A WORD FOR TODAY, April 6, 2022
Peggy Hoppes
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Blessings. Peg
A WORD FOR TODAY, April 6, 2022
Scriptures for April 10, 2022, Palm Sunday and Sunday of the Passion: John 12:12-19; Deuteronomy 32:36-39; Psalm 118:19-29; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 22:1-23:56
“Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:9-11, WEB
I have been struggling with sinus issues since my trip. It is taking longer than normal to recover because I have contractors making dust in my house while they remodel a bathroom, and the allergens are very high right now. Everything is fighting against the things I am doing to try to clear my sinuses. I joked the other day that I’m keeping the tissue company in business this week, and my garbage can is filled with the telltale signs of a stuffy nose.
There was once a funny commercial for a tissue company that showed some sort of holy man being kind to several different kinds of animals. He sneezed and grabbed a tissue, but then read the words on the side of the box: “kills 99.9% of germs.” He was torn because it was obvious from his kindness that saving life was important to him. How could he kill anything, even germs?
Perhaps this seems extreme, but there is a story about another holy man. He was sitting on the bank of a brook while meditating when he noticed a scorpion that was caught in a whirlpool in the brook. Every time the scorpion tried to climb on a rock, it slipped back into the water. The holy man took pity on the scorpion and tried to save it from certain death, but whenever the man reached out to the creature it struck at its hand. A friend passed by and told the man that his actions were futile because it is in the scorpion’s nature to strike. The man said, “Yet, but it is my nature to save and rescue. Why should I change my nature just because the scorpion doesn’t change his?”
On Palm Sunday Jesus went victorious into Jerusalem on a donkey, greeted by crowds of people singing “Hosanna.” The Jewish leaders were already very nervous about the things Jesus said and the things Jesus did, especially the raising of Lazarus. They were beginning to conspire against Him. In another Gospel, we are told that the Pharisees told Jesus to rebuke His disciples, but Jesus answered that even the stones would cry out if the people were silent. It seemed like all that was happening was beyond Jesus’ control.
This seems especially true as we read the Passion story. As each day passes, the signs of the end become clearer. Jesus was ready to die, and He was unable – or rather unwilling - to do anything to stop it. He could have pronounced Himself king on Palm Sunday, but that was not His purpose. He, like the holy man with the scorpion, came to bring life even when it meant death to Himself.
Human nature is not much different than a scorpion’s: we quickly strike out even at those who want to help, even if we are trying to share the Gospel message. It doesn’t make sense, it is impractical, it is foolish to think that one man had to die for all of humanity. The message of the cross turns the world upside down, going against our expectations and desires. Those who do not believe in the Christian story or message think Jesus was nothing more than a man who got stung by the scorpion and died.
Lent is almost over. This Sunday, Palm Sunday, begins Holy Week. We have spent the last six weeks considering our own place in the Passion of Jesus Christ. Why did He have to do this? What have I done? We’ve tried to repent, to turn back to God. We’ve fasted and prayed. We have done our spiritual disciplines, read our devotionals, and gone to church a little more than normal. We'=’ve walked with Jesus toward the cross.
Though Sunday is Palm Sunday, most churches will also look at the entire Passion Narrative, which is two chapters of Luke this year. It begins with Judas’s betrayal, through the Last Supper and prayer on the garden, the trial and journey to Golgotha, and then the nailing of His flesh to the cross. It ends with Joseph of Arimathea asking for permission to bury Jesus’s body. We can’t possibly talk about every detail in this devotion, and no pastor can preach on every detail on Sunday, but sometimes the stories are best read without comment anyway. It may seem like a very long passage to read, almost overwhelming, but I suggest that you take the time to read every word, no matter how familiar you are with the story. As a matter of fact, it would be valuable to read it out loud, either to yourself or gather with a group of friends to share the reading of this story once again.
It is overwhelming, not only in the length of the text, but also in what it says. After all, this is story of Jesus’s struggle in the last days of His life. We tend to skim over these stories because we know them so well, after all, we’ve heard them a thousand times before. However, each time God’s word is read there is something for us: a word of comfort, a word of hope, a word of peace. Maybe this time you will find a word of warning or admonition. When we assume that we know the story so well, we stop listening to what God has to say to us today.
