Isn't it ironic?

Isn't it ironic?– Easter 2015

Isn't it ironic. . . An old man turned ninety-eight He won the lottery and died the next day It's a black fly in your Chardonnay It's a death row pardon two minutes too late And isn't it ironic? It's like rain on your wedding day It's a free ride when you've already paid It's the good advice that you just didn't take1

Read Luke 22.

Who would've thought, reading the story about Jesus’ last days that this tune and 'isn't it ironic?' kept running through my head? Follow my thinking here--Jesus and the disciples have just shared the first Lord's Supper--eleven of them at least, as Judas has just been 'outed' as the Lord's betrayer, and has fled the upper room.

It is a solemn time, albeit an intimate time that night, when just before dinner in the ultimate act of servitude, Jesus washes the feet of his men. Our Lord leaves us an example to follow--to take up the "towel and basin" and serve others. And then the disciples start arguing about which of them is the greatest!! Don't you find that tragically ironic? The Greatest among them--the Greatest of all--serves them in this the last free night before he would be arrested … and instead of embracing his message, and the solemn circumstances, they start vying for power? "Isn't it ironic?" Power, not service, dominates their thinking.

Before reading what Jesus tells them about authority, could we stop and consider for a moment how Jesus felt? There is no doubt that Jesus had experienced sadness in his lifetime before this, and loneliness, too. Think of the 40 days he spent alone in the wilderness, with only the Tormentor to dog him. But that was as his ministry was launched, and before he had called the Twelve. Here we are at the end of his ministry, and these who he had called, trained, loved, and lived life with, are so easily caught up with themselves that they forget him.

It saddens me so to think how lonely Jesus felt right then. First, there was Judas that night, but then--so quickly the Eleven show their weakness too. It is not that it surprises Jesus, but it hurts him nonetheless. As you know, it is those who are closest to us, closest to our hearts, who have the greatest ability to hurt us. And, have you ever thought about Jesus being lonely? He sure was that night . . .

"Why should Jesus be lonely? Why is anybody lonely? Loneliness is an absolutely foundational, fundamental human experience. Why is that? Because we send out these little tendrils of ourselves, and hope they grab onto something and grow and nothing happens. They reach only into air and so they wither. So the sense that I am never going to be really connected, at my deepest and most true point with anybody else is why there's loneliness and this is just a generic statement of loneliness. There is more.

How many people, do you think in Jesus' own life really understood him, what he was all about? Even his mother, we have in the gospel of Luke, was walking around scratching her head. "She did not understand what he said but she treasured all these things in her heart." Who understood Jesus' way of looking at the world, really? To read the gospels with all their theological overlay, and even there we've got Philip saying: we're clueless . . . and Jesus’ response, "Have I been with you all this time Philip and you still do not know me?"2 How many people was Jesus able to share his vision of life with? Nobody. Was Jesus lonely? I suspect an enormous part of his life was lived in a felt sense of isolation..."3 Perhaps it is one reason he talked to his Father so much.

Jesus doesn't tell them how they made him feel--but they must have thought about it all later. No, instead, Jesus tells them that their faithfulness to him will one day be rewarded with authority in his coming kingdom.

All of us have felt lonely at times, or will--especially in different seasons of our lives. I'm sure there is no greater loneliness than a wife losing a husband, a young child losing her mother . . . But, remember again that there is no pain you will ever experience that the Lord does not understand, as he has experienced it all. If you are there now, I offer this prayer for you-- 'Dear Father, would you comfort my sister, my aunt, _____, and give them a sense of your presence? Grant them your peace. And, thank you for being willing to experience the incredible loneliness you endured for us. Give us strength . . . Amen’

Christine

1 – Alanis Morisette’s song, “Ironic”

2 – John 14.9

3 - from a message by Father Ron Trojcak of Huron College