Kyrie, Eleison

The wifi was down intermittently at work today. It made it hard to get things done. It would be up, and then down. And up, and I could connect to the web, but couldn't upload or download files. Frustrating.

It's the time of semester when students are preregistering for fall courses. Which means lots of knocks on my door. "Can you help me pick my courses for next semester?" It's a part of my job I normally enjoy, but today it is just more interruptions as the stack of grading looms over my head.

Extra-long chapels. Meetings this week. All kinds of "other stuff" going on. More to juggle. It's just been that kind of a day.

And then a text from a friend. Hard news. Really hard news.

So I gave up on the day and decided to go for a run on the treadmill.

Now, I run on the treadmill on a regular basis. I download a movie to my iPad from Netflix and I Netflix and run my backside off. I find it therapeutic. An hour of mindless entertainment that distracts me from the pain of running and the tedium of the treadmill, and when it's all done, I'm de-stressed and in a better frame of mind, and my heart (both physically and metaphorically) thanks me.

But the wifi was down. Nothing was downloading today, and the prospect of an hour of torture on the treadmill was looming ahead of me.

You could always pray...

I could always pray. I headed down to the gym.

But praying is hard when you're running on a treadmill. My breathing was ragged, my footfalls stumbling, my thoughts scattered. Running is rhythmic - breathe in, step, step, breathe out, step, step. And my tumbling thoughts were fighting with the rhythm I needed to breathe.

"Lord, have mercy."

Breathe in. Lord, have. Breathe out. Mercy.

"Lord, have mercy; Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy on my friend."

The words were rhythmic. My breathing became rhythmic. The footfalls fell in cadence. My thoughts smoothed. Just that. Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy on my friend.

My friend who has lost a loved one and is wading her way through the painful journey of grief.

My friends who are serving in the heat and the heartbreak that is Togo, West Africa.

My friend who is awaiting test results for their little boy.

My friend who is facing a long and uncertain medical journey.

My friend, my colleague, my brother, my sister, my student.

Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy on each one of them.

My feet are landing smoothly now. Breathe in "Lord have". Breathe out "mercy". The minutes and the miles slide by.

Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy on us.

Because we stand before you helpless. We cannot face any of this alone. We cannot do it. We cannot live another day, as the evil presses in on us from all sides. Heartbreak, illness, loss, death, fear threaten to overwhelm us in a moment. Lord, have mercy. Reach in. Hold back the evil. Allow us to focus on you. Christ, have mercy. See our frailty. See our pain. See our longing for you. Reach in to each of these situations and change them as only you can. Lord, have mercy on us.

The cadence of the breathing, the cadence of the footfalls, the cadence of the prayer come together. Calm. Peace. And then this:

"The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you" (Rom. 16:20).

My feet are falling hard. I breathe in grace. I breathe out praise. I reach out and increase the time on the treadmill. My feet pound. It's just been that kind of day, and I want to make sure the evil one is well and truly crushed.

Lord, have mercy; Christ have mercy; Lord have mercy on me.

NB: "Kyrie, Eleison" is the Greek transliteration of the phrase, "Lord, have mercy." It is a prayer repeated often in the New Testament, always by people who knew their desperate need: the Canaanite woman looking for healing for her child; Bartemeus, the blind beggar; a pair of unnamed beggars on the road. It became a liturgical prayer, sung or spoken in church services. You can hear a mondern sung version of it here and a traditional version of it here.

Image Bearer

 Consider what follows part literary analysis (but only a very small part, because I know nothing of literary analysis), part rant (probably a fairly big part, because I'm quite good at ranting), and part act of worship (because in the end, what I am about to discuss has brought me to my knees).

I have been reading classics. For over a year now, my reading-for-pleasure has consisted solely of classics. And my latest consumption was Frankenstein. If you haven't read it, this blog may contain spoilers. If you care about that, stop reading.

I thought I knew broadly what the story was about. Some guy creates a body out of bits of other bodies cobbled together and brings the body to life. Turns out he created a freakish green monster with bolts in his head named Frankenstein, which goes on a murderous rampage killing everything in sight. I assumed that the monster would be killed and that the man who created him would learn his lesson and go on, older and wiser, and everyone would thenceforth live happily ever after.

