 |
Fifth
Sunday of Lent 2008 |
|
Fifth
Sunday of Lent 2008 |
Ring
the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering.
There
is a crack in everything. That’s
how the light gets in.
It is through the profound crack of the cross that God’s glorious light shines. As William Yeats said, Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; surely some revelation is at hand.
Good Friday is a paradox. Many have wondered why it is called “good.” It centers on Christ’s death. How could that possibly be good? Flannery O’Connor said, “Jesus threw everything off balance.” We who like things to balance don’t know why that is called good. But it is good and it has made all the difference.
In tonight’s Gospel Acclamation we chanted Hebrews 12:3:
Look
to Jesus, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne
of God.
The cross of Good Friday is endured for the sake of the joy that was set before Jesus. And it is, as we chanted, more throne than instrument of torture. Jesus is placed at the right hand of God – the mercy seat through which the world is now balanced differently – off balanced from our normal expectations. Because of the cross, life comes out of death; forgiveness outwits jealousy; love dissolves fear; good transforms hate.
In trying to explain the cross to children it is sometimes described as an ancient form of today’s electric chair. On a practical level that is true. But from the standpoint of Christian faith, we don’t see an electric chair. Faith sees –especially in John – a tree of life. The cross in John is better likened to a flowering tree in a garden.
We rightfully sing as we will at the end of tonight’s service:
There
in God’s Garden stands the Tree of Wisdom,
Whose
leaves hold forth the healing of the nations: Its name is Jesus… (ELW #342)
Or as a prayer says:
O God, you are the Tree of Life,
the blood of your Son its fruit, his outstretched arms its mighty branches.
When John’s Gospel speaks of the cross it tells us Jesus carries it on his own. Matthew, Mark and Luke all note Simon of Cyrene is compelled to carry the cross for Jesus, but not John. In carrying his own cross, Jesus is in command of the events of this night. For the sake of the joy that was set before him, Jesus endured the cross.
We don’t relate the word endure much to our lives as Christians. We hardly want to think of our relationship with Christ as asking for endurance. It wouldn’t be very appealing to say, “Come endure with us.” Who would come?
But on this night the word endure rings loudly from our Gospel Acclamation: “For the sake of the joy set before him Jesus endured the cross.” And we are told to look to this one, “look to Jesus, who for the sake of the joy . . .”
To “look to Jesus” is to find direction for our lives. It is to find our way forward, our guide. Jesus didn’t sidestep the difficult, but endured it, not because he had to, but for the sake of the joy that was ahead. Jesus freely chose to endure what he must for a greater purpose – a purpose that brought him joy.
The cross is an image of freedom – not entrapment; not disempowerment; not imprisonment. That is why the electric chair is not such a good metaphor. Who would choose it? In John, the cross of Christ was freely chosen for the sake of joy. Jesus is not forced to bear the cross. He picks it up on his own.
As followers of Christ, the crosses we are called to bear are likewise not ones someone else would force on us against our will. Late Trappist monk Thomas Merton writes in No Man is an Island “the problem of vocation cannot be settled outside the context of friendship and love.” I’ve always loved this that Merton writes,
In
planning the course of our lives, we must remember the importance and dignity of
our own freedom. We act most freely
when we act purely in response to the love of God.
But the purest love of God is not servile, not blind, not limited by
fear. Pure love is fully aware of
the power of its freedom.[108]
It is in this light of friendship and love that Jesus freely chose to endure the cross. And God met him in that choice, seating him where his self-giving love now brings, as Merton says, “good out of all our mistakes, defeating even our sins.
Through the profound crack of the cross, light unimaginable has gotten in. In no cheap way there is now grace for the betrayer and life for the betrayed. The cross breaks the cycle of violence and the life assumed impossible, is now bursting with possibility.
No wonder the beloved hymn names us trembling, trembling, trembling! Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? It is a tree of life. Its name is Jesus.
Amen
+Pastor Peg Schultz-Akerson, to the glory
of God