We could spend weeks studying this text, line by line trying to understand what was happening and what God would have us get out of the story. Yet, there are times when we should just let the Word of God speak for itself, to listen to the story as it was given. There are so many subtleties that could be brought out, details that could be debated. There are so many verses that have both historical relevance as well as spiritual meaning. There are hundreds of questions to be asked, some of the answers are widely accepted and others are contested. Yet we all can find common ground in the belief that in the story of the Passion Jesus did for humankind what no other human being was able to do: He died so that we might be reconciled to God. Whatever path His Passion took, our faith rests on that moment when Jesus hung from the cross, because without His death we would never know life as God intended.
What do we do now that He has made it to Jerusalem? Do we cheer Him with palms? Do we listen as He gives His final words of teaching and comfort and warning? Do we eat with Him at His table on Passover? Do we follow Him as He is tried and convicted of a crime that He didn't commit? Do we follow Him as He carries the cross to the hill? Do we stand with Him as He dies? It is easy to say “Yes!” because we have faith that everything that will happen during Holy Week was according to the plan of God.
And yet, during the week of His Passion Jesus was abandoned by just about everyone. First He lost the Jewish leadership, most of whom have been battling against Him anyway. Then He lost the crowd. Then He lost some disciples. He lost Judas, and even Peter. He lost the rest of the twelve as they ran to hide. The only ones standing with Him at the final moments of His life were His mother, the beloved disciple John and a few women, none of whom have any power or authority. In the end, it seemed that even God abandoned Him.
We might act as if we would never leave His side, but the reality is that we are more likely to be like Peter than John. At the Last Supper, Peter insisted that he would stand with Jesus even unto death, but it was Peter who denied Jesus three times. Peter eventually received forgiveness from Jesus, but he went into hiding during the three days like the rest of them. We like to think that we wouldn’t be like that, but how often do we deny Jesus in our everyday lives? How often do we continue to willfully sin when we know what we are doing is wrong? How often do we ignore the call of God’s Spirit, going our own way and doing our own thing? How often do we stay silent when we should be speaking the Gospel? We might think that we would have followed Him to the very end of this journey, but we wouldn’t be able.
That’s why Jesus had to do it in the first place.
As you read the story this week, make the reality of the Passion a part of your being. Don’t try to pick it apart or try to understand every detail, simply listen to God’s story. Put yourself in the place of the characters: the crowds, the disciples, the Pharisees, Pilate. Experience it, not as a theologian trying to understand its meaning two thousand years later, but as someone who was there in Jerusalem that horrific day. Feel the pain, the anger, the hatred, the guilt, and remember that Jesus experienced it all for you. Also remember that it was your sin that put Him there in the first place.
We are sinful, imperfect, frail human beings. It is beyond our ability to be righteous, to be the people God has created us to be. We are fallen from the first man, and no matter how hard we try we will betray and deny our God in our thoughts, words and deeds. We will run and hide from the dangers of faith. Oh, we can claim that we haven’t been too bad; we can claim our neighbors are worse sinners than we. However, even the tiniest sin against our neighbors and God’s creation is a sin against God. No matter how we try, no matter how good we are, we are still sinners in need of a Savior.
That’s why Jesus walked this journey that ends in a cross. We have followed Him this Lenten season to be reminded of our need to repent.
This has been true for the entire story of God’s people. Our Old Testament lesson for this Sunday includes “The Song of Moses,” which tells the story of the relationship between God and His people. God made a covenant with them, they failed to live according to that covenant, and God reminded them of what it meant to live within the covenant. They disobeyed, they were reminded of the consequences of their disobedience especially the ineffectiveness of the false gods to which they turn, and finally the LORD’s judgment against His enemies.
We are His enemies. I know that sounds harsh, but our sinfulness is what makes us an enemy of God. We deserve the consequences of our failure to live according to God’s covenant, our disobedience, our turning from Him to false gods. We deserve His judgment. But this is exactly why Jesus went to the cross: because God promised to have compassion on His people. God does not cast judgment on us; instead, He cast His judgment on Jesus. We are the ones who should have been abandoned, who should have carried that cross, who should have died on it. Instead, Jesus stood in our place.
He knows that we are unable to be righteous, so He sent His Son to be our righteousness. Even when God judges us, He has mercy. Even when He knows we have turned to false gods, He keeps His promises because He knows that those false gods cannot do for us what we think they can. He has compassion on us “when he sees that their power is gone; that there is no one remaining, shut up or left at large.” We will abandon Jesus at some point in our lives, probably many times. Every time we sin, knowingly and unknowingly, we are doing so. The disciples disappeared because they knew they had no power over what was happening to Jesus. They just didn’t realize that Jesus had all the power.
