In the name of God ☩ Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Of all the emotions, disappointment might be one of the most difficult to move on from. There are strategies that can help us when we are angry, anxious, or impatient. Feelings of happiness, courage, or hope can all be fleeting, but there are practices that we can use to hang on to those positive emotions. But disappointment seems to just stick with us like storm clouds on a rainy day. On this Holy Wednesday, the emotion we’re reflecting on is disappointment.
Often, the way we describe what disappointment feels like is being broken-hearted. This is what Jesus seems to be feeling when John records that Jesus was “troubled in spirit.” That word can mean things like being confused, unsettled, shaken, or in turmoil. Disappointment often happens when the ground that we thought we were solidly standing on starts to shift. A loved one dies, a deal falls through, a friend betrays us, an unexpected expense comes up and we have to cancel a vacation. Disappointment comes when hopes are dashed, expectations fall short, and hearts are broken.
Yes, Jesus seems to know that his betrayal is coming when he says, “One of you will betray me,” but it’s also true that we can be disappointed when the very thing that we were afraid of comes to pass. We can see that the wheels of disaster are in motion and still long for a different outcome. This tension between knowing what is coming and still be heartbroken is what the text calls Jesus’ troubled spirit.
One of the things we need to be careful about in Holy Week is to keep the focus on Jesus. Jesus is not our model in Holy Week; he’s our Savior. So, we don’t look to Jesus to see how he deals with his disappointment as a template for how we deal with our own broken hearts. Instead, we marvel at the lengths that Jesus goes for us and for our salvation. Though he is rejected, betrayed, denied, beaten, humiliated, and crucified, he doesn’t stop his saving work, which is why we can be so confident of his saving grace. His heart, along with his body, is broken, but his spirit is not. Jesus knows that Judas will betray him, but he still breaks bread with him, and he dismisses him not with shame or accusation, but with grace, we might say even a blessing to “do what you are going to do.” Jesus may be disappointed, but he is not deflated.
Jesus is not a passive victim in the drama of Holy Week. The Passion does not happen to Jesus as much as Jesus is the director of the whole thing. Though Jesus knows that Judas will betray him, Peter will deny him, the disciples will abandon him, and Pilate will crucify him, Jesus still hoped for them to do otherwise – not necessarily for his own sake, but for theirs; praying that they would not be given over to evil. The same is true for us. We often open our liturgy which the acknowledgement that to God all hearts are open and all desires are known. God is not surprised by our sins, but that doesn’t mean that Jesus leaves us to deal with our sins alone.
Jesus, in becoming human, gets into the muck of our sins with us. Jesus is willing to be disappointed because that is what means to love. CS Lewis once wrote that, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” Jesus is open to love, which opens him to heartbreak and disappointment. For us and our salvation, Jesus takes that risk of loving, knowing full well that the risk will lead to the Cross.
What all of this means, theologically speaking, is that we have a low anthropology and a high Christology. Anthropology is what we think about humans and what we are capable of, and Christology is about what we think about Jesus, namely how essential his saving grace is. In the early Church, there was a big debate between two theologians: Pelagius and Augustine. Now, we don’t know for certain what exactly Pelagius’ position was because he lost the public debate and most of his writings were destroyed. From what can be historically reconstructed, essentially Pelagius argued that because we are created in the image of God and Genesis calls us “good,” that we have wills that are able to choose to do good. Pelagius had a high anthropology, believing that humans have an innate ability to pursue righteousness and forsake sin.
Now, the way that anthropology and Christology work is like a set of scales – if one side is higher up, then the other will be low. For Pelagius, a high anthropology means a low Christology. Certainly, Pelagius was a Christian, but his theology was not built on the foundation of Grace. His theology was more about moral responsibility and cultivating obedience to the Law. Jesus was a great moral teacher for those with a low Christology, but not a Savior who rescues us from the burden of sin.
Augustine was just the opposite – he said we are incapable of choosing or doing the good because sin has infected and us and corrupted us our will. For Augustine, we don’t have free will because our wills are bound by sin. This is a low anthropology coupled with a high Christology because more than being an example, Jesus is a liberator who takes on the consequences of sin and opens the way of eternal life to us all.
What all of this has to do with the question of broken hearts is that it helps us to calibrate our expectations. If we expect humans to, most of the time, do the right thing, it sets us up for being disappointed early and often. But if we expect humans to be nothing but wretched sinners, it can make us pessimistic and untrusting. What this passage, and really the entire story of Scripture and human history shows us is that, if the scale is tipped in one direction, it seems to be in the direction of a low anthropology, in the direction of knowing ourselves to be sinners who will, inevitably, sin.
For some, this is a heavy, fatalistic, and depressing position to take. But I actually find it to be liberating to know that my failings and foibles aren’t just because I’m too lazy to do better or haven’t tried hard enough. A low anthropology helps us to be less disappointed and more gracious with ourselves. It also helps me to have grace for others, trusting that they are doing the best that they can, given their circumstances, even if their best isn’t quite good enough. A low anthropology helps us to recognize that when we’re dealing with human beings, we should expect to be disappointed and have our hearts broken. Now, that doesn’t mean that can’t pray for God’s grace to redeem what is broken and guide us towards greater love, but it helps to acknowledge where we’re starting from.
If we dare to love, our hearts will certainly be wrung and broken. And so it becomes a question of what do we do with these broken hearts? The Psalms tells us that God binds up the brokenhearted, Jeremiah speaks about the balm of Gilead which makes the wounded whole, Isaiah testifies to God’s healing. All this comes from the grace of God which meets us in our fallenness.
In tonight’s reading from Isaiah, we heard the servant of God say, “The LORD God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced.” I really like that translation of “disgraced” because it reminds me that grace can never be revoked, love can never expire, dignity is never lost. In our disappointments of ourselves and of others, God is our helper and remains with us. Our mistakes do not condemn us because Jesus has redeemed us. Our disappointments do not define us because God’s grace always has the last word. God is in the business of healing up the brokenhearted, reconciling the estranged, and raising the dead.
So though we will often be disappointed and be a disappointment, we are never hopeless because Jesus knows disappointment and still, for us and for our salvation, was lifted high upon the cross, reminding us that our hope is found not within ourselves or our ability to get it all right, but in Jesus' amazing grace.
