Texts from a Russian soldier to his mother have been haunting me ever since I read them a week or so ago. The Russian soldier was in complete shock that he was being asked to attack civilians. The texts were sparse on words, but the silence between the words said everything as the soldier asked the one who raised him, the one who taught him right from wrong, his mother, about what he should be doing. The only reason that we know of this soldier’s dilemma is because his phone was found on his fallen body by Ukrainian soldiers.
The world has long absolved ground soldiers for immoral actions they are forced to do under command. After-all, the ground soldier has no power to influence the affairs of powers well beyond their reach. None of us have the power or ability to change the horrors of the world.
But, the world’s absolution does nothing to help a soul that feels twisted and torn by the conflict raging within. These soldiers’ souls are torn between the things that they can and cannot control. For some, it can be absolutely paralyzing.
I wonder if the soldiers who carried out Pontius Pilate’s orders to kill innocent civilians during a holy ritual were deeply affected? I wonder if seeing these innocent people’s blood splattered across the blood of the animals they sacrificed was paralyzing for the souls of the soldiers? I wonder if the lives of those innocent people’s mothers became paralyzed in the same way that the Russian soldier’s mother’s had? She cannot bring herself to touch anything in her son’s room. She does not want to lose him, even though she already has. Maybe she will never touch anything in his room and it will become a museum to the dead and a shrine watered by the tears of the spiritually despondent? I wonder if the mothers of those innocent lives were ever able to find a way to move forward?
At the time, nearly 2,000 years ago, people wondered if those innocent Galileans had done anything to deserve what had happened to them at the hand of those soldiers. Was there a divine reason behind the horrid slaughter?
Looking back at history as we moderns have the luxury of doing, we can clearly see that the tragic events in Galilee were likely just the unfortunate consequence of having a power hungry and bloody ruler like Pontius Pilate. But, when you are closer to the event…and closer to the people…it is a lot harder to see things that way.
Why do bad things happen to those we love? Is God punishing us? Is there a purpose for all of this? Is this horrid event deserved?
We actually have the precise quote in the Bible that Jesus shares as thoughts from the people of the time: “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?” In other words, “Did they deserve it?”
“Or,” the questions continue, “[what about] those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?” “Did they deserve it?”
Within seconds Jesus answers these deep and troubling questions quite simply: “No, I tell you…” Do good people who suffer horrible things somehow deserve it? “No,” Is tragedy a heavenly punishment? “No, I tell you…” Jesus reiterates.
Can we just pause right there and let that sink in? So many people get stuck in their lives and in their faith because they do not understand that Jesus’ answer is “No.” How many people cannot move on in life because they somehow feel like the loss of a loved one is somehow their fault? How many people cannot look up toward heaven for the remainder of their lives because they have never been told that it was not their fault? Jesus says so.
“Was my child taken from me because I am being divinely punished?”
“No.”
“Did I lose my sight because I needed to be taught a heavenly lesson?”
“No.”
Did I grow a gut because I ate way too many Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups?
“Well…Yes, yes that is the reason. But, as for the reason you ate all of that comfort food? The death of someone you love,” Jesus would say to me, “is not in any way your fault, nor is their absence in any way a divine punishment.”
I think that I just needed to say that, just to speak that truth out loud. Maybe, you needed to hear it. I know that some of you, or someone you know, just cannot move forward in life or look upward because Jesus’ answer to tragedy has never been shared. You see, it just is not in Jesus’ nature to teach us through torture or punishment. The world may work that way, but Jesus just does not work that way.
With that in mind, recall that I said that we were only going to pause, pondering on Jesus’ glorious “No,” but Jesus has more to say. This was Jesus’ full answer: “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
You see, getting stuck in life does not allow you to look up to heaven nor does it allow you to move forward in life. Ask anyone who has gotten stuck in addiction. It is just the same story again and again. Get high, feel good, then soon after feel guilty, resolve to change, try being sober for a few days, get tempted, get high feel good, then soon after feel guilty, resolve to change, try being sober for a few days, get tempted, get high…well you see how this works. Life just becomes a big cycle that revolves around substances, but fails to revolve around the important things, like those who love you.
And
such a trapped life certainly does not revolve around the one who created us and
loves us eternally.
Getting stuck in life keeps us from look up to heaven, and it does not allow us to move forward in life. I know a soldier who was forced to kill in the battlefield. The enemy he saw approaching was so very young. But, those young faces held guns. So, the trigger had to be pulled.
The guilt of such a traumatic event started to torture the soldier’s soul so much that daily functions of just showering and eating started to become impossible. He dropped out of the faith. He just could not contend with the eternal questions pressing on his soul.
I understand that his example is extreme, but I think that most of us have been brought to feel that way at one time or another. The guilt or anxiety of a situation just leaves us unable to move, and sometimes is bad enough that it creates a chasm between us and God. That is just the truth. Getting stuck in life does not allow us to look up to heaven nor does it allow us to move forward in life.
To this “stuckness” Jesus urges us to, “repent,” because nothing good can come out of getting stuck in life.
Remember now that repentance in the Christian scriptures does not mean “feeling really, really bad” about something. What “repentance” actually means is: “thinking the way that God thinks.” Like it says in Philippians 2:5, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…” Start thinking the way that Jesus thinks, because nothing good comes when you are unable to move forward or look upward. Jesus means that literally. Good things do not come out of stuck individuals.
Jesus tells this parable about a fig tree that is unable to produce any figs. The owner of the tree has never been able to enjoy the tree because it has never given any enjoyable fruit. The owner wants to just cut the thing down because it is not any good in its current, unfruitful state. And, when we are stuck in life, we do not bear fruit either.
Now, before we start listing in our heads all the useless and stuck people in our lives and imagining them being eliminated, the gardener has an idea. “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.” So, just to be clear, the gardener intervenes and suggests that he try to care deeply for the poor fig tree.
This sounds kind of familiar. It kind of sounds like a man who intervenes in the world, with a deep, deep love for those of us who are stuck…stuck in sin, stuck in death, stuck in depression, stuck in bad health, stuck with no path forward, stuck in our relationships, stuck with an inability to forgive, stuck in our old ways…and goes to the cross to put to death all of that “stuckness.” On the third day, that man rises to new life, offering new possibilities. He rises with a “resurrection mindset.” Jesus Christ intervenes in our lives with a deep, deep love so that we can look up and look forward.
“Looking up and looking forward” is the resurrection mindset. It does not focus on what we do not have, but on what we do. It does not focus on what once was, but on what God is doing now. It does not get tripped up by the faults of the past, but moves us forward in love. The resurrection mindset is a mindset of looking up to God and looking forward with God.
But, notice that sometimes, it takes a gardener to pull us out of the mud and plant us in better soil. Sometimes, it takes someone who does not live inside our stuck minds to show us a resurrection mindset. If we were to pay attention, we would see that Jesus sends us special people who help us to look up, and look forward.
I hope and pray that is exactly what we can be for each other as members of the body of Christ. I pray that we can have the mind of Christ, which is the mind of the gardener. I pray that Christ will lead us, like the gardener, to take the time and the effort to help others look up, and look forward, that they too can get caught up in the resurrection mindset.
After-all, tragedies and struggles are like weeds that grow up and threaten to choke us out. But, the mind of Christ seeks to clear out the weeds trapping one another, so that we all have the chance to grow in some good, divine soil, so that we can grow to be the people that God created us to be.
We are a people who have been created by God to look up and look forward in life. And, we are a people who have been created by God to care deeply that others have the chance to look up and look forward, having a resurrection mindset…the same mind of care and love that was in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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