This is a day for careful
reading of the scripture. Bring it to life. Invite a variety of voices. But
even an excellent reading does not make a sermon unnecessary. The text resides
in a realm that needs, still, to be brought “home.” How does this astonishing
story resound in our lives? Tell us that. What does it mean to have the “mind
of Christ”?
This day is supreme paradox.
Hosanna to the victorious king! Riding on a donkey. Then arrested, tried, and
executed. Hosanna!
Some Christians want the
imagery of our stories to be clean, uncomplicated, and one-dimensional. This
day is not that. Instead, we are invited by the Palms and Passion put together that
the God we worship is strong enough to be weak enough for truth. We are to see
that power comes from vulnerability, that victory is assured where it is not
expected or understood. This is not a God who comes to us in a form we
comprehend easily. For that kind of understanding, we need paradox.
Here, at the beginning of
Holy Week, the center of our lives, we see the whole story, so that on Maundy
Thursday we can understand why we are called to wash each other’s feet. On Good
Friday we are called to pay the greatest honor to Jesus’ cross – without which
no resurrection could occur. On Saturday when we sit Vigil beside the grave and
hear the great stories of God’s people, we are shown all the evidence for
faith, and then the stone is rolled away.
Matthew 26:14––27:66
When
considered from a critical perspective, what the narrative tells us is: the
earliest memory of what took place is that both religious and political
authorities came together and Jesus was crucified. We find it plausible that
the temple priesthood sensed their own fortunes could be threatened if Jesus
decided to apply his popularity to an insurrection against Rome. As for Pilate,
any suggestion of a possible sedition would have sealed the potential leader's
fate. The sign on the cross, “Jesus King of the Jews,” is Rome's understanding
of why it crucified Jesus.
Apart
from these points, the details of these narratives were fashioned from
knowledge of crucifixions, reflections drawn from the psalms and suffering
servant songs. Perhaps some memories originated with women who watched from
afar, or even with Simon the Cyrenian. . . The story, however, is for
Christians a way to enter into a real event that came to be understood as
salvific as well as how God has chosen to identify with all human suffering. ––
Regina Boisclair
Isaiah 50:4-9a
The
servant described in Isaiah is a disciple of God, called by God and instructed
by God. The servant faithfully executes his instructions, often suffering
because of them. The servant can only endure the suffering because he is
confident that God will vindicate him. God is with him, so his confidence is
not in his own strength, but is in the LORD. Those who listen to God are
susceptible to suffering, not because God endorses it, but because the ways of
God are often in contradiction to the ways of the world. –– Jennifer
Copeland
Philippians 2:5-11
This
Philippians song tells the same story that the gospels tell: the life, death
and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The details are missing, but the essential
ingredients are here: descent, humility and servanthood, death on a cross, and
exaltation “to the highest place.” It is a song, it is a story, and it was also
later one of the resources for Christological debates over the nature and
status of Jesus. “Being in very nature God” is how my translation (NIV) reads,
while an alternative states, “in the form of God” (NAB). This is followed by
“being made in human likeness” (NIV). Although it might seem that a song was a
poor source for highly technical philosophical distinctions, this is one of
several from which all sides in ancient theological discussions took their
proof-texts.
. .
. Song let Christians be daring in claims about Jesus. This and other songs
opened up ways to use metaphors, to play with speech, and to draw richly on
traditional resources from the Hebrew Bible's poetry. . . . Moreover, it is
important to stress that the songs of the New Testament were already embedded
in Christian worship before they became embedded in texts such as epistles. ––
Lucy Bregman
The holy scriptures, in
other words, arose from the language and patterns of worship in the early
church. Let this Sunday bring the people of God in your life to the Three Days
of deepened ritual signification so that the paradox of life from death can
become a way of seeing and living.
Lucy Bregman, professor of religion
at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, is the author of several books
including Beyond Silence and
Denial: Death and Dying Reconsidered (WJK, 1999) and Preaching Death (Baylor Univ., 2011).
Jennifer Copeland, a United Methodist ordained minister, served for 16
years as chaplain at Duke University and as director of the Duke Wesley
Fellowship. She is currently executive director at North Carolina Council of
Churches in Raleigh-Durham.
Regina Boisclair, a Roman Catholic biblical scholar, teaches at Alaska Pacific
University, Anchorage, Alaska.
Homily Service 41, no. 2 (2008): 68-77.
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