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Homepage >> Ministry >> Worship And Music >> Sermons >> Love Unfolding Love Unfolding
One of the favorite
pictures in my childhood Sunday School room was that of a handsome young man
with shoulder-length hair riding on a donkey, robes gathered around him,
sandaled feet dangling to the side of the animal. I remember his beautiful smile – directed at
all the people lining both sides of the road as they thronged about him. Cloaks thrown down in the road made a path
for the donkey. The men, women and
children were all waving long branches of green palms. The joyful expressions on their faces
completed the picture – this was a glorious welcome to a beloved figure! While this may seem a complete
story, it is only part of the larger story of Luke’s Gospel. The climax is yet to come – the rest of the
story is yet to unfold. While all the
gospels tell this story in one way or another, the writer of Luke’s narrative
takes special effort to incorporate details that more fully illuminate the
gospel message – confirming Jesus’ identity and setting his life and death in
the wider context of God’s redemptive plan for all humanity. In particular, I want to focus on several of
the “characters” (so to speak) that play key roles in the drama swirling around
Jesus in the last days before his crucifixion and how those characters point to
Jesus and the central meaning of his life and death. These “characters” are the crowd gathered in
the city of The liturgy of this day dramatically
puts us in the midst of the crowds just outside of and in the city of
Moving past a lengthy
section of the gospel narrative, this morning’s liturgy transports us swiftly
to the scene of Jesus’ trial before Pilate, the Roman ruler who would eventually
sentence Jesus to a gruesome death.
Perhaps agitated and inflamed by the religious and political rhetoric of
the chief priests and temple leaders, the crowd suddenly turns against
Jesus. The same people who just days
before had welcomed him as a conquering king and then listened to his teaching
in the temple precincts now shouted for Pilate to “Crucify him!” We might guess that this dramatic reversal of
public opinion had its roots in the dashing of long-cherished hopes and unfulfilled
dreams and in the all-too-easy way that people get caught up in the emotions of
the moment. Buried in a part of the
text that we do not read today, but which will be the background for our Maundy
Thursday service, is a description of Jesus gathered with his disciples to
share the Passover meal in the upper room.
He confronts them with the fact that one of them will betray him – foreshadowing
his being handed over to the authorities.
He also predicts that Peter – one of his most trusted disciples and a
member of the “inner circle” of followers – will deny him publicly. Jesus’ prayer in response to this coming denial
is that Peter’s faith will be renewed and that he will turn around and
strengthen his brothers. As Jesus is
standing in the courtyard after his arrest, Peter does indeed deny that he
knows the man he has spent the past three years following. In a detail found only in Luke, just after
the third and last denial – just as the cock crows to announce the dawning day
– Peter sees Jesus looking at him. The
moment is filled with overwhelming pain and personal remorse. If we put ourselves in
Peter’s place, might we imagine that he reacted as he did to the questions
about his relationship with Jesus out of a basic fear rooted in self-preservation
– a time filled with apprehension as to what might happen to him? In many places and times in our own lives, might
we also identify with Peter’s sense of personal failure to follow his Lord when
the going was dangerous and hard? The next characters in Luke’s
finely constructed drama are the criminals with whom Jesus is crucified. All three men have been hung on a cross as a
particularly cruel form of execution. Luke
is the only evangelist to capture the conversation between the condemned
men. One of the criminals continues to
taunt and deride Jesus, as the religious leaders and the soldiers have
done. Mocking Jesus as the “Messiah,” he
demands that Jesus save himself and the two of them. The other criminal reminds his cohort of
their obvious guilt and Jesus’ innocence.
In a request that echoes Lastly, Jesus, the
central focus of all this, dies on the cross with them. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ identity has been revealed
from the moment of the annunciation with the declaration that Jesus would
receive the throne of his ancestor David and that his kingdom would have no
end. He dies with the title “King of the
Jews” tacked above his head. Angelic pronouncements
at his birth declared that Jesus was the Savior, the Son of Man come to seek
and save the lost. His teachings were
that those who lost their lives for his sake would save them. Now, he would lose his life so that they
might be saved. Indeed, Jesus was the
long-awaited Messiah – the anointed One sent by God to proclaim good news to
the poor, to save the wretched and the outcasts. In tragic irony, the mocking taunts confirm
his identity – he was “The King of the Jews” – and the demands that he save the
others confirm the significance of his death. But we know this is not
the end of the story. There is more to
come – much more that will unfold. The
crowds who welcomed Jesus and then turned against him stand as silent witnesses
to the devastating events of the cross.
They go away from the death scene, beating their breasts in an act of
contrition. Peter’s bitter tears of
remorse are an answer to Jesus’ prayer that he turn around and strengthen his
brothers. In the aftermath of the
darkness of the crucifixion – in the light of the resurrection that was to
follow – the lives of all those involved unfold in unexpected ways. The crowd becomes a witness to the story that
would change the course of human history.
Peter becomes a leader in the movement and community that would lead
that change. One criminal dies forever
separated from the One who could save him.
The other is granted a life seated in the presence of God. Jesus is raised from the dead as definitive
assurance that the powers of darkness and death would not have the final word
in God’s plan for salvation for all people. We are left today at the
foot of the cross. While we may be
tempted to rush ahead to the joy of the Sunday of the Resurrection – Easter Day
– it might be wise for us to linger here for a while to reflect on what Luke’s
unique details have to offer. All of us
have experienced moments of profound darkness – when our hopes have been
destroyed, when we have gotten caught up in the emotion of the moment and
turned against someone we loved, when we have allowed ourselves to retreat into
the defensive posture of self-preservation, when we have lashed out in
bitterness and sarcasm, when we felt that there was no one else to whom we
could turn. Luke’s powerful and
finely detailed story calls us to look beyond the darkness – beyond the tragedy
of what has happened – to trust in God’s faithfulness. Then and only then can we pull up from the very
core of our soul a measure of confidence that God will never abandon us. Only then can we turn around – repentant and aware
of the consequences of what we have done – and accept the grace and mercy
extended to us, 2take our place as witnesses to the greater love offered to us
and offer ourselves as strength and guides to those who face similar trials. Luke’s particular story
gives us the chance to see ourselves in the face of the crowd, to feel Peter’s tears
running down our cheeks, to hear ourselves in the plea of the criminal on the
cross. And in that reflection of who we
are as ordinary human beings subject to the same failures in this life, we see
the face of the Savior – Jesus the Christ – looking back at all of us with love
and mercy, assuring us of a place in his kingdom and at his table. We see ourselves transformed as God’s beloved
– welcomed home as recipients of a love ever unfolding and never ending. Amen. (This
sermon was preached by the Rev. Terri Stanford, Associate Rector, in St.
Chrysostom's Church, Chicago, Illinois, on Sunday, April 1, 2007, Palm Sunday.)
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