Holy Week and Passion Narratives: Theological Reflection

Holy Week

Holy Week begins a somber week in the Christian year. It contains a massive amount of biblical material, most of which remain the same, the gospel lesson being the primary variant. 

The church year for most Christians throughout the world includes the observation of Palm/Passion Sunday. For many Christian traditions, the account by Matthew, Mark, and Luke of the passion of Jesus during the last hours of his life constitute the Gospel lesson. The remembrance of this story year after year is a matter of re-visiting a painful event. 

What does repetition mean in our lives? For those with cable television, for example, you will find The Shawshank Redemption somewhere. This brutal but uplifting story of an innocent man beating the cruelty and evil of a mid-20^th-century prison and escaping to freedom is a story many of us do not repeating. It did not win the best picture of 1995, which went to Forrest Gump. Repeating movies is not a favorite pastime of mine, so once is normally enough. I like to watch Groundhog Day in February. Déjà vu is another movie I like to watch occasionally. Star Wars is a series of movies I like to watch for its overarching myth of good battling evil. Some old movies, such as An Affair to Remember, I will enjoy again. 

I have read and re-read some books. Theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg has kept me coming back to read and re-read. Part of Karl Barth Church Dogmatics keeps returning to me. Something about Friedrich Schleiermacher keeps me coming back. Some philosophers, especially Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Whitehead, and Charles Taylor, I tend to keep close and keep finding new insights. I read Nietzsche more than once, but mostly because he gets things wrong in such an interesting way. Some books I would like to read more often I do, such as Lord of the Rings. If we expand our consideration of repetition to music, I am sure most of us have artists and individual songs to which we keep coming back for a variety of reasons.^[1]

Our culture seems to value the new. Why do we spend so much time with stories we already know? Soren Kierkegaard authored a book on repetition. He said that which one repeats has been, otherwise one could not repeat. The fact that it has been makes the repetition into something new. Frankly, this is a difficult book. For most of us, if we were going to understand it, it would be through reading it repeatedly. Yet, if we receive new insights in each reading and gain in our understanding, have we repeated? Has not the book become something new to us?

Think of why we repeat many things in our lives. Here are the traditional categories.

We may develop habits, such as running or other exercise for a physical discipline. We do not need to think about them, and that is their value.

We may repeat because of an addiction, which is like a habit on evil steroids.

We may develop a ritual, such as what to do on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year. They are ritual, and not habit or addiction, because they are symbolic and expressive. The ritual does not rule us. Rather, we choose ritual because of the symbolic meaning the ritual has to us. Private moments of meditation and corporate worship for spiritual discipline, can become ritual in that sense. 

Status quo bias is an interesting reason for repetition as well. People tend to stick with previous decisions because of the cost of coming to a new decision is mentally exhausting. “I do not love this job, but whatever. I do not want to look for a new one.” We grow accustomed to certain political views we no longer question or to certain stores at which we also shop. 

The research of Cristel Antonia Russell and Sidney Levy discusses the notion of repetition under dissimilar categories than the ones I just mentioned. 

One reason we repeat is not complicated. We simply like it. They call it “reconstructive consumption.” In this case, repetition breeds affection, the contrast to the notion that familiarity breeds contempt. One might say that repetition can make one feel like one has come home. Their scientific term is “mere exposure effect." This scientific expression explains why we watch repeatedly Tim Robbins' character Andy Dufresne burst through that disgusting sewer pipe during his escