Was Jesus blessed as he faced his passion and death? At the end of this week’s Gospel scene, as he utters his lament over the recalcitrance of Jerusalem, he says, in effect, “You’ve made your bed.” His words are “See, your house is left to you,” referring to the temple which is the center of religious life – but perhaps not the center of God-Life. And if that remark were not troubling enough, he adds this:
And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” ’
He means, we assume, his triumphal entry into the city on the back of a donkey, which we celebrate on Palm Sunday. On that day, they all called him blessed – and he was. But blessing was very soon to take an odd turn.
What does it mean to be blessed? I often think of it as having good things happen, swimming in a sweet spot. What if “blessed” only means, “Living in the Life of God?” That can sometimes feel good, and sometimes be hard and challenging, and sometimes put you face to face with death, as Jesus found that week.
I have been learning to orient myself to “expect blessing,” to become aware of the blessing in which I move always. And I do believe God wants us to expect blessing, and that we experience it more when we expect it. But I also know that we never get to dictate what that blessing looks like or in what part of our life it may land. It doesn’t always come in the areas we’re worried about; sometimes it comes in a side door and helps us to move through the hard stuff.
I once read a beautiful and difficult op-ed on this subject, by a professor at Duke Divinity School who wrote a book on the American prosperity gospel entitled “Blessed” – and then found herself diagnosed with stage four cancer. She pointed out the ubiquity of the “#blessed” hashtag in social media, as a way for people to both delight in their good fortune and (sort of) give God the credit for it.
Maybe we can be more nuanced about what blessing is. If it is "living in the Life of God," can we start to see blessing in its less obvious disguises? To recognize times of stagnation as “cocoon” or “seed” times, in which all kinds of growth may be happening unseen? Can we seek blessing in bad news and in loss, not in a Pollyanna “always look on the sunny side of life” way, but inviting God to show God’s face in our pain and sorrow, and not only in our joy and fruitfulness?
In what areas of your life do you feel blessed? In what areas do you not feel blessed?
Many people that day shouted to Jesus that he was blessed - and had Twitter been invented, #blessed would have been trending like mad. And Jesus was blessed. They just didn’t have a clue what that blessing was going to look like, or how deeply we would be blessed in its outcome.
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