Palm / Passion Sunday
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VIII, Cycle A
Object:
Theme For The Day
In going to the cross, Jesus demonstrates true passion, and by example, leads us to seek the same.
Old Testament Lesson
Isaiah 50:4-9a
The Third Servant Song
This passage, which occurs in all three cycles of the lectionary for this day, is the third of Second Isaiah's four Servant Songs. It is part of a larger speech that begins with 50:1 and ends at 51:8. The first and the second Servant Songs (42:1-9 and 49:1-7) have previously occurred on Baptism of the Lord Sunday and on the Second Sunday after Epiphany/Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, respectively. The fourth (52:13--53:12) occurs on Good Friday. The servant in this particular song is a prophet -- one to whom the Lord has given "the tongue of a teacher," so he may "sustain the weary with a word" (v. 4). This person has suffered for his righteous cause: "I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard" (v. 6). Yet, the Lord is with him, even in his travail. As a result, he has "set his face like flint" so as to stoically endure his torment (v. 7). Taking up the law-court metaphor found elsewhere in Isaiah, this suffering servant dares anyone to contend with him because the Lord is his advocate (verses 8-9). This song raises the question of the meaning of suffering. Is the Servant's offering of his back to those with cudgels, and his cheek to those who would pull out his beard, somehow a redemptive act? Or is the pain merely something to be endured until the day when the Lord vindicates him?
New Testament Lesson
Philippians 2:5-11
Taking The Form Of A Slave
This passage occurs in all three cycles of the lectionary for this day. We stand, on Palm/Passion Sunday, at the threshold of Holy Week. This passage provides a theological road map for what is to come. This has long been known as the kenosis passage, from the Greek verb meaning "to empty." Self-emptying is exactly what Jesus does on the cross: He "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave" (v. 7). Christ's transformation from exalted Son of God to abused slave is complete: It is no mere playacting. The same Greek noun, morphe, is used in both verse 6 and verse 7 and is translated "form" in both places. It is the origin of the English word, "metamorphosis." As Jesus "morphs" from God into human being, he changes completely. He starts out "in the form of God," but does not count divine status as something to be exploited (the Greek verb is literally "snatched at" -- as one child might snatch a favorite toy from another). He is born "in human likeness" (v. 7b). While the English word "likeness" implies a superficial resemblance, in fact the Greek homoioma means he was thoroughly and completely human. In the next line, a third word appears: schema (translated "form," again -- even though it's a different word than morphe). Schema does, in fact, mean "outward appearance" -- although, coupled with the other two words, it means Jesus was human through and through, both in his appearance and in his inner essence. As he reaches the nadir of his journey -- the cross -- Jesus retains not a shred of divine power on which he can rely. He is utterly godforsaken. But then, on the far side of Calvary, he is exalted once again. A gracious God reaches out to him, restores him to life, and lifts him up to the heavenly places once more. Jesus did not rise from the dead -- that would imply some remaining shred of divine power on his part. He needed God to reach across the divide and restore him to life. Jesus did not rise; he was raised. He emptied himself completely, after which God filled him once again.
The Gospel -- Liturgy of the Palms
Matthew 21:1-11
The Triumphal Entry
This year's Liturgy of the Palms text -- intended for those churches observing the Triumphal Entry tradition, rather than the extended Passion narrative -- is Matthew's account of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. Matthew includes two animals in his account: "a donkey... and a colt with her" (v. 2). As ludicrous as it may sound, he portrays Jesus riding both beasts. This is a rather forced effort to make his account jibe with the Hebrew prophecy of Zechariah 9:9, which -- unlike his fellow gospel writers -- he cites here. Matthew doesn't seem to understand that Zechariah's line is a poetic parallelism; not a description of two separate animals. Jesus' triumphal entry is often described as a carefree, jubilant celebration with the fickle crowds going from pure adulation one day to pure animosity the next. This is not an accurate reading of the Greek text: for Matthew says that, from the very beginning, "the whole city was in turmoil" (from seio, "to shake"). The sort of shaking going on is akin not to an amusement park ride but to a devastating earthquake. Even as some may cheer the Nazarene's entry into the city, others are dreading the civil unrest that could -- and probably will -- ensue. As he rode through the city gate, Jesus very likely inspired the whole spectrum of political reactions and emotions. The one reaction that was impossible was indifference.
