John 6:15 When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
It’s becoming clear in this Lenten period that there are quite a few moments in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, where Jesus runs away from the crowd. Withdraws to the wilderness places.
Why? Because Jesus isn’t looking to be king. Jesus isn’t there to become the head of political debates. He is not there for power. He is there to make things simpler. He is there to tell us to stop bickering, to share our food, to heal one another deeply, to love.
I want quickly to quote another Bible verse. Isaiah 55:9: For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. The heading for this chapter of Isaiah in my Bible is An invitation to abundant life. What God doesn’t want is for us to pretend we know everything, and that with our revolutionary knowledge to assume that we ourselves are right and anyone disagreeing is wrong.
What God does want is for us to understand the depth of God, and the depth of this world. He wants us to withdraw from the noise, to stop seeking power positions. Christ invites us to the abundant life, the beautiful life, the rich – not in the money sense – life.
God wants us to understand the importance of the wilderness. Jesus didn’t take up an army, Jesus didn’t usurp the throne, Jesus wandered through the mountains with tax-collectors and prostitutes, with fisherman and carpenters, with Mary his mother, Mary Magdalene… all sorts of people. And he taught them to love themselves, and to love one another. And rather than hurting anyone, rather than taking a position of power on earth, he died. For his vision of love and peace, he suffered. As we suffer when we seek the right path.
The Harry Potter series is filled with wisdom. At the end of the fourth film, Dumbledore’s last words to Harry before the fifth and traumatic year comes are these: “Dark and difficult times lie ahead, soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy. But remember this: you have friends here, you’re not alone.”
Harry’s fifth year at Hogwarts is arguably his worst. Without giving anything away to those (silly people) who haven’t yet read/seen them, it’s safe to say that part of him wishes he could give up. He doesn’t want to fight for what is good. But he does. He does. And his enormous strength is encouraging, and reflects back for us to relate to and read about in books such as the Gospels. Love is the strongest thing there is. Love. Not Dark Lords’ (a name for Voldemort the evil wizard) seeking power. People who have suffered, but are willing to grow always, and love more and more. What does Harry feel at the end of a terrible year? Sorry for Voldemort. Sorry for him.
Choose what is right, not what is easy. Don’t seek power. Seek the mountains. Seek to help people, to share with people, to heal people.
John 6:15 When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
