April 14, 2022 – Maundy Thursday
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois
Matthew 26:17-35, 27:27-38; Mark 15:1-15, 33-39; Luke 22:39-46; John 19:38-42[1]
It is difficult
to experience when something is no longer. We can’t wait for that feeling to be
over. But it is worth it to take the time to stop, feel, think, pray, read, and
dream. Even when it is painful, it can be valuable to acknowledge the pain
before we try to escape from it. It is worth taking the time to grieve a loss,
to feel the ache and not try to end it too quickly. It is important to mourn
the death of a dream, if only so that we may let it go and begin the search for
a new vision. And it is vital that we take the time to pray, to focus our
attention on our relationship with God and perhaps experience Emmanuel,
God-with-us.
That is why we
remember those holy days. The day Jesus at the Last Supper he would have with
the disciples, before he was betrayed, abandoned, arrested, beaten, and crucified,
that was the Passover. It was a day of remembering
the exodus from slavery in Egypt, remembering the deliverance brought by God. That day, when the crucified body of Jesus
lay in the tomb, the day before the resurrected Jesus greeted the women in the
garden, was a Sabbath day, a holy day of rest. And though it must have been
agony to endure that long, empty day with no work to distract from the pain and
loss, perhaps the disciples shared that day what God, too, experienced.
I have been
reading a book by a seminary professor of mine, Ted Jennings, called Transforming Atonement[2].
Atonement is what the death of Jesus on the cross means, and how it effects
salvation and the reestablishment of the relationship between God and sinners.
Some of his thoughts are reflected in this message.
Something
powerful happened after that awful day on Golgotha. Something about the way the
world had been was fundamentally altered. The force of the powerful, exerted in
violence and death, broke like a wave against the rock of mercy and life. The
Messiah of God suffered the worst form of death that could be devised by the
human mind, yet death and violence would not have the last word. Life refused
to be held captive by death. Love refused to be held captive by division. Grace
refused to be held captive by sin. Jesus refused to be held captive by the
tomb, the stone, or even the guard of soldiers.
No longer could
it be said that the way of violence and domination would rule the world. Jesus
refused to engage in violence, and did not lead the battle to overthrow the
occupying power of Rome. Instead, he engaged in a deliberate strategy of
resistance to, and indeed provocation of, those who wielded the force of
empire. Professor Jennings used the phrase nonviolent
militancy to describe the way that Jesus used persuasion rather than force,
justice and mercy rather than violence and ruthlessness, to overcome the world.[3]
In the last century, the nonviolent tactics used by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin
Luther King, Jr. demonstrated that nonviolent militancy may be the way of God
in the world.
No longer could
it be said that God had no regard for human suffering. God became a weak and
vulnerable human being, a mortal who, in Job’s words, “comes up like a flower
and withers, flees like a shadow and does not last.”[4]
When we and those we love are subjected to bodily suffering such as sickness,
injury, and death, we know that God understands because God has lived in our
flesh. Jesus spent much of his time surrounded by those who suffered, never
drawing back but reaching out to touch, to heal, and to set free.
No longer could
it be said that sin turns God against us. Jesus welcomed many who were regarded
as sinners, and did not condemn the woman caught in adultery. “Indeed,” as
John’s Gospel states, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the
world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”[5]
No longer could
it be said that God was distant and separated from humanity. As Jesus cried out
and breathed his last, the curtain of the temple was torn in two. The purpose
of the curtain was to separate the Holy of Holies, the sacred place of God’s
presence, from the profane world of humanity. The role of the priests and the
systems of sacrifice, intended to mediate between humanity and God, and to
maintain the separation between humanity and God, was destroyed in this moment.
No longer is God separated from the world in which we live, but is instead
dispersed among humanity.[6]
Emmanuel has truly come.
And yet,
despite all that has changed in the world over two-thousand years, we live most
of the time as if it is still Saturday and not yet Easter. Despite Jesus,
Gandhi, MLK, and many others, violence and domination are still used to control
the world. Despite all the advances of technology, medicine, and therapy,
suffering is still the daily experience of most of the people in the world.
Despite Paul’s assertion that “There is therefore now no condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus,”[7]
those who call themselves Christian regularly accuse and condemn the sins of
others. And despite the torn temple curtain, and our annual singing of “O Come,
O Come Emmanuel,” we often feel like God is distant and uninterested in the
day-to-day aspects of our lives.
We no longer
live in a world ruled by the domination and violence of the Roman Empire as it
was experienced by Jesus and the disciples. But we do not yet live in the
kingdom of God, either. We live in a world that rules by violence, exclusion,
and judgment. But the mission of Jesus is also not yet over. We are invited to
participate in that mission, to transform the world of violence into a world of
solidarity, of generosity, of justice, peace, and joy.[8]
Let us walk with God, who came, not in power and might, but in the cross of the
Messiah.[9]
[1] The
scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard
Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of
the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2]
Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., Transforming
Atonement: A Political Theology of the Cross (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2009).
[3]
Ibid., 59.
[4] Job
14:2.
[5]
John 3:17.
[6]
Jennings, 143.
[7]
Romans 8:1.
[8]
Jennings, 215.
[9]
Ibid.
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