If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well
And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will
“Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” – Jesus (John 13:21)
“Well, did you trust your noble dreams and gentle expectations to the mercy of the night? The night will always win.”
Worse yet, Jesus, did you trust your noble dreams and gentle expectations to the mercy of your followers? Well, then you will always be betrayed. Even if we regret it in the morning. Even if we miss “your stupid face” and “bad advice” when we’ve done everything in our power to flee your presence.
The disciples each had to ask if he would be the one to betray you, Jesus, because they all knew deep down that they were capable of it. More than that, they had absorbed years of your teaching and knew their incapability of living up to it. Judas just knew it better than any of them. Recognized the foolishness of filling all these earthen vessels and tried to shift the onus back on you and your divinity to usher in the kingdom of God. He wasn’t wrong in thinking us unequal to the task.
Even in our attempts to be faithful, we try “to clothe your bones” with poor production values, to make you real to the world around us with unconvincing words that turn people off and trite music that falls flat.
“I throw this to the wind, but what if” Judas “was right” in a way — to just get it over with, and quickly? It was an honest betrayal of sorts, that literally gutted him, compared to Peter swearing up and down that he would never betray Jesus. We can only swear such a thing by the moon — “th’inconstant moon” that changes form and position constantly like our variable love (Romeo and Juliet, II:2).
Jesus knew this would happen all along, and yet he chose to trust, he chooses to entrust us with his message to the world, to include us in his intimate circle, to call us friends. Part of striving to live worthy of such a calling includes facing the inevitability of failing to do so. Jesus entrusting human beings with following the will of God means that yes, the night will always win. But the darkness will not have the last word. The day of the Lord is now, and coming. Jesus’s faithfulness in following the will of God means that the night will never triumph.
Engage in a little audio divina today with Moçnik Damijan’s Ierusalem. Damijan’s text is taken from Psalm 122 – sung in Latin and English – and the names for Jerusalem in multiple languages.
Jerusalem has only rarely, if ever, been a “city of peace,” as its name signifies. It is a prophetic, rather than a descriptive, name. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus “sets his face toward Jerusalem” in chapter 9 and does not arrive until chapter 19; most of his ministry takes place as he journeys toward the cross. Both God and Jesus lament over Jerusalem repeatedly in the Old and New Testament; it represents a place that has a special place in the heart of God, but which has never reached its potential. The prophetic book of Revelation ends in a description of a new “city of peace” in which God’s will is finally done on earth as it is now in heaven.
Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound firmly together.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.” For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, “Peace be within you.” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.
Homespun 