knowing

As a person of faith, I usually go about my life blithely aware that there is a plan for me, carefully mapped out by a supreme being who has my best interests in mind. All is well until I smack up against the idea of trust. I know that I am supposed to have full confidence in this idea, this plan, this larger-than-anything creator of the universe, but sometimes . . . I don't.

It is Holy Week and I've been busily being "holy" attending to my lenten sacrifice and following a daily devotional. But it is now Maundy Thursday and I don't like what happens next in the divine narrative.

I like to picture the Last Supper as a dinner party. Jesus has rounded up his best friends, well, his best guy friends, and they are to celebrate the Passover together. There is an abundance of wonderfully prepared food, perhaps prepared by women who are not mentioned in this recorded history, and the wine is flowing and cheerfully consumed. It is a time for conversation and laughter. The kind of event that friends look forward to and remember long afterward.

But then the festive mood becomes more somber when Jesus feels the need to share with the group that one of them is about to break with the fellowship. He decides to get deep and philosophical with the bread and the wine. And he borders on inappropriate and perhaps a bit too intimate with the whole foot washing bit. Friends, however, can open themselves to each other when there is a certain level of trust involved even when they do not totally understand. At this point I wonder if they are starting to realize something significant is about to happen. What bothers me is that they probably are not.

Like so many things that end up being disappointing, I wonder afterward if the outcome could have been different had I been briefed ahead of time. Is there an equation in which "more information" somehow equals "less disappointment?" Why do I always think knowing something ahead of time is going to give me an upper hand? So I can protect myself? So I can control my emotions--perhaps choosing to withdraw instead of commit? Is this what I do to eliminate the need to--yes, here it comes--TRUST?

Where does trust get me? I wonder if this is an idea that crossed the minds of the disciples as they saw their leader taken away: the man they lived with and loved; the one they left everything and everyone behind to follow with their whole hearts. Maybe they figured once Jesus defended himself in court, their lives would go back to normal. Everyone knew he was not guilty. But then he chose to remain silent. He chose to let those who wanted to get rid of him win. This group of men may have been as angry at Jesus as they were at those accusing him. How could they have put their trust in someone like this?

Before they could catch their breath from the series of events that would have seemed more dream-like than real given the intensity of each hour that followed that seder meal, Jesus' life was over. Left feeling more alone than they had perhaps ever felt, his disciples now had to grieve his shocking, seemingly senseless death. So afraid and filled with sorrow, they, save one, could not even go to the cross. That part was left to the women.

That trite phrase, "God doesn't give us more than we can handle," in all of its sickening sweetness, slips into my mind. YES, HE DOES!!! If he gave the very closest friends of Jesus way more than they could ever deal with, who am I to think that I deserve better? When I have no ability to understand, no more words to speak, and my mind has gone blank with a numbing sorrow, all I can do is drag my bag of fears, insecurities, anger, and every other sin that hinders me to the foot of the cross. And like those who came with nothing to offer a dying savior, I perceive in that moment of utter despair something like a whisper--a knowing. This "knowing" has nothing to do with logic or reasoning, explanations or even information I think I should have had prior to this occasion. It is the simple knowing: it is ok to trust.