Butch's Blog written 3/30

[Butch Ritter]

 

                “To Mock Your Reign, O Dearest Lord” (UM Hymnal #285) has a line that is repeated in the middle of each of the three verses. It is a simple but brilliant repetition. Each verse begins with a scene just before the crucifixion and then comes the line “They could not know, as we do now … “

                There is a crown of thorns and a purple cloak and a reed that symbolize the joke. This backward man thinks he is someone important but, the soldiers think, he is no one, a nobody. The second half of each verse reminds us of what they did not know. We know. From this point in history, we know that sometimes what seems to be one thing is actually another.

We will be singing the hymn at the traditional services.

 

Our Holy Week description in the Bible has Jesus taking a good, long look when he enters Jerusalem. Mark uses a Greek word six times when describing Jesus’ entering the temple. Jesus intensely “surveys” the scene. Everything is coming to a close. The tension is at its highest, and Mark writes that the triumphal scene, the shouts of welcome to a king closes without comment. Jesus surveys the scene… and leaves, silently.