Obedient to the Point of Death

Sermon April 13, 2014 Sermon –- Obedient to the Point of Death

Isaiah 50:4-9a

The Lord ^[a]God has given Me the tongue of disciples,
That I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word.
He awakens Me morning by morning,
He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple.
⁵ The Lord God has opened My ear;
And I was not disobedient
Nor did I turn back.
⁶ I gave My back to those who strike Me,
And My cheeks to those who pluck out the beard;
I did not cover My face from humiliation and spitting.
⁷ For the Lord God helps Me,

The spiritual themes of this passage in Isaiah are “listening for God” and “listening to God.”

Generally we first listen for god and then listen to god.  IN other words, first, we become aware of God’s presence and experience openness to God’s love and guidance, and then we can hear and act on a divine revelation.

Think of the many ways that God can be present to us, including worship, meditation, in our personal relationships with family and friends, in our vocations and avocations (hobby), in nature, in science, in the arts.  God comes to us personally in unexpected and surprising ways.

Psalm 31:9-16 UMH 764

Trustworthiness is the feature of the character of God which Psalm 31:9-16 stresses.

Today we celebrate Jesus entry into Jerusalem with the crowds shouting Hosannah. Yet in only a few hours that joy will be turned into horror as we see how the story turns very dark in the treatment of the one they were praising as they shout for his Crucifixion.

v.13 For I hear the whispering of many – terror all around! – as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.

v. 14 But I trust you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.”

Philippians 2:5-11

⁵ Have this attitude ^[a]in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be ^[b]grasped, ⁷ but ^[c]emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. ⁸ 

 

Matthew 26:14-27:66  /-(27:11-54)

In the Liturgy of the Passion we meet Jesus, not as the charismatic teacher who triumphantly rode through the gates of Jerusalem, but as  the one betrayed, abandoned, and facing the inevitability of death.

Shouts of adulation give way to “Let him be crucified,” words of consolation to anguish and uncertainty, and Gospel proclamation to silence.

Jesus voice fades into the background, overshadowed by a cacophony of unsubstantiated claims and misguided assertion as the religious leaders accuse him of treason and convince the people to demand his execution.

The Betrayers: Judas and Peter
First, we might highlight a seemingly odd couple early in this long narrative.  Peter, we know, will become an influential leader in the early church.  In contrast, according to Dante's Inferno, Judas faces eternal damnation in the maw of Satan himself. 

 And yet Matthew parallels their betrayals of Jesus.  Both are one of the twelve.  Both are present at the supper.  Both betray Jesus.  Their similarities then largely cease. 

Judas meets a famously untimely demise; that Peter's fall is not irreversible is intimated in the concluding chapters of Matthew and in the wider Christian tradition.  At the moment when faith was most severely tested and the cost of discipleship was highest, both Judas and Peter fail. 

They remind us that at the cross there is but a thin line between faithfulness and treachery.  We are constantly tempted to broach that line.  We trust that repentance is always possible, even for Judas.  Both Judas and Peter regret deeply their betrayals of Jesus and yet their lives take wholly separate directions.  What do we make of their divergent paths?

Power and Corruption: Caiaphas and Pilate
Jesus' execution is a conspiracy of empowered cowardice and derelict duty.  Caiaphas and his co-conspirators have predetermined the outcome of the show trial and now only need the pretense of "evidence."  They arrange for false testimony but still cannot find a way to condemn the innocent Jesus. 

Ultimately, it takes Caiaphas' direct involvement to inflate already trumped up charges of blasphemy, but the office of the high priest cannot put someone to death.  To achieve his ends, Caiaphas turns to Pilate whose primary job was keeping the peace.  Pilate attempts to defuse an increasingly rabid crowd but eventually defers to their passions rather than justice.  When Pilates washes his hands, he does nothing to minimize his complicity. 

The machinations of politics may be the proximate cause of Jesus' death, but Matthew's readers are fully aware that God continues to work in the background.  The conspiracy around Jesus' death is a powerful reminder of the political implications of following Jesus to the cross.

Accidental Actors: Barabbas and Simon of Cyrene
I imagine that neither Barabbas nor Simon could have anticipated the role they would play in this story.  An insurrectionist, Barabbas could not have anticipated a pardon after committing crimes against the political order.  An immigrant or sojourner from northern Africa, Simon could not have anticipated being commissioned to help in the crucifixion of a presumed criminal.  We know little about these two characters.  We know even less about how their involvement in the passion affected their lives.  Whether as an innocent bystander or a jailed criminal, the path of God's Son may cross ours at the most unexpected moments.  How will we react when we are freed from our prisons?  How will we react when we are conscripted to carry a symbol of shame and death?

The Condemned: Two Bandits
Jesus dies between two bandits.  These condemned criminals must have been found guilty of a crime far more serious than mere thievery.  In some significant sense, they must have disrupted the fragile social order imposed by Rome, perhaps by making the Roman roads unsafe for commerce or taking part in insurrection. 

 Matthew 27:44 notes only that these two bandits derided Jesus along with the crowds that gathered to witness a trio of executions.  Unlike Luke, Matthew does not record the confession of guilt and hope for redemption of one of the two companions of Jesus on the cruel crosses. 

In Matthew, the portrait is stark.  At the end of his life, Jesus dies alongside two convicted brigands who mock Jesus with their last gasps of breath.  At the end of his life, Jesus faces a virtually unanimous public shaming, a veritable consensus around Jesus' guilt. 

We however know how the story ends.  We know that Good Friday becomes Easter Sunday, that death does not have the final word but that life reigns through the resurrection.  On Palm Sunday, all indications are that Jesus' guilt is evident, that Jesus deserves the shame of the cross.  Easter is the ultimate redemption of Jesus' innocence and God's mission.

Witnesses: Women and a Centurion
One of the most striking consistencies among the Gospels is the shared tradition that a number of female followers of Jesus persevered to the very end.  Though deserted by the disciples, Jesus is not wholly bereft of friends in this moment of darkness. 

The light of recognition also emerges from an unlikely source.  A centurion--a representative of Rome's willingness to deploy violence in the maintenance and announcement of its influence over others --is witness of both Jesus' death and his identity. 

 

 Having seen Jesus' body give out after a torturous and shameful execution, the centurion recognizes who Jesus truly was: God's son.  Though not a witness of Jesus' healing miracles, his impassioned mountaintop sermon, or the dazzling transfiguration, the centurion bears witness to the latest in a litany of crucifixions he has seen and yet sees and declares that Jesus was no mere criminal.

Heralds of the Resurrection: Joseph of Arimathea and the Roman Guards
Two final characters set the stage for Jesus' triumph over death.  Joseph helps provide a temporary home for Jesus' body at an important time.  The arrival of the Sabbath meant avoiding both work and the spiritual contamination emanated by a corpse.  In a rush, Jesus finds a not-so-final resting place.  At this tomb, Roman guards are posted to assure that Jesus' body is not stolen under the pretense of claiming his resurrection.  The preemptive denials of Jesus' resurrection are already set in motion.  Some will believe, but many will not.

In Closing let us think again on the words of Paul in Philippians 2 v.5-11

⁸ Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death ^[d]on a cross. ⁹ For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

He rode into Jerusalem in Great celebration hailed as the King…..and his life closed in shame and humiliation on the Cross.  But we know the rest of the Story…..Resurrection Morning. Amen

 

Hymn of Reflection UMH 359  Alas!  And Did My Saviour Bleed