Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday C April 14, 2019
Is. 50: 4-9a Ps. 31: 9-16
Phil. 2:5-11 Luke 23:1-49
Once again, we've got our donkeys to church for Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday. And we are faced with the contrast between the Palm Procession crowd who cried "Hosanna" to their king and the Passion Gospel crowd that screamed, "Crucify Him." Were they the same crowd? Probably not.
The Hosanna crowd were probably the country bumpkins from Galilee who made their Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem and they wanted to make their hometown boy Jesus, the new king of Jerusalem.
But Jerusalem was controlled by the Roman authorities. The Romans were invested in Jerusalem. They in fact provided most of the jobs in Jerusalem. They were building roads, bridges and aqueducts and they were actually building the temple complex as part of their public works program. The Jewish religious leaders had to negotiate a place for their religious communities with the Roman authorities. They could not have country prophets bringing their mobs and threaten the tenuous relationship with the Roman authorities.
So, one can understand how easy it was for the religious authority to gather a crowd of people in Jerusalem to help to get rid of Jesus who might threaten to bring down the wrath of the Roman soldiers and threaten the public work projects in Jerusalem which provided most of the jobs.
The two crowds can be explained with political and economic reasons.
But I am more interested in how the Passion Gospel functions in the life of the church. We know it functions in our annual liturgical calendar. The church calendar is a annual cycle of teaching curriculum tied to the events in the life of Jesus. The church has divided the life of Jesus up into an annual cycle to teach and inculcate the values of Jesus to us and to the new people who are invited to our faith community.
But the Passion Gospels have often been dreadfully misused in church history. Sometimes after the recitation of the Passion Gospel, enraged Christians used the Passion account to justify the persecution and harming of Jewish minority groups. This is part of the shameful history of the use of the Passion Gospel.
When the Passion Gospels came to their last editions, the churches had increasingly become Gentile communities separated from the synagogues. So in the presentation of the death of Jesus, the Passion texts seem to put as much blame upon the Jewish religious authorities and they seem to try to absolve Pilate and Herod as those who mere pawns of the Jewish religious authorities. The fact is that the Romans were the ones in power for the awful spectacle of the practice of crucifixion. It is most unfortunate that the Passion accounts have been used for anti-Semitic behaviors in the history of the church.
The reason it is so sad, is that the church has lost the mystical meaning of the Passion Gospels which was surely intended in the early church.
What is the mystical meaning of the Passion Gospels?
St. Paul wrote before the Gospel were written. He and others had a practice of the mystical transformation of their lives through an experience of identity with the Risen Christ. The Risen Christ, re-lived a divine life within Paul. Paul said that he was crucified with Christ and that he no longer lived, but Christ lived within him. He said, he determined to know nothing except Christ, and him crucified. He said that cross of Christ was a stumbling-block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greek and Hellenistic Roman community. But the cross was the power of God to those who believed. No Messiah for the Jews would be found on a cross; that was a stumbling block. No king would be crucified; that was foolishness to the Greek-trained mind.
The early church wrote the Gospels as manuals of mysticism for people to identify with Christ; to know that Christ was mystically or spiritual born in each person and who lived and ministered within in each person. Each person was to know an identity with Christ in his life, death and resurrection. And all of this was coded in the Gospel narrative.
The death of the good and perfect Son of God, Jesus was regarded to be a good energy. Each Christian in identity with the death energy of Jesus on the cross was given power, a higher power to die to what is unworthy in one's life because of selfish ego states. In Christ, one could die to oneself, and allow the higher power of the Christ nature to be born within oneself.
The Passion Gospel readings are cryptic presentations of the mystical experience of Paul and others in identity with Christ. Do you see how much the church has lost the mystical aspect of the Passion? We reduced it mere historical events that we try to reproduce in Passion plays. We tried to merely externalize the mystical event and in so doing we have lost contact with the mystical event. We have thrown the baby out with the bath water.
Today we need the mystical power of the death of Christ to help us die to all that is unworthy in this life, to our addictive repetitions and to our selfish behaviors.
It much easier for us to just keep the Passion of Christ on a liturgical calendar as an attempt to act out an historical event. We are happy to remain rubberneckers to this cruel event rather than take the invitation of St. Paul to be united in identity with Christ in his death and resurrection.
The event of baptism is a ritual that signifies this continual reality of dying and rising with Christ as the continuous mystical transformation of our lives.
Today on Passion Sunday, you and I are invited to the power of the death of Christ, as an experience of the mystical transformation of our lives.
