And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great. And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted. And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. (Mark 16:1-6) Right now our culture is preoccupied with death. I am a chaplain. I see it every day. People are dying. I’m the one who makes the phone call to say a prayer with grieving family members when their loved one has just died, and during this coronavirus there have been a lot of sad phone calls. During this time I have observed three things:
During this time of COVID-19, those of us who believe in the reality of the resurrection are needed. In a culture of darkness and death, someone needs to be an ambassador of light and life. That’s our calling as Christians. If we don’t let our light shine now, the dying patients and their grieving family members and the nurses and the aides and the doctors who need our encouragement and our prayers will run out of hope. We need to be the ambassadors of life and of light that our society needs for us to be. Resurrection Sunday is a celebration of the fact that, by rising from death, Jesus Christ conquered sin and death. It’s not a quaint tradition that has outlived it’s usefulness. It’s a message of cosmic proportions. It’s the most important message that could ever be preached, because it’s a proclamation of the cosmic reality that lies at the center of the universe. It’s the only hope that the world has. (This promise of resurrection is not only a Christian teaching but finds its roots in Judaism. See Daniel 12:2). If we could get beyond our traditions and see things from a higher perspective, we would understand that Resurrection Sunday is a declarative celebration that is the kind of celebration we would have if war and violence and injustice and poverty and discrimination and cancer and COVID-19 and all other diseases that inflict and affect humankind were eliminated on the same day, times infinity, because it marks the defeat of all the enemies of God and of humankind, forever. It marks the defeat of humankind’s two greatest enemies, sin and death, out of which all the other of humanity’s problems flow. It marks the breaking of the curse of sin and death. The head of the serpent has been crushed by the wounded heel of the woman’s seed. God had created an unspeakably beautiful and glorious universe, humankind had rebelled, sin and death had reigned for a season, but in the resurrection of Jesus, God has the last word. God will accomplish his purposes. Sin and death and their consequences have been abolished. God is at work restoring his children, his earth and his universe to their original wholeness and beauty, and all obstacles have been forever defeated by the One who died and arose from the dead. God can never be defeated, and his purposes are good. Herein lies our hope and our joy: He is risen! "Jesus said unto her, 'I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live'". (John 11:25) This is the hope that I can hold out to dying patients and grieving family members and struggling medical workers. For two thousand years, the message of the resurrection of Christ, and the corollary promise of our own future resurrection, have empowered Christians in their attempt to follow Jesus into a culture that is filled with darkness and death, bringing with them a message of light and life, because it is tied to a reality, not a tradition. Our message now is more relevant than ever before. We dare not extinguish our flame or compromise our credibility by politicizing our message, or by reducing our faith to just one more helpful narrative among many helpful narratives, or by trivializing the message into an “ask Jesus into your heart” formula that ignores the demands of Christian discipleship. There are many pretty stories and there are many political opinions, but we carry the message of light and life. We dare not lay down our torch now. We must pass it on to the next generation. As Christians have attested for over 2,000 years, it’s a message that is worth living for and worth dying for, and it’s the message that the world absolutely needs to understand and embrace, or at least seriously consider. We can’t convince anyone that the message is true, but by the way we live we can show the world that it is credible. It’s not that it’s true because it works. It works because it’s true.
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And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead: and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead. And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre. And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid. (Mark 15:42-47) Saturday. Could it be that He is really dead? There are no words for this. There is no right way to feel. There is no way to frame this that makes sense. There is no happy ending. It’s just painful. That’s all. What happens when the one you put your hope in dies and you are left alone? There is no darker hopelessness than when hope itself dies. There is no consolation. There is no encouragement. It’s just so dark… so very dark. That’s just the way it is. The world is still and silent. He died and was buried, and the devastation is unspeakable. Hope died, and the silence is deafening. The hands that gave life now lie lifeless in the tomb, the lifeless hands of a lifeless corpse. The people begin to sing their funeral dirge. There’s nothing else left to do. Creation groans in suspended animation, caught somewhere between death and life. The earth waits. The universe holds its breath. Saturday is a day of waiting and wondering. It’s a day of holding one’s breath. It’s a day of grieving over unfulfilled hopes and frustrated goals and broken dreams and unanswered prayers. It’s a day of straining our eyes, looking for a point of light in the darkness. It’s a day of straining our ears, listening for the faint sound of a new drumbeat. It’s a day of passing through the valley of the shadow of death, and learning that the shadow of death is not the same as death itself. It’s a day of realizing that the journey is not over, though now it must take a different turn. It’s a day for learning that our value lies in being created by God and in being loved by God and in being who we are, not in what we think we ought to accomplish for God or for humanity. It’s a day for honest doubt and a day of reassessment. It’s a day when we come to learn that even if we lose our grip on God, God still