There is a community that...
Illustration
Object:
There is a community that observes Good Friday with an annual Cross Walk. People from all of the churches gather at one end of the town to begin the walk. For this occasion all the denominational differences are forgotten, as Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Catholics, Brethren in Christ, as well as a couple of independent churches participate. People from each church take turns carrying the cross. At each church, a portion of the passion story is read.
Young and old participate in the walk; some are pushed in strollers, while others walk slowly with a cane. The solemn procession through town is a witness. By the time the walk is over there are usually more people in the procession, having joined at various points. Some may not have intended to walk but were so moved that they joined in. Two hours after the start, the cross is carried into one of the churches where the community gathers for a Good Friday service.
Jesus' Good Friday walk through Jerusalem is actually our walk -- to death and new life. Each year people join in that walk, remembering and giving thanks knowing that Jesus' trek is also our walk.
*****
It's a struggle to keep it. Ministers tussle mightily to retain it. As with a suit or dress ten sizes too large, we can't bear to be seen in it. Yet not having it reduces our chances of heaven. We'd have better luck doing a limbo under a gnat's knee. I refer to humility. You find few role models of it in professional sports. Even seminaries suffer a scarcity of models.
We hate smart-aleck know-it-alls, but love it when we identify Jeopardy clues and Bible class answers. We want to be considered as great.
Jesus warned that many of us who pride ourselves on knowing the way to heaven will be amazed by our failure to get there. Those who attain it will be the ones who never thought themselves good enough to deserve it. Though we struggle to act humble, it's refreshing to find humility in others. It not only delights us to be around humble people, God wants us to act humbly so that others can be refreshed. How can we do it?
For a while I tried to appear humble. "Why are you slouching? Straighten your shoulders," my wife said. Trying to look humble is as ludicrous as attempting to look brilliant. With reservations, I offer two secrets of humility: First, we remember that compared to God, we're less than mites; and second, Jesus sent us to serve, as he was among us "as one who serves."
*****
Fred Craddock tells of how, when he was in graduate school at Vanderbilt, he used to take late-night study breaks at an all-night diner. One night, while worrying about his New Testament oral exams, he happened to overhear an exchange between the counter man and a ragged, down-on-his luck customer:
Then I noticed a man who was there when I went in, but had not yet been waited on. I had been waited on, had a refill, and so had the others. Then finally the man behind the counter went to the man at the end of the counter and said, "What do you want?" He was an old, gray-haired, black man. Whatever the man said, the fellow went to the grill, scooped up a little dark patty off the back of the grill, and put it on a piece of bread without condiment, without napkin. The cook handed it to the man, who gave him some money, and then went out the side door by the garbage can and out on the street. He sat on the curb with the 18-wheelers of the night with the salt and pepper from the street to season his sandwich.
I didn't say anything. I did not reprimand, protest, or witness to the cook. I did not go out and sit beside the man on the curb, on the edge. I didn't do anything. I was thinking about the questions coming up on the New Testament. And I left the little place, went up the hill back to my room to resume my studies, and off in the distance I heard a cock crow.
-- Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories [Chalice Press, 2001], pp. 48-49
*****
D-Day is burned in the memory of most people, reinforced by movies such as Saving Private Ryan. In order to put a stop to the Nazi advance, the Allies needed to land on the Normandy beaches and drive the Nazis back. The leaders knew the cost in lives would be great, but they also knew that it was their only hope for victory.
When the Allies landed the Germans were waiting, and thousands of soldiers died on the boats, in the sea, on the shore. But eventually the Germans were pushed back and the final march to victory began.
God also had a desperate plan to save humankind. It required that his Son enter the human race to show God's great love, to win us back to God. God knew the cost would be great. The Passion narrative reveals just how great: lies, denial, betrayal, desertion, spit, whips, thorns, and finally nails.
Yet Jesus pushed on. And because he did, the victory was sealed.
*****
In Colmar, France, at the Musee des Unterlinden, one of the most striking paintings in the world of the crucifixion is displayed. It was done by Matthias Gruenwald (c. 1470-1528) for the altar of the Isenheim hospital, where patients, who suffered from St. Vitus Dance, could find relief from their suffering by pondering the suffering of Christ. It is a sizable painting, perhaps seven or eight feet tall and almost as wide. It is the central part of a large collection of paintings of saints, which form a long panel on both sides of the altar. At the foot of the cross John the Baptist is shown with a lamb, pointing to Christ as the Lamb of God. With him is Mary Magdalene and the flask of oil used when she anointed him. To the side are Mary along with the disciple John attempting to console her. In the center Christ hangs as though almost dead. His mouth gapes open; his head is twisted so far to his right and down that it appears that his neck is broken. His hands are splayed from the force of the nails. The trunk of his body is distended. The color of his flesh is the pallor of death. And his skin is speckled with blood and wounds. The whole painting exudes pain and anguish. It is overwhelming to realize the extent of suffering to which Christ went to save the world and us from the consequences of our sin.
