Passion

I was reading a piece from Henri Nouwen about passion. He was helping a friend with cancer try and deal with the abrupt change in his life from being active and engaged in helping others to now being passive and unable to help others. Nouwen's friend finds himself having to BE helped and having other people initiate actions upon him. He has lost control of most of his life.

Nouwen's friend had long linked his worth and his identity to his ability to serve others in active and physical ways and as that was taken away he was now unable do for others. He questioned, "What is LEFT for me? Who IS left inside?

Nouwen came along side his friend and they walked through the Passion of Christ together. In His passion they were able to relate and identify with Christ and His sufferings. Nouwen's friend was able to begin embracing his current circumstances differently and help him to reset his worth and identity.


In the Passion of Christ, beginning at the Garden prayer, Christ began the transition of being "handed over". As He prays, "Not my will, but thine!", Christ starts handing Himself over for the purpose of redeeming the people in this broken world. He hands himself over us - to the very people He has come to redeem. He takes little if any action for Himself after putting the soldier's ear back on until He is raised from the dead. In this time we are initiating all the actions upon Him.


The "Hosannas" heard earlier as He entered Jerusalem turn to cries of "Crucify Him!"

In our hands the following happened.

We betrayed Him.
We arrested Him.
We judged Him. We beat Him.
We mocked Him. We put Him out for public humiliation.
We stripped off His clothes. We beat His head. We beat His body.
We whipped Him with leather strands with objects woven in that were designed to rip out flesh.
We choose a thief over Him.
We rammed a crown of thorns into His head.
We nailed spikes through His hands and feet.
We hung Him up on a cross on a hill to be seen by everyone.
He was laughed at by us, ridiculed and scorned.
We pierced His side with a spear.
We placed His bloody body on display for his mom and followers to see.


Christ handed Himself over to us and look what WE did!


While in our hands, Christ was allowing God's plan of redemption to unfold.


God did not waste one drop of blood, not one insult, not one piece of Christ's torn flesh was wasted in this time of being "handed over". For that is what bought our salvation, our ability to be restored into a right relationship with God.

Many lessons can be learned from Christ's Passion, one of them is for anyone finding themselves being "handed over" to something - Disease, Divorce, Disaster, Depression - God will deliver you through.

God will redeem our pain.

Your suffering and my suffering, when handed over to Christ, will be an agent of change in our lives. He gives so much better than he gets. He gives us peace that sustains us, He gives us His grace that is the confidence that we are loved completely, He gives us hope that He is with us today and that forever is not a fairytale but He has prepared a place for us to spend forever.

Henri Nouwen and his friend found out that in the midst of Christ's passion, when He was most victimized the glory of God, the divinty of God burst through in His resurrection. It is in the passion that God's love shines through. It is supremely a waiting love, a love that does not seek control.

Nouwen says that we should allow ourselves to feel fully how were are being acted upon and if do we can come in touch with a new life that we were never even aware was there.

Nouwen asked his friend if he could taste the new life in the midst of his passion?


That is the question for all of us. What can we taste in the midst of our passion?

Imagine how important that message is for all of us in this world. If it is true that God in Jesus Christ is waiting for our response to His divine love, ( and it is) then we can discover a whole new perspective on waiting in life, how to live through our passion. We can learn to be obedient people who don't always go back to the action but who recognize the fulfillment of our deepest humanity in passion, in waiting. Nouwen says, "If we can do this I am convinced that we will come in touch with the Glory of God and our own new life. Then our service to others will include our helping them see the glory breaking through, not only when they are active but also when they are being acted upon."

Passion or spiritual waiting is not just us waiting for God it is participing in God's own waiting for us and in this we will experience the deepest purity of His love for us.