How He Lived; How He Died

Palm Sunday Sermon in 2 Parts - Sunday, March 28

As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

How He Lived…

Two of my favorite authors and thinkers in the faith are Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. Together they’ve written a book called The Last Week, and it’s an exploration of this Holy Week in which we now find ourselves. One of the images they bring to light is that of Jesus, entering Jerusalem. He’s riding on a colt, but his friends are all walking. They’re wearing robes and sandals and carrying very little.

On the other side of town, Borg and Crossan suggest that another figure is entering the city—that of Pontius Pilate. Unlike Jesus, Pilate rides on a majestic warhorse. He’s accompanied by Roman soldiers carrying weapons and banners—impressive and intimidating signs of empire. Pilate, of course, is essentially an extension of the Roman Empire, sent to Jerusalem to keep an eye on things.

So there you have it. On one side of the city, a Roman bureaucrat arrives in an intimidating display of power. Surrounded by spear carriers and sword wielders, he’s here to maintain order.

On the other side of the city, a simple carpenter’s son arrives on a colt. Had it not been for the miracles and the rumors spreading ahead of him, he would have looked like just another peasant making his way into the city.

Both Pilate and Jesus come with power. Pilate has the power to make right with might, to represent the authority of a great earthly kingdom. Jesus has a different power—power to love and to serve and sacrifice—and he brings the authority of a heavenly kingdom.

Both Pilate and Jesus come in peace. Pilate is here to keep peace—to make sure no one gets out of line, to keep an eye on the activists, to prosecute those who could present a threat to Rome. Jesus is here to announce peace, but this is not the same kind of status quo peace based on the political convenience of some far-distant power. Jesus’ peace is a peace that can be given freely but not legislated—shared but not enforced.

This was how Jesus lived. Jesus was the living alternative to a business-as-usual, might-makes-right way of life. At every turn, Jesus flipped institutionalized religion upside down. He misquoted scripture, healed on the Sabbath, touched people with leprosy, met with outcasts, talked with a Samaritan woman, forgave sins… Jesus was an inconvenient presence in his time and in his faith. And now here he is, riding into Jerusalem—into the regional lions’ den of earthly power and authority.

A question to consider: What was Jesus doing in Jerusalem? Really—what was he doing there? After all, Jerusalem was a hotbed of religious thinking and politics—a dangerous place for a man like Jesus, whose reputation for confronting and disrupting religious and political powers was sure to get him in trouble. So what was Jesus doing there? Well, thanks to hindsight and close to 2,000 years of Christian tradition, we could say that he was there to die—that Jesus was there in Jerusalem to be crucified. But I wonder if this is at least a slight oversimplification.

Ask yourself: What might Jesus have been thinking about that day? As he rode into town on that young colt, and as he watched the people waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna,” was Jesus thinking to himself, “Well, it’s been a nice run. These three years have sure gone fast. Too bad it all has to end this week…” Is that what Jesus was thinking? After all, Jesus surely must have known that death was a possibility here—that he was putting himself in harm’s way. So what was he thinking? Was he saying to himself, “I know what I’m here for—I’m here to get myself killed, so let’s get this over with.”

Or is it possible that Jesus was thinking something much different—that in fact Jesus was thinking, “I have to keep trying. I have to keep loving. Keep healing, keep reaching out, keep telling the truth, keep announcing peace…” Is it possible that Jesus came to Jerusalem to do what he’d been doing all along—to offer a compassionate, inclusive vision of God’s love for God’s people? To present a hopeful sense of purpose in this world?

Maybe Jesus didn’t come to Jerusalem to die. Maybe—just maybe—he came to be fully alive and to teach others what it could mean to live that way. And maybe this was the problem, because throughout history humanity has had a way of violently rejecting those who could do such a thing. And of course, Jesus did die in Jerusalem—he was killed there. But there is a huge difference between saying “Jesus came to be killed so that we could know love” and “Jesus came to love and so we killed him.”

If we say that Jesus came to Jerusalem to be killed so that we could know love, on some level we imply that his presence there was part of some cosmic script over which he had no control. But if we say that Jesus came to love and then was killed, we embrace this Holy Week as a remembrance of the way Jesus lived.

Jerusalem was a death trap for Jesus, but that’s where he went. And in doing so, Jesus said something about the nature of God—namely, that God is in the constant business of entering and confronting the broken places in our world. God will not be kept from showing up where love and truth are most consistently rejected. Jerusalem, Racine, your family, your thoughts, your marriage, your fears and worries, your pain… To the very end, without counting the cost, that’s where Jesus will go, because that’s how he lived.


How He Died…

Jesus died asking the question, “Why?” In Mark’s gospel, we read something of Jesus’ last moments before death…

When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15:33-34)

I don’t know about you, but I usually like to think of Jesus as having things under control. Calm. Cool. Collected. When storms rage on the sea, he quiets them. When the religious leaders try to trap him, he slips away. When the disciples argue amongst themselves, he sets them straight. Over and over again, Jesus is the one keeping it all together. With grace, he moves through towns and cities and countrysides, healing the sick, forgiving sins. Around practically every gospel corner, we see Jesus speaking and moving with graceful purpose,
handling the world’s problems with apparent ease…

But now this. “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”

And so Jesus joins the entire human race in asking the question: Why? Why, God, why? Jesus, in that moment of blinding pain and anguish, having watched his friends filter away, and now hanging from the cross, asks that question that is so central to the human experience—especially the human experience of suffering: WHY?

It’s not a always a rational question, but it’s a human question: Why? Why, God?
Why is it, if you’re so powerful and good, that evil exists in this world?
Why, God? If you can do anything, why was my child born with a mental handicap?
Why did my father have to die so soon?
Why did the tornado hit my house?
Why can’t I get through one day without feeling lousy?
Why cancer, God?
Why earthquakes, God?
Why the holocaust, God?
Why can’t I have a normal life, my God?
My God, why have you forsaken me, God?
Jesus’ “WHY” wasn’t the first human “WHY” and it certainly wasn’t the last. But it was definitely was a human why. Which brings us to the heart of it all—that Jesus was human. Really human. God with us. God, yes—but one of us. A walking, talking, eating, sleeping, laughing, crying, feeling joy, feeling pain human being. Prone to sadness and misery, prone to defeat and heartache—human.

Jesus was NOT God in a human costume, parading around for roughly three decades, pretending to know what it’s like, pretending to struggle with the confines of an earthly body, thinking all the while, “Gosh, it’ll sure be great to get back up to Heaven with Dad so I can lose this goofy human body.”

The story of Jesus isn’t a story of God masquerading as a human being—pretending to feel pain, pretending to catch a cold, pretending to grieve when John the Baptist died, pretending to know what it’s like to feel so undeniably human all the time. The story of Jesus is the story of Emmanuel—God with us, truly with us, one of us, one with us. Living with us and, in the end, dying as one of us.

And when Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” it’s not a show. It’s not a desperate plea for posterity’s sake. It simply is what it is. A real man, hanging on a cross, wondering just where in God’s name God is. Feeling alone, abandoned, forsaken. And, when you think about it, what else is there to say? Love. Pure, unadulterated love, is being betrayed, denied, and murdered here. Flushed down the toilet of humanity’s wasteful greed and ignorance.

And thus the cross comes into focus and we see more of what’s going on. God is with us. With us in our living, and with us in our dying. With us in our suffering. With us in our abandonment.

God with us in that feeling we get that God is nowhere to be found. That is how Jesus died.