The Gospel -- Passion Sunday
Matthew 26:14--27:66
List Of Readings
The longer Passion Sunday reading includes the following pericopes:
Judas Agrees to Betray Jesus (26:14-16)
The Passover with the Disciples (26:17-25)
The Institution of the Lord's Supper (26:26-30)
Peter's Denial Foretold (26:31-35)
Jesus Prays in Gethsemane (26:36-46)
The Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus (26:47-56)
Jesus before the High Priest (26:57-68)
Peter's Denial of Jesus (26:69-75)
Jesus Brought before Pilate (27:1-2)
The Suicide of Judas (27:3-10)
Pilate Questions Jesus (27:11-14)
Barabbas or Jesus? (27:15-23)
Pilate Hands Jesus over to Be Crucified (27:24-26)
The Soldiers Mock Jesus (27:27-31)
The Crucifixion of Jesus (27:32-44)
The Death of Jesus (27:45-56)
The Burial of Jesus (27:57-61)
The Guard at the Tomb (27:62-66)
Matthew 27:11-54
The shorter Passion Sunday reading includes the following pericopes:
Pilate Questions Jesus (27:11-14)
Barabbas or Jesus? (27:15-23)
Pilate Hands Jesus over to Be Crucified (27:24-26)
The Soldiers Mock Jesus (27:27-31)
The Crucifixion of Jesus (27:32-44)
The Death of Jesus (27:45-54)
Preaching Possibilities
"The whole city is in turmoil." Baghdad. A group of Sunni terrorists destroys a Shiite mosque with a huge bomb. The rioting lasts for weeks.
"The whole city is in turmoil." Los Angeles. A suburban jury acquits the police officers charged in the beating of Rodney King. That night, Los Angeles burns.
"The whole city is in turmoil." Moscow. A circle of conservative generals and politicians mounts a coup d'état, removing President Boris Yeltsin from power. Standing on a tank, Yeltsin proclaims his defiance, taking his case to the people. The generals back down.
"The whole city is in turmoil" (Matthew 21:10). The city is Jerusalem, circa 30 AD. A charismatic young preacher from the provinces enters the city, riding on a donkey. His supporters stage an impromptu demonstration, waving palms as a symbol of Jewish nationalism. The authorities' crackdown is swift and ruthless. The preacher is executed. His followers flee.
Turmoil. That's the word Matthew uses to describe Jerusalem the day Jesus rides through the city gates. Yet, as we recall the incident in our mind's eye -- as we've read it or heard it told -- we often see it differently.
"Everyone loves a parade," they say, and a parade is exactly the mental image of Palm Sunday most of us carry around in our heads. A glorious, ticker tape parade, down Jerusalem's equivalent of Fifth Avenue. We envision Jesus' triumphant, riding in like a conquering hero. The sun shines on his face, the children dance and sing, the adults rejoice.
It was not so rosy a scene. Jesus is riding into an emotionally and politically charged city -- as emotional and political as any in our world that's on the brink of rioting.
Tension is at a fever pitch. Never has King Herod's popularity been shakier; never has Governor Pilate seemed more detached, more preoccupied with the intrigues of faraway Rome. Never has the people's appetite for revolution been more ravenous.
Into this seething cauldron of discontent rides Jesus of Nazareth. He is mounted on a donkey -- the beast the prophet Zechariah of old predicted would bear the messiah. The people are shouting, "Hosanna": "Save us!" It is the traditional appeal of the Jewish people to their king.
Jesus' triumphal entry is less like a ticker tape parade than it is a political rally, a carefully staged demonstration. According to Matthew, Jesus seems well aware of the political implications. It is Jesus himself who instructs his disciples to find a certain colt and a certain donkey, conveniently fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah. He even gives them a secret code-word: "The Lord needs them." The owner, Jesus instructs -- recognizing the password -- "will send them immediately."
If Jesus is making a bid for political power, he soon proves to be an utter failure. The civil and religious authorities form a rare coalition to undermine his popular support. In a matter of a few days, the crowd has turned against the carpenter from Nazareth, and -- when Pilate offers them the choice -- the people choose a murderer over him. On Palm Sunday, Jesus is the toast of the town. By Friday evening, he is dead.
