Shades of Gray
by Jessica Tate
It is a complicated week in the life of the church. A Holy Week, but a week that involves many things, with many mixed emotions.
There’s the excitement of Palm Sunday. Jesus enters Jerusalem and crowds gather to welcome him, to put down their cloaks, to shout hosanna, blessed is he! But even that excitement is tempered with irony. The crowds shout hosanna and call Jesus their king. A few days later that title will come back at Jesus when the prosecuting Roman governor asks, “are you the king of the Jews?” These adoring crowds will, in a few, short days, change their cries to that of “crucify him!” The excitement of Palm Sunday turns to the anguish of betrayal on Maundy Thursday. It moves to the deep grief of death on Good Friday and the loss of hope on Saturday. Then, however, on Sunday, there is the empty tomb. There is the resurrection, the assurance of new life. There is victory over death; there is restoration of hope. This week is a collision of religious expression and a collision of emotions.
Perhaps this collision is exactly where we need to be. Rather than staying in the triumphal entry, rather than to moving on to the passion and depths of Jesus’s suffering, rather than skipping right ahead to the joy of Easter, perhaps we need to stay in the confusion of all these things happening simultaneously. Rather than wrapping things up nicely and neatly, we stay right here, in the collision of joy, pain, suffering and anticipation. We stay right here in the collisions and complications and learn how to cope with them.
Because life is this way. It isn’t black and white. It is shades of gray.
Sending your child off to the bus stop for the first day of school isn’t black and white. It’s an exciting milestone. Yet it is scary to let go and trust that he can cope with school. There’s pride in watching that little person step out on her own. Yet it is painful to recognize that she can be part of the world without you. It’s shades of gray.
Faith is this way too. The Christian faith is a story of complications and collisions. The last shall be first and the first shall be last. Anyone who will lose their life shall save it. We are simultaneously sinners and set free from our sin. God is great and God is humble. The kingdom is now and the kingdom is yet to come. Absolutes are not what we’re after. Experiences of love and grace are. And neither of those is clear-cut.
Love can mean saying no to a child. Love can mean setting boundaries and expectations for the people who ask the church for financial assistance. Love can mean turning off life support. Love is a messiah entering Jerusalem on a stolen colt.
Grace is an empty tomb. Grace is a crucifixion. Grace is a lamb sitting on the monarch’s throne.
Delving into these collisions of emotion, we begin to see that what is complicated and complex can be broken down into smaller parts and named. Finally, in that delving and naming we arrive at what is most true, most sincere in our experience and being. It is not black and white. It is the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mark. 1:1).