No Greater Love
stained glass detail from The Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, First Presbyterian Church Edwardsville
Maundy Thursday, Gospel of John 15:12-17
“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” –John 15:13
Perry Bruce tells a moving tale from the Second World War. On February 3, 1943, he was serving aboard the U.S.S. Dorchester, when it was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Greenland. “It's not just a bang,” Bruce says. It's “instant chaos ... Hatches are sprung ... Ladders from one level to another are missing ...The contents of lockers are strewn about ... The lifejacket you so carefully placed nearby is no longer there. Darkness, except for flames, is all around you. Panic comes easily, even to the best trained sailor.”
That sort of scene played itself out on the Dorchester for the 27 minutes that separated the first torpedo and the ship's sinking into the icy waters. Bruce says, “In those moments of confusion, four chaplains moved around the deck calming the men.” The four chaplains: George Fox, a Methodist; Johnny Washington, a Roman Catholic; Clark Poling, of the Dutch Reformed Church; and Rabbi Alexander Goode, did more than calm the men. They gave their lifejackets to four of them. “They stood on the deck of that ship,” Bruce said, “hand in hand, praying to the God they served, as the ship slipped beneath the water.”
Only the most cold-hearted person could hear this story, and not be moved. What a beautiful and amazing thing it is to save those you love by dying for them. But to be completely honest with you, stories like this make me uncomfortable. As touching as the story of the four chaplains is, I know that I would not have been one of them. I would have been searching for a lifejacket, and scrambling for a lifeboat. I’d like to think that I would have offered a helping hand to others in need. But I am quite certain that I could not simply sing a hymn, say a prayer, and serenely surrender to the sea. Perhaps we’d like to imagine that if we found ourselves in desperate circumstances, then we’d give up our seats in the lifeboats, and hand over our lifejackets to the frightened people all around us. But sacrificing self isn’t so easy; it’s not simple to sit back and take what life dishes out. It runs against our basic instinct for self-preservation.
A few weeks ago, the actor Will Smith was in the news for slapping comedian and Oscars host Chris Rock. Smith thought he was defending his wife. Rock’s lousy joke and Smith’s ugly response were replayed many times on TV and in social media. It’s an instant replay that I didn’t enjoy watching, and from which I quickly turned my attention away to other things.
But we will be fooling ourselves if we don’t acknowledge that the same sort of thoughts and feelings run through us. We, too, can make jokes that disparage or belittle others, oblivious to the pain they feel. We also can harbor bitterness and resentment until it expresses itself in an angry, even violent, outburst. Perhaps we wouldn’t be so reluctant to admit these things about ourselves if would could remember a truth of scripture that “all sin,” that we are not finished products but works in progress.
Will Smith took a day to think things over. When he spoke again, it appeared to be with an honesty and vulnerability that gives us hope for his future. “I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris,” he wrote. “I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness.”
When we find the courage and strength to look at ourselves for who we truly are, then we, too, have hope for the future. When see ourselves and our life story for what they are, then church becomes more fully a place to worship God, who alone is whole, and perfect, able to fill our needs, and deserving of worship. As Craig Barnes, president of Princeton Seminary, puts it, “the church never was built upon our performance. The rock of the church always has been the confession of Peter that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Whenever the church confesses its sins and failures, it has always been renewed, humbled in recognizing its need for the living God.” [1]
It may be an amazing thing to fight for those we love, even to die for them. But our ability to love perfectly and sacrifice fully is limited and subject to errors in judgement. So while it is a great thing to die for others, and wonderful that we have examples of those who have done it, like the four chaplains, we should remember that it is also a great thing to have been died for.
That is, of course, the good news in our recitation of the gospel story for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. On his final night with his disciples, Jesus gathers with them in the Upper Room. Among all of his teachings, and words of wisdom, he says words that give meaning to what will happen in the day to follow. “Greater love has no man than this; that he lay down his life for his friends.” As we contemplate Jesus’ final journey to the cross, may we remember with gratitude the one who came in the midst of life’s storm, offered us a lifejacket, and died that we might live.
NOTES
[1] M. Craig Barnes, Yearning: Living Between How It Is & How It Ought to Be, Downer’s Grove, Intervarsity Press, 1991, p. 148.
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