God is in control. Always. Even when we think we have everything in our own hands. See now that I myself am he. “There is no god with me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of my hand.”
The Passion and Easter story is the most difficult thing about Christianity to believe and to accept. Why did Jesus have to die and how does that line up to the ideal of a loving and caring God? How does that help Jesus’s social ministry and seemingly political aspirations? It doesn’t make sense. It might seem like Jesus had no control, but the reality is that Jesus was in control of every moment. The disciples could see after the fact how every step of Jesus during His Passion fulfilled the prophecies of the past. Every moment that followed the triumphant entry was planned and foreseen as God’s plan for His Messiah for the salvation of His people. Every moment of the Passion, from Judas’s betrayal, through the Last Supper and prayer on the garden, the trial and journey to Golgotha, and then the nailing of His flesh to the cross, was purposeful. Jesus knew what He was doing, and He did so for our sake. At the very moment of death Jesus commended Himself to the hands of God. The Father never abandoned His Son, but was there all along, watching as Jesus was obedient as we have never been able to be.
Paul writes, “Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, yes, the death of the cross.”
Paul is not calling us to follow Jesus onto the cross; we are to follow Jesus wherever He leads us. We can’t do what Jesus did; He already finished that work. But we have been saved for a purpose, to continue the work that Jesus began. Now that sin and death have been defeated, it is up to us to take God's promise of forgiveness, healing and restoration to the world. We can't do that if we are busy chasing after our self-created gods. We can’t do that if we are focused on ourselves.
It won’t be easy. We will suffer persecution at the hands of those who would rather worship their own gods. Should we let it stop us? Jesus did not and Paul encourages us to have the same mind as Christ. After all, He left the glory of heaven to come to earth in flesh to reconcile us to God our Father. His nature is to love and save. He willingly suffered humiliation in life and death. We are called to do the same, not necessarily on a cross but in our everyday experiences.
The day will come when all will bow to our Lord Jesus Christ, but will they bow in thanksgiving or fear? We are sent into the world with an attitude like Jesus, trusting in God and following Him where He leads. We are sent to introduce the lost to the Lord Jesus so that they will be found, those in darkness so that they will see the light, the sick so that they will be healed, and those who are still dead in sin so that they will have eternal life.
We all deserve God’s wrath, but Jesus took it for us. Shouldn’t we try, as best we can, to make sure our neighbors know that Jesus died for them too? Until they recognize Jesus as Lord, they will remain enemies of God, chasing after their own gods and following their own way thinking they have all the power. We are not yet perfect, but we have something the world needs: the promise of salvation. We know that God recognizes that our power is gone and that the gods we rely upon can’t help us. He has mercy. He relents for the sake of His people, no matter how much we fail. We deserve the consequences of our failure to live according to God’s Word. We deserve His judgment, but Jesus Christ has made us children rather than enemies, and by His blood we are saved.
God did not abandon Jesus, and in the end His plan was fulfilled. God took Jesus, whom we all rejected and denied in our own way, and made Him the cornerstone of our life. We see how He had promised all along to make these things happen for our sakes. We see how we mistakenly expected God to do what we want rather than what He knows is best. With our hindsight, we know it was all for good. And that knowledge fills our hearts with joy and peace, and we can join in singing with the psalmist, “I will give thanks to you, for you have answered me, and have become my salvation.” This is indeed God’s work and it is marvelous. This is the day which God has made, not only the joyful day of Resurrection, but every day including the day Jesus died on the cross. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
Through our baptism and faith, we are called to live in Christ and be of His mind in all we do. We live in a world where there are many people whose nature is like the scorpion’s: quickly striking at anyone who wants to help. Even when we share the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, those with such a nature will reject it and us. We suffer persecution at their hands, just as the holy man risked being stung by the scorpion. Do we let it stop us? Jesus did not. After all, He left the glory of heaven to come to earth in flesh to reconcile us to God our Father. His nature is to love and save and He willingly suffered humiliation in life and death. We are called to do the same, not on a cross, but in our everyday experiences so that others might know God’s love and mercy and grace. The day will come when all will bow to our Lord Jesus Christ, but will they bow in thanksgiving or fear? We are called to bring salvation to the world even when it strikes back so that all will bow by faith.
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