Humanity was created.
Crafted. Molded. Formed.
And humanity was made good.
But is this our reality now? Do we see goodness in our surroundings? Do we experience goodness in our realities?
No.
Even the most gracious people inevitably admit that there is a very real presence of Sin and Evil. Even the most optimistic people eventually come around to admission of Pain and Suffering.
What happened? Is there still goodness at all in our reality, and if so why is that reality marred by pain? If humanity was created in the very image of the Divine, what took place that caused us to Fall?
Fall. It's the word used to talk about that singular moment of failure on the part of humanity. It is the particular point of time that started a downward spiral for us. From this moment on, there is an introduction to Death and Desolation on the most intimate levels of the psyche and spirit.
I'm thinking a lot these days about Falling. About Failure. About the stumbling and bumbling along that we so often do in our attempts to navigate life. I'm thinking of what it meant for those first humans to experience a Fall. And how I experience the effects of that Fall from so long ago. And how I Fall on my own every single day.
Falling isn't seen as a "good" thing. The Fall in Genesis is depicted in death-dealing severity, and is juxtaposed with God's Creation of the world depicted with its life-giving goodness. And as I think of that first Fall, I can't help but think of my own fallenness. My own stumbles and face-plants that have come along as I've tried to navigate life.
That's what brings things around back to Jesus for me. Because Jesus fell too.
The Stations of the Cross show Jesus falling a total of three times on the way to being crucified. Three times he fell to his knees until he eventually fell into the darkness of Death. Malcolm Guite has written sonnets inspired by the Stations of the Cross, and I turn now to his words.
Station III, Jesus falls the first time
He made the stones that pave the roads of Zion
And well he knows the path we make him tread
He met the devil as a roaring lion
And still refused to turn these stones to bread,
Choosing instead, as Love will always choose,
This darker path into the heart of pain.
And now he falls upon the stones that bruise
The flesh, that break and scrape the tender skin.
He and the earth he made were never closer,
Divinity and dust come face to face.
We flinch back from his via dolorosa,
He sets his face like flint and takes our place,
Staggers beneath the black weight of us all
And falls with us that he might break our fall.
Jesus fell into the very dust-made-flesh that is humanity when the Word became incarnate in Mary's womb. And now this dust-made-flesh of his is covered with the dust of Jerusalem. His knees strike stone as he falls, intimately aware of our fallen state. And he goes on because of that. Christ falls in order to break our own fall.
I am so very aware of my fallenness. I react in irrational ways when something upsets me. I get angry over inconveniences to my schedule or time. I spout ill-tempered words to even people I love most.
I am also very much aware of our collective fallenness. I see the pain that we cause each other when we say hurtful things. I see tempers flare over small matters. I see the suffering that comes when someone takes away another's agency and ignores their consent. I see the sin that feels to be knit into the very fabric of our reality, causing pain and suffering and a longing for what "should be."
We cry out in our pain. We cry out in our suffering. We cry out in our fallenness. Even as our own knees strike the dust of the earth and our face screws up in pain, we let out our cries to be seen in our distress.
Has God turned away from facing my fallenness? Will God look down and glance over me to turn toward those more pure of heart? Toward those that seem to operate on a holier plane than me?
In this wondering, I remember...
Station IX: Jesus falls the third time
He weeps with you and with you he will stay
When all your staying power has run out
You can’t go on, you go on anyway.
He stumbles just beside you when the doubt
That always haunts you, cuts you down at last
And takes away the hope that drove you on.
This is the third fall and it hurts the worst
This long descent through darkness to depression
From which there seems no rising and no will
To rise, or breathe or bear your own heart beat.
Twice you survived; this third will surely kill,
And you could almost wish for that defeat
Except that in the cold hell where you freeze
You find your God beside you on his knees.
My dear reader, I am here to tell you that Jesus cares for you, no matter how many times you feel you have fallen.
The Word-made-flesh still makes a habit of sitting in the dusty places of our existence. The God who fell those centuries ago on the way to Death knows what it is like to feel pain and heartbreak and suffering. God knows the sting of bitter defeat and the loss of will to go on.
God knows.
God sees.
And God still loves.
Despite the pain. Despite the fall. Despite every reason to turn aside, God has chosen love. Love not only for humanity in the goodness of our created natures, but love for humanity in our dusty, battered forms.
Let us take heart in this. Let us find hope and courage in the love and strength of this Jesus who fell. And let us rise, knowing that the final word is not one of painful falls.
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