Have you ever wondered what happened in the darkness of the tomb during the three days that Jesus lay within it? Today's reading has, to me, always seemed a partial answer to that question which we, as humans, can understand.
After James, the brother of John (one of the three disciples closest to Jesus in the Gospel account) is killed by Herod, Peter was arrested and placed in prison just before the Passover festival. Unlike the disciples' behavior when Jesus was seized by Pilate, the Church gathered and faithfully prayed for Peter and for his deliverance. The night before the festival itself, Peter, chained in the darkness, guarded by signs of earthly power, saw an angel appear to him. A light shined in the darkness. The angel released Peter, telling him to dress himself for a journey and led him out of the tomb-like prison cell. Together they pass by guards who have fallen asleep. When they came to a final barrier, a locked gate, the way was miraculously opened for Peter to complete his escape from captivity to freedom.
Do you notice the parallels? Peter's prison experience in the darkness of that night has many of the same details to the nights that Jesus spent dead in the tomb. While we can't know for sure what exactly happened in the tomb on the night before Easter dawn, the light, the angel, the barriers that remove themselves, the sleeping guards all seem like they were part of that too.
I wonder too how you and I have experienced release from the various prisons and situations in which we too are help captive? I think that is Luke's point here. What happened to Jesus, has just happened to Peter, can we hope, happen in our day to us. And certainly even while we place our hope in the general resurrection from death, that moment when we arise to new life and meet our Lord, I think we are expected to look for release in smaller ways during our present days as well.
Has there been a moment of light that overcomes the darkness in your life? The appearance of a messenger who leads you to a new life? A series of surprising events that let you escape from a situation in which you despaired?
I have had moments like that, small and not so small, a few times in my life. Sometimes it is a sudden inspiration that breaks through a mental fog in which I find myself trapped. Sometimes I hear God's message in the voice of a friend or loved one. (Sometimes in the voice of a complete stranger…) And there have been a number of times in my life when I've experienced coincidences which have taken me by surprise and led me to a place I didn't imagine I would be.
But notice too that these moments of resurrection come unbidden and often unexpectedly. And sometimes they don't come at all. It didn't come in this chapter for St. James. And remember that eventually, after Peter arrives in Rome, he too dies. I wonder if James and, in that day Peter, experienced that final moment of imprisonment as a failure or as a triumph? If I had to hazard a guess, I'd imagine a bit of both. Jesus cries out in pain and loss as he is dying on the cross. There's very little of the sound of triumph in that. But even in the midst of that, at the very last, his words sound a note of accomplishment - and while that's not triumphant, it's not a cry of bereavement either. There's a sense of hope buried in the darkness of the pain. I expect that was true for James and Peter too as they were, at the end, his faithful disciples.
Perhaps that's what the experience of being saved, of being released from our bounds, is supposed to give us. We know that eventually our lives on earth will end. But as that is happening, we recall the previous moments that God was close at hand to us, we remember how God, in the final end, did not abandon Jesus or the disciples. And we find our hope, the light that shines in our darkness, in that.
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ReplyDeleteI sense the invitation to move past the history and the facts and to move deeper than the interpretation of those who are more knowledgeable of the bible than I. And I appreciate this invitation into this exploration because it allows me to truly ruminate the story by chewing on it, absorbing it, and feeding on it so that it can nurture and transform. It encourages curiosity, intention, inspiration, and openness.
ReplyDeleteThis invitation invites us to explore our own sensations through experience, which allows the text to open our hearts where it can resonate in the authority that resides there. The authority from the deeper wisdom of the heart can guide us to connect to the divine intervention and inspiration, and it is through this connection that occurs, as the story guides use, at the moment of surrender. This is the point where we have experienced the felt sense of the paradoxical sensations (triumph/defeat; joy/sadness; love/fear, excitement/grief, etc.) that invite us to be accepting of the paradox. It is the moment of surrender. It is the moment of death and rebirth.
As I sat in my "prison cell" amidst exaggerated chaos with complete acceptance of the unacceptable, I surrendered and it was then that I realized the moment of peace, stillness, a holding, and the divine grace that was lying behind my suffering. That is how I experienced release from a prison situation in which I was held captive. And I have to believe that the stillness, the death (in the letting go) and rebirth (in the peace of acceptance), and the sanctuary are available to us at any given moment, whether in a prison cell, facing death, or in the midst of traffic that stretches out before us.
When am I a prisoner to my mind, my feelings, my experience, my ego, my role, my identity, my success, my failure, my judgment, my fear, or my certainty? Are these not also moments of imprisonment? And with awareness and realization, I need only to retreat into the deep sustaining divine wisdom that becomes manifest through awareness, acceptance, and surrender. And that opens us to the divine grace that resides behind all suffering (imprisonments) and that permits growth, transformation, and transcendence. Is this the moment when we arise to new life and meet the Lord?
Perhaps we need only to look at this very moment to be released from our bounds, for it is this very moment that offers us the smallest and immediate way to this divine expression and experience. Of course, that is easier said than done, but perhaps it begins with awareness and realization, that I am in “prison” when I am not being still and accepting of this very moment even in action. Is it action that is yieldingly fluid and internally flexible.