Pondering the Word

To trust God with our selves

by June Mears Driedger

It was a disturbing sight and yet I couldn’t look away. Tammy Faye (Baker) Messner was on "Larry King Live" talking about her life, her cancer, and her impending death. She was emaciated and frail with her trademark heavy make-up and she struggled to breathe but she wanted to talk about God.

When King asked her what she did to face the ultimate enemy—death—she said her faith was strong. "I just pray every day to God, and I say to him, 'I trust you with me.'"

This is a deep prayer for someone facing death. It is a deep prayer for facing life as well.

The theme for this Lent season is "Our lives are in your hands . . .", drawing from the song by Francis Patrick O’Brien (Sing the Journey 29): "You are all we have. You give us what we need. Our lives are in your hands, O Lord, our lives are in your hands."

To trust God with our selves, to proclaim freely and without reserve, "Our lives are in your hands" requires us to know just Who it is that we are entrusting ourselves to. To surrender ourselves means we know—deeply—Who it is that we surrender to. Lent is an ideal season to move more deeply into relationship with God—to know Who it is that we trust.

Lent 1: Mark 1:9-15
On our Lenten journey of trust and surrender we meet Jesus again in the wilderness. Just before his wilderness experience Jesus was baptized and the dove of the Holy Spirit descended upon him. It is this same Spirit that drives Jesus into the wilderness where he encounters both wild animals and angels. In the Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible (RSFB), a footnote asks: "In our own spiritual formation, we will experience blessings as well as temptations and hardships, both 'wild beasts' and 'angels.' God is with us in all circumstances, blessing us, challenging us, giving us what we need to persevere." We are invited to trust that God is with us in the blessings and in the challenges.

In the Mark text, the author does not explain to us how Satan tested Jesus in the wilderness as we read in Matthew 4 or in Luke 4. The Old Testament stories of Israel in the wilderness (and Adam and Eve in the garden), show us what it means to be tested and to fail. A key piece in these stories is the lack of confidence in the word of the Lord. Despite God’s presence revealed to the Israelites over and over again, the people doubt God’s continual loving presence. By contrast, Jesus remains faithful to God and in return, perhaps, the wild animals are peaceful and the angels provide nurturing care for him.

Jesus knew in whom he trusted.

Lent 2: Mark 8:31-38
Our text this week reveals the theological turning point in the gospel of Mark through Jesus' question to his disciples: "Who do you say that I am?" And, this is the question each of us must answer as well. Our first step is our confession of faith but we must make second, third and onward steps in our lifelong relationship with Jesus Christ. As the RSFB notes, "Jesus tells us what kind of Messiah he has come to be and therefore what kind of life we are called to live: a life of service and sacrifice. Discipleship is not for the fainthearted!"

This passage has the first of three passion predictions Jesus makes in the gospel of Mark. With each prediction Jesus makes, the disciples grow more skittish about this "Jesus way." They like the idea of discipleship based on witnessing miracles but a discipleship based on suffering causes them to pause. Each prediction is followed by an expression of disbelief, or misunderstanding, or outright fear (vv. 34-38). Peter treats Jesus' prediction as if Jesus is possessed by an unclean spirit and needs to be exorcised.

"I just pray every day to God, and I say to him, 'I trust you with me.'"

We might feel superior to Peter and the others, yet how often do we react just like them? Our willingness to suffer is due to our trust in Jesus' word that suffering is part of following him. We trust Jesus as we follow him because we believe Jesus to be trustworthy.

Lent 3: John 2:13-22
The lectionary shifts us dramatically to the gospel of John for a few weeks, then we return to Mark. In early John we read about Jesus in Jerusalem while the synoptic gospels place Jesus in Jerusalem near the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry. John places the Temple cleansing near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry as a symbolic function. In the first part of John 2, the gospel reveals the grace and glory of Jesus as well as the abundant new life that Jesus offers (vv. 1-11). Then immediately the text highlights the challenges and the threats this new life can bring to his followers. It is an unsettling story that reminds us that there is no such thing as "status quo" life with Jesus, and that we come to Jesus on his terms, not ours.

