Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 26, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Geronimo and Jesus
Thus says the Lord God: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. I will put my spirit in you that you may live. I have promised, and I will do it, says the Lord.
In football coach Mike Leach’s biography Geronimo, Coach Leach not only tells great stories but also teases out principles that apply to Indian body and spirit, internecine warfare, and of course football. In the last couple chapters (I’m in the middle of the book), those principles are:
Trust your premonitions
Don’t allow your adversary to force you into commitments
There are some things beyond your control
Honor your end of a bargain
Send a message of strength to your people.
Yes, those apply to all of life, I think. The last few chapters of the book are subtitled: resolve, fluidity, resistance, surrender, patriotism, fame, and immortality. And then, as do we all, Geronimo dies.
I trust in the Lord; my soul trusts in his word. More than sentinels wait for the dawn, Israel waits for the Lord.
Grandma Dot died last week. Now I sit and look back on her life and think how she followed much the same path as Geronimo. Through her various tragedies and griefs, Dorothy settled into a way she believed in and didn’t waver. When I think of that I feel proud of her. I see the same determination in the lives of others in my family: Margaret, my dad and mom, John and Mary Kay, Aunt Mary, Aunt Vera, Aunt Nenie, Uncle Merlie, my grandparents, our kids. Strength of character, resolve, patience, trust and faith in God – those streams of life and virtue pour through their lives, even if broken by frequent lapses and mistakes.
If one walks during the day he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him. Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him.
At a recent meeting spiritual director Vicki Schmidt introduced us to a blog written by pastor-poet Steve Carnaas-Holmes. He has lived awhile, through plenty of lapses and mistakes, his own and those of others. He follows a path as straight through those failures as he can. He knows the nature and the purpose of grief. Here’s one of Steve’s poems.
 Jesus wept—John 11.35
The loss of someone dear
is a sudden thing that happens over a long time.
Grief is not a feeling or a phase,
it’s a landscape we enter
as unwilling refugees,
and learn to find our way anew.
•     •
Grief is a visitor from the realm
where we are all one,
who gives us the gift of sorrow
which is divine,
for in it our hearts bear the torn pieces
of the fabric of all things,
and by holding, mend.
•     •
Grief is a wild animal that moves into your house.
It will never be tamed.
You learn to live with it,
its moods and hungers,
its sudden movements.
You learn to regard it with tenderness.
•     •
You never learn its language,
but sometimes, for the sake of the animal,
you go out on the back stoop,
overcome with love, and sit beside it
and howl.
Can this also be about Mary and Martha, and about each one of us? Of course it can. Allen Ginsburg said Kaddish grieving for friend Carl Solomon and called his poetic lament “Howl.” We all do sometimes – howl – on the back porch steps staring at the sunset, ignoring the sound of traffic, burying our heads at last in our hands.
Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, and she fell at his feet. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” She wept, and Jesus saw her weeping. He was deeply troubled. Then Jesus wept. The Jews said, “See how he loved him.”
There is always more to the story.
With the Lord there is kindness and with him is plenteous redemption. Although the body is dead from sin, the spirit is alive from righteousness. The one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also. I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will never die.
It is stories like this that settle us into the path of trust and faith. You can’t have faith without doubt. You can’t have life without death. What could be more true?
Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” But he stinketh, Lord! Then Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” And the dead man came right out, his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said, “Untie him and let him go.”
And here’s the thing. Now Jesus says to us, “Put your own name in there, boys and girls. ________ , come forth! Let me untie you and let you go.”
(Ezekiel 37, Psalm 130, Romans 8, John 11)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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