Mark 14:42

Up, and let us be going. Look! My betrayer is close at hand.”


rise
rally

up now
head out

look
destiny

up and out
step lively now

betrayer
betrayed

meet in the open
recognized in the other


Sabin2142 writes of this verse:

The phrase translated as “Get up!” is literally, “You are raised up!” It is again ironic. By means of it, Mark indicates the distance between what the disciples ought to be and what in fact they are.

This is actually an irony on top of irony as verse 41 ends with being betrayed by sinners, which is the same category that Jesus has reached out to all through Mark.

The first irony is about those outside the group (betrayers) and the second irony is focused on those within the group (sleepers).

Between the language of “handed over” (betrayed) and “Raised” (after betrayal) is the story of our life. With birth, we have been handed over to culture writ as large as language and as small as family. This is the water in which we live and move and have our being. It shapes our response to the occasions of life.

To be Raised is to have agency as a responsible partner with those now around us as well as those who have gone before and will arrive in days to come. We can shift beyond the limits that have been handed down to us and those limits that are yet ahead. In the space between this breath and a next, we are at liberty, raised.

In Thankdeka’s just-released book, Love Beyond Belief: Finding the Access Point to Spiritual Awareness, the neuroscience behind emotion and conscience is proposed as a source for a renewal of religion. It is here, in the emotions of the brain, that we find our mind transformed by our heart, as encouraged by Baptizer John, and alert, as asked for by Jesus. A starting point is an appreciation of the irony of how our best intentions go awry. This humor crack raises an option to practice watching; to practice awareness of what is actually before us, not our fantasies of how we desire things to be. Here, though the hour is late, we can face betrayal, ours and others, without denial.

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