They understood none of these things.

“Behold,” Jesus says in the Gospel which sets us upon the spiritual pilgrimage of Lent, “we go up to Jerusalem.” Wednesday was Ash Wednesday and marks the formal beginning of the forty days of Lent, a time of renewal and reflection, of repentance, and of prayer and study of the Holy Scriptures. Dust and ashes are strong reminders of our being created from the dust of the ground and of the necessity of repentance which is our turning back to God in whom we find the truth and dignity and freedom of our humanity, knowing even as we are known in the divine love.

 

Something of the meaning of Lent is set before us in the Gospel reading from Luke about going up to Jerusalem, read along with Paul’s powerful hymn of love. It is really all about the divine love setting our human loves in order.

 

Jerusalem is more than just a place on a map, more than a historic city caught up in a long, long sequence of the endless conflicts of empires and cultures. It is important for Judaism anciently and at present in the state of Israel politically. It has been a place of conflict and conquest during the Crusades, thus indicating its significance religiously for Jews and Christians and Muslims. It remains an important place geopolitically in terms of the tensions that belong to the international global order. But beyond those things, Jerusalem holds a special symbolic meaning as the image of heaven, heavenly Jerusalem, we might say. It is an image of the community of our humanity’s highest good. Yet, as the Gospel passage read in Chapel makes clear, to go to Jerusalem means the hard lessons of sin and evil out of which comes the wonder and the glory of love.

 

Jesus tells the disciples exactly what going up to Jerusalem means. It means the awful things of his Passion. He speaks of his death and resurrection. But “they understood none of these things.” It is a profound statement that relates directly to the educational project. Things are taught but not always immediately learned or known. Yet our awareness of our not knowing is a crucial feature of our coming to know, especially concerning the things that matter most. To know that we don’t know, as Socrates famously taught, is the condition for our pursuit of knowing. Not the despair of learning but the passionate desire to know, what Plato calls the eros of knowing.

 

Thus, the Gospel story goes on to tell about the beginnings of the journey to Jerusalem. Jesus comes near Jericho, the biblical symbol of the earthly city in contrast to Jerusalem, the symbol of the heavenly city. Among the multitude are the disciples whom he had told about the meaning of our going up to Jerusalem. A blind man sitting by the wayside begging, hears the commotion and asks what it means. Upon learning that it is Jesus, he cries out “Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy upon me.” The disciples try to shut him up but he cries out incessantly. He literally won’t shut up.

 

Jesus has him brought to him and asks him directly what it is that he wants him to do. “Lord, that I may receive my sight,” he says. We are meant to be like that certain but unnamed blind man in wanting to see and wanting passionately to see. To see here means to know. Jesus restores his sight saying “thy faith hath saved thee.” His faith is a kind of knowing that now is perfected in the very thing which he sought. In other words, the mercy and power that he ‘saw’ in Jesus comes to fulfillment in receiving his physical sight. It leads to joy and wonder, to a sense of astonishment and delight.

 

The story along with Paul’s hymn of love illuminates for us the meaning of Lent as the pilgrimage of love, knowing our failings and sins, on the one hand, and knowing the charity of Christ, on the other hand. Such is the burning love of the crucified in the Christian understanding, the love which seeks our good in the face of sin and evil, in the face of uncertainty and hardship.

 

March break is a time for renewal and refreshment whether students and faculty journey to far off places (and, no doubt, warmer climes!) all over the world or to the outer reaches of Falmouth. My hope is that restored and reinvigorated, we will all be ready to embrace the challenges that remain in the last home stretch of the School year. And I hope that the March ‘reading’ break will be a time of reflection upon our learning.