PALM/PASSION SUNDAY

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
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SEASON: PALM/PASSION SUNDAY
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: April 8, 2001


TEXT: Luke 22:39-23:56 – Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.

ISSUE: The Passion Narrative needs to be understood from several points of view: from the historical point of view, and also from the early church’s point of view developed after the crucifixion and resurrection. What is also a significant point is that the crucifixion is the ultimate act of grace. In Luke’s account an aggressive soldier is healed, a responsive criminal is offered Paradise, and Jesus’ prayer is for the forgiveness of all.

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The passion narrative is probably the oldest section of writing and story about the life and ministry of Jesus. It is beautifully and richly crafted into a drama, which can be acted out and participated in, as we do here at St. Johns in the dramatic reading of the passion and the Passion Play on Good Friday by the time it is recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The story is really and was probably was for the earliest Christians the very heart of the Gospel. Strange isn’t it, that the heart and central part of the Gospel, which was a crucifixion story became known as “The Good News,” most of which happened on Good Friday.
To fully appreciate the story and crucifixion event, it is helpful to approach it from several points of view. By and large, we the modern world and the church have often passed Jesus off as a really nice guy. He loved people. He healed. He said a lot of the right nice things. Time and misunderstanding has kind of tamed Jesus, mellowed him into a romanticized handsome good shepherd seen in modern stained glass. And, of course, the question arose, If Jesus was such a good and gentle soul, Why did he get crucified?
We have to understand Jesus in the context of his time and culture. Jesus was a prophet and a reformer, and something of a political agitator. In the Christian Scriptures Jesus is often portrayed and associated with such dynamic characters as Moses and the Prophet Elijah. He was seen as messianic leader in the style of the Prophet Zechariah. Jesus we are told attempted to ‘cleanse’ the Temple in Jerusalem of its corruption. Cleansing puts it mildly; it was a symbolic attempt at destroying the Temple, which had become corrupt both politically and religiously. This was a direct attack on the corruption of Judean leadership who were in league with pagan Roman power. Jesus was living in a time when taxes, both Roman and Judean were exorbitant. The rich lived to be a fairly old age, when the poor were dead at usually 26 years of age from disease and malnutrition. The mortality rate of children was excessive. Jesus’ ministry is given to healing, but many of his healings were probably as politically motivated as they were from compassion. Jesus primarily heals the lame, the blind, the deaf, the demon possessed, the lame, and the dead. All of these types of people were considered to be no-goods, and totally expendable. They had no dignity or worth in their society. Jesus is raising up the oppressed. He is restoring dignity to outcasts. A repetitious phrase through the gospels is: “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” This statement was a significant statement of challenge and change in his time. The growing idea that Jesus was the messiah had significant militant and political implications. Jesus was most likely crucified from a historical point of view because he was in fact a prophet with a non-violent political and economic punch! He wanted justice for the poor and the oppressed where only two percent of the population held all the wealth. As Jesus begins to collect a significant following of the poor, the lame, the expendables, the oppressed, he becomes seen as a real threat to people like Caiaphas, high priestly power in the Temple, and Pilate Governor of Judea, and King Herod. The horrible death of crucifixion was clearly set aside by the Romans as punishment for political enemies, insurrectionists. Jesus was daring to transform the oppressive culture.
(Be careful assuming that Pilate saw nothing wrong with Jesus, when the Nicene Creed clearly states, Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate.)
After Jesus’ crucifixion, and the early Christians many of whom were Jews, began to approach Jesus’ crucifixion from another point of view: the point of seeing Jesus as a once and for all living sacrifice for the sins of the world. Remember the Hebrew Story of Abraham and Issac, in which God says to the faithful Abraham, Do not slay the child, but I will provided myself with a sacrifice. Jesus becomes the ultimate ‘Son’ to be sacrificed now on the cross. When Moses is about to lead the oppressed Hebrew people out of Egypt, the night before they leave, the offer a lamb as a sacrifice, and the angel of death passes over them, and they are set free from bondage, liberated. When Luke was writing this crucifixion story in its final form, the Romans had already destroyed the Jerusalem Temple. The temple had been the place where people came to offer their sacrifices. There was no longer any place to offer sacrifice. There was no Temple. Without this relationship with God through sacrifice, Temple, and worship, without the political structure of the Temple people were devastated in terms of their way to be in relationship with God. What miraculously and spiritually comes through for the followers of Jesus was that they not only saw him as their prophet, but as their priest, their high priest as well. Jesus becomes known as the Lamb of God, the high priest who once and for all has suffered outside the city walls of Jerusalem, where great prophets had suffered and died. Jesus becomes the living sacrifice that leads people to God. He is the new Temple where people find God and become worthy of God. He is the Son of God with whom God is well pleased. Look to him, and find the one who lays down his life for his friends that they may see the sacrificial, servant hood, love of God revealed. Isaiah’s image of a non-violent Suffering Servant is realized in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
From still another point of view, there comes one of the greatest gifts of all from the crucifixion, and from which it gets its greatest meaning of Good News and Good Friday. Early on in the Passion Narrative, Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss. His enemies approach him and a fight breaks out, to which Jesus calls a halt and immediately heals the soldier’s ear that is injured. Peter who is among the inner core of the disciples denies Jesus not once but three times. Barrabbas the murderer and insurrectionist is liberated. Jesus is crucified, given the world’s worst form of execution, more accurately torture. He is ultimately humiliated to hang before the world naked and shamed in every sense, totally dishonored. His being crucified between two criminals compounds the dishonoring of Jesus. His criminality is assured. Now out of this scene comes the words: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And, “Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise. Out of this awful situation comes the maximum, noblest of gifts, . . . .Grace. Unearned, unwarranted, undeserved love is Grace. Naked, with nothing left, like the Father in the Prodigal Son Story, Jesus bestows love and forgiveness on a broken and raging world of sin and injustice.
We Christians must not cheapen that grace by indifference and nonchalance, but by turning in faith, in loyalty, and in trust that the way of God in Christ is the only way in our own broken world of sin and injustice. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the Sin of the world.”