WORST-CASE SCENARIO

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:34:54 -0500

I was driving to the Beehive a few days ago thinking about torture. Yeah, I think about torture a lot. Maybe it’s because I grew up on rapture movies like “I Pledge Allegiance To The Lamb” and “A Thief In The Night.” Maybe it’s because I watch too much 24. Whatever the case, on my drive to work I decided that if I had to name my worst fear, torture might be it.

Speaking of 24, I think that show has a moral. I mean other than, “If you are a terrorist, Jack Bauer will kick you in the face.” It’s this. Good guys are a dime a dozen. A hero is defined by a willingness to sacrifice himself---or worse, the ones he loves---for the sake of something greater. I can’t tell you how many episodes hinge on this.

Anyway, as I was imagining myself strapped to some contraption with my masked inquisitors all looming over me, I wondered what would I do to survive. What thought, what hope, would sustain me? Then I remembered what I’ve heard from my friend Andrew a thousand times. That because Christ has suffered more deeply than we can imagine, we have communion with him in our sufferings. Christ would sustain me, however painful the trial.

What was the lie in the garden? What is the lie that we have all believed? That God is not good. That God does not have our best interests in mind. That it’s easy for him to sit on his high horse doling out demands and judgement when he has no idea what it’s like to be human.

But no, Christ is a man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief. Name your worst fear. God knows it like an old friend. As for my worst fear, it occurs to me now that Christ was tortured as God His Father looked on. And so he’s the hero of the story, because he was willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of something greater. And I suppose in a metaphorical sense he kicked some terrorists in the face along the way.

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WORST-CASE SCENARIO