The Power of the Death of Christ

Lectionary Link

Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday Cycle A   April 17, 2011

Is.45:21-25     Ps. 22:1-11

Phil. 2:5-11    Matthew 26:36-27:66

  In the Nicene Creed, we confess one holy and apostolic church.  And yet we know that historically in actual on the ground circumstances the church has never been catholic because there has never been universal acceptance of the Gospel.  So catholic, which means, “on the whole” or universal has more to do with aspiration rather than actual attainment.  Historically, "catholic" can simply mean the agreement of the Church Councils.  Surely we aspire for the persuasiveness and winsomeness of the Good New of Christ beyond our Church Councils. 

  So what is actually “catholic” about the church?  (I am glad I asked; so I can attempt an answer; nothing better than a press conference when one can ask and answer the questions desired). What is catholic about the church involves the topics of the church that have universal relevance.  And what would be those universal topics?  May I suggest a few?  Birth? (Christian Baptism as being born again) That’s pretty universal.  Eating? That’s pretty universal. (Holy Eucharist as the presence of Christ known to be as close to us as the food we eat)     Family/Community?  That's pretty universal.(The Church as a welcoming community to everyone)   Water?  That’s quite universal.  (The element of baptism)  Thoughts about the afterlife?  I imagine that’s universal. (God’s preserving power of resurrection)   And Death?  And what is more universal than death?

 On Passion Sunday and on Good Friday, the topic is death, and in particular, the topic is the death of Christ.  Death as a universal is a valid theory but the experience of particular death can be quite unpleasant since we regard the mode of physical presence to be the chief element of life.  And death can inspire fear.  Though Woody Allen once stated: “I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

  We must admit that the topic of the death of Jesus has become highly romanticized in Christian theology.  Talk about making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.  How is it that the death of Jesus has become a most glorious accessory in the church’s theological wardrobe?  How is it that a cruel instrument of torture came to become the preferred jewelry of young and old alike and rendered in gold and silver and wood and jewels?

  The most significant theological architect of the cross of Jesus was St. Paul.  St. Paul as Rabbi Saul, was not present at the actual crucifixion.  He did not walk with Jesus of Nazareth.  In fact, he was interested in making the followers of Jesus imitate Jesus since he participated in the killing of the followers of Jesus.  Rabbi Saul snapped on his way to Damascus on his way to kill some more followers of Jesus.  The Romans thought it valid to kill people who were deemed a threat to the state; but Rabbi Saul had the sixth commandment to deal with: Thou shalt not kill.  And when it occurred to him that his jihad against the followers of Jesus was not exempt from the sixth commandment, he realized that he could not use killing as a way to get rid of people with whom he disagreed.  In a vision he encountered the risen Christ; he realized that he had been acting exactly like the Romans: using death as a way to getting rid of people deemed inconvenient to them.

  What happens in the understanding of the death of people who are good people and who are killed unjustly?  Their lives and the power of their deaths become inspiring; inspiring to the point of extreme poetic license in language.  In the study of the births of religious movements, it is often noted that when people are martyred, the success of the movement flourishes.

  Rabbi Saul became Paul the Apostle and he who did not encounter Jesus of Nazareth became the architect of the theology of the Cross of Jesus Christ.  Paul wrote his theology of cross before the actual Gospel Passion Narratives were written.  That is confusing for us because we often think chronologically.  Jesus did die before St. Paul wrote about it, but when the writers began to write down the Passion narratives; they did so with a theology of the cross that they inherited in part from St. Paul.  One obvious result of writing the Passion narratives from Paul’s perspective and after the split of synagogue and the Jesus Movement, is that the Jews in the narratives get more of the blame for the crucifixion than do the Romans.  Blaming the Jews for the crucifixion has shamefully involved the church in anti-Semitic inquisitions in the long history of Christianity.

  What did the death of Jesus become for St. Paul?  It was an event of communal identity.  Paul wrote: Christ died for us, while we were sinners.  When we are immersed in the waters of baptism, we are dying with Christ.  Paul wrote that our old selves are crucified with Christ, so just as death ends all physical suffering, the death of Christ has an interior power to interdict our selfish natures.  The death Christ died, he died to sin, once and for all.  Paul said that our death is to the Lord, because we in our deaths belong to Christ.  Paul said that he proclaimed the death of Christ as a stumbling block to the Jews (their messiah never would be put to death on the cross) and the cross was proclaimed as foolishness to the Gentiles (is it reasonable to think that death could have a positive power?)  St. Paul wrote that when we eat bread and drink the wine, we are proclaiming the death of Christ.  Paul, who once tried to killed followers of Jesus went on to say, that he had been crucified with Christ…and now Christ lived within him.  And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  He said that both Jews and Gentiles could be reconciled to each other through the cross.  Paul said that Jesus emptied himself completely of divinity in subjecting himself to the cross.  Paul said that we all had guilty records and those guilty records and the deserved punishment was nailed on the cross of Jesus.  Paul wrote that Jesus gave himself, a ransom for all.

  On Passion Sunday and on Good Friday, we perform the Passion Gospels as though they are reported as eye witnessed events; but we really are reading the participatory liturgy of the early church.  We are encountering more the theology of the cross rather than the actual historical event of the cross.

  And so we are a part of this long tradition of the theology of the cross.  In the theology of the cross, the power of the death of Jesus is to be contemplated as a spiritual methodology in the way of personal transformation.  In the theology of the cross we are to accomplish the most incredible alchemy of all; to experience the power of killing the holy Jesus as the power to bring to an end all that is unworthy within us. 

  Now of course, in our liturgies we are performing a chronological order and we perform this act of the play, even while we know the earlier acts and the subsequent ending of the play.  Act One: Jesus was born, lived and ministered.  Act Two: Jesus is put to death.  Act Three: The risen Christ appears:  Act Four: The risen and ascended Christ is with us in the Holy Spirit.

  The meaning of Act Two….the power of the death of Jesus, is only known because of Acts Three and Four.  You are invited to return next week for the performance of act Three. I apologize if I’ve ruined the story for you by giving you the title of Act Three.

  Let the Gospel for us today be: We are crucified with Christ and we receive the power of his death to be the power that can eradicate all that is unworthy in our lives and in the life of this world.  Amen.