Revisiting the Worst When It Has Been Redeemed by the Best

Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday B  March 25, 2018

Isaiah 50:4-9a     Psalm 31: 9-19   
Philippians 2:5-11  Mark 14:1-15:47

Lectionary Link

The reason that we are here today to listen to the Passion Gospel is because we have insider information.  We know the end of the story.  Knowing the end of the story helps us retell the sequence of events.

There are many forgotten stories in the lives of the people of the world, lots of stories in our lives that never get told because they do not have good endings or they do not have subsequent events that can somehow make them palatable because they are stories still seeking future redemption.

The Story of the Cross of Jesus gets it own importance because it is perhaps the event that had the very best outcome of all.

How many people who have died have returned in multiple re-appearances to friends and relatives to give specific assurance that not only were they okay after their deaths but that their afterlife would redeem the awful event of their death?

How many people?  Just one.  The uniqueness of the story of the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ accounts for why it has retained its singularity in popularity.

A sequence of events which are so unique cannot help but ascend to be a template for human life.  The early Christians who were attracted to the uniqueness of the Cross and Resurrection Story, also believed that they had to share this story with as many people as possible, not just because it is the greatest of all stories, but it also had a persuasive and winsome power in the life of people.  In short, it was not just a engaging and entertaining story, it was a "get inside of you" powerful life transforming story.

The chief theologian of the New Testament church was St. Paul.  He started on the side of those who persecuted Jesus.  As Saul of Tarsus, he pursued the followers of the Risen Christ and he was present at the stoning of St. Stephen.  A rabbi who believed the 10 Commandments about not committing murder was promoting the death of the followers of Christ.  Saul was like those who turned Jesus into the Roman authority to be tried and killed on the cross.

Saul of Tarsus had in a mystical experience of the Risen Christ.  And he was converted from being a persecutor into becoming an Apostle and a preacher of the Gospel of Christ.

The Death of Jesus became for St. Paul a mystical power for St. Paul.   He wrote "I have been crucified with Christ...."  The Death of Jesus launched the Risen Christ to become a glorious personality within the human consciousness and available to be experienced by anyone.  St. Paul retold the story of the Cross of Jesus as the mystical power for him to be able to die to his sinful self and make room for the Holy Spirit of resurrection life.

In the Pauline tradition we have the poem about Jesus who so emptied association with divinity from himself he went to death on the cross and cried out, "My God, why have you forsaken me?"

We revisit the cross today, because we already know about the resurrection.  We render the cross in gold and silver and diamonds, ironically decorating ourselves with a cruel instrument of torture.  Why?  Because the story of this One Cross of Jesus has been rewritten by the reality of the resurrection.

Why do we come to the cross today?  Because in the freedom of everything that can happen in our lives, lots of it is loss, pain, suffering, injustice, and failure.  Can God have any identity with the freedom side of human experience which permits loss, pain, suffering, injustice and failure?  The cross of Christ is proof to us that God is identified with all that expresses the worst of human suffering and loss.  The greatest creation of God is freedom, so great that God has to accept the negative results that happen under the condition of true freedom.

Let us remember that the freedom of God also permitted the resurrection of Christ.  The freedom of God also allows for us to identify with the forces that promote love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness and kindness.  The death of Jesus did not remove the freedom of love, hope, joy, peace, faith, kindness and justice.

The death of Jesus gave to all the  power to convert the internal forces of selfishness.  The death of Jesus is the proof of God's full identity with conditions of suffering in this world.

The death of Jesus is always retold with knowledge of the hopeful outcome.  For you and me, this means we can always look for hopeful outcomes in this life and the next.  Amen.