holds onto us, and we realize that that is enough. It’s a day of walking by faith when we cannot see, and of trying to catch a glimpse of the God we can neither see nor hear, and maybe we begin to question the very things that we were afraid to question earlier. It’s a day of giving ourselves permission to face our deepest doubts and our deepest fears. It’s a day for recognizing that we are not always right and we are not always strong, and that deep inside we are weak and broken and vulnerable, and that’s OK. In fact, it’s beautiful. That’s when we discover our own humanity. Here we are in the midst of a pandemic that reminds us of our own fragility, if we are open to learning the lessons that life is trying to teach us. Dealing with this pandemic and all the change that it brings into our lives helps us to realize that our human nature, though amazingly resourceful, is also very fragile. We realize that we ourselves are fragile, that those around us are fragile, and that our fragility is something that we have in common as human beings. We learn to stop thinking in terms of weak people and strong people, and we realize that we are all weak, that we all need God, and that we all need each other. That’s a good lesson to learn during a pandemic. That’s a Saturday kind of lesson. It’s on Saturday, when we are suspended somewhere between yesterday’s devastation and tomorrow’s hope, that we have this unique window into our own souls, and into each other’s souls. This pandemic puts us all into Saturday mode. The pandemic may be peaking, at least here in NJ, but it’s not over. We have seen much death, and we have seen much grief and fear in the hearts of many. As a chaplain in North Jersey I have seen more than many others have seen, and I work with amazingly heroic nurses and aides who have seen much more than I have seen. Sadly, there is more to come. The world waits for this pandemic to end and for better days to come. It’s Saturday. Saturday is when we discover how much we have in common with the rest of the human race, and that’s when we catch a glimpse of what God had in mind when He created humanity in His own image. That’s when we realize that only what is broken can be brought to God for healing, and that is the beginning of healing and wholeness and hope and genuine community. Hope and beauty and new birth find their roots in the valley of the shadow of death. After all, it’s the valley of the shadow of death but it’s not death. It’s Saturday. On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord. And Jesus, when he had found a young donkey, sat thereon; as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Zion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on a donkey’s colt. These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him”. (John 12:12-16)
Psalm Sunday was the day when the people got it right, and the people got it wrong. It was a day when the people were so close, yet so far. Roman oppression was heavy. The Roman occupation of Israel was a reality that the citizens of Jerusalem lived with day in and day out. Everywhere there were reminders that the Romans were in charge. There were Roman soldiers on horseback riding through the streets. There were Romans running the government. There were Romans demanding the payment of taxes. The Jews were allowed to have their own religion, for the most part, but how long would that last? Their religion, their traditions, their culture, their way of life were being slowly suffocated by the ever-present Romans and their boastful displays of power and glory. The man they were being coerced into recognizing as their king was no descendant of King David. To the contrary, King Herod had been appointed by Rome, not by God, and he did whatever Rome said, not whatever God said. The city of David was being ruled by people who knew nothing of David, let alone of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. The Jews spoke Hebrew or Aramaic; the Romans spoke Latin. The Jews followed the Torah, but the Romans knew nothing of this Holy Book. The Jews worshipped the One True God who created the heavens and the earth. The Romans worshipped a pantheon of gods, and they even worshipped their own emperor. Godless Gentiles who knew nothing of the covenants that God had made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were the hot-headed rascals who were running the beautiful City of David and the once-glorious nation of Israel, and the people had had as much of this as they could take. They were frustrated enough to rebel, but they needed a strong son of Israel to come and take the lead. If only their promised Messiah would show up at such a time as this. The cries of a frustrated and oppressed people were rising up to the throne of a God who may have seemed, to them, to have been silent for far too long. Then the rumors begin to spread. Yeshua, the carpenter’s son from Nazareth, was coming to Jerusalem. Yeshua, the one who performs miracles, was coming toward the city. Yeshua, the one who raises people from death, was making his way toward the city gates. As the news spread through the throngs of the faithful who were visiting the city for Passover, the people, once hopeless, began to have a glimmer of newfound hope. They had not been forgotten! God had heard their cry! Perhaps the time had finally come to overthrow Roman rule. This Yeshua from Nazareth was an unlikely candidate for the position, though. He didn’t have the personality of a military general, and he didn’t have an army or even carry a weapon. He didn’t seem to be the type who would lead a rebellion, but the Jews knew enough about God to know that He often works in strange ways, and so the people gathered. What were they expecting to happen when Yeshua came into town? As the people began to line the streets, with palm branches in their hands, what exactly where they planning to do when Yeshua passed by? To celebrate? To protest? To rebel? Some odd mixture of all three? Perhaps they sensed that something momentous was about to happen. The atmosphere was pregnant with something God-sized that was about to be birthed in their city. They weren’t sure what it was, but they knew that something was stirring. They could feel it in their hearts… and they were right. The people were so right… but they were so wrong. They were right in recognizing Yeshua as their long-awaited Messiah. They were right in their sudden awareness that God had not forgotten them, that