*****
Chaim Potok's novel The Gift of Asher Lev is one his usual sensitive and stirring portrayals of the pious tensions in the Hebrew community. Asher Lev is an outstanding artist who found in France the stimulation and quietude essential to his work. He is called back to America to attend his uncle's funeral. He is uncomfortable with the changes that have transformed his old neighborhood, but he suffers greater shock when he tours the New York art galleries. What he sees convinces him that art has become a Mardi Gras. The ordinary has become king, surrounded by popularization, shallowness, doubt, and cynicism. He is convinced that the century is exhausted. The real burden for Asher, however, is the attitude of his rabbinical father. The father complains bitterly that he does not understand his son's works of art. His confusion dates back to Asher's painting two crucifixions of his parents. In a painful dialogue Asher tries to explain that his art may be difficult for his father, because life is difficult. His father replies that life may be difficult and ambiguous only because we make it so. He asserts that the task of people who believe in God is to bring God into the world. Asher does not wish to contradict his father, but indicates that the rabbi does not understand how pervasive the problem of evil is. Similarly, the Passion Gospel helps us to understand that evil in the world is so pervasive that God alone could contend with it through the sending of a Son to overcome it.
*****
George Orwell, in his book 1984, tells of a world so manipulated by those who know how to use the means of communication to their own ends that they are able to switch alliances weekly and convince the mass of people that those who were their enemies the week before were not only never our enemies, but are now our allies. All evidence to the contrary was simply expunged from every printed record all over the world. No one would ever be able to backtrack, to say that this relationship had ever been different.
It was a prophetic book, not of 1984, but of the strange alliance of Stalin and Hitler during World War II. Like Herod and Pilate, who had been enemies until the trial of Jesus, these men might seem to be "natural" enemies -- one a communist and the other a fascist. But in their mutual hatred and suspicion of democracy, their mutual lust for power over others, their mutual need to overthrow the tyranny of abusive fathers, Hitler and Stalin were able to form an alliance, however uneasy and however temporary, to attempt to achieve their goals of world domination and the end of freedom for the people of the Allied nations. Politics makes strange bedfellows, we have heard. The gospel writer also pauses, in the midst of the travesty of the "trial" of Jesus, to point this out. Herod and Pilate, besieged by the crowds and the need to "keep the peace," disappointed in and afraid of Jesus, turn to each other in their difficulties. "From that day forward, they who had been enemies, were friends."
*****
Barabbas got off scot-free. Oh Barabbas, convicted and pardoned, imprisoned and set free, your role in this drama mirrors the drama in my life.
Imprisoned I am first by the conviction that my will is just and should rightly be imposed on others through vengeance and insurrection. "I will decide what is right!" I cry from the darkness of my dungeon. "The world must follow the reason and strength of my will!"
Still more I am chained by my inability to admit that the course on which I am set is wrong. The emerald cities promised on the roadmap of my will have all turned out to be pigsties. Yet I nibble on the corn husks, wallowing in the mud and the slop, pretending that this is the most beautiful place on earth.
Then through the bars of my prison window I see our Lord's face, caked with blood and spittle, the flesh of his back shuddering with the raw wounds of the scourge, his eyes moist with pain yet filled with love. He gazes through the window of my prison and sees my very soul. He reveals to me the truth of my captivity, and I long for freedom.
"You are free!" says he. "I will take your prison. I will take your chains. Go and sin no more." Oh my Lord, I, Barabbas, would thank you for the rest of my life!
*****
Jesus prayed as he faced the cross, "Not my will, but thine be done." There were really two elements in his prayer: first, deciding upon his submission to God's will ("not my will"), and second, determining God's will ("thine be done"). Both of these questions are extremely hard for us to resolve, even as they were for Jesus, who sweat drops of blood in his anguish.
E. Stanley Jones tells about one of his trying moments in determining the will of God in his The Divine Yes (Abingdon Press, 1975, p. 68). He had given his life to Christ at the age of 17, and by the time he turned 23 he had several paths lying before him. The president of a college invited him to come and teach, stating, "It's the will of our students and faculty that you should come here and teach. In fact, I believe it is the will of God for you to come here." At approximately the same time, a friend invited him to come and begin an evangelistic work here in America. The Methodist Board of Missions informed him that they wanted to send him to India, but he felt personally drawn to Africa's mission field. He described it as "a perfect traffic jam of wills." How would he determine what course he should pursue?
E. Stanley Jones found the answer to that question in prayer. He knelt down and prayed to God, first, saying he would submit to whatever God would want him to do, and second, praying he just needed to know what was God's will on the matter. Without much explanation Jones shared that the answer came back "India."
