Readings: Hebrews 4:14-5:8; Mark 8:34-9:1; Sirach 2:1-9; Isaiah 50:4-9
Anyone who has nurtured toddlers remembers the moment—that time when the little darling asserts his or her self-will in utter clarity. My oldest daughter, as in every area of life, was precocious–it happened the November before she turned two. The weather in Ottawa, Canada (the coldest capital city in the world!) had turned bitterly cold; already we had begun the routine of snow suits, hats and mittens. She was not impressed, and took it into her head to strip off in the car, despite the constraints of the car seat: a twenty-two month old Houdini. For the third time that week, I had stopped the car, put on her boots, socks, mitts, hat, and rezipped her coat. Exasperated, as I was pulling the car over for yet another time, I threatened a punishment and admonished, “Meredith, you have to obey your mother.” It was probably good I could not see her face behind me (would its intransigence have infuriated me?), or vice versa (would she have seen my rueful smile?) From the back seat of the car came a sober and stubborn voice, “No ’bey Mummy. No ’bey Daddy. No ’bey Auntie Debbie [her baby-sitter]. I ’bey MEE!” Terrible twos promised to be truly terrifying, with the gauntlet thrown down in this unmistakable fashion.
Obedience: it is not a very well understood concept in our egalitarian age. There is even a popular Christian book (William P. Young, The Shack, p. 145) in which the spokesperson for Jesus suggests—incredibly—that submission has nothing to do with obedience, and that God the Holy Trinity is as “submitted” to us as we are to be to God! Democracy may be a wonderful political system for fallen human beings, but egalitarianism as an absolute ideology ends up as idolatry, it would seem. Yet our age is not the only one that finds obedience difficult: always, the action and disposition have been challenging for human beings!
Great Lent is an apt time to consider why this is so. Our readings for this Sunday, the Adoration of the Holy Cross, are replete with meaning, but for me, the hard lesson of obedience commands our attention. I am not surprised, though I find it a difficult proposition, to hear Jesus commend to us the way of the cross, in the gospel reading for this week, Mark 8:3-4:9. Those of us who know about the way of our Lord also know that there is no glory in this world without suffering. But Hebrews 4:14-5:8 astonishes me. Of course, it first comforts by speaking about our great high priest who has experienced the human situation of weakness, even to the point of calling out to God with great cries! The idea of God incarnate experiencing such weakness is in itself appalling to us, and we are, as St. John Chrysostom indicates to us in his homily, sent back by this reading in Hebrews to the time of trial in Gethsemane, where Jesus, in the days of his flesh, embarked upon a way of suffering far deeper than any of us can even imagine.
We immediately think of these actions as those things which he underwent for our sake. But then the letter explains this further: “he learned obedience through what he suffered!” How can this be? Are we to think of God the Son (even during the vulnerability of his incarnation) as a disobedient human who needed to LEARN obedience? As St. Paul would say, Mē genoito! (“May it never be so!”) To say this would be blasphemy, would be to confuse the Creator-in-the-flesh with fallen creation. So what does it mean to say he learned obedience?
Let’s go back to my rebellious, self-willed toddler! My immediate response was to fasten upon her declaration of autonomy: “I ’bey me!” This autonomous response was the opposite of obedience. But, to do the child justice, there was another consideration: she was warm in the car, and assumed that it was therefore appropriate to strip off. What she did not know is that we were going to be outside in 5 minutes; nor did she know the danger of extreme cold were the car to break down—a definite possibility with the 18 year-old car we were driving as graduate students. According to her own knowledge of a few years, less clothing was appropriate; the problem was that she would not acknowledge that I might know better! Disobedience, then, is not simply a matter of sheer self-will; one of its ingredients includes limited knowledge, and the inability to imagine that someone else is more enlightened; further, it includes an unwillingness to suffer momentary discomfort for the sake of a greater good.
