Sorry for my absence this week.  I am presenting at an academic conference for the first time (which is scary, but also really great) this weekend, so I have been more MIA than usual.

Texts:

Isaiah 50:4-9a

Psalm 31:9-16

Philippians 2:5-11

Mark 14:1—15:47 (though I think it's foolish to tell the whole story and let the cat out of the bag at the beginning of Holy Week)

Hosanna!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna!  Sadly, most years, this is the extent of our participation in Holy Week.  No, I’m not talking about whether or not people will come to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, or Easter worship.  And no, I’m not talking about whether people will experience the events of the week.  But I think we have lost something, in that we only participate in these events from a distance; wanting to touch, taste, see, smell, and feel something but wanting to distance ourselves when the going gets messy.  Each year, during Holy Week, we come and watch, as observers, the events of that week.  Each year, we see as passive observers, fashioning ourselves helpless to what is about to happen.  Each year, we travel a little further away from Jerusalem in the beginning of the first century.  Each year, we get a little further from the story being about us, wanting to tell the end of the story before it has even begun.  Strangely, this is exactly what happened during the first century.  As things in Jerusalem start to become messy, we see people going from welcoming Jesus as the one who comes in the name of the Lord, and then, a few short days later, seeing him crucified as a criminal, deserted by those closest to him.  Let us slow down and allow the story to be a part of our story, in which we are no longer passive observers, but participants in the week the world changed.

I can imagine the smells of Jerusalem during this time, the flatbread filled with roasted lamb, the baklava reeking of nuts and honey, fresh dates in the roadside stands.  I can imagine the people, excited, bringing with them most of their possessions, their slaves, their children, and their sacrifices.  This is the great homecoming.  This is the feeling of coming home after a long time of having been away.  This is the feeling of coming home after a rough journey elsewhere.  Like a child coming home from college for Christmas, they’re hungry for those foods that are only eaten during Passover, the ones that their great-grandmas taught their grandmas to make, the ones that their grandmas taught their mothers to make, the ones their mothers would teach them to make, and the ones they would teach their children to make.  Tracing through the generations, the celebration of the Passover goes all the way to the Israelites before they were Israelites.  Each year, the children complain about the walk to Jerusalem because that was part of the routine.  Each year the parents sigh and roll their eyes, taking their children to the temple, watching their eyes become as big as saucers as they behold the place where the very presence of God dwells.  This week is a big deal.

This year, it’s all different though.  There are the same tastes, the same touches, the same smells, the same feels, yet there is an acrid electricity in the air.  And we hear the stories, becoming wrapped up in them, forgetting that the story isn’t just about 1^st Century Palestine; this story is about today as well. 

Holy Week is a week of vulnerability and exposure.  It is here we see the strength of God displayed in weakness, and those hungry for power trying to show their strength.  It’s hard to know how to invite people into this week; it is a week of inviting people into a story that is difficult to explain, a story that - in truth - we want we want to distance ourselves from.

The truth is, is that we want Jesus to save us, but we don’t want him to have to die in order to do it.  The truth is, the farther we travel from 1^st Century Palestine, the further we get from realizing that it is not the story of the people in Jerusalem, or Peter, or Judas, but us.  It’s hard to know what to say to make the story come to life in a way that people understand the story to be not just a story, a drama, a comedy, a tragedy, but a story that tells the truth.  I don’t want this to be a story that tells the truth about of me.  What does it say about us if this story tells the truth about us?

So long as we can think about the story as about those other people who killed Jesus, and we just happened to benefit from them having done so, we miss the point of the story.  So long as we allow ourselves to believe that we would never sell Jesus for a bag of silver and deny him to save our own skin, we fail to recognize what Holy Week really means.  Strangely, it is in the determination that the story is not about you and that it’s not about me that we become a part of the crowd, yelling, “Crucify!” along with those in the 1st Century.  In our not wanting Christ to have to die in order to save us, we seek to claim equality with God.  We seek equality with God each time we think we are able to save ourselves.  Each time we think we can do enough, be good enough, or get better enough, each time we think we deserve salvation but not the events that occurred around our salvation, we claim equality with God as our own.  Determining we know what is best for us and for our salvation, we turn away.

And surely you and I turn away along with Peter and Judas and the other disciples; these, those closest to him, showing you a side of yourself that you would have preferred remain hidden, what happens when all of your strength has been swallowed up, and all of your integrity lost.  This story is an invitation.  It is not an invitation to observe and judge those who judged Christ.  It is an invitation to participate in what it is to be human in order to learn what it is to have a God.  The characters in the story serve as foils for us, showing us how we would really behave if Christ were among us today, and showing us how we really react when the least of us are among us.  This is very uncomfortable, no doubt.  It is uncomfortable to be saved when we would really prefer to save ourselves. 

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, though he was in the image of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but rather took the form of a slave.  Reading these verses, we should realize that it is not possible for us to have the same mind that Christ had.  It is here we realize that equality with God is not something that is possible for us to grasp; in the end, the presence of God can only be received, and the only way it can be received is through the mystery of seeing, smelling, touching, feeling, and tasting.  The experience of this week is more than carrying a few palm branches and saying Hosanna! a few times and coming to see the show of what happens next.  Holy Week is not simply a parade of tradition, of coming back to the stories we no longer listen to because we have heard them so many times.  It is the story of humanity, come to life in the most uncomfortable and awkward ways in order that we might experience the reality of God-with-us.

Come and see; come and touch; come and taste; come and smell; come and feel.  This week, see what happens when humans try to take the place of God, and what happens when God takes the place of humans.   You will see what happens when humans view equality with God as something you are able to grasp, something you are able to achieve, when you think it is by your own strength that you can be saved.

