Jesus' Despair

Copyright 2016 Don Ray

What was it like for Yeshu? ( or “Jesus” as pronounced in the United States for the last century or so)

My God, to have such a clear vision of the human condition, to so perspicaciously perceive the madness of human behavior and priorities, to discern our abject lack of awareness of evident consequences of our actions, surely there had to come a time when such realization brought Him to despair and hopelessness.

His teaching would not become popular.  The crowds disappeared.  No one understood.

Do we hear some of that hopeless resignation in His oft repeated query, “what do you want from me?”  To the blind and lepers and cripples He said this, a seemingly rhetorical question about the obvious, but after a lifetime of seeing humanity seek that which is patently destructive, unhealthy, damaging, after a lifetime of seeing us pass up God-given opportunity and invitation and gifts, in baffled resignation did Yeshu find he had to ask anyone “what do you want from me?” because what they wanted might well make no sense at all, and because what they wanted inevitably was not the real gift He offered?

Is resignation and acceptance and even helplessness in the face of the human condition what prompted His inscrutable response as Judas left the table: “go, do what you have to do”.  After (perhaps) thirty-three years of seeing Truth and (perhaps) three years of ministry during which no one had any interest in His Truth, did He give up, giving up all plans and strategies and roadmaps and goals and objectives?  Did He simply resolve to speak the Truth about everyone and everything, political Truth as well as spiritual Truth, though knowing such honesty would get Him executed?

Was “what do you want?” sometimes asked not in the sweet, gentle, affectionate, caring, parental tones we would like to envision, but asked in the tones we might use in our daily life?....asked out of resigned frustration after his effort to give us what we really need?

Was “go, do what you have to do” spoken with encouragement and understanding, to facilitate what was necessary for any Good News at all to survive His physical death, or was it spoken with the voice of detached, even depressed hopelessness about ever getting anyone to really understand or care?

It is generally taught that Yeshu suffered as we suffer, the temptation and cold and hunger and fear and thirst and dirty feet and sand in His eyes and upset stomach and the unimaginable physical pain of crucifixion.  But would His suffering be complete, would He really be one of us and able to identify with and fully understand and completely forgive us, if He did not suffer confusion, depression, hopelessness, and frustration? 

Resignation at our human condition, at our human madness, at our human irrational self-destructiveness, at our human blindness and self-absorption….surely Yeshu, He most aware of the spiritual condition of this world, most aware of what could and should be, surely He faced a point of giving up, of having to accept that we would steadfastly ignore lessons, that we would willfully blind ourselves to Truth, that the Kingdom at hand so obvious and hopeful and exciting would not be seen by us.

“The Kingdom is at hand!” He cried in earnest desperation as we looked the other way.  We refused and still refuse the Invitation, a  baffling demonstration of self-chosen blindness that had to leave Yeshu shocked and perplexed and baffled, eventually leading Him to ask in subsequent interactions “what do you want from me” since we did not want what He really wanted to give us.

The crowds deserted Him, those closest to Him completely missed the point He had tried to make.  We were as God created us, free to reject even Love and the Good News.  So the teaching, the struggle to teach, the lessons so passionately delivered and so abjectly unheeded, all came to a hopeless end, all given back over to the Source, for no man or Son of Man could get this generation to listen, all the ministry resigned to inevitable failure and eventual death, and we are left to “go, do as you have to do”.  And when we craft our images of the Christos, images crafted to suit our purposes, and then demand confirmation that we have created our Christos correctly, Pilate and we are simply told “that’s what you say”. 

We hear the hopelessness and resignation of Yeshu the Christos, hopelessness and resignation echoing our own if we have ever sought to help the world, or help anyone, or if we have ever really discerned the world’s condition.  But we also still hear the Invitation, that Invitation that brings Light not perhaps to change this world to perfection, but to change it always to something better, by changing us to something better. 

We hear the hopelessness and resignation of Yeshu the Christos, and we know we are not alone in our own hopelessness and resignation.  Sooner or later we inevitably discover we are helpless to save the world, for each child of God in this world remains free now as they were then to reject or accept the Invitation of the Good News.   We must eventually, in Love, ask them “what do you want from me?”, even when they don’t accept what we want to give them.  And we must let them “do what they have to do”, knowing in Mystery that the path to the Light of each of our Resurrections passes through the darkness of this world.

Copyright 2016 Don Ray