Umm, nope.

Turns out Frankenstein is the name of the man who did the creating, not the monster.

Turns out that the monster he created isn't really a monster after all.

And there is no happily ever after.

Instead, what happens is that Frankenstein (the man, not the monster, and henceforth referred to as Victor, which is his first name, and much shorter and more ironic than Frankenstein) creates a creature. He does indeed cobble it together with bits of cadavers, and somehow, mysteriously, brings it to life. But then, horrified at the physical appearance of this living apparition of dead bits that he created, he utterly abandons his creation. (What did he think the thing would look like when he'd made it from bits and pieces of various dead bodies - Hugh Jackman?)

But the creature is not malevolent. He is innocent. He learns to survive, learns to speak, to love, to act kindly. He is good. But he is lonely, and everywhere he goes, he is rejected because of how he looks. As the years pass, the weight of loneliness presses on him more and more. He was created, brought forth into being, but has no name, no purpose, no connection. Cosmic loneliness. Absolutely abandoned. Complete disconnect from everything and everyone around him. Desperate, he sets out in pursuit of his creator. Surely, when he finds his creator, his creator will care.

But Victor doesn't care. Wrapped up in his own sense of guilt, unable to see past his own selfishness, and victim mentality, even when confronted with the terrible, terrifying suffering of the creature he created, Victor does not care. Repeatedly, he rejects the one he created, and indeed, swears upon his own willingness to die in order to kill the creature he made.

It is only then that the creature turns to killing. In desperation, he tries to make Victor feel a fraction of the pain he has suffered for years.

And still, Victor rejects him, swallowed up more and more by his own self-absorption, unable for one second to see past himself to the suffering of the one he created. He is no victor, only a weak coward. Frankenstein the man is the one who is truly the monster.

He infuriated me. His portrayal of himself as the victim in the drama when he had been the instigator of it nauseated me. His bleats about how lonely he felt, carrying the secret of the creature he had made mocked the true isolation of the poor creature himself. His solemn oaths to do whatever it would take to stop the creature flew in the face of the reality that he refused to give the creature the one thing he needed: love. Or even acceptance. His frequent swoons and brain fevers belied his declarations of action. His refusal to take genuine responsibility for his actions was reprehensible. He was small-minded and despicable while portraying himself as heroic and self-sacrificing.

But, mostly, he was the antithesis of God.

God, the creator. The giver of life. Who created mankind, not out of bits of death, to be shrouded in a corpse, but out of the dust of the earth, and infused with the breath of life. God, the creator, who created mankind in his image. Not in the image of death, but in the image of God. God, the giver of life, who named his creation. Think of the wonder of a name. Adam. Man. Eve. Woman. Created to be known, to be truly known, to have fellowship with the Creator. God, the one who created mankind with a purpose, to be his regents on the earth, to glorify him and enjoy him forever, as the old Confession says. God, who saw his creation and said, "It is very good."

God, the pursuer. The Saviour. Who created mankind innocent, but the creature ran away. And God the pursuer set out in pursuit of his creation as his creation quivered and hid in the bushes. "Adam, where are you?" God, the Saviour, who did not abandon his creation to cosmic loneliness, forever cut off from his Creator, but who came, who sought, who called, and wooed, and won. God, the Son, who was willing to die not to kill his creation, but to bring it back to life. God, the Son, who allowed himself to feel the fullness of the pain of a fallen humanity.

My goodness, what a story. My God, what a love. It could have been so different. You could have turned your back on us, justifiably, because we walked away from you. If you had been a Victor, we would have been that creature. But Jesus, "being in very nature God, emptied himself and became nothing, taking the very nature of a man; and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross." You sent your Son to be a loser. To win us.

And then to become the Victor over death.

"Therefore God has exalted him, and has given him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow."

Jesus. Victor. Thank God.

Facing the Death-Dew

He lay, shrivelled and gaunt, under the sheets. It was hard to see him like that, this man who, all through my growing-up years, could do anything. He could carry a 50-lb backpack and lead a group of two dozen high school students up and down the hills of the Highland Hiking Trail in Algonquin. He could swing a canoe onto his shoulders and portage it with ease the two kilometres in to Gordon Lake from Rock Lake. He could carry a pack of shingles onto the roof and install them all with ease. And now, he lay, shrivelled and gaunt, withered away by the cancer he had battled for the last four-and-a-half years, and it was hard to see him like that.