And there it might have ended -- just one more failed revolution, all but forgotten -- if it weren't for what happens on Sunday morning a week hence. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary go to the tomb and find it empty. How insignificant all the palm waving now seems -- for, in rising from the dead, Jesus Christ has placed not merely Jerusalem, but the whole world "into turmoil." He is proclaiming good news not only to first-century Jews, but to every time, every race, every nation.
The coming week is called Holy Week but to many it is also "Passion Week." The word "passion" literally means suffering. It is the suffering of Jesus to which this label refers. Yet, there is another sense of "passion": a sense of something so utterly compelling, so emotionally riveting, it commands our attention.
Remember the fast-food ad slogan of a number of years ago: "Where's the beef?" Ronald Reagan converted it into a political slogan that helped elect him president. The question for us today is, "Where's the passion?" This story of Jesus' passion is so familiar, so commonplace, that as the calendar rolls around we come to church and hear it once again -- but, do we really hear it? Do we stand on a street corner in our mind's eye and hear the shouts of the crowd, see the blur of waving palm branches?
"Passion," says the writer Robert Raines, "is composed of anger and anguish, and is generated by those events that fill us with rage or make us cry. Passion is one part of our soul energy." Where is Jesus' passion? It's not hard to identify. He begins his ministry in the synagogue of Nazareth by reading words of Isaiah:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor...
to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free..."
Then Jesus proclaims, to the amazement of all present, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:18-21).
Later, he tells a parable of the last judgment. The criteria of the Lord's judgment are clear: "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me" (Matthew 25:35-36).
Where is your passion? What issues call forth your soul energy for the long haul?
For some people, it's model railroading. Others feel the same way about fishing, gourmet cooking, or going to the theater. These are all good things, gifts of God's creation for us to enjoy. Yet, if any of these things are our ultimate passion, then something's missing. If there is nothing that makes life worth living except the pursuit of pleasure, then life is pretty small.
We don't all need to be social reformers or political firebrands in order to have a passion for what is right. But we do need to get up from a life dedicated to self-gratification and to the accumulation of wealth for no particular purpose.
Where's the passion for Jesus Christ? You don't need to read very far in the New Testament to discover where his passion is: It is for us. Jesus rode into Jerusalem not to advance a political cause, not to cast the whole city "into turmoil," -- although he knew that would be the result. Jesus rode into Jerusalem for us. He knew that at the end of his road there stood a cross.
Prayer For The Day
O Holy Spirit,
who filled the souls of prophets with fire,
who graced the lives of apostles with determination,
who gave to Jesus Christ courage to bear the cross:
We confess that we have desired to brush passion aside,
to pursue values of entertainment and amusement
over discipleship and service.
Rekindle the desire within us
to value our relationship with Christ above all things,
so we may follow where he leads. Amen.
To Illustrate
The adoring crowd is waving palms. This is curious, because palms do not typically grow in Jerusalem. They must have been brought in from Jericho or elsewhere. Whoever supplied the people with palms has a very special agenda.
That agenda is unashamedly political: for, in the Jewish context, a palm branch is a symbol of victory. During the Maccabean revolt of a century before, the Jews had driven their Greek rulers out of Jerusalem. During the brief period of self-government that followed, the Maccabeans minted a victory coin with palm branches on it.
Yet, their triumph was short-lived. The Romans soon replaced the Greeks, obliterating all hope of Jewish independence. The Romans eventually minted their own victory coin. On it was the image of a Jewish slave, kneeling before a Roman soldier. Across the top of the coin was a broken palm branch.
No, to the Jerusalem crowd, the palms are no benign symbol of rejoicing, like those "We're number one" foam hands spectators bring to football games. They are a political provocation. We have no comparable symbol in our country -- but, if you can imagine the United States under the domination of a foreign power, and what it might mean to display the American flag in such circumstances, you might have some idea.
***
Many people today enjoy hearing the bagpipes (preferably outdoors!). But did you know that in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Scotland, the English rulers banned the bagpipes as an instrument of war?
