+The prophet Jeremiah writes: I will be their God and they shall be my people." And because of that promise, when I was a child When I was younger, I was sure that Jesus couldn't have really suffered on the cross. I rationalized that Jesus is God's son and God isn't about to let God's Son suffer such humiliation and agony, right?
But the truth isn't so sweet:
Jesus begged God to relive him from the horrors of Good Friday.
We don't talk about this much, but it's true.
On Maundy Thursday, in the garden, Jesus asks God to, if possible, remove this cup from him. On the cross he cries out, "my God my God why have you forsaken me?"
The author of today's Epistle writes: "Jesus offered up prayers and supplication with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard."
He was heard. If he was heard, why?
Why in the world didn't God save Jesus from such a painful death?
Well, the biblical commentator Delmer Chilton relates the following story to help us make sense of this:
He writes:
"When I was about 12 or 13 I was in the Boy Scouts. One night at Scouts we were running a race and I tripped, falling face down in the gravel on the side of the road [and] lodged a piece of gravel [in] my forehead.
The rural medical clinic was a mile or so down the road from our meeting place. The Doctor and my father were both assistant Scoutmasters so they gathered me up and took me [there].
The doctor was good but his bedside manner was a bit on the brusque side. As I lie there on that cold, hard metal table he came at me with a huge needle to numb my forehead. I'm still not very fond of needles, but then I was deathly afraid of them.
I looked over at my Daddy and began to cry out, 'Daddy, Daddy, daddy, please Daddy. Don't let him hurt me, please Daddy. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.'
The doctor threw a leg over me to hold me down, put his left arm down on my chest and proceeded to inject the needle. All the while I continued to cry and beg and plead for my Daddy to make him stop. And just as the needle entered I saw a tear in the corner of his eye. It was the only time I ever, ever saw him cry.
The author concludes by remarking:
"I was heard, oh yes, I was heard [by my daddy]. And I was denied. Just like Jesus. [But that doesn't mean I wasn't loved. I was. Just like Jesus]. This is the great and wondrous mystery of our faith:
Wherever we are, God in Christ has been; fully, completely, totally."
Think about the most scared, lonely, and troubled you've ever been.
Jesus has been there.
Think about the moments when you've felt ignored and abandoned by God.
Jesus has been there.
Think about all the times when you just didn't know if you could do what you needed to do.
Jesus has been there.
The Promise of the Gospel isn't that if you're a Christian life will be easy. The Gospel isn't about ways to make your life work out in a way pleasing to yourself.
The Gospel is the call to follow Jesus to the cross and beyond:
To follow Jesus in serving the poor, the needy and the ignored.
To follow Jesus in reaching out to the despised, rejected and hated.
To follow Jesus in standing up for those who are oppressed by abusive systems of injustice.
To follow Jesus in fighting against evil and darkness always and forever.
And sometimes-sometimes-- following Jesus to the cross means we'll suffer for our commitments, that we too will be rejected and scorned as much as those with whom we take our stand.
Yes, Jesus calls us to follow him into all of this. Crying tears of lament, wishing the cup could be taken from us.
It's not an easy way.
It's not a painless path.
It's not likely to be smooth sailing.
It's the Way of the Cross.
The promise of the gospel is that where God calls us to go, Jesus has already been, and as we go, Jesus goes with us.
So my friends, I offer you a late Lent challenge. Spend this week preparing yourself to enter into the full anguish of Holy Week-not because you are masochistic and wish to experience pain and suffering, no….I invite you to enter into the anguish God experienced as a parent to Jesus. I invite you to spend the rest of Lent holding onto Jesus' hand as he walks through his terror, as he walks through our betrayal, as he walks smack dab into death and then through the grace of God, comes out the other side.
I invite you to shed a tear with our Divine Parent, a loving God who knows the only way to be with us is to walk with us, through everything: even the anguish and the pain.
Yes, Jesus had to suffer. Not because God is mean, and not because we should feel guilty for his death. Jesus had to suffer because we suffer, and God needs, God must, God LONGS to share that with us.
This is the beauty of the incarnation, it is the truth of the crucifixion, and it is the miracle of the resurrection: no matter how troubled our souls may be, Jesus knows our pain. And so does God.So, as we enter into this last week before the Holiest of all weeks I ask you to remember that with every tear we shed, God cries, too……because God is our God and we are God's people. Always. And forever.
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The basic outline of this sermon was taken from a blogpost I read several years ago :
Two Bubbas and a Bible: http://lectionarylab.blogspot.com/2012/03/year-b-fifth-sunday-in-lent.html]
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