Let us not be rubbernecker to the Passion event today; let us embrace a full identity with Christ in his death as a way to end that which is unworthy within us. Amen.
The Hosanna crowd were probably the country bumpkins from Galilee who made their Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem and they wanted to make their hometown boy Jesus, the new king of Jerusalem.
But Jerusalem was controlled by the Roman authorities. The Romans were invested in Jerusalem. They in fact provided most of the jobs in Jerusalem. They were building roads, bridges and aqueducts and they were actually building the temple complex as part of their public works program. The Jewish religious leaders had to negotiate a place for their religious communities with the Roman authorities. They could not have country prophets bringing their mobs and threaten the tenuous relationship with the Roman authorities.
So, one can understand how easy it was for the religious authority to gather a crowd of people in Jerusalem to help to get rid of Jesus who might threaten to bring down the wrath of the Roman soldiers and threaten the public work projects in Jerusalem which provided most of the jobs.
The two crowds can be explained with political and economic reasons.
But I am more interested in how the Passion Gospel functions in the life of the church. We know it functions in our annual liturgical calendar. The church calendar is a annual cycle of teaching curriculum tied to the events in the life of Jesus. The church has divided the life of Jesus up into an annual cycle to teach and inculcate the values of Jesus to us and to the new people who are invited to our faith community.
But the Passion Gospels have often been dreadfully misused in church history. Sometimes after the recitation of the Passion Gospel, enraged Christians used the Passion account to justify the persecution and harming of Jewish minority groups. This is part of the shameful history of the use of the Passion Gospel.
When the Passion Gospels came to their last editions, the churches had increasingly become Gentile communities separated from the synagogues. So in the presentation of the death of Jesus, the Passion texts seem to put as much blame upon the Jewish religious authorities and they seem to try to absolve Pilate and Herod as those who mere pawns of the Jewish religious authorities. The fact is that the Romans were the ones in power for the awful spectacle of the practice of crucifixion. It is most unfortunate that the Passion accounts have been used for anti-Semitic behaviors in the history of the church.
The reason it is so sad, is that the church has lost the mystical meaning of the Passion Gospels which was surely intended in the early church.
What is the mystical meaning of the Passion Gospels?
St. Paul wrote before the Gospel were written. He and others had a practice of the mystical transformation of their lives through an experience of identity with the Risen Christ. The Risen Christ, re-lived a divine life within Paul. Paul said that he was crucified with Christ and that he no longer lived, but Christ lived within him. He said, he determined to know nothing except Christ, and him crucified. He said that cross of Christ was a stumbling-block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greek and Hellenistic Roman community. But the cross was the power of God to those who believed. No Messiah for the Jews would be found on a cross; that was a stumbling block. No king would be crucified; that was foolishness to the Greek-trained mind.
The early church wrote the Gospels as manuals of mysticism for people to identify with Christ; to know that Christ was mystically or spiritual born in each person and who lived and ministered within in each person. Each person was to know an identity with Christ in his life, death and resurrection. And all of this was coded in the Gospel narrative.
The death of the good and perfect Son of God, Jesus was regarded to be a good energy. Each Christian in identity with the death energy of Jesus on the cross was given power, a higher power to die to what is unworthy in one's life because of selfish ego states. In Christ, one could die to oneself, and allow the higher power of the Christ nature to be born within oneself.
The Passion Gospel readings are cryptic presentations of the mystical experience of Paul and others in identity with Christ. Do you see how much the church has lost the mystical aspect of the Passion? We reduced it mere historical events that we try to reproduce in Passion plays. We tried to merely externalize the mystical event and in so doing we have lost contact with the mystical event. We have thrown the baby out with the bath water.
Today we need the mystical power of the death of Christ to help us die to all that is unworthy in this life, to our addictive repetitions and to our selfish behaviors.
It much easier for us to just keep the Passion of Christ on a liturgical calendar as an attempt to act out an historical event. We are happy to remain rubberneckers to this cruel event rather than take the invitation of St. Paul to be united in identity with Christ in his death and resurrection.
The event of baptism is a ritual that signifies this continual reality of dying and rising with Christ as the continuous mystical transformation of our lives.
Today on Passion Sunday, you and I are invited to the power of the death of Christ, as an experience of the mystical transformation of our lives.
Let us not be rubbernecker to the Passion event today; let us embrace a full identity with Christ in his death as a way to end that which is unworthy within us. Amen.
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