It's a mystery how God gives us the answer to our prayers, but we can be certain that it is in prayer we discover God's will for our lives.
Young and old participate in the walk; some are pushed in strollers, while others walk slowly with a cane. The solemn procession through town is a witness. By the time the walk is over there are usually more people in the procession, having joined at various points. Some may not have intended to walk but were so moved that they joined in. Two hours after the start, the cross is carried into one of the churches where the community gathers for a Good Friday service.
Jesus' Good Friday walk through Jerusalem is actually our walk -- to death and new life. Each year people join in that walk, remembering and giving thanks knowing that Jesus' trek is also our walk.
*****
It's a struggle to keep it. Ministers tussle mightily to retain it. As with a suit or dress ten sizes too large, we can't bear to be seen in it. Yet not having it reduces our chances of heaven. We'd have better luck doing a limbo under a gnat's knee. I refer to humility. You find few role models of it in professional sports. Even seminaries suffer a scarcity of models.
We hate smart-aleck know-it-alls, but love it when we identify Jeopardy clues and Bible class answers. We want to be considered as great.
Jesus warned that many of us who pride ourselves on knowing the way to heaven will be amazed by our failure to get there. Those who attain it will be the ones who never thought themselves good enough to deserve it. Though we struggle to act humble, it's refreshing to find humility in others. It not only delights us to be around humble people, God wants us to act humbly so that others can be refreshed. How can we do it?
For a while I tried to appear humble. "Why are you slouching? Straighten your shoulders," my wife said. Trying to look humble is as ludicrous as attempting to look brilliant. With reservations, I offer two secrets of humility: First, we remember that compared to God, we're less than mites; and second, Jesus sent us to serve, as he was among us "as one who serves."
*****
Fred Craddock tells of how, when he was in graduate school at Vanderbilt, he used to take late-night study breaks at an all-night diner. One night, while worrying about his New Testament oral exams, he happened to overhear an exchange between the counter man and a ragged, down-on-his luck customer:
Then I noticed a man who was there when I went in, but had not yet been waited on. I had been waited on, had a refill, and so had the others. Then finally the man behind the counter went to the man at the end of the counter and said, "What do you want?" He was an old, gray-haired, black man. Whatever the man said, the fellow went to the grill, scooped up a little dark patty off the back of the grill, and put it on a piece of bread without condiment, without napkin. The cook handed it to the man, who gave him some money, and then went out the side door by the garbage can and out on the street. He sat on the curb with the 18-wheelers of the night with the salt and pepper from the street to season his sandwich.
I didn't say anything. I did not reprimand, protest, or witness to the cook. I did not go out and sit beside the man on the curb, on the edge. I didn't do anything. I was thinking about the questions coming up on the New Testament. And I left the little place, went up the hill back to my room to resume my studies, and off in the distance I heard a cock crow.
-- Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories [Chalice Press, 2001], pp. 48-49
*****
D-Day is burned in the memory of most people, reinforced by movies such as Saving Private Ryan. In order to put a stop to the Nazi advance, the Allies needed to land on the Normandy beaches and drive the Nazis back. The leaders knew the cost in lives would be great, but they also knew that it was their only hope for victory.
When the Allies landed the Germans were waiting, and thousands of soldiers died on the boats, in the sea, on the shore. But eventually the Germans were pushed back and the final march to victory began.
God also had a desperate plan to save humankind. It required that his Son enter the human race to show God's great love, to win us back to God. God knew the cost would be great. The Passion narrative reveals just how great: lies, denial, betrayal, desertion, spit, whips, thorns, and finally nails.
Yet Jesus pushed on. And because he did, the victory was sealed.
*****
In Colmar, France, at the Musee des Unterlinden, one of the most striking paintings in the world of the crucifixion is displayed. It was done by Matthias Gruenwald (c. 1470-1528) for the altar of the Isenheim hospital, where patients, who suffered from St. Vitus Dance, could find relief from their suffering by pondering the suffering of Christ. It is a sizable painting, perhaps seven or eight feet tall and almost as wide. It is the central part of a large collection of paintings of saints, which form a long panel on both sides of the altar. At the foot of the cross John the Baptist is shown with a lamb, pointing to Christ as the Lamb of God. With him is Mary Magdalene and the flask of oil used when she anointed him. To the side are Mary along with the disciple John attempting to console her. In the center Christ hangs as though almost dead. His mouth gapes open; his head is twisted so far to his right and down that it appears that his neck is broken. His hands are splayed from the force of the nails. The trunk of his body is distended. The color of his flesh is the pallor of death. And his skin is speckled with blood and wounds. The whole painting exudes pain and anguish. It is overwhelming to realize the extent of suffering to which Christ went to save the world and us from the consequences of our sin.
