Our Character in the Passion
Story
Psalm 31:9-16
Isaiah 50:4-9
Philippians 2:5-11
Mathew 21:1-11
As you all
probably know, I am a retired English teacher who taught most of my years right
here in Potlatch and all but one in Idaho. I am a person who likes narrative: a
good story, more than grammar. I love to read stories whether they are true or
made up. I don’t really care. Reading the Gospel today is pretty light and
happy, everyone waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna[b] to the Son of David!” “Blessed
is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”[c]“Hosanna[d] in the highest
heaven!” but, as we know, it takes a very dark turn. A turn that intimately
involves every one of us when we are completely honest with ourselves. But
today we are looking at the triumphal entry of our Lord into Jerusalem, not
ignoring the heartbreaking reason he went there, but fully acknowledging the
triumph that finally came from it.
Well, a good conflict is the basis of plot
and narrative, that good story I was telling you about. For escapist reading I
really don’t enjoy a lot of straight forward or scientific non-fiction that has
no story, just facts. No worries there
when it comes to real life. Conflict abounds. And if it doesn’t, we are masters
at creating it as our own characters. What we are looking at today is a
collection of scriptures, poetry and the narrative of someone who witnessed the
entire passion week with Jesus. It’s not fiction, but a true story. And the
poetry is more prophetic than anything, even in its lyricism. David, in the
Psalm, is very specific about the misery real conflict can create, and it seems
he is prophesying Jesus’ days during the Passion week. Again, listen to his
Psalm:
Be
merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress;
my eyes grow weak with sorrow,
my soul and body with grief.
10 My life is consumed by anguish
and my years by groaning;
my strength fails because of my affliction,[a]
and my bones grow weak.
11 Because of all my enemies,
I am the utter contempt of my neighbors
and an object of dread to my closest friends—
those who see me on the street flee from me.
12 I am forgotten as though I were dead;
I have become like broken pottery.
13 For I hear many whispering,
“Terror on every side!”
They conspire against me
and plot to take my life.
14 But I
trust in you, Lord;
I say, “You are my God.”
15 My times are in your hands;
deliver me from the hands of my enemies,
from those who pursue me.
16 Let your face shine on your servant;
save me in your unfailing love.
Although those words are of David, we can
imagine they are almost exactly the thoughts of Jesus just before the
crucifixion. While Jesus is fully God by evidence of the fact he conquered
death, he is also fully human like us. We do have the capability of empathizing
with Him because, like David, we have encountered similar (even if much easier)
situations. But the week after his triumphal entry was about to get darker than
any of us can fully imagine, David included. Jesus’ enemies were all of us:
every one of us that put out the palm branches were about to fall asleep while
he prayed, sell him off for some silver, verbally deny repeatedly that we even
knew him, and let Pilate execute him in the cruelest way. This is the part of
the story that even the biggest horror fans get a little squeamish about, not
because of the gore, but because of the guilt we all share and willingly put
upon Him. We did it because we are human and afraid of getting the very same
treatment, the treatment we fully deserve but He did not. He did not.
Let’s turn to the passage from Isaiah:
The Sovereign Lord has given me
a well-instructed tongue,
to know the word that sustains the weary.
He wakens me morning by morning,
wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.
5 The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears;
I have not been rebellious,
I have not turned away.
6 I offered my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;
I did not hide my face
from mocking and spitting.
7 Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,
I will not be disgraced.
Therefore have I set my face like flint,
and I know I will not be put to shame.
8 He who vindicates me is near.
Who then will bring charges against me?
Let us face each other!
Who is my accuser?
Let him confront me!
9 It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me.
Who will condemn me?
They will all wear out like a garment;
the moths will eat them up.
This is a just man speaking. The guy who
knows his stuff and he knows he knows it, setting his face “like flint”
against anyone who would say otherwise. This is Jesus in today’s Gospel. The
praying in the garden and everyone falling asleep, the betrayal by Judas, the
betrayal from Peter, the carrying of the cross up to the execution site, the
punishment unto death. He endures it all because he knows the outcome, he knows
he is right in spite of the others falling asleep or running away in fear,
never admitting they knew him because they doubted him, even selling him out
for some pieces of silver.
I would say that in the plot of this
story, the one known as the Greatest Story Ever Told, the climax, the turning
point or the high point is the crucifixion and resurrection because there is
really so much more to be told, so much good that came of that, so much good
that is still coming from Jesus conquering death.
The Palm Sunday entrance into Jerusalem
doesn’t ignore the crucifixion, but it celebrates it and the outcome. Sure, no
one knew it on that day but we know it now. The story isn’t complete even with
the resurrection because we are living post resurrection—at least post
resurrection of Jesus. Look at Philippians.
In your relationships with one another,
have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in
very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be
used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God
exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is
Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
We celebrate today and this week because
Jesus Christ is Lord indeed, and that good story that we should all love to
hear is just that. Jesus is our salvation because he makes everything that is
wrong with us ok. He wipes it away, renews us and asks us to do that same thing
for one another. Because of His story we have our own stories, we exist because
of Him and he has graciously forgiven us of all our faults, even our betrayal
of Him.
We are, in fact, characters in this story.
We may not be the pinnacle of examples like the Rocky Mountains are in
landscape photography, but we are still the Palouse Hills, which, as we all
know, are extremely beautiful in their own right. So are we like these hills
around us in beauty because we are not conformed to this world: but our minds
have been transformed to “prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect,
will of God,” as it says in Romans 12:2. Our beauty as Christians is that we
believe in the resurrection and it shows in our love of justice, mercy, and
walking humbly with our God. (Micah 6:8) It is not the ugliness of our own sin,
but the knowledge that we are helping bring about bended knees and tongues
confessing to Jesus’ Lordship by loving one another. It’s a ripple effect more
than a mountain raising earthquake and it happens with every one of us. So
yes, our part in the story is not the grandiosity of the Rockies but the gentle
ripples of the Palouse Hills.
When I think of my own story I like to
think of this poem by Emily Dickinson:
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
Our part in the story might be simple in
and of itself, but we serve that Jesus who became man for us and suffered the
cruelest death of the crucifixion only to rise again from the dead and be here
with us, nudging us on to be compassionate and loving even if it scares us.
Again, from Matthew: 10 When
Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”
11 The crowds
answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
He is our Alpha and Omega. He is our perfect story. He is
our Immanuel: God with us. And just as He loves us, let us love one another.
Raise the palm branches high today and welcome Him fully into our lives. Amen.
