Saturday of the Third Week of Lent

Lectionary: 242

...for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

I am certainly not an anthropologist, nor have I traveled widely. In fact, my experience is pretty limited. But I'd say that everyone recognizes vanity, and nearly everyone admires true humility. Anyone can recognize the truth of Jesus's parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector. Vanity fools no one but itself with its pretense of humility. In fact, we call false humility pretentiousness. 

That universally recognized virtue, however, at its best, is only a shadow of the humility of God. "Look at the humility of God!" Saint Francis said, as he spoke to his friars. The Saint of Assisi was universally recognized and acclaimed for his humility. He must have heard himself praised for that so often he grew sick of it. He lived in one of those gilded eras when the wealthy make a show of their privileges, pleasures, power, and security. Everyone can see they are emperors with no clothes, but they see only one another in their contest of mutual admiration. Francis, though he was widely known and admired, made no claim to any privilege or entitlement, saw himself through God's eye, and was grateful for every little thing. 

"Look at the humility of God!" il Poverello said as he remembered Bethlehem, pondered the Eucharist, and contemplated Calvary. A lamb among goats sent him into tears; it reminded him of Jesus among his enemies. 

People might reply, "Sure, but Jesus was God nonetheless, even on the cross, and he didn't have to feel the pain." He felt more than the pain, if that's humanly possible. He felt the hatred and contempt of those who tormented him; and the betrayal of those who had claimed to love him. He felt the utter isolation of one abandoned by God and despised by his people. He felt the failure and futility of his mission. As his tormentors scourged him and mocked his helplessness, every reason to expect deliverance or redemption disappeared. There was no hope. 

On that black day, the Lord knew, as many Jews knew in Nazi concentration camps, that no help was coming. The world didn't care. No one would lift a finger. His last, despairing cry echoed off a leaden sky. Without hope there can be no pretense of righteousness or authority. 

Nor would it pass. His pain and humiliation would stop only in the silence of death when one can sense neither thought nor feeling for there is no one to sense anything.  

T.S. Eliot had a clue, 

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.

The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,

The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy

Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony

Of death and birth.

        T. S. Eliot, East Coker