Has your world ever been so shaken that you feel in one dizzying moment that everything you thought you understood about God was shattered? You stand striped naked of that systemic covering of faith that brings a deep peace even when the world is going mad around you.
So, what do I call this entry? Thursday night prayer in the garden of agony? Passover Bullets? Betrayal? Or just another moment when my understanding of God and myself was shaken by the gates of hell?
I glance at this photo of a dark DC street, and I remember that moment. April 9th, 2020, between 9 and 10 pm. Just three weeks earlier I walked out of the front doors of the museum where I work headed home because someone had flipped a switch and the world had gone mad. A pandemic was shrouding humanity in fear, and we were sent home to shelter for two weeks to “flatten the curve.” Now 26 days later people were dying from disease and from rising violence. It was Passover, Thursday night of Holy Week. I was in my bedroom playing video games clinging to a moment when I could escape the real struggles and live in a world where I had power to destroy evil. Then I heard the ffft of a bullet hitting wood and I dove to the ground muscles tense with fear heart beating in my ears as I laid still straining to hear more.
The bullet had gone through our front door and hit the stairs next to my room. It took months for the landlord to have that door replaced so every time I stepped out of my room, I saw the daylight reminding be of the danger and I was flooded by the brokenness it had caused in my soul. I grew up hearing the story of how God kept His people safe from the angel of death on that first Passover. He commanded them to seek shelter in their homes. As a Christian I was taught that God will protect you if you just put all your faith and trust in him. I had heard stories of others living in bad neighborhoods who would brag on God. He kept the violence and the bullets outside even when it was happening in their yard. But this Passover the bullet shattered my understanding. God had held back death, but that bullet stopped just feet from me, and I felt betrayed.
I suppose the Thursday night before Good Friday is a good day to experience betrayal. Two years have passed. I’ve had closer calls with bullets since then and I lost two precious Christian friends to the violence of these streets. So where does that leave the love of God?
Its passion week again and I’ve been thinking about Gethsemane. The Webster dictionary says the name means a place of mental or spiritual suffering. A Greek lexicon I was looking at said the root of the word simply means oil press. If you think about it, an oil press is a place to squeeze out the good stuff. It’s interesting that the outer shell of the fruit is destroyed in the press. It is crushed, torn, used up in the violent process. That’s what Jesus experienced. He was grieved to so intensely that it pressed him almost to the point of death (Mark 14:33-34). He was betrayed by one he loved and cared for and then began the brutal process of beatings and accusations that ended in his death twenty-four hours later.
I’m not comparing my pressing and crushing to what Jesus experienced, but now when I read the passion story my eyes see through that pain, and I grieve for him and for me. There is still much brokenness and feelings of betrayal; accusations that I hurl at times towards myself and towards God. And questions, so very many questions. But there is also fellowship in the crushing and in the memories of Passover bullets.
