As you begin to ponder what the sermon on this highly
charged Sunday ought to contain, let the wisdom of writers from Homily Service in 2007 dealing with the
Passion story serve as yeast for your thoughts.
Luke 22:14–23:56
or 23:1-49
In no place in the passion
according to Luke, as set forth in our lectionaries, do we even come close to
getting a clue as to why some authorities in Jesus' day wanted him out of the
way. . . The Gospels (Luke included) routinely offer exaggerated impressions of
sizeable crowds and high drama in the events leading up to the cross. This
exaggeration is to be expected. The authors are convinced that the death of
this man had cosmic significance. If that significance had not been apparent to
the immediate witnesses, why should the Christians of the evangelists'
communities recognize this either?
Instead, the far more realistic
image is of a small man, from an insignificant part of the nation, with a small
group of followers, caught up in a conflagration and put down because of it
with no thought or hesitation on the part of the Roman occupation forces. In no
way does the more realistic image necessarily subtract from the cosmic and
atoning significance of Jesus' death.
I suggest, instead, a more modest
account of the passion allows us to appreciate the incredible interpretive task
undertaken by the earliest communities of Christians. The audacity of reading
their scriptures as having been fulfilled in the life and death of this man!
The audacity of God in using the death of this man to teach humanity the
impotence and utter vacuousness of scapegoating and sacrifice! – Jeffrey
VanderWilt
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Isaiah frequently pursues the story
of Israel, humiliated, exiled, and now restored to its imperial ambitions. This
“reversal of fortune” story implies also a theology of atonement. . . [which] may
have a substitutionary character—Israel suffers and bears a God-given burden so
that the nations do not have to. . . .
Christians found this theology of
atonement, implicit to the story of the servant of God who suffers, strongly
and compellingly attractive as they tried to put together the pieces of the
story of Jesus of Nazareth, the healing rabbi, who proclaimed the restoration
of the kingdom of God, and yet who suffered and died so grievously so that,
when his fortune was reversed in resurrection, the nations would turn and
glorify the God who saved Jesus. – Jeffrey VanderWilt
Philippians 2:5-11
Here is the One who emptied
himself, who humbled himself, who became obedient. In letting others do what
they would to him, this is what Jesus did: He chose the identity he would have
as others did their worst. He emptied himself to take the form of a slave, when
by all rights he could assume full equality with God. He impoverished himself
for the sake of his fellow human beings. He offered himself.
And we, too, are called to offer
ourselves, to “let the same mind be in” us as we choose our personal identity
in this world, to think as he did when others would do their worst to us. . . .
Here is the One who, on the cross,
offers words of forgiveness for those who crucified him, words of promise for
those who trust in him, words of commendation to the Father whose will he
obeys. Here is the One who eats and drinks with sinners, the One whom death
cannot hold. . . .
He gave himself for us. In what
wounded him is our healing. In what nailed him to the cross is our freedom. In
the offering of his life is our life, eternal life. – Paul G. Bieber
Paul Bieber is pastor of All Saints Lutheran Church, San Diego, California.
Jeffery VanderWilt,
author of Communion with Non-Catholic Christians (Collegville, MN:
Liturgical Press, 2003) teaches at Santa Margarita Catholic High School in
Southern California.
Homily Service 40, no. 5 (2007): 3-20.
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