If You Only Knew

Have you ever said that?  “If you only knew.”  Have you ever heard it said to you?  Not fun, is it?  On either side, the saying or the hearing.  The phrase implies a breach, a lack of understanding, a miscommunication of some significant scale. It speaks of a brokenness that can lie between even the closest of companions, of friends or family or lovers.  If you only knew.

So, tell me.  That’s my response to “if you only knew.”  Tell me, I want to know.  I want to hear your words, I want to know your thoughts, I want to know you.  Tell me.  Speak to me, share with me, be with me.  Don’t expect me to read minds, don’t keep me guessing.  I need to know, want to know.  Tell me, show me.

I say this to folks all the time, to couples about to get married, to those already married and finding it more difficult than they realized when they were about to get married and now were wishing they had paid attention in those earlier conversations or at least remembered some of the things we talked about.  I point out the that ceremony doesn’t confer extra-sensory powers, that mind reading doesn’t come with the slipping of rings on fingers.  Tell them, speak up.  You want them to know something, tell them, for heaven’s sake.

“For heaven’s sake.  Tell me.”  I did tell you.  “Use words, I can’t just figure it out, you have to speak.”  I did tell you.  “I mean, I’m not ... wait, what?”

I miss stuff.  That’s the truth of it.  I get wrapped up my own thoughts, my own desires, my own self and forget to pay attention to what is going on around me sometimes.  I don’t think I’m the only one.  But that’s not really an excuse.  True, but not an excuse.  This outward focus thing is harder to sustain than we realize.  It’s like having to reorient our radar, it’s like having to step aside from being the center of your own world.  And that is hard, some would say impossible, especially living in a culture that says “I’m number one!”

You miss stuff.  Admit it, you do, I can’t be the only one.  Someone is longing for you to know something but you are missing it.  Someone needs you to know something, to be something, to respond to something.  To see something.  Open your eyes.  Can it be that simple?  No, but yes.  Open your eyes.  That what they want and need.  That’s what Jesus wants.  Really?  Yeah, really.

Luke 19:37-44  As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen,  38 saying, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!"  39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop."  40 He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out."  41 As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it,  42 saying, "If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.  43 Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side.  44 They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God." 

To claim that Luke 19 is an emotional roller coaster is to grossly underestimate the plummet from the heights praise and glory to the depths of divine despair which then makes a whiplash turn to explode in righteous anger.  The chapter begins with the children’s song of Zacchaeus (“he climbed up in a sycamore tree for the lord he wanted to see”) and the parable of the talents (“you wicked slave!” At least you could have put it in a bank for my .001 % interest (sorry)).  But then it runs to the Palm Sunday event which is where we pick up the story.  We skipped the donkey-napping and moved right to the triumphal procession.  “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”  They shouted and cheered and danced, flinging their coats and pulling branches off the trees.  It got so out of hand that the stodgy Pharisees told Jesus to tell them to keep it down.  You’re going to wake the Romans, and they get grouchy when roused.  But Jesus says it is time to praise.  This is the moment, this is the place, these are the voices that must be raised.  And then, he stopped.

I don’t know how you have pictured Palm Sunday, but it always seemed like a city thing.  He came bursting into the gates and everyone got excited.  A “rock this city” kinda vibe, a “dancing in the streets” spontaneous flash mod sort of scene.  But Luke says they hadn’t even gotten to the city yet.  They were coming down from the Mount of Olives and this event burst forth in the suburbs.  The Pharisees, who it seems were always hovering around letting their displeasure be known at every opportunity, were trying to stifle the exuberance before they got to the city walls.  So, they were sort of hop-skipping along side Jesus on his donkey telling him to put a cork in it and he was saying, no this is right, this is good, this is a God-moment.  And he comes around a bend.

You know those moments where you are just driving along and all of a sudden you come around a bend in the road and a vista opens up in front of you and it takes your breath away.  The mountains leap from the horizon and startle with their majesty and wonder.  The ocean rolls into view with all its endless power and relentless waves carving sculptures in the rock of the shoreline.  The city with its man-made towers like fingers reaching to the heavens and the lights making it sparkle out a dream of a better world.  And whatever conversation you were just wrapped up in is forgotten as you take in the view.

Maybe it was like that.  The Pharisees forgotten as Jesus gazes at the walls of Jerusalem and the sprawl of human habitation crowned by the magnificence of the temple a work or art and architecture unmatched by anything on earth.  And he began to weep.  The party winds down like a toy that loses its momentum, like a balloon that wasn’t tied tightly enough and they stand and stare in confusion as he weeps.

Then he speaks “If you only knew.”  Was it loud enough for everyone to hear or was it a whispered prayer, a last breath about to die exhalation.  Jerusalem, the city of Peace, it was in the name (shalom - salem).  “If you only knew the things that make for peace,” he breathed.  

Brows furrowed, questions came unbidden.  “Weren’t we just shouting for peace?”  “Peace in heaven,” they said.  Glory in heaven, they shouted.  But peace was in their midst.  Glory was riding a donkey down the hill right beside them.  They missed it and he knew it.  And it was about to get worse.  Much, much worse.

In years to come the Romans grew tired of trying to rule the unruly, and came and laid siege to the city, throwing up a rampart behind which they sat to starve out the inhabitants of the city of peace.  The stories from that time are gruesome and inhumane, worthy of the tears of a savior.

They missed it.  They were wrapped up in their own agendas, in their own hopes and dreams, and missed it when God rode into town, on a donkey, within reach, touching distance.  They missed it.  We miss it.  The offer of love, the moment of service, the gift of joy.  We miss it, Jesus who rides through our lives weeping at the many times we are too wrapped up in ourselves to see him.  We miss it.  And it breaks his heart, and ours.

But he keeps riding.  Keeps offering.  Keeps being present.  Open your eyes.  If you only knew.

Shalom, 

Derek