts, until we end up with our Lord at the cross, stripped of everything, naked and in need of God.
As the worlds continue to collide all around us, the way of the disciple calls us to start over, to endure the collisions that can not be reconciled, that can not be fixed. To simply love, and love again.
Clinging to the cross with Jesus, trusting that there is more.