The God-Hero and our battles
On shoulders men bore me there, then fixed me on hill;
fiends enough fastened me. Then saw I mankind’s Lord
come with great courage when he would mount on me.
Then dared I not against the Lord’s word
bend or break, when I saw earth’s
fields shake. All fiends
I could have felled, but I stood fast.
The young hero stripped himself–he, God Almighty–
strong and stout-minded. He mounted high gallows,
bold before many, when he would loose mankind.
I shook when that Man clasped me...
The Resurrection stained glass window hangs high in the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart bell tower, facing downtown Houston. Although I wrote about the poem and the window years ago, the God-Hero and our battles have occupied my psyche during this third week of Easter. This astounding depiction of the Resurrected Jesus hovers over the fourth-largest city in the country, blessing and calling to its citizens.
“Come to Me, I Am Who Am!”
Photo credit: https://fmgdesign.com/uds-portfolio/co-cathedral-of-the-sacred-heart-houston-texas.
Why can’t I get the ancient poem and image of the Resurrected Jesus out of my head?
For two reasons.
That anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet who wrote in the ninth century speaks to our twenty-first-century hearts. He belonged to a warring culture, much like ours in that respect. But vastly different because he knew who the heroes were. Warriors were the heroes in his culture of sudden death, pillaging, and unjust rulers. And so his Jesus is no powerless, oppressed man.
No!
The young hero stripped himself–he, God Almighty–
strong and stout-minded. He mounted high gallows,
bold before many, when he would loose mankind.
Jesus is a warrior, come to fight to the death for my soul.
And for yours.
The poet wrote about a dream in which he was the ‘person’ of the tree upon which Jesus was crucified. He meditates on his privilege of being chosen from the beginning of time.
Hear while I tell about the best of dreams
Which came to me the middle of one night
While humankind were sleeping in their beds.
It was as though I saw a wondrous tree
Towering in the sky suffused with light,
Brightest of beams; and all that beacon was
Covered with gold. The corners of the earth
Gleamed with fair jewels, just as there were five
Upon the cross-beam. Many bands of angels,
Fair throughout all eternity, looked on.
No felon’s gallows that, but holy spirits,
Mankind, and all this marvellous creation,
Gazed on the glorious tree of victory.
And I with sins was stained, wounded with guilt.
I saw the tree of glory brightly shine
In gorgeous clothing, all bedecked with gold…a rood I was raised up; and I held high
The noble King, the Lord of heaven above.
I dared not stoop. They pierced me with dark nails;
The scars can still be clearly seen on me,
The open wounds of malice. yet might I
Not harm them. They reviled us both together.
I was made wet all over with the blood
Which poured out from his side, after He had Sent forth His spirit. And I underwent
Full many a dire experience on that hill.
I saw the God of hosts stretched grimly out.
Darkness covered the Ruler’s corpse with clouds
His shining beauty; shadows passed across,
Black in the darkness. All creation wept,
Gazing at the window, we can feel the Glory of this Resurrected Jesus: the Word, who became flesh and lived among us so that he could die.
In the second hour in Gethsemane, all sins from all times, past, present and future,
present themselves before Jesus, and He loads upon Himself all these sins to give complete
Glory to the Father. So, Jesus Christ Expiated, Prayed, and felt all our moods in His Heart
without ever ceasing to Pray.
Daily, we prepare for combat.
The second reason I ponder the God-Hero and our battles is this. We Benedictine Oblates began rereading The Rule of Benedict on Tuesday. We spent last week meditating on St. Benedict’s magnificent Prologue. Saint Benedict explicitly lists the battles we must gird ourselves for when we decide to follow Christ.
L I S T E N carefully, my child, to your master’s precepts, and incline the ear of your heart (Prov. 4:20). Receive willingly and carry out effectively your loving father’s advice, that by the labor of obedience you may return to Him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience.
To you, therefore, my words are now addressed, whoever you may be, who are renouncing your own will to do battle under the Lord Christ, the true King, and are taking up the strong, bright weapons of obedience.
…the Lord is waiting every day for us to respond by our deeds to His holy admonitions. And the days of this life are lengthened and a truce granted us for this very reason, that we may amend our evil ways. As the Apostle says, “Do you not know that God’s patience is inviting you to repent” (Rom. 2:4)? For the merciful Lord tells us, “I desire not the death of the sinner, but that the sinner should be converted and live” (Ezech. 33:11).
…And so we are going to establish a school for the service of the Lord…For as we advance in the religious life and in faith, our hearts expand and we run the way of God’s commandments with unspeakable sweetness of love. Thus, never departing from His school,…we may by patience share in the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:13) and deserve to have a share also in His kingdom.
.
Obedience.
Obedience: that lightning rod of a word underlies everything.
Maybe it’s easier for former atheists like me to grasp the need for ongoing conversion: Conversion as in repentance-rethinking. Especially so for those of us whose faith did not just become lukewarm, but we who decided that it was all a myth: the Bible, theology, God. We know what living without God means; we’ve nearly drowned in godlessness.
As a brand-new Benedictine Oblate, I remember being fascinated by the word stability. Axiomatic of Benedictine spirituality it is a promise we make when we make our oblation. The word connotes stasis…an inner permanence despite external turbulence. We vow to stay put, regardless of what happens in our marriage, body, or family.
To many in this change-loving culture of ours, this concept of permanence, of a changeless inner core, evokes constraint, regulation-lack of freedom, even that word we see everywhere: slavery. But I’ve learned that it is when I am most uncomfortable, even frightened, that if I stick there, accept the anxiety of all of it…that the view from the other side is breath-taking.
Only if, I look through His Spirit…desiring only His Will.
O Lord, Master of my life, grant that I may not be infected with the spirit of slothfulness and inquisitiveness, with the spirit of ambition and vain talking. Lord and King, grant me the grace of being aware of my sins and not thinking of the evil of others.
Saint Ephrem of Syria