It might be easy for you to think that these events were long ago and far away, but it is not until you see yourself and I see myself as players in the narrative, as participants in the story, that you come to understand the events of this week not only as God for you two thousand years ago, but as God for you today: here and now.

Man 1: (calling like offering peanuts at a baseball game) “Get your bread, buy it before the festival starts: made with the finest ingredients, one sheckel!”

Narrator: There is festiveness and joy in the atmosphere.  It is absolutely contagious.  It is as though, for seven days, Jerusalem comes to life in a way it doesn’t come to life any other time of year. 

Woman 1:  Earlier today, you’ll never guess what happened.  We were walking into the city, along with our family, our slaves, and the offerings we were bringing to the temple.  As we walked along, there was a commotion behind us.  We stepped aside, as a great crowd approached us.  Everyone started laying their coats on the dirty streets, cutting branches from the nearby fields and waving them as this man rode on a donkey into town.

Child 1:  And we shouted, “Hosanna!  Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna!”  It was so exciting.

Child 2:  But the man on the donkey didn’t seem like a person who would be the one coming in the name of the Lord.  I expected someone with a crown, or someone who was strong or big.

Woman 2:  And the people following him (clucks tongue), they were so dirty.  They didn’t seem ready for the Passover at all.  They didn’t seem ready to prepare for the Passover feast.

Narrator:  But into the city they went, the man riding on a young donkey and all those going after him.  The chief priests were watching as all this happened, scowling at this man who hung out with sinners, who touched people who were unclean, who spoke the words of the prophets as though he were one, and they plotted against him.

Priest 1:  Let’s just grab him now and throw him into prison.

Priest 2:  Look at all the people following him.  If we lay ahold of him now, they’ll blame us, and we’ll have a riot on our hands. 

Priest 1:  And then how will the Romans trust us to keep the peace?

Priest 2:  Let’s wait until after the festival.  That way, we can do it quietly, and hopefully nobody will notice.  It will just be one more disturber of the peace that we silenced.

Narrator:  And so they agreed to wait until after the festival.  In the meantime, Jesus goes to the house of Simon.  As he sat, eating, a woman approached him, which was uncommon, as men and women did not share table fellowship during this time, especially if they were not related.

Man 2: How did she get in here?  What is she doing?  Miss?  Miss?  Excuse me, miss, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.

Man 1: How wasteful and distasteful.  All of that lovely ointment, spent on the feet of a teacher.

Narrator:  The woman said nothing.  Jesus, once again, spoke about his burial, though he was in fine health, and though those with him still had no idea what he was talking about.  The chief priests, who had earlier decided to wait to hand Jesus over, were about to receive news that they had hoped for, from an unlikely source.  One of this man’s own followers approached them:

Judas: (thinking to self in a snotty voice)

“Do unto others as you would have them do to you… love your neighbor as yourself… whoever wants to be first must be last and must be servant of all…” that’s no way to run a political regime.  This is no way to end the Roman occupation.

(to the chief priests)

“What will you give me, if I turn that man, the one causing such a ruckus, over to you?”

Priests 1 and 2: (laughing)

Priest 1: I’m sure we will find a way to compensate you for your efforts.

(sound of coins clanking together)

Narrator: Jesus then sent two of his disciples out to make preparations for the Passover feast.  This was an important day, held in remembrance of the escape out of Egypt, the escape from slavery, and deliverance into the promised land.  Each year, people of Israel gather to tell the story of how their ancestors were delivered by their God.  So the two disciples went and made preparations for the Passover.

Disciple 1:  Hey, hey - there’s the guy… the guy with the jar of water we’re supposed to follow.

Disciple 2: (sound of knocking) Hi… this might sound a little strange, but we were sent here by our teacher who said there was a guest room where we could prepare for the feast.  Do you happen to have an extra room?  You do?  Could you please show us there?

Narrator: During dinner, Jesus told the disciples that one of them was going to betray him, and that all were going to desert him. 

Disciple 2: Jesus, stop talking like that.  We have left everything to follow you.  We would never betray you.  How could anyone do such a thing?

Disciple 1: Yeah, Jesus.  That’s crazy talk.  You’ve just had too much to drink.

Narrator: Jesus and the disciples were singing a hymn as they walked to the Mount of Olives.  Having had quite a bit to drink that night, they were not particularly quiet as they walked the smooth limestone streets.

Crowd:  Be quiet!  Some of us are trying to sleep.  Have you no respect? (etc.)

Disciple 2:  We walked to the Mount of Olives.  It must have been the middle of the night when we got there.  All this celebration, and then Jesus tells us that we were all going to desert him.

Peter: Even if everyone else denies you, Jesus, I won’t.  And Jesus told me, “Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.”  No way, Jesus.  Even if it means I will die with you, I won’t deny you.

Disciple 1: How could we deny our teacher, our Lord?

Disciple 2: It would be like denying ourselves.

Narrator: And these, those closest to him, show you a side of yourself that you would have preferred remain hidden, what happens when all of your strength has been swallowed up, and all of your integrity lost.  Here, come to participate in what it is to be human in order to learn what it is to have a God. 

Come and see; come and touch; come and taste; come and smell; come and feel.  This week, see what happens when humans try to take the place of God, and what happens when God takes the place of humans.   You will see what happens when humans view equality with God as something you are able to grasp, something you are able to achieve, when you think it is by your own strength that you can be saved.

It might be easy for you to think that these events were long ago and far away, but it is not until you see yourself and I see myself as players in the narrative, as participants in the story, that you come to understand the events of this week not only as God for you two thousand years ago, but as God for you today: here and now.