Here, at last, I perceive the connection between our readings for The Adoration of the Cross. God the Son, in taking on everything that is human, also took on a state in which he admitted, from time to time, “only the Father knows” about this (e.g. Mark 13:32/Matt 24:35/ Luke 10:22). He was “like us except for sin.” In the company of his Father with the Holy Spirit, there is no limitation for the Son—he retains what we consider to be the normative characteristic of God, omniscience. But in entering time, he also suspended much of this—though he continued to know deeply “what was in men” and also the One with whom he shared the divine glory: “No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son reveals Him” (Matt 11:27/Luke 10:22). The Incarnate Son’s self-imposed limitation meant that while amongst us, Jesus did not always know for himself the outcome of things, and had to rely upon the Father. What had been natural, born of knowledge, and always joyful—the Son’s sharing in the Father’s will and activity—was now something towards which he set his mind and heart, something done in trust, and something that would bring woe. He assumed the natural human will, and brought it into harmony with the divine will. His response to the Father became, in this fallen world, something connected with death: that state in which there is normatively no freedom, no understanding and no blessing. (But Hades was surprised!) The natural submission of the Son to the Father (seen as an eternal reality in 1 Cor 15: 28) is therefore expressed in a minor or tragic key in our world, as he tramples down death by death, in accordance with the will of the Father.
Some of the Fathers struggled with the difference between our fallen wills and that of the obedient, though completely human Son, God incarnate. I know that in thinking as I have above, I am coming perilously close to contradicting our father, St. Maximos the Confessor, whose teaching (in to Pyrrhus) was ratified in the Sixth Council as it condemned monotheletism. Jesus had, said our blessed father, no “gnomic will” such that he had to deliberate as to whether to do good or to do evil. Exactly so! Jesus, as the divine Son, shared the divine will of the Father; at the same time, as the unfallen Second Adam, he wielded an uncorrupted, unbent, natural human will that knew to choose the good. Moreover, as a human being in time, who had to push through to the end, that natural will chose the good in dependence upon the Father. (“Not as I will, but as Thou wilt”). Obedience was never at risk, but always embraced, since his will was not inclined or tempted to choose evil over good; all the same, in this vale of tears, obedience had to be “learned.” As God he knew all things; as man he grew strong in spirit (Luke 2:40). As man he asked the cup to pass; as God he willed to trample down death by death. The tension was real, and “the loud cries and tears” were no masquerade: yet there was never in our Lord a desire or tendency to make an ungodly or cowardly choice. Rather, Jesus, the perfect human being, demonstrated “godly fear” and followed the will of the Father, just as the Son has always joined in deliberation with the Father and the Spirit since before all time.
As we contemplate this One who calls us to follow, to deny ourselves, not to seek our own lives, to learn obedience, to revere and accept the cross, we see the fulfillment of wonderful promises in the Old Testament. Consider the call to unflinching faithfulness in Sirach 2:1-9: the one who “would serve” the Lord should be “prepared for temptation,” “set firmly” his or her heart, “cleave to the Lord” in times of calamity, accept all circumstances, and understand that his or her life is like gold being made pure in the fire. Consider also the luminous portrait of that Servant of the Lord in Isaiah 50:4-9, who has an “open” ear, who listens morning by morning to God’s teaching, and who by that word sustains others. Only Jesus fits this bill, giving his back, cheeks and face to those who would abuse him, for our sake. In the sight of those who shamed him, God vindicated our Lord Jesus. And so we may also hope for glory through the One who will bring us to himself. In our smaller circles, we are also called to set our face towards the cross, learning obedience in smaller matters, giving way to the Lord who knows more than we do, and blending our will with his. Though our obedience may be only a pale reflection of his, it is certainly not always easy—we do not know the end of all the paths we are called to tread, and fear is a natural response to the unknown, to the specters of darkness that we see looming ahead. Then there is the pesky matter of self-will, coupled with compulsive passions that would also pull us away. “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16).
Edith M. Humphrey 