We read of Jesus cleaning the Temple, the geographical and spiritual center of the Jewish faith that places Jesus in direct contact with establishment Judaism. It is not clear whether Jesus objected to any and all commercial activity in the Temple, since even honest transactions were necessary for pilgrims to fulfill their religious obligations, or whether he despised the exploitation and fraud of the religious authorities who controlled access to God. And when he is asked to explain and justify his actions, Jesus refuses. Instead Jesus offers a perplexing statement: "Destroy this Temple, and I will raise it again in three days." Years later the disciples interpreted this event and Jesus cryptic words as another prediction of his death and resurrection.

Anabaptists are uncomfortable with this story because it seemingly portrays Jesus as violent and scarily unpredictable. This story challenges our understanding of who Jesus is and how we understand and know him. Perhaps then, we live with our discomfort, live with our questions, and trust that Jesus knew what he was doing, even if we don't. And, perhaps we are reminded to not domesticate Jesus and therefore, let Jesus be Jesus.

Lent 4: John 3:14-21
We continue with Jesus in Jerusalem. In the early versesof John 3, we read a dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus. But in verse 14, the dialogue becomes a monologue. One writer suggests that "the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus alternated between Jesus' offer of new birth (vv. 3, 5-8) and Nicodemus’s resistance (vv. 4, 9). The shift to the monologue allows Jesus' voice to silence the voice of resistance."

John asks us to hold two meanings together simultaneously: as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness so the Son of Man will be lifted up on the cross. The irony here is that the physical act of lifting up is also a moment of exaltation. For John, Jesus' crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension is a continuous event, not three separate sequential events. Verse 14 is the key to the theological underpinning of the gospel of John—the cross as humiliation is actually exaltation.

Again we are challenged to trust God as Jesus trusted God as he moved toward his death.

Lent 5: John 12: 20-33
This passage is a summary of Jesus' final days and it is a mixture of anguish, revelation, promise, and threat. It begins with the arrival of Greek Jews traveling to Jerusalem for the Passover feast and they want to meet with Jesus. For John, these non-Jews represent the Gentile world and their meeting request confirms the fears of the Pharisees ( John 12:19) that the world is seeking out Jesus. Indeed, the Greeks meeting with Jesus foreshadows the inclusion of the Gentiles into the future church and into God’s promises.

In vv. 27-28, Jesus speaks of "agony" and alludes to Psalm 42:5, 11. Another writer suggests that John's use of this psalm 'as the vehicle of Jesus' words of agony i one indicator of John’s ironic handling of the tradition, because Psalm 42 affirms the psalmist's trust in God. By evoking this psalm, John communicates that Jesus trusts in God at his hour.”

We trust Jesus as we follow him because we believe Jesus to be trustworthy.

Jesus interprets the apparent failure of his ministry as the death of a seed being planted. He understood that out of death, new life is born.

Lent 6: Mark 11:1-11
We arrive at Palm Sunday in our Lenten journey, and return to the gospel of Mark. Just prior to this passage, Jesus has healed Bartimaeus and we see that Jesus' reputation as a healer is well known around Jerusalem. Yet, Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem itself is essentially teaching that increases his popularity with the people while simultaneously increasing the determination of the chief priests and the scribes to have Jesus executed.

Jesus enters into Jerusalem on a donkey and ends his ride at the Temple—the symbolic center for what unfolds in the following days. This focus on the Temple makes it clear that the struggle between Jesus and the religious establishment concerns religious issues—essentially, who speaks for God.

We begin Palm Sunday with clarity of vision and end with the cries of despair, yet we recognize that our lives are in God's hands and we respond in faith and trust. We know that we can indeed, trust God with our selves.

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June Mears Driedger is managing editor of Leader. She is a member of Michigan State University Mennonite Fellowship in East Lansing, Michigan.