Day Thirty-Five

Day Thirty-Five // April 6 // The Roots of Abandonment

“It was always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this, all other betrayals came easily.” – Cormac McCarthy –

Half tepid assurance, half eager thrill, the disciples had done what He’d asked. They had found the promised colt and followed Him down the storied mountain: into the valley, into the city and into His passion. It all began so well. “Hallelujah!” they shouted. “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” It was all working out. It was all going to plan. Surely, Jesus was entering Jerusalem to redeem Israel. Surely, He was there to display the awesome power of God.

They clung to their hopes; they clung to their dreams. They needed Him to be who they expected Him to be: triumphant, commanding, supreme – a warrior,

conqueror and king. Forgotten were Jesus’ warnings. Erased were His cautioning words of woe. He had told them what was to come, but they ignored it. They wanted to ignore it. They needed to ignore it – abandoning the promise because of the pain.

It is just human nature: we want what we want. And we all want, we all need the very same things: love, companionship, purpose, value and nurture. We strive and we scheme to manufacture meaning. We plot and we fret conscripting joy. In our frantic chase to find ourselves fulfilled, how easily we abandon the path that actually leads to fulfillment – for it is a path that invariably leads through the darkness. It winds through thorns and deserts and wastes, up into the steep hills and down the treacherous valleys. It is not a path that any would willingly take… unless the destination was worth the sacrifice, danger and risk.

It’s a trip – one into the deep interior of our souls – that cannot be made if only fueled by the fitfulness and faithlessness that gnaw the gracious fruit of love, that rot the precious and ever-rarer fruit of self-control. It is the disease of our age: abandonment. We abandon our principles for what feigns to be prosperity. We abandon our character for the mere sake of competing and getting ahead. We run, wander and stray – never with the intention of leaving the Savior’s side. We begin with little jaunts, with casual daytrips into the gray.

But that is how sin takes root: with little departures, with small abandonments: a “harmless” lie here, an “innocent” glance there. One step at a time, we leave the Almighty’s presence – slowly creeping from Love’s side, soon pieced for us.

And the antidote to such poison is in the poison, itself. It is only abandonment that can save us from abandonment. We must abandon ourselves. It is the holy invitation of these days: to deny ourselves, to fast, to stretch and dare, to let go of the Christ that we want Him to be, in order to accept the Savior we need Him to be.