He was conscious, but just barely, confused and petulant. It was hard to see him like that, this man who, all through my growing-up years, knew everything. He knew about the stars in the sky as we stared up at the pinpricks of light spread across the vast canvas of a northern Ontario summer sky. He'd use a flashlight to trace out Cassaeopea, the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, and the various other constellations. He knew about the trees, the flowers, the animals. He knew which berries and mushrooms were good to eat and which ones would poison us. He knew about cars and computers and electrical circuits. He even knew how the milk got into the milk bags. We didn't believe him when he told us, but a letter to Neilson confirmed that he was right about that, too. And now, he lay, confused and petulant, his mind stretched and broken by the cancer that he had battled for the last four-and-a-half years, and it was hard to see him like that.

It was hard to see him like that. He lay there in that hospital bed, and I thought, My goodness, he looks so terrible. He looks more dead than alive. I stayed, I visited, I talked to him when he opened his eyes. I told him I loved him, kissed him goodnight and left him sleeping peacefully.

Just hours later, the phone rang.

The phone ringing in the dark of night is never a good thing, is it?

He was gone.

I drove through dark streets, shivering so hard I had to clench my teeth to keep them from rattling. You read about stuff like that in stories. I never knew it was a real thing. I rode the same elevator up, walked down the same hallway, into the same room, past the same guy in the other bed I'd passed on my way home, just hours earlier.

And I realised instantly that when I had left, he hadn't looked more dead than alive. As frail and as sick as he had been, he had looked very much alive.

And now he was dead.

The gossamer thread had snapped, and everything was different.

"I'll love thee in life, I will love thee in death,

And praise thee as long as thou lendest me breath.

And sing, when the death-dew lies cold on my brow,

If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, 'tis now."

It is in the face of death that I realise how much my faith matters. If Jesus is not Lord in the face of death, he is not Lord at all. It is in looking down on that dear face, so alive just hours before, now slack-jawed and grey in death, that Jesus matters most. It is mostly easy to love Jesus in life, in mansions of glory and endless delight. It is somewhat doable to love him in trial, when there is still hope for renewal, when life still clings. But it is most necessary to love him in death, when there is nothing left but a dusty shell and the maw of the hole in the ground. Paul says it this way: "If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied" (1 Corinthians 15:19).

It is when I face death that my faith matters most.

Because when I see the death-dew cold on the brow, I catch a glimpse of the full horror of the enemy. I see him in all his undisguised hideousness, his unabashed bent for destruction. No more masquerading as an angel of light, he is revealed plainly in all his grotesque horror. Never again will I think him a joke, a red-tights-wearing, pitchfork-toting, shoulder-perching cartoon. He is a beast, a monster, a vile and repulsive demon.

We hide from that horror. We cover it up. We try not to talk about it. But when you have seen it once, you never forget. Death is the last enemy, the evil one's last laugh, and if Jesus is not Lord in the face of that desperate evil, he is not Lord at all.

But he IS Lord. And in the face of death, I know it. With as much certainty as I know the horror of death, I know the power of Jesus. "But in fact." But. Death is the devil's last laugh, BUT. "But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead" (1 Corinthians 15:20). But in fact, death may be the devil's last laugh, but it is not God's last word. And God gets the final word. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, and death is an enemy being destroyed.

Take that, filthy nightmare.

It is in the face of death that my faith matters most. It is in the face of death that I see most clearly the battle lines between the vileness of the evil one and the greatness of my Jesus. I love thee in life, I will love thee in death.

Because Christ has been raised from the dead, the "firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20). Just the first. We all will follow. All those last-laughs of the evil one will be God's final word. "All shall be made alive" (v. 22). The gossamer thread will be restored, never again to be broken. Risen, redeemed, restored.

Because Christ has been raised from the dead. Lord, in the face of death. Lord, even then. Lord, especially then. Lord now.

If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.