Prayer Twenty-Three
Following Jesus
Jesus, fellow traveller and friend,
you step out boldly on your journey,
chiding our fickleness and fear.
As you mark out the road ahead,
consecrate us as your companions,
so that we keep you in our sight
as our pattern and our guide.
Teach us to tread your paths of service,
granting us courage to follow you,
even to the foot of the cross,
to the place where, in pain,
the glory of your way is revealed.
Clare Amos
There’s an unmissable gear-change in the ninth chapter of Luke’s gospel. Jesus had just spoken with brutal clarity about his impending death. And then, he “set his face” towards Jerusalem (9.51), a phrase conveying that the path will be a hard and stony one, that bitter suffering lies at its end but also that those who tread it must be grittily determined, as unflinching as flint. The direction of travel is set. To the cross. But will his friends travel with him?
Tolkien fans may be reminded of Frodo Baggins, the little hobbit who sets out on an uncertain journey. “The Road goes ever on and on,” sings Frodo, “down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can, pursuing it with eager feet, until it joins some larger way where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say.”
Frodo’s friends, though given the chance to stay safely at home, “set their face” with his. Will we do so with Jesus? Clare Amos’ prayer asks him to “consecrate us as (his) companions”. It’s a brilliant line. As well as acknowledging our need for blessing as we set our faces with his towards Jerusalem, it reminds us of food offered for the journey. For “com-panions” are, literally, those who share bread together, and our “consecrated” bread is Jesus himself. Strengthened by him, we might make it “even to the foot of the cross”.
In Bach’s cantata Sehet, wir gehn hinauf gen Jerusalem we hear two voices who will not abandon Jesus. Their faces are set with his.
A few words about J.S. Bach’s Cantata, BWV 159
“Sehet, wir gehn hinauf gen Jerusalem” (“See, let us go up to Jerusalem”)
Bach wrote this cantata for the last Sunday before Lent, inspired by the gospel set for that Sunday - Luke 18.31-43. The passage begins with Jesus taking his disciples aside and telling them again that they are going up to Jerusalem and that arrest, suffering and death await him there.
In the cantata’s first movement, Jesus steadfastly announces this. The ‘Soul’ however, remonstrates with him, begging him to think again, warning that his cross is already prepared.
In the second movement, however, which you can hear at the bottom of today’s digital page, the Soul (a reflective believer) assures Jesus that he will not tread his path to Jerusalem alone. The Soul (sung in this recording by a countertenor) will be a faithfully accompanying presence whatever happens. Jesus will not be abandoned by the Soul even in the moment of his death. In fact, he will find his tomb in the Soul/Believer’s heart.
The soprano chorus weaves in and out, also expressing solidarity and the same determination that Jesus will not be forsaken in death. Both voices have unequivocally ‘set their face’ with Jesus to Jerusalem. The words they sing are below:-
Second Movement: Ich folge dir nach
Aria (Alto) and Chorale (Soprano)
Ich folge dir nach
Ich will hier bei dir stehen,
Verachte mich doch nicht!
Durch Speichel und Schmach;
Von dir will ich nicht gehen,
Am Kreuz will ich dich noch umfangen,
Bis dir dein Herze bricht.
Dich laß ich nicht aus meiner Brust,
Wenn dein Haupt wird erblassen
Im letzten Todesstoß,
Und wenn du endlich scheiden mußt,
Alsdenn will ich dich fassen,
Sollst du dein Grab in mir erlangen.
In meinen Arm und Schoß.
I follow thy path
I will here by thee tarry,
Through spitting and scorn;
Do not treat me with scorn!(2)
On the cross
will I once more embrace thee,
From thee I will not venture
As now thy heart doth break.
I will not let thee from my breast,
And when thy head grows pallid
Upon death's final stroke,
And if thou in the end must part,
E'en then will I enfold thee
Thou shalt thy tomb in me discover.
Within my arm's embrace.
