this is holy week

This is Holy Week.  A week set apart by the church to observe Jesus' last week in Jerusalem; his last supper, betrayal, arrest, trial, crucifixion, and death  We will hear the passion story twice this week.  On Palm Sunday and on Good Friday. In my congregation, we will gather three more times between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday.  We will observe old rituals, tell old stories, do strange things together.  We wave palm branches, lay hands on heads and anoint them with oil for healing, wash feet, sing old hymns and pray in the dark.  We will observe corporate silence. Why do we do these things in the same manner that they have been done for 20 centuries? Why do we focus a week on Jesus' suffering and death? Is it our fascination with morbidity?  A lot of entertainment revolves around death. According to A.C. Nielson, the average child will see 8,000 murders on television before they reach age eighteen.  I've not seen it, but the hit show "the walking dead" is all about a sort of zombie apocalypse. In a violent culture, the crucifixion of Jesus is not shocking.  It is also not a deterrent.  Neither the death penalty nor the violent nature of humanity has been swayed by the crucifixion of Jesus. Are Christians called to nonviolent resistance to injustice or to protect the vulnerable by whatever means are necessary?  This is a good question for another post.   In a country that makes heroes everyday of soldiers who risk and give their lives "for others", Jesus' death is not that courageous or valiant either.  Jesus, according to many, was innocent and suffered as a substitute for the guilty--you and me, sinners that we be. He imputed our guilt before God and the state of Rome, so that we might impute his innocence.  He takes on our nature, that we might take on his.  In this way, he atones for our sin and reconciles us with God. Somehow Jesus'death involves us. It's significance is not understated. Over a billion people profess some form of Christian faith in the world.  

As we join Christians in the annual observances of holy week, we may ask the hard question why.  Why did Jesus die?  Why did it end this way?  Why didn’t he respond to accusations?  Why was his death so violent, so brutal? Why did the crowds turn on him so quickly, his friends abandon him so easily?  Christians have sought to answer these question for centuries.  The answers are sometimes called theories of atonement.  Atonement means that Jesus’ death somehow amends the breach between God and humankind.  Jesus is punished for our sins.  Jesus makes a substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf.  His execution frees us, liberates us, redeems us. As it did the prisoner Barabbas in the story.   Jesus dies to satisfy God’s requirement of holiness.  He is an example for us of sacrificial love.  All these thoughts may be true to the biblical witness, but they don’t necessarily satisfy.  After all, his crucifixion and death creates serious doubt about his divine identity, his messiahship, his sonship.  Why would God allow this to happen to his chosen Son?  The death and burial of Jesus create reasonable doubt in the case for his Lordship.  Yet Christians have insisted that his identity as God’s son, as Messiah, as King, as savior of the world is directly tied to that brutal tool of execution: the cross. So convinced were they of the effectiveness of the work that Jesus accomplishes on the cross that they take the cross as their symbol, their logo, their focal point.  Churches without crosses in them deny a central aspect of the faith:  That Christ’s death on the cross redeems the world. They do so to avoid the obvious; He died.  There have always been people, even believers,who rejected his death. Death is too human, too organic, too final.  Atonement theory, however, requires that we understand the difference between God and the human condition; that we realize the distance between us.  A distance caused by sin.  Atonement requires that we see humankind as a flawed creature, a broken and wounded creature, a creature subject to death and decay.  It requires that we acknowledge the worse about ourselves, something Americans cannot do.  We are free people.  We are good people. It is not politically correct to talk about sin or death, as if we were powerless against them. Americans are not powerless against invisible forces.  We fight back, we take control, we win.  We do not surrender. And when we die, we do not mourn. We celebrate life.  The story of the passion forces us to confront what we hate about ourselves.  Death.    

St. Paul answered the why question in another way.  Not as atonement.  But as kenosis.  Jesus surrenders.  He allows humanity to do its worse to him.  Jesus empties himself of his divinity, becoming fully human to the fullest extent; he suffers and dies on a cross—symbol of Roman power, the power to execute justice through the death penalty. Is there nothing worse about humanity than when we take life in our own hands, deciding who deserves to live and who deserves to die?  Jesus humbles himself by rejecting self-protection, self-preservation.   His humility is rewarded by divine exaltation.  He is raised up to royal status, his name is above every name. According to St. Paul, "At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."  Jesus becomes empty to the point of death and God fills him with life. Paul said, “have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus.”  Think this way.  Let these thoughts govern your actions.  The community of believers is called to orient itself to the way of Jesus, of self-emptying humility.  By serving others, giving sacrificially, and caring for the most vulnerable people in the world we become Christ-like. 

      

So, why do we observe holy week?  To remember.  To put it into our minds.  To settle on the truth of the matter. To put the story back together for ourselves. We need a holy week to remind us that we are not in hell. We are not in hell because Jesus' death signified a shift in God’s relationship with the world.  No longer do the old rules apply.  We cannot save ourselves by doing what is right.  Reconciliation, setting right whatever is wrong with the world, will not be accomplished by human invention, innovation, technology, or political power.  We don’t need better laws to change the human condition.  Setting right what is wrong with the world is God’s work.  God does so by calling the most vile and evil thing we can do GOOD.  The death of Jesus is GOOD.  Hence, GOOD Friday.  God calls the death of Jesus GOOD. Just as God had once called creation itself Good.  It is Good because Jesus freely gives his life for those who seek to take it from him. The question we must ask is not only "why Jesus" or "why the cross".  The question we must ask is "why me?"  Why has this story drawn me in?  Why has God invited me to be a recipient of love that endures death? Because the God who created all things loves what and who God made.  May this week be holy for you in a way you did not expect. May you experience the love that is stronger than death.