Scene: Garden of Gethsemane.
Time: Jesus having prayed multiple times, and 11 disciples roused from sleep.
Context: Judas and arriving crowd
Jesus says to the disciples, “Rise! Let’s go. The one handing me over has arrived.”
Attentive listeners may remember back to Mark, Chapter 1. Jesus has held a healing party hosted by the unnamed mother-in-law of Peter. After the party, the disciples fall asleep and, upon rising, seek out a missing Jesus.
Jesus, found at prayer and implored to go back to Capernaum, says, “Let’s go.” He clarifies that means to travel on to next cities for his Galilean task is to mutter about and model a different authority base for human politicking.
What is less clear in the Jerusalem moment is whether “Let’s go,” is away from Judas (back to the road beyond Galilee) or toward a different destination (finding a way back to Galilee through the leadership of Judas and the decisions of Caiaphas and Pilate – the practical effect of death and resurrection).
The relatively straight-forward direction, “Let’s go,” is far more ambivalent than our tendency to have it only be a call to action—like riding off in all directions at once.
At first, it means, “Let’s go further.” In the end, it means, “Let’s go deeper.”
This distinction can also apply to our current life-stage or state-of-current-affairs.
What does it means to go further than where we’ve come to?
What does it mean to go deeper into the place we are?
Both questions are important. Even more important is which is claiming more of our attention.
Both questions have personal and larger-community/creation components. Both questions dance the other’s response. We don’t go further without first going deeper, and deeper is not open to us without being stretched further. Enjoy and commit to where you are on the dance floor, knowing you’ll soon be changing partners.