Yes, an instrument of war. The original Highland pipers charged right into battle with their fel-low-soldiers. The "skirl o' the pipes," sounding over the smoke and tumult of battle, was a kind of psychological warfare, certain to strike terror into the hearts of enemies. That's why the English made it illegal even to own them.
The palms that Jerusalem crowd waved are like that.
***
One thing youth directors sometimes do is ask high-school students to write their own obituary. There are few greater challenges for Christians of any age to undertake. Think about it: If you were to take out a blank piece of paper and write down the things you'd most like to be remembered for, what would they be?
Do you want to be remembered as someone who loved "the finer things" in life, who sought wealth and pleasure, who pursued hobbies as relentlessly as some pursue work? Or do you want to be remembered as someone who loved others, who cared for the neglected, who made the world just a little bit better?
Asking these questions is just another way of asking, "Where's the passion?"
***
Ralph Waldo Emerson once made a list of what, for him, characterized success:
"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
***
"I think the church undersells teenagers, quite frankly. Kids really do want to stake their lives on something. They want to fall in love, to turn the world upside down, to be a part of a radical 'we.' But most of the time the church just offers them pizza!
"Passion is all about love -- and not cheap love. Passion means Jesus loves us so much that he's willing to suffer on behalf of his beloved. I'm not just talking about the passion of Holy Week, but Christ's whole life, death, and resurrection. God loves us that much! That's the kind of love kids are literally dying for -- someone who loves them enough to go the distance with them, even to the cross and back....
"Unfortunately, the entertainment industry seems to be the only place where kids see passion explicated, illustrated, and involving them. A lot of churches shy away from passion -- it's very messy, unreasonable, and unfathomable -- or we squeeze passion into the 48 hours between Maundy Thursday and Holy Saturday. So the result is that we leave passion to the entertainment industry to figure out -- where most of the time it's reduced to entertainment....
"The church already has a window into what kids are seeking -- and I think passion sums it up pretty well -- yet we've abandoned all things passionate. In other words, we've abandoned our theological roots."
-- from an interview in Youthworker magazine with Kenda Creasy Dean, director of the Institute for Youth Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary; quoted in The Prism E-pistle of Evangelicals for Social Action, Wednesday, April 19, 2000 (Vol. 2.8)
In going to the cross, Jesus demonstrates true passion, and by example, leads us to seek the same.
Old Testament Lesson
Isaiah 50:4-9a
The Third Servant Song
This passage, which occurs in all three cycles of the lectionary for this day, is the third of Second Isaiah's four Servant Songs. It is part of a larger speech that begins with 50:1 and ends at 51:8. The first and the second Servant Songs (42:1-9 and 49:1-7) have previously occurred on Baptism of the Lord Sunday and on the Second Sunday after Epiphany/Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, respectively. The fourth (52:13--53:12) occurs on Good Friday. The servant in this particular song is a prophet -- one to whom the Lord has given "the tongue of a teacher," so he may "sustain the weary with a word" (v. 4). This person has suffered for his righteous cause: "I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard" (v. 6). Yet, the Lord is with him, even in his travail. As a result, he has "set his face like flint" so as to stoically endure his torment (v. 7). Taking up the law-court metaphor found elsewhere in Isaiah, this suffering servant dares anyone to contend with him because the Lord is his advocate (verses 8-9). This song raises the question of the meaning of suffering. Is the Servant's offering of his back to those with cudgels, and his cheek to those who would pull out his beard, somehow a redemptive act? Or is the pain merely something to be endured until the day when the Lord vindicates him?
