God Is Watching Us?!

 

A Meditation for Good Friday, Cycle A; March 29, 2002

 

Lectionary Preaching Text: John 18:1-19:42

 

Trinity United Methodist Church

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Rev. Justin K. Fisher

fishhook@iquest.net
 http://www.trinityumc.cjb.net

 

(Pastor’s Note to “flock” and friends: This meditation is just that, my personal reflection on the text for the day.  It is not meant to be preached, just shared with friends and pondered in my heart.  May you all have a blessed conclusion to Holy Week.)

 

 

YEARS AGO NOW Bette Middler topped the charts with a stunning performance of “From a Distance” (see full text below), a powerful folk-like tune that left us alone with the thought that “God is watching us”...  from a distance.  On this Good Friday I am painfully aware that God is watching us ... up close.  And that He is searching our faces, pale in the light of an afternoon gone to evening, for any spark of compassion for the scene spilling out before us on Calvary.  He is watching us.

 

He is watching us ... up close as we decide how to respond to our Lord’s death before us.  Will we run and hide with the disciples?  Will we move in closer to hear his final words?  Will we join the women at the foot of the Cross-?  Will we be appalled at the gambling over his clothes?  Will we pull out our hair and wail and sob?   Will we make funeral plans with Joseph and Nicodemus?   Will we do nothing at all?  Or worse yet, will we be part of the crowd that has called for this moment and now stands paralyzed at it plays itself out?  He is watching us.

 

He is watching us ... up close, just as He has been watching us from a distance all these many years.  He’s looking intently into our eyes to see if we see the crucifixion in Afghanistan and India and Pakistan and Israel and Palestine this week, and if we feel it.  He’s searching our movements to see if there is any life in us, we who seem paralyzed by bombs falling, planes flying, women and children fleeing, madmen flailing, darkness lightning in blitzkrieg moments of horror that we have created by thought, word and deed against his divine majesty....  He is watching us.  He is watching us.

 

He is watching us this Good Friday to see if any of His goodness has seeped into our mortal frames.  He’s hoping for a bit of spiritual “osmosis” that somehow we’ve put it all together, the nativity and passion of our Lord.  He’s watching us to see if the words we proclaim match the actions that we take in His name.  He’s keen on seeing whether the “talk” matches the “walk”, whether “they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”  He’s watching us.

 

Perhaps from a distance we all look a bit better, neater, cleaner, and purer.  An overview of the “Garden” shows a postcard picture shot of a praying Lord surround by a devoted small group of followers.  But viewed up close, a few might notice that most are asleep and that the Lord is in tears, agony.  Up close you might see that.  You might also see that Peter gets a little upset and cuts off an ear of a high priest’s slave, there is a commotion, and Judas disappears and Jesus is hauled off to Annas.  From a distance, it’s a murmur in the night, under torchlight, and then it’s quiet.

 

Perhaps from a distance we will not be noticed by most of those gathered around the charcoal fire outside the high priest’s courtyard.  It’s crowded there, and besides, we’re not doing anything.  Up close, Peter makes a fool of himself (again!), but we’ve come to expect this of him.  We haven’t done anything!  Did you hear that cockcrow?    From a distance, Pilate’s Praetorioum seems quite ordinary and orderly, well considering the crowd is growing so quickly.  Up close, I doubt you could distinguish my face from most of the others, or my shouts either.  It’s a good thing we all washed our hands there.  Disease spreads in crowds, don’t you know, especially when you’re up close to one another.

 

Perhaps from a distance the scene at Calvary is not all that grotesque.  After all, there’s a kind of symmetry to the three crosses, stark along the ridge.   And the light, now dark, now stormy weather seems to cast a pall among us gathered there.  Are we really there at all?  We seem so far away from each other, from the Mary’s, and from Him!  I can’t get any closer.  I feel like everyone is a blur.  Up close, we come into sharp relief, and all the features become fine-tuned.  And we are not a pretty sight.

 

Only in movies do we have the luxury of looking at our world from a distance.  Good Friday demands that we see it and ourselves “up close”.  Rather than wallow in my own sinfulness, I confess I too am part of the crowd, but that I want to be part of Light.  O Lord, have mercy on me and mine this holy day.  Search our faces and our hearts.  Shine on us in the darkness.  Bring us to your one true Light, and call us home.  Amen.

 

“Good Friday is not a day of safe distances.

 

The darkness descends.  Taunts and jeers reach our ears when we dare to

identify with the Light of the World.

 

What part of ourselves is found in the shadow of the mob that streamed to?

Calvary?  What part of us creates nails in other forms that wound?

our brothers and sisters -- and our God?

 

Complicity, apathy, guilt oppress us and stifle our joy. Let us bring our

sins to God in genuine repentance and discover what God will do for us!

 

[from the "Call for Confession" in the 1998 Community

Ecumenical Good Friday Service of Worship, Summit, NJ.]

 

 

FROM A DISTANCE

 

       v(Written by Julie Gold, performed by Bette Midler)

 

    From a distance the world looks blue and green,

       and the snow-capped mountains white.

    From a distance the ocean meets the stream,

       and the eagle takes to flight.

    From a distant there is harmony, and it echoes through the land.

    It's the voice of hope; it's the voice of peace,

       It's the voice of every man.

 

    From a distance we all have enough and no one is in need.

    And there are no guns, no bombs, and no disease,

       No hungry mouths to feed.

    From a distance we are instruments, marching in a common path.

    Playing songs of hope, playing songs of peace,

       They're songs of every man.

 

    God is watching us, God is watching us,

       God is watching us from a distance.

    From a distance you look like my friend even though we are at war.

    From a distance I just cannot comprehend what all this fighting is for.

    From a distance there is harmony, and it echoes through the land.

    It's the hope of hopes; it's the love of loves,

       It's the heart of every man.

    It's the hope of hopes; it's the love of loves,

       This is the song of every man.

 

    And God is watching us, God is watching us,

      God is watching us from a distance.

    Oh, God is watching us, God is watching,

      God is watching us from a distance.