God had remembered the promises that He had made to them, and to their ancestors, and to their descendants. They were right in their joyful recognition that God had heard their cries and that God was about to move on behalf of Israel, for His glory and for their good. The people were right to be hopeful. They were right to celebrate. They were right to recognize the fingerprints of God all over this man, and so they lined the streets, and they began to sing the only song that could possibly fit the occasion, the song of Zechariah 9:9: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon a donkey, and upon a colt the foal of a donkey”. They were right to recognize him as their rightful king. They were right to recognize that they were seeing, right before their eyes, the fulfillment of what had been spoken centuries earlier by the prophet Zechariah. They were right to celebrate. They were right to sing. They were right to have joy. They were right to have hope. The people were so right—- but they were so wrong. They were wrong to think that God would accomplish his purposes through military might. They were wrong to think that God would fix their problems on a political and military level while leaving their hearts untouched. They were wrong in thinking that God was interested in manifesting only his power, but not also his love. They wanted a conquering king, but into the city came a servant, one who came to teach the them how to love God and how to love each other, and even how to love their enemies and to forgive those who were oppressing them. Into the city came one who was all about displaying the character of God who is not only very powerful but also very wise, and very good, and very loving. Into the city came one who came not to kill but to die, to give up his life for his friends. Yes, he would eventually come in power to set up his kingdom on the earth, but oh so much had to happen before that that day. There had to be a cross, there had to be a resurrection, there had to be a Gospel preached, their had to be much suffering and hardship and persecution and loyalty and courage, there had to be a glorious return before that long-expected kingdom could be established upon the earth. God has an appointed way and an appointed time, and His ways are based upon His own character, not upon human ingenuity coupled with human power. The people were so right— but they were so wrong. So here we are at a different time, in a different place, 2020 years later, in the midst of a global pandemic, trying to make sense of it all. And maybe we, too, are getting it right, but we are also getting it wrong. We are getting it right because the pandemic is stripping away all that is unnecessary in our lives— all of our distractions and diversions— and we are coming to see that the only necessary things are not things at all, but people. We are rediscovering the value of family, of friends, of relationships. We are rediscovering the value of solidarity. Every person who stays indoors is doing his or her own part to save the lives of others. This is a demonstration of the fact that we value not only our own lives but also the lives of each other. We are coming to realize that our well-being is tied up with the well-being of others, and that their well-being is tied up with our well-being. We’re coming to understand, in greater ways than before, that “we’re all in this together”. We’re discovering our willingness to sacrifice our own rights for the common good. Whoever thought that a virus that prevents people from getting together could actually become a vehicle for bringing people together by showing us the value of community? The streets are empty because people from all walks of life are coming to recognize the value of the common good, and that’s a beautiful thing. Identity politics is taking a back seat. Suddenly we are realizing that it’s not about the rights of my group vs. the rights of your group, but it’s about our common needs as human beings. We are getting it right. We are getting it right… but we are also getting it wrong. We’re getting it wrong for the same reasons that the citizens of Jerusalem were getting wrong on that first “Palm Sunday”. We are trying to fix the problems of the world on our own. Some of us leave God out of the picture and rely only on human ingenuity to solve our deepest problems. It’s the same old formula: Human ingenuity plus human power equals the solution of all problems. If the pandemic teaches us nothing about human limitations, then nothing ever will. Others bring God into the picture, but they try to use God as a means to an end, as though God were like a genie in a bottle. If we say and do all the right things, then maybe God will help us out of this mess we’re all in. But I think God is after something different, something much deeper. God wants us to seek Him because He is God, rather than using Him for what we are trying to get Him to do for us and then forgetting about Him when we no longer have a need. Seeking God means acknowledging God’s way of doing things, and that has to do with a man who is also God dying on a cross, and rising from the dead, and a Gospel that is preached, and much suffering and persecution and loyalty and courage, and a glorious return, and eventually the establishment of God’s kingdom on the earth— and that’s not all about us. It’s all about God. So here we are in 2020, stuck in our homes, in the middle of a pandemic. We’d love to be outside, lining our streets, waving our palm branches in the sunshine, celebrating the joy of being alive, celebrating our hope that the pandemic will end and that everything will be good. We want to trade in our face masks for palm branches. Those are all good desires, but there is an appointed way and an appointed time. We need to recognize the limits of human ingenuity, glorious as it is. We need to turn to God, not as a means toward the end of building a better life or building a better world, but simply because He is God. We need to learn the meaning of the cross and the resurrection, for this is how God has chosen to save the world; this is how God has chosen to redeem those who believe. That’s the lesson of Palm Sunday. We need to remember that sunny day in the beautiful City of David when the people were lining the streets, singing and waving their palm branches. They got it right, and they got it wrong. We need to get it right. |
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