New Testament Lesson
Philippians 2:5-11
Taking The Form Of A Slave
This passage occurs in all three cycles of the lectionary for this day. We stand, on Palm/Passion Sunday, at the threshold of Holy Week. This passage provides a theological road map for what is to come. This has long been known as the kenosis passage, from the Greek verb meaning "to empty." Self-emptying is exactly what Jesus does on the cross: He "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave" (v. 7). Christ's transformation from exalted Son of God to abused slave is complete: It is no mere playacting. The same Greek noun, morphe, is used in both verse 6 and verse 7 and is translated "form" in both places. It is the origin of the English word, "metamorphosis." As Jesus "morphs" from God into human being, he changes completely. He starts out "in the form of God," but does not count divine status as something to be exploited (the Greek verb is literally "snatched at" -- as one child might snatch a favorite toy from another). He is born "in human likeness" (v. 7b). While the English word "likeness" implies a superficial resemblance, in fact the Greek homoioma means he was thoroughly and completely human. In the next line, a third word appears: schema (translated "form," again -- even though it's a different word than morphe). Schema does, in fact, mean "outward appearance" -- although, coupled with the other two words, it means Jesus was human through and through, both in his appearance and in his inner essence. As he reaches the nadir of his journey -- the cross -- Jesus retains not a shred of divine power on which he can rely. He is utterly godforsaken. But then, on the far side of Calvary, he is exalted once again. A gracious God reaches out to him, restores him to life, and lifts him up to the heavenly places once more. Jesus did not rise from the dead -- that would imply some remaining shred of divine power on his part. He needed God to reach across the divide and restore him to life. Jesus did not rise; he was raised. He emptied himself completely, after which God filled him once again.
The Gospel -- Liturgy of the Palms
Matthew 21:1-11
The Triumphal Entry
This year's Liturgy of the Palms text -- intended for those churches observing the Triumphal Entry tradition, rather than the extended Passion narrative -- is Matthew's account of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. Matthew includes two animals in his account: "a donkey... and a colt with her" (v. 2). As ludicrous as it may sound, he portrays Jesus riding both beasts. This is a rather forced effort to make his account jibe with the Hebrew prophecy of Zechariah 9:9, which -- unlike his fellow gospel writers -- he cites here. Matthew doesn't seem to understand that Zechariah's line is a poetic parallelism; not a description of two separate animals. Jesus' triumphal entry is often described as a carefree, jubilant celebration with the fickle crowds going from pure adulation one day to pure animosity the next. This is not an accurate reading of the Greek text: for Matthew says that, from the very beginning, "the whole city was in turmoil" (from seio, "to shake"). The sort of shaking going on is akin not to an amusement park ride but to a devastating earthquake. Even as some may cheer the Nazarene's entry into the city, others are dreading the civil unrest that could -- and probably will -- ensue. As he rode through the city gate, Jesus very likely inspired the whole spectrum of political reactions and emotions. The one reaction that was impossible was indifference.
The Gospel -- Passion Sunday
Matthew 26:14--27:66
List Of Readings
The longer Passion Sunday reading includes the following pericopes:
Judas Agrees to Betray Jesus (26:14-16)
The Passover with the Disciples (26:17-25)
The Institution of the Lord's Supper (26:26-30)
Peter's Denial Foretold (26:31-35)
Jesus Prays in Gethsemane (26:36-46)
The Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus (26:47-56)
Jesus before the High Priest (26:57-68)
Peter's Denial of Jesus (26:69-75)
Jesus Brought before Pilate (27:1-2)
The Suicide of Judas (27:3-10)
Pilate Questions Jesus (27:11-14)
Barabbas or Jesus? (27:15-23)
Pilate Hands Jesus over to Be Crucified (27:24-26)
The Soldiers Mock Jesus (27:27-31)
The Crucifixion of Jesus (27:32-44)
The Death of Jesus (27:45-56)
The Burial of Jesus (27:57-61)
The Guard at the Tomb (27:62-66)
Matthew 27:11-54
The shorter Passion Sunday reading includes the following pericopes:
Pilate Questions Jesus (27:11-14)
Barabbas or Jesus? (27:15-23)
Pilate Hands Jesus over to Be Crucified (27:24-26)
The Soldiers Mock Jesus (27:27-31)
The Crucifixion of Jesus (27:32-44)
The Death of Jesus (27:45-54)
Preaching Possibilities
"The whole city is in turmoil." Baghdad. A group of Sunni terrorists destroys a Shiite mosque with a huge bomb. The rioting lasts for weeks.
"The whole city is in turmoil." Los Angeles. A suburban jury acquits the police officers charged in the beating of Rodney King. That night, Los Angeles burns.
"The whole city is in turmoil." Moscow. A circle of conservative generals and politicians mounts a coup d'état, removing President Boris Yeltsin from power. Standing on a tank, Yeltsin proclaims his defiance, taking his case to the people. The generals back down.
