Today, Holy Saturday, some dare to entertain the notion that Jesus is in hell--looking for Judas. Grabbing him up in his arms, holding him, forgiving him--fixing the devil in a clear steely gaze and daring him to try to take Judas again.
Some Christians over the centuries, knowing the bigness of God's love, couldn't help entertaining this notion. And it surely has a kind of tough, stubborn positiveness that comes as a sharp ray of light before Easter morning.
A story on the opposite side of the scale comes from a Native American tradition. A young man, just finished with a week-long and transformational vision quest is climbing back down a mountain. He meets a rattle snake who says, "Please, young man, carry me down the mountain with you--I've stayed too long here in the sun. Night approaches and I will freeze on these heights."
The young man says, "But you'll bite me, poison me, if I pick you up."
"Never, my friend," says the snake, "for you will be saving my life."
So the young man picks the snake up and carries him all the way down the mountain, setting him, just before sunset, gently on the ground.
And the rattler bites him.
The young man, in utter disbelief, stunned and heartbroken says, "You promised me!"
The snake answers, "You knew what I was when you picked me up."
We all to learn to live somewhere between fearless compassion and wise caution. There's never complete certainty. Most of the time we keep to the safe side--and probably should.
Yet the yearly plunge we take Friday and Saturday of Holy Week always has the potential to put caution, even wise caution, in perspective.
It seems to me that there's no arguing with this tension. There's just navigating the Path. Sometimes Love is simply bigger than Anything.
Jesus was not young or naive. He still picked up the snake.
