Blessed Emptiness

“Blessed emptiness” seems like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? If the glass is empty, how can I feel blessed? What does it have to offer me? How can I be blessed and empty at the same time?

I believe it was in a short video devotional with John Ortberg that I first heard these words, but I don’t know if they are originally his: “You can never get enough of what almost works.” I’m hearing those words in my head today when I reflect on the significance of Palm Sunday.

Palm Sunday signifies to me the dangers of certainty and a fixed mindset. Picture the scene from the Gospel accounts found in Mark 11, Luke 14, and John 12: Here’s a crowd of people who have witnessed all the miracles and wonders of Jesus (changing water to wine, healing blind and paralyzed men, feeding thousands of people with underresourced food, raising Lazarus from the dead, etc.), yet they lost the true meaning of His signs and subsequent parables. They were confused as Jesus continued to predict that He would die. Even the disciple brothers, James and John, put their mother up to approach Jesus with a request for position and status! They were looking for an earthly king who could rescue them from an oppressive government, not for someone who would face crucifixion, the most oppressive and shameful form of punishment in the day. Luke 13:34-35 describes His stunning grief over the obstinate hearts and unbelief of the religious leaders: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord'” (Jesus quoting Psalm 118:26).

The upside-down nature of the Gospel as found in John 12:23-36 summarizes it this way: the way up is the way down. Jesus makes it clear that death to self is the only way to life (the kernel of wheat must die and crack open in darkness). No wonder He declares that the only sign that will be given from here on out is the sign of Jonah! (Luke 11:29-32) Jonah had a fixed viewpoint when it came to Ninevah. He ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish because he thought he knew a better way of ministry. “You can never get enough of what almost works.” It was only in the belly of the whale that Jonah recognized God’s rescue mission on his very soul.

The palms of today that are often being waved by children as they walk down the aisles of churches are filled with meaning and hope if we really grasp the imagery here: innocent children come filled with hope in the only One who can save them! “Hosanna”, which literally means “God save us!”, is reserved for those who understand their own poverty of spirit when it comes to salvation. We cannot save ourselves with our own efforts. We are a shipwrecked bunch. We must come in child-like faith.

The crowds did not understand it back then, and religious groups who celebrate a kind of bootstrap faith (“God helps those who help themselves”) do not seem to understand it today. The sign of Jonah Jesus spoke about meant a purging of the false self, the self that believes my standing before God depends on me and the things I do for God. How else will I earn my crown in heaven?

Pastor Tim Mackie explained this way of thinking as the “myth of religious self-fulfillment” in a sermon series on Ecclesiastes. (Look it up on the Bible Project on YouTube- it’s very good) In his sermon, he defined the myth in this way: “I’m going to invite God into my life to enhance my life, to make it better, to solve my problems so that I am happier and have a more successful life.” He goes on to quote pastor Robert Short from his book entitled, “The Gospel According to Peanuts”: “Ecclesiastes is essentially a kind of negative theologian; he’s asking questions that can be answered only by a future revelation of God; and in clearing the road for this revelation, he smashes any and all false hopes to pieces; Ecclesiastes is human self-sufficiency stretched to its absolute limit and found sadly wanting.”

The surprise of Holy Week is that Jesus did bring a new revelation as Lamb of God and Messiah, putting an end to the myth of religious self-fulfillment. It’s summed up in Cory Asbury’s song lyrics: “Oh, the “overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God; how it chases me down, fights ’til I’m found, leaves the ninety-nine. I couldn’t earn it, I don’t deserve it, still You give Yourself away; oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God!”

The crowds welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem that Passover Sunday with branches and coats laid out on the road had no idea that events would take such a turn the way they did as the week unfolded: Jesus admonishing the temple by upending tables that had turned the house of prayer into a business; Jesus breaking bread with and washing feet of those who would betray and deny His goodness later; His arrest in the garden; His death on the cross by Friday. The road to the cross was crooked and disorienting, full of grief, confusion, and despair.

I’m so thankful that wasn’t the end of the story. I honestly don’t understand it fully, yet I thank Him that He came on a recuse mission for torn and broken and imperfect people like me.

Today marks the beginning of Holy Week in the church, and it will often require an “all hands on deck” approach (with more crowds, more volunteers, more pastries, more coffee, etc.). It’s great when the pews are filled and people are hearing the good news, and doing what you can do to make a service attractive may bear fruit for longer-term commitment. But really, what would happen today if we simply came to Jesus and admitted that we are helpless to fully love on our own; that we simply are resistant to His abundant grace and mercy most moments of our lives? I love that my daughter and son-in-law’s church has an “open altar” every Sunday at their church. It’s an altar open to all who come with the memories of grief and sin and hardship from the previous week. It’s a place where the waters are being stirred in the hearts and souls of those who approach; a place of human fragility and brokenness and humility; an altar that shakes the very foundations of self-sufficiency and gives us a safe space to give up illusions about ourselves and life; a place where the true sufficiency of Christ and confessional community can be found.

Mackie concludes his sermon by asking, “What if God’s promise is that He’s going to relentlessly show the small fleeting fragile position that we are in as human creatures living in a broken compromised world? The truth is God has a story He’s working out to redeem the world and He’s calling me to play a bit role in His story that has its climax in the cross and resurrection of Jesus.”

Jesus came into town on a lowly donkey with an upside-down, counter-cultural message, and the masses were at best misinformed. “During His ministry, whenever he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36). The religious leaders were at worst hell-bent on silencing the message because of the threat to their self-sufficient egos and systems. “The chief priests and teachers of the law began to look for ways to kill him, for they feared him because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.” (Mark 11:18)

Richard Rohr articulated his own experience in ministry as he tried to communicate the way of descent as the necessary ingredient to faith: “Much of my earlier work with men and spirituality was teaching them how to trust their time in the belly of the whale, how to stay there without needing to fix, to control, or even to fully understand it, and to wait until God spit them up on a new shore. It is called “liminal space,” and I believe all in-depth transformation takes place inside of liminal space. To hope too quickly is to hope for the wrong thing. The belly of the whale is the great teaching space, and thus it is no surprise that Jesus said this was the only sign he was going to give.”

My daughter Kelli created this website for me as a Christmas gift, and I was so moved by her thoughtful intentions and the fact that she thinks that I might have something meaningful to write about! She even printed a manual on how to post reflections and what to do in the way of troubleshooting. I have still come up short and have had to ask for her advice. In those moments of uncertainty, she will text me with these words: “I fixed it for you.” I so appreciate the fact that she does that.

Jesus fixed it for us when He went to the cross and rose from the dead. He is the Guarantor of the covenant with His beloved; it’s a gift. The old way of striving and earning no longer satisfies because it does not work. That’s why we can cry “Hosanna” today! We know we are powerless to save ourselves. The broken body and shed blood of Christ serve as a symbolic reminder of that very real truth.

According to some church traditions, the palm branches that are waved today will be saved and burned for the ashes that will be extended on the foreheads of the broken and bruised on Ash Wednesday of next year. Some church leaders not only say “You are dust, and to dust you will return”, but they also add the same words Jesus started His ministry with: “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” Ponder what this additional invitation could mean for you as you imagine them smeared on your forehead as you walk the pilgrimage of Passion Week.

Photo by Grant Whitty on Unsplash