"The whole city is in turmoil" (Matthew 21:10). The city is Jerusalem, circa 30 AD. A charismatic young preacher from the provinces enters the city, riding on a donkey. His supporters stage an impromptu demonstration, waving palms as a symbol of Jewish nationalism. The authorities' crackdown is swift and ruthless. The preacher is executed. His followers flee.
Turmoil. That's the word Matthew uses to describe Jerusalem the day Jesus rides through the city gates. Yet, as we recall the incident in our mind's eye -- as we've read it or heard it told -- we often see it differently.
"Everyone loves a parade," they say, and a parade is exactly the mental image of Palm Sunday most of us carry around in our heads. A glorious, ticker tape parade, down Jerusalem's equivalent of Fifth Avenue. We envision Jesus' triumphant, riding in like a conquering hero. The sun shines on his face, the children dance and sing, the adults rejoice.
It was not so rosy a scene. Jesus is riding into an emotionally and politically charged city -- as emotional and political as any in our world that's on the brink of rioting.
Tension is at a fever pitch. Never has King Herod's popularity been shakier; never has Governor Pilate seemed more detached, more preoccupied with the intrigues of faraway Rome. Never has the people's appetite for revolution been more ravenous.
Into this seething cauldron of discontent rides Jesus of Nazareth. He is mounted on a donkey -- the beast the prophet Zechariah of old predicted would bear the messiah. The people are shouting, "Hosanna": "Save us!" It is the traditional appeal of the Jewish people to their king.
Jesus' triumphal entry is less like a ticker tape parade than it is a political rally, a carefully staged demonstration. According to Matthew, Jesus seems well aware of the political implications. It is Jesus himself who instructs his disciples to find a certain colt and a certain donkey, conveniently fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah. He even gives them a secret code-word: "The Lord needs them." The owner, Jesus instructs -- recognizing the password -- "will send them immediately."
If Jesus is making a bid for political power, he soon proves to be an utter failure. The civil and religious authorities form a rare coalition to undermine his popular support. In a matter of a few days, the crowd has turned against the carpenter from Nazareth, and -- when Pilate offers them the choice -- the people choose a murderer over him. On Palm Sunday, Jesus is the toast of the town. By Friday evening, he is dead.
And there it might have ended -- just one more failed revolution, all but forgotten -- if it weren't for what happens on Sunday morning a week hence. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary go to the tomb and find it empty. How insignificant all the palm waving now seems -- for, in rising from the dead, Jesus Christ has placed not merely Jerusalem, but the whole world "into turmoil." He is proclaiming good news not only to first-century Jews, but to every time, every race, every nation.
The coming week is called Holy Week but to many it is also "Passion Week." The word "passion" literally means suffering. It is the suffering of Jesus to which this label refers. Yet, there is another sense of "passion": a sense of something so utterly compelling, so emotionally riveting, it commands our attention.
Remember the fast-food ad slogan of a number of years ago: "Where's the beef?" Ronald Reagan converted it into a political slogan that helped elect him president. The question for us today is, "Where's the passion?" This story of Jesus' passion is so familiar, so commonplace, that as the calendar rolls around we come to church and hear it once again -- but, do we really hear it? Do we stand on a street corner in our mind's eye and hear the shouts of the crowd, see the blur of waving palm branches?
"Passion," says the writer Robert Raines, "is composed of anger and anguish, and is generated by those events that fill us with rage or make us cry. Passion is one part of our soul energy." Where is Jesus' passion? It's not hard to identify. He begins his ministry in the synagogue of Nazareth by reading words of Isaiah:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor...
to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free..."
Then Jesus proclaims, to the amazement of all present, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:18-21).
Later, he tells a parable of the last judgment. The criteria of the Lord's judgment are clear: "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me" (Matthew 25:35-36).
Where is your passion? What issues call forth your soul energy for the long haul?
For some people, it's model railroading. Others feel the same way about fishing, gourmet cooking, or going to the theater. These are all good things, gifts of God's creation for us to enjoy. Yet, if any of these things are our ultimate passion, then something's missing. If there is nothing that makes life worth living except the pursuit of pleasure, then life is pretty small.
We don't all need to be social reformers or political firebrands in order to have a passion for what is right. But we do need to get up from a life dedicated to self-gratification and to the accumulation of wealth for no particular purpose.
