Bruce Cockburn is one of my favorite songwriters. His lyrics are quite evocative and usually filled with much truth. This passage today reminds me on one of Cockburn’s songs in particular. The song is called Hills of Morning off of his album Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws. This passage puts me in mind of this song not only because Jesus is apparently getting ready to walk right into the dragon’s jaws but also because of a particular stanza with says:
But everything you see's not the way it seems --
Tears can sing and joy shed tears.
You can take the wisdom of this world
And give it to the ones who think it all ends here
Peter sleeps through the hour of Jesus’ greatest need and isn’t able to pray with Him even at His specific request. Yet Peter truly loves Jesus and later would be able to prove that love in ways he could not do presently. Judas came to Jesus with a kiss. Yet that kiss was an infamous kiss of betrayal. Sometimes love doesn’t look like love. Sometimes what looks like love isn’t. The world’s wisdom is based on appearances.
It was also the world’s wisdom for Peter to take a sword and try to make up for his failure to use the spiritual weapon of prayer by wielding a carnal weapon. Jesus rebuked Peter. (The writer of Hebrews tells us that His rebukes mean that He is treating us like a son.) Luke tells us that Jesus healed the ear Peter cut off and John tells us the name of the man whose ear peter cut off. (I have my own theory about why John reveals his name which I’ll share when we get there.)
We can’t always explain things in this life. Often things are not what they appear to be and even more often the results of particular actions are wildly unpredictable. Sometimes things just happen so that “the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.”
The only thing we can be sure of is God’s perfect love for us and that even if the dragon’s jaw appears to loom up ahead, in very fact we are secure within His hand. And that is cause to dance.
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