Be Brave, and Give Thanks

And with a great groan Jesus gave up the ghost. Then his disciples fled.

When the barbarian warlord Clovis first heard the account of the Crucifixion, he is said to have shaken his head and said, “If only I had been there with my Franks!” “If only we had been there,” we say. Why? What would we have done?

The disciples fled because they were in danger of their lives. Yes, they were, and it soothes us to think so. It allows us to believe that a little more of a virtue we can understand, courage, would have kept them steadfast. So embarrassed was one old Saxon monk by their flight, that he gave them something noble to do first. The beloved thanes of the Lord, says the author of the stupendous Dream of the Rood, took their victorious chieftain down from the Cross, “a little weary after the great battle.” Dead, that is. Then they sang him a lay of sorrow. Only then did they leave him.

Stouthearted German warriors, those apostles in the poem. Yet I think they can tell us what the disciples wer…