*****
Chaim Potok's novel The Gift of Asher Lev is one his usual sensitive and stirring portrayals of the pious tensions in the Hebrew community. Asher Lev is an outstanding artist who found in France the stimulation and quietude essential to his work. He is called back to America to attend his uncle's funeral. He is uncomfortable with the changes that have transformed his old neighborhood, but he suffers greater shock when he tours the New York art galleries. What he sees convinces him that art has become a Mardi Gras. The ordinary has become king, surrounded by popularization, shallowness, doubt, and cynicism. He is convinced that the century is exhausted. The real burden for Asher, however, is the attitude of his rabbinical father. The father complains bitterly that he does not understand his son's works of art. His confusion dates back to Asher's painting two crucifixions of his parents. In a painful dialogue Asher tries to explain that his art may be difficult for his father, because life is difficult. His father replies that life may be difficult and ambiguous only because we make it so. He asserts that the task of people who believe in God is to bring God into the world. Asher does not wish to contradict his father, but indicates that the rabbi does not understand how pervasive the problem of evil is. Similarly, the Passion Gospel helps us to understand that evil in the world is so pervasive that God alone could contend with it through the sending of a Son to overcome it.
*****
George Orwell, in his book 1984, tells of a world so manipulated by those who know how to use the means of communication to their own ends that they are able to switch alliances weekly and convince the mass of people that those who were their enemies the week before were not only never our enemies, but are now our allies. All evidence to the contrary was simply expunged from every printed record all over the world. No one would ever be able to backtrack, to say that this relationship had ever been different.
It was a prophetic book, not of 1984, but of the strange alliance of Stalin and Hitler during World War II. Like Herod and Pilate, who had been enemies until the trial of Jesus, these men might seem to be "natural" enemies -- one a communist and the other a fascist. But in their mutual hatred and suspicion of democracy, their mutual lust for power over others, their mutual need to overthrow the tyranny of abusive fathers, Hitler and Stalin were able to form an alliance, however uneasy and however temporary, to attempt to achieve their goals of world domination and the end of freedom for the people of the Allied nations. Politics makes strange bedfellows, we have heard. The gospel writer also pauses, in the midst of the travesty of the "trial" of Jesus, to point this out. Herod and Pilate, besieged by the crowds and the need to "keep the peace," disappointed in and afraid of Jesus, turn to each other in their difficulties. "From that day forward, they who had been enemies, were friends."
*****
Barabbas got off scot-free. Oh Barabbas, convicted and pardoned, imprisoned and set free, your role in this drama mirrors the drama in my life.
Imprisoned I am first by the conviction that my will is just and should rightly be imposed on others through vengeance and insurrection. "I will decide what is right!" I cry from the darkness of my dungeon. "The world must follow the reason and strength of my will!"
Still more I am chained by my inability to admit that the course on which I am set is wrong. The emerald cities promised on the roadmap of my will have all turned out to be pigsties. Yet I nibble on the corn husks, wallowing in the mud and the slop, pretending that this is the most beautiful place on earth.
Then through the bars of my prison window I see our Lord's face, caked with blood and spittle, the flesh of his back shuddering with the raw wounds of the scourge, his eyes moist with pain yet filled with love. He gazes through the window of my prison and sees my very soul. He reveals to me the truth of my captivity, and I long for freedom.
"You are free!" says he. "I will take your prison. I will take your chains. Go and sin no more." Oh my Lord, I, Barabbas, would thank you for the rest of my life!
*****
Jesus prayed as he faced the cross, "Not my will, but thine be done." There were really two elements in his prayer: first, deciding upon his submission to God's will ("not my will"), and second, determining God's will ("thine be done"). Both of these questions are extremely hard for us to resolve, even as they were for Jesus, who sweat drops of blood in his anguish.
E. Stanley Jones tells about one of his trying moments in determining the will of God in his The Divine Yes (Abingdon Press, 1975, p. 68). He had given his life to Christ at the age of 17, and by the time he turned 23 he had several paths lying before him. The president of a college invited him to come and teach, stating, "It's the will of our students and faculty that you should come here and teach. In fact, I believe it is the will of God for you to come here." At approximately the same time, a friend invited him to come and begin an evangelistic work here in America. The Methodist Board of Missions informed him that they wanted to send him to India, but he felt personally drawn to Africa's mission field. He described it as "a perfect traffic jam of wills." How would he determine what course he should pursue?
E. Stanley Jones found the answer to that question in prayer. He knelt down and prayed to God, first, saying he would submit to whatever God would want him to do, and second, praying he just needed to know what was God's will on the matter. Without much explanation Jones shared that the answer came back "India."
It's a mystery how God gives us the answer to our prayers, but we can be certain that it is in prayer we discover God's will for our lives.