Where's the passion for Jesus Christ? You don't need to read very far in the New Testament to discover where his passion is: It is for us. Jesus rode into Jerusalem not to advance a political cause, not to cast the whole city "into turmoil," -- although he knew that would be the result. Jesus rode into Jerusalem for us. He knew that at the end of his road there stood a cross.
Prayer For The Day
O Holy Spirit,
who filled the souls of prophets with fire,
who graced the lives of apostles with determination,
who gave to Jesus Christ courage to bear the cross:
We confess that we have desired to brush passion aside,
to pursue values of entertainment and amusement
over discipleship and service.
Rekindle the desire within us
to value our relationship with Christ above all things,
so we may follow where he leads. Amen.
To Illustrate
The adoring crowd is waving palms. This is curious, because palms do not typically grow in Jerusalem. They must have been brought in from Jericho or elsewhere. Whoever supplied the people with palms has a very special agenda.
That agenda is unashamedly political: for, in the Jewish context, a palm branch is a symbol of victory. During the Maccabean revolt of a century before, the Jews had driven their Greek rulers out of Jerusalem. During the brief period of self-government that followed, the Maccabeans minted a victory coin with palm branches on it.
Yet, their triumph was short-lived. The Romans soon replaced the Greeks, obliterating all hope of Jewish independence. The Romans eventually minted their own victory coin. On it was the image of a Jewish slave, kneeling before a Roman soldier. Across the top of the coin was a broken palm branch.
No, to the Jerusalem crowd, the palms are no benign symbol of rejoicing, like those "We're number one" foam hands spectators bring to football games. They are a political provocation. We have no comparable symbol in our country -- but, if you can imagine the United States under the domination of a foreign power, and what it might mean to display the American flag in such circumstances, you might have some idea.
***
Many people today enjoy hearing the bagpipes (preferably outdoors!). But did you know that in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Scotland, the English rulers banned the bagpipes as an instrument of war?
Yes, an instrument of war. The original Highland pipers charged right into battle with their fel-low-soldiers. The "skirl o' the pipes," sounding over the smoke and tumult of battle, was a kind of psychological warfare, certain to strike terror into the hearts of enemies. That's why the English made it illegal even to own them.
The palms that Jerusalem crowd waved are like that.
***
One thing youth directors sometimes do is ask high-school students to write their own obituary. There are few greater challenges for Christians of any age to undertake. Think about it: If you were to take out a blank piece of paper and write down the things you'd most like to be remembered for, what would they be?
Do you want to be remembered as someone who loved "the finer things" in life, who sought wealth and pleasure, who pursued hobbies as relentlessly as some pursue work? Or do you want to be remembered as someone who loved others, who cared for the neglected, who made the world just a little bit better?
Asking these questions is just another way of asking, "Where's the passion?"
***
Ralph Waldo Emerson once made a list of what, for him, characterized success:
"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
***
"I think the church undersells teenagers, quite frankly. Kids really do want to stake their lives on something. They want to fall in love, to turn the world upside down, to be a part of a radical 'we.' But most of the time the church just offers them pizza!
"Passion is all about love -- and not cheap love. Passion means Jesus loves us so much that he's willing to suffer on behalf of his beloved. I'm not just talking about the passion of Holy Week, but Christ's whole life, death, and resurrection. God loves us that much! That's the kind of love kids are literally dying for -- someone who loves them enough to go the distance with them, even to the cross and back....
"Unfortunately, the entertainment industry seems to be the only place where kids see passion explicated, illustrated, and involving them. A lot of churches shy away from passion -- it's very messy, unreasonable, and unfathomable -- or we squeeze passion into the 48 hours between Maundy Thursday and Holy Saturday. So the result is that we leave passion to the entertainment industry to figure out -- where most of the time it's reduced to entertainment....
"The church already has a window into what kids are seeking -- and I think passion sums it up pretty well -- yet we've abandoned all things passionate. In other words, we've abandoned our theological roots."
-- from an interview in Youthworker magazine with Kenda Creasy Dean, director of the Institute for Youth Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary; quoted in The Prism E-pistle of Evangelicals for Social Action, Wednesday, April 19, 2000 (Vol. 2.8)
