Lenten blog | March 12, 2025

Thank You D.H. Lawrence

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 12th:  Job 1:1-22; Psalm 17; and Luke 21:34—22:6.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

In today’s Gospel selection, Jesus warns of the consequences of continuing down the path of power and privilege.  They will not be avoidable:  “For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth.”  The people listen, but the ones of power and privilege consort against Jesus.  They bribe one of His closest followers, one of the Twelve, and Judas accepts the money.  Judas agrees to betray Jesus.  All Jesus hoped to do was offer us a better life, one based on the broader perspective that we have a moral responsibility to the common good.  The consequence was that Jesus lost His life.

My friend Rev. Dr. Richard Killough shared with me one Lent a D. H. Lawrence short novel entitled “The Man Who Died.”  It tells a different, fictitious, Lenten story.  In Lawrence’s tale, Jesus does not die on the cross.  His near-death body is placed in a cave-tomb.  Jesus awakes in that tomb and then flees leaving it empty.  The tale presents the quite logical choice of this once crucified Jesus to walk away when He has the chance.  After all, look at what resulted from all His good works and kindness.  This short novel is offensive in a sense, but I have come to read it as sort of a back-handed compliment.  Lawrence presents a very convincing story of why Jesus should have left us to our own choice and course.  He had done everything He could and ended up on the cross because of it.  So the Man Who Died wasn’t going to hang around and let them try a second time to complete what they failed to do the first time.  Humanity was judged incorrigible so why bother.

I don’t think Lawrence’s story was intended to bolster a traditional Christian faith, but in a back-handed compliment kind of way it does.  It points to the foolishness in terms of human logic of Jesus’ unflinching dedication to the counter-cultural and obviously idealistic program of the gospel.  Yet, as Paul tells the Corinthians, “The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)  The cross is a bald failure according to the wisdom of the world, to “those who are perishing,” but faith opens our eyes to the wisdom of God that offers us a chance to save us from ourselves.  It is Jesus’ last and most profound proclamation that we either treat one another as we wish to be treated or we face the real possibility of constant war and even one final, civilization-ending calamity.  It didn’t make any sense for Jesus to sacrifice His life to try and convince us to see this divine logic, but He did because the cross is the purity of Jesus’ love for us and the unbreakable commitment to creation.

The cross is not the end of Jesus’ life in isolation.  The cross is the end of His lived ministry and proclamation.  It is Jesus withstanding the temptation to walk away and save Himself because He cared more about saving us.  Jesus has not thrown in the towel on humanity’s future.  He believes in us.  This may be seen as foolishness to the human mind, but God help us if we don’t accept it as the wisdom of God.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.