Power in Weakness

Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday Cycle A   April 5, 2020

Is.45:21-25     Ps. 22:1-11

Phil. 2:5-11    Matthew 26:36-27:66
Lectionary Link

I've entitled my reflections today on Passion Sunday, "Power in Weakness."  I do so to ponder the insights we receive from the writings of St. Paul who quite often offered the poetics of contradiction when he wrote about the cross of Jesus Christ.

"When I am weak, then I am strong.  Christ is God emptied of the Divine even to the point of death, death on a cross.  I determined to know nothing among you but Christ, and him crucified.   Christ has been made all things to us, even death and our sin.  I will not glory in anything except the cross of Christ."  Paul was fixated on the Cross of Christ and he spoke in very contradictory poetic terms about the significance of the cross of Christ.  He believed the cross of Christ, though visibly exhibiting the surrender of God to human death, was in fact an event of great power and glory.  This poetic contradiction is the foundation of the Christian tradition, in which we live and find our family identity as heirs.

Today, in the middle of the widespread pandemic, we find ourselves in the condition of weakness.  These tiny little beastie viruses have the power to bring the strong and powerful to death.   And knowing the power of these unseen tiny virus beasts, we are brought to our knees of human weakness.

Those with political power, with great knowledge and great wealth have been made to partake of the equality of weakness in face of this great plague.

The powerful cannot send their armies quick enough to avert the disaster.  The powerful cannot hire their lawyers to sue or delay this virus.  Those who have power who are used to giving orders have been left publicly in lying denial of this foe who leaves us in weakness.  Those with great wealth cannot secure a bargain with the coronavirus to avert its effects.  Those with the power of knowledge, political position and wealth are not used to being in the position of weakness and many of them are not handling it very well or realistically.  We see many of our leader acting and speaking with great denial because those with little practice in being weak, do not know how to be weak.  We need to look to the survival techniques in life and history of those forced into the power of being weak, yea the slaves and subjugated women of past history, the homeless and the practiced poor who by situation have had to practice the power of survival in the conditions of weakness.

The Passion Accounts came to writing in all four Gospels, so we know how important they were.  But they also came to writing after the theology of the cross of St. Paul.

St. Paul wrote, "I am crucified with Christ, but I live, yet not I, for Christ lives within me."  St. Paul believed that in identity with the cross of Christ one could discover the mystical power to die to the selfish Self.  And dying to this selfish Self was a great power to slay that which is unworthy within us.  This is the mystical path that St. Paul had initiation in and a path which he taught to others.  He taught the mystical ability to be weak, and in this weakness manifest the very power of God's Spirit.

Can we appreciate the total contradictions of Pauline mysticism?

The Passion Gospels put into story form the theology of the cross of St. Paul by presenting the event of the Cross as the power of God's Providence.  In the eyes of the logic of human history, a holy exemplary person who wrongly suffers capital punishment, seems to be an event of defeat for what is good and right and holy.  But the rise of a group of people inspired by resurrection appearances of the Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, make the history of the cross of Jesus into the Providence of the power of God to use the event of weakness to uncanny effect and consequences.

Today, as the entire world is faced with the cross of the coronavirus weakness, how can we with eyes of faith pierce and experience the power of weakness?

Many are not yet willing to submit in acceptance of the weakness forced upon the world.  Defiant religious leaders believing their specialness in God's eye, feel they are exempt from the effects of this plague.  And I say to them, accept the weakness of God on the cross and die to the sense of being more exceptional than others in the non-discriminant effects of this virus.

What power are we discovering in this weakness?  All sick must be care for.  All people unable to work have to have financial compensation.  In short, this great experience is forcing upon us the holy power and notion of sacrifice.  Those who are strong must help the weak.  Those who are healers, must apply health to all.  Those who are wealthy must adjust the economic structures to provide a way for all to maintain and survive.

The power of weakness is forced upon us to embrace in this plague.  It is the power of sacrifice, laying down our lives in manifold ways for each other.  This is the power of the cross of Christ; this is the power of the mysticism of the Cross of Christ discovered by St. Paul and by all who wish to voluntarily take on the power of sacrifice, rather than have it forced upon us.

The Passion of Jesus Christ hits us with poignant relevancy today.  We are given the invitation to the manifold power of sacrifice that is needed to bring us to the eventual resurrection of a human world that will be invited to go forward with the preeminence of the power of sacrifice even in the post-pandemic era.  The post-pandemic era invites us to a resurrection of being different forever in our understanding of the power of sacrifice.

Friends, the Passion of the Christ, invites you and me into a renewal into the power of Sacrifice.  With God's help, we will embrace this power in our weakness today.  Amen.