Emphasis Preaching Journal

Isaiah 50:4-9a
An older teacher was giving advice to a new face on staff. "In every class," she said, "there will be one student who will argue with you. At first, you'll want to silence him. Don't. He's probably the only student listening."

Isaiah tells us that God has given him the tongue of a teacher and then goes on to say that he is willing to go through all kinds of abuse for his Lord. Do those two -- teaching and abuse -- go hand-in-hand? Perhaps ridicule, insult, and rejection are necessary steps on the way to salvation. The ones who argue are the ones who have been listening and who have been moved by what they've heard. Isaiah's "students" may have put him through his paces, but maybe that, too, was a test. Sure, this all sounds good, but does it hold up in the physical world?

Isaiah 50:4-9a
It's been said, "The second kick of the mule won't teach anybody." Clearly, if one doesn't learn the first time from such pain, one isn't the learning kind. Isaiah's suffering servant has been enabled by the Lord God to teach others because the servant himself has learned from experience. The suffering of Isaiah's servant is such that it benefits others. No matter the pain he's experienced or witnessed, he's learned by it and he will use such insight to help others.

So also with Jesus' suffering, he didn't allow it to be wasted. Jesus used his suffering for the benefit of others. We can't follow completely the pattern of Jesus' suffering. It was unique. However, we can dedicate our suffering as we resolve for Jesus' sake not to waste it but to learn from it and to find a way for even the results of our suffering to benefit others.

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Isaiah's suffering servant underscores the paradox that Jesus must suffer humiliation and physical pain along with his exultation. Jesus willingly "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death." The exultation of Jesus is ultimately connected to the cross. Jesus moved into Jerusalem, knowing that this triumphal entry and royal welcome would be followed quickly by danger and rejection.

In a day when we are very much aware of abuse, this seems like cruel and unusual punishment. Yet, the victim appears to submit willingly to torture. This suffering seems to be so unfair, crippling, and hopeless. None of us would choose to suffer voluntarily, yet discipleship is costly because of what it requires of us.

The servant is so confident of God and so trusting that he does not ask, "Why me?" Instead he lays down his life that others may live, thereby fulfilling his calling through suffering in silence.

Philippians 2:5-11
The common mind of the people of God is not the mind of one person or few people dominant over the rest, but is a melding of many talents, many ideas.

There's a tendency in our society to belittle that sort of collective energy. We are a nation of rugged individualists, even when it comes to religion. The Revolutionary War patriot, Tom Paine, was a free thinker who once wrote, "my own mind is my church." His way of thinking is part of our national identity.

Rugged individualism can be a good thing, but there's also such a thing as reckless individualism, going it alone when there's no conceivable reason for doing so. In the early days of homesteading in the American West, families often arrived on their forty acres to discover the first land they'd ever owned in their lives. To them, that square of uncut prairie must have seemed like a small kingdom. The first thing many settlers did was to erect a sod hut at the very center of their land: preferably on a rise, from which they could see all that belonged to them.

But that didn't last long. The isolation of the prairie did strange things to families. Depression became common. Some settlers went mad. Many gave up and moved back east. The ones who stayed learned to build their houses not at the center of their land, but at one of the corners: alongside other families who did the same on their land. Those clusters of settlers were able to share one another's joys and burdens, support each other, and together build the most efficient food-production region in the world.

Philippians 2:5-11
Laurie Beth Jones remembers her life-changing trip to the Holy Lands several years ago. The tour was titled a "Journey in Faith." Laurie Beth says that the Holy Land is not like other places she had visited. Tours of Europe or famous cities in the United States have to do with battles won or celebrities spotted.

The places she was visiting had nothing to do with battles won. She learned that Jesus most likely was not placed in a wooden manger, but a stone feeding trough. He wasn't born in a stable, but rather in a cave. Homes of the day were often carved out of caves. Jesus and the disciples probably slept in caves outside of Jerusalem. When Jesus was imprisoned awaiting trial he was actually in a limestone cave carved out underneath Caiphas' palace.

"As we walked to each site," Laurie Beth recalls, "I began to realize that these incredible holy sites had nothing to do with visitor and everything to do with surrender."

In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus surrendered to the guards who came to arrest him. Jesus surrendered his life.

Later when a business leader asked about her trip, Laurie Beth replied that she learned "that the only path to glories lies in surrender."

As we begin Holy Week we remember how Jesus surrendered himself to follow God's will. The apostle Paul wrote that Jesus, "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness."

Philippians 2:5-11
King Edward VIII of England had a choice -- love or throne. At five minutes to midnight, January 20, 1936, Prince Edward became King of England. It wasn't necessarily a title or position he wanted. To complicate things, Edward was in love and having an affair with a divorced American woman, Wallis Simpson. It would be only a matter of time before the situation would explode.

And explode it did. The press, unlike today's paparazzi, kept the love affair under wraps but they were growing restless. Parliament, too, never brought the matter to the public's attention, but they were threatening to resign if the king didn't abandon his love affair with Wallis. On December 10, 1937, King Edward abdicated the throne of England. He chose love over royalty.

Jesus, too, chose love over royalty. He willingly gave up heavenly splendor for a life as a human in order to set us free from sin and death. That is real love in action.

Mark 14:1--15:47
The greatest saga ever written: this weeklong journey from Palm Sunday to Easter morning. Look at today's gospel -- it has all the ingredients of a first-rate drama. It opens with a mysterious woman anointing the feet of our enigmatic leader -- foreshadowing a death, he says. Our hero shows us a great range of emotion, from frustration with the sleeping disciples, to seemingly misplaced complacency when soldiers arrive, to anguish on the cross. There is some action in the form of a severed ear. We even get a glimmer of humor when we hear about the naked man running around in the garden. There is an unwilling official, bound by the law. One betrayer's kiss and another betrayer's denial. Women left in mourning. Mix these together, and you have an epic that rivals the mysterious air of Casablanca; a tale that outranks Romeo and Juliet for tragedy and Samson and Delilah for betrayal and something right up there with Mike Tyson's severed-ear stunt in pro wrestling. This is a story you can't match in bookstores.

Mark 14:1--15:47
Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ presents many historical inaccuracies. Builders (as Jesus was) traveled to their jobs. They didn't work at home. Roman soldiers in Palestine then wouldn't speak Latin. They were auxiliaries, recruited in the general area. Jesus almost certainly didn't carry the "whole" cross, but only the cross bar, and even if at Golgotha his cross was the "dagger" instead of the "T" cross, prisoners weren't elevated higher than three feet. Physiologically the film is beyond believable in that no human body ever held that much blood.

However, the truth of the film, as the truth of the gospels about Passion Week isn't dependent upon strictest historical accuracy -- if so, all four gospels would agree. The truth must come from us who see or hear the story of Jesus' death for us and who respond, "Truly this man was God's Son!"

Mark 14:1--15:47
The centurion at the foot of the cross had the kind of faith Jesus had called for throughout his earthly ministry. He had eyes to see that no one less than God was at work through the crucified Galilean. The centurion saw, in some sense, that God was making God's love known through the weakness of Jesus' cross. "Truly," he said, "this man is the Son of God." Not Caesar. Not the Jewish religious authorities. Not any of the power-mongers of the day -- but "this man," the crucified one.

We are called to confess, along with the centurion, that the crucified Jesus is indeed the Son of God. The cross is not a pretty symbol, merely a nice ornament for a necklace or a wall plaque. The cross is that through which God comes to save us. For those with eyes to see, it is God's greatest and highest gift to God's people.