Loss, Letting Go, and Looking Toward Easter

Loss, Letting Go, and Looking Toward Easter

Author

Simon Lasair is a nationally recognized expert in spirituality and spiritual care, the practice of professional chaplaincy. He holds a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Manchester, UK, and is employed in a research role investigating how best to integrate spiritual care and fine arts-based interventions into health care. He is an experienced workshop and retreat facilitator, often using storytelling and humour to invite participants to reflect deeply on their experiences. When not working, Simon enjoys spending time with his wife and two young children, taking time outdoors, watching superhero movies, reading while listening to jazz, and baking gourmet sourdough breads.

Philippians 2:5-11 NRSV

5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

6 who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.

9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
    and gave him the name
    that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Lent invites us into a process of letting go. Perhaps this is most commonly expressed in the practice of fasting traditionally associated with this season. But now, as we enter Holy Week, this reflection invites us to consider letting go in a different way . . .

Sometimes it feels like life is crushing us. As the old saying goes, “When it rains it pours!” I don’t know about you, but I’ve certainly had times like that in my life. I’ve actually had decades like that, seemingly filled with multiple losses, shattered dreams, and great uncertainty.

What made my losses so unbearable is they didn’t fit with what I believed about myself. I believed I had the capacity to be successful. I believed myself capable of accomplishing great things. I believed I deserved the respect and adulation of others. But underneath all this there were always niggling doubts. Earlier in life I experienced a lot of things that made me feel unlovable. Even though I had many skills and abilities, I was not at all certain any of these would convince others to love me.

So, when faced with my decades of loss, I felt even less able to be loved than I did beforehand. Yes, there was anger and outrage at not getting what I felt I deserved. But then, as I started thinking about all my shattered dreams, all the losses I experienced, I began wondering whether I really deserved the things I thought I wanted. Part of me still wonders. The irony is the things I thought I wanted fit nicely with the stories I believed about myself until I experienced my losses.

Now, all of us tell ourselves stories about ourselves. Sometimes these are extremely realistic, brutally honest, as it were. Yet sometimes our stories are highly inflated. They can be produced more out of fantasy rather than the concrete realities of who we’ve been created to be. In my case, the fantasy elements in my stories far outweighed the facts. So, when my stories were revealed as largely fantastical, I didn’t know who I was anymore. My fantasies played too large a role in my self-understanding. No wonder I experienced such turmoil!

It is fitting, then, that one of today’s lectionary readings is that famous passage from Philippians 2: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus . . .”

As I’ve come to understand it, this passage is a radical invitation to let go of all our possessions, even our sense of identity. It’s an invitation to be transformed by the “renewing of our minds,” as St. Paul puts it in Romans. It’s an invitation to let the Christ so fill us that those who encounter us cannot help but notice our embodiment of Christ’s likeness.

When put this way, it all seems so easy. Yes, all those belonging to the Christian faith claim they want to embody the Christ’s likeness. Yes, all of us, people of faith and of no faith alike, claim we want to make a positive difference. Yet, Philippians 2 indicates that such positive differences cannot be made when we are clinging to stories about ourselves that are of our own making.

Rather, by emptying ourselves, and by consenting to the transforming work of God within us, that’s when our capacity to make a positive impact explodes. That’s when we really start to embody the Christ’s likeness. By emptying ourselves and by consenting to God’s work, we no longer have to defend our stories about ourselves. The truth of who we are needs no defence: we simply are who we are, and God’s Spirit can move freely through us.

But, in my experience, it’s the letting go that’s the hard part.

This past year has been a world-wide invitation to let go. Everything we thought we had or enjoyed before the pandemic has now been questioned: our freedom of movement, our senses of power and control, our hopes and dreams for the future. We are now confronted by a reality that invites us to consider the stories we tell about ourselves, individually and globally: Are these stories mostly truth, or are they mostly fantasy?

* * *

As the Philippians passage continues, Jesus reveals that every gesture of emptying and consent is followed by exaltation. When we empty ourselves, this is done in the faith that by ridding ourselves of our fantasies, we can move into a reality that holds us, transforms us, and resurrects us.

As Jesus was crucified on Calvary, he embodied the faith he would not be disgraced. And, as we know from our tradition, God made good on Jesus’ faith, resurrecting him three days later. God didn’t end there, however. As the ancient creeds put it, Jesus also ascended into heaven and is now seated at the right hand of God!

Yes, some may claim these stories are pure fantasy. And, in some cases, these stories may take people away from the realities of who they are. Yet they do express a deep spiritual truth: when we let go of all we think we are, even those parts of ourselves of which we are barely aware, this enables God to transform and renew us in ways we never could have anticipated beforehand. This is the Easter faith at the core of Christianity. This is a truth I have experienced in my own life, over and over again.

As a result, as we enter holy week this year, we might ask: Can we have the depth of faith that will carry us through to the Easter Sunday on the other side of the pandemic’s Good Friday?

At this time, it seems we are all invited to follow Jesus the Christ into his passion, emptying ourselves of all but faith, trusting we will not be disgraced in the process. The pandemic has taught us how painful a process this can be. And, for many, it may seem we’ve been living Good Friday for over a year now.

Yet as we move deeper into this time in which we can be intentionally self-emptying, we might also trust what Jesus the Christ revealed to us: resurrection and exaltation will come, if only we can fully and completely consent to the work of God in us and through us. What a challenging truth for our times! But what transformation and renewal might come, if only we can learn fully and completely to embrace it!

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