The Ear that Inclines (Maundy Thursday)

Readings, Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19 and John 13:1-17, 31-35
Image, Christ on the Mount of Olives, Arent de Gelder (1715)

We know from the synoptic gospels that Jesus and his disciples sing a psalm during this final Passover meal together. Perhaps, it could have been the one we heard tonight, which opens with:
 
I love the Lord, because he has heard
   my voice and my supplications.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
   therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
 
Saint Augustine asked the immortal question: what do I love when I love my God? The response of these opening verses is: I love the one who heard me when I have called out in the past. And because of this, I will call on God as long as I live.
 
If this was the psalm they sung, it certainly maps onto the experience of Jesus across his life. His life is marked by intimate communication with God his Father, whom he has called on across his ministry, receiving time and again what he needs to tend to his friends, serve the people, and reveal God’s glory. God has heard Jesus’ voice and supplication, God has inclined an ear to Jesus, and so knowing his hour is at hand, Jesus places his trust in God once more. As the trial awaits, Jesus affirms he shall die as he lived: calling on God.

And we know he shall. For following the last supper, we have the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus will call on God in prayer, bringing perhaps his most painful and desperate plea: if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. And then, as we hear on Good Friday, Jesus will call on God from the cross, Jesus will trust that God will incline the divine ear to him as he asks that his tormentors should be forgiven, as he commends his Spirit into God’s hands, and even, and perhaps most dramatically, Jesus will call on God, even as he cries accusingly in desolation: why have you forsaken me?
 
It is perhaps the tragic irony that this profound basis for the love between the Son and the Father, the inclining of the ear, is what seems so strained and stressed at the moment of the Son’s crucible. That Jesus’ desperate pleas seem to go unanswered, that the distance from voice to ear seems so vast, that the supplications for mercy are drowned out by the agony of affliction. Look and see, goes the famous verse from Lamentations, is there any sorrow like my sorrow? The great and despairing sorrow of having the very root of love crumble, of having the very foundation of the relationship shake, of having the basis of faith rocked.
 
In one of the most stirring passages in Hebrews we read that Jesus entered into solidarity with us, taking on flesh and blood and calling us siblings: Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.  
 
The sorrows and sufferings of Jesus – both the physical and the spiritual and emotional – form part of the what when we answer: what do I love when I love my God. We love the one who in Jesus was tested, who in Jesus entered into the human experience in every respect. And because of this, the one who inclines his ear to hear our voice and supplications is familiar with our woes and wounds. For Jesus too is one who knows the pain of crying out and feeling as though no ear inclines toward him, of calling to God and feeling like a gulf of silence ruptures between us. Jesus knows this sorrow, a sorrow like and unlike our own, and because of this we might know that he who we love is a merciful and faithful high priest.
 
There are two reminders I’ll leave us with as we prepare to call on God in prayer and serve one another at the table of grace. The first is that perhaps what makes Jesus’ trial and terror in the Garden most tragic is not necessarily the silence of God, but the sleep of his friends. Jesus asks his friends to pray with him as he calls on God in the hour of need, and his friends fail him. As the church, we are given to one another, called to love one another, to bear the burdens and share the road. It is an especial call upon us to stay awake with those who are in seasons of silence, seasons where God feels absent, where they feel abandoned and forsaken. It is then we need most to be awake, near, and fervent in our prayers, lending our voice to their cries and supplications until the sounds of silence are replaced.
 
The final reminder, is that God does not only have ears to incline. That even if Christ might feel unheard, the very same psalm reminds us that he is not unseen: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones. Christ remains beheld by the benevolent gaze of God, who does not abhor the affliction of the afflicted, but looks upon us with tender mercy. And God also has mighty arms to save. Arms, we will celebrate come Easter Sunday, that are long enough to reach into the depths of death and pluck Christ up, restoring him to life. Arms that are wide enough to reach around the world to make Christ’s reconciling work complete. Arms that are strong enough to envelope each of us with a love that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can yank us from. What do we love, when we love our God? The One who hears, sees, and holds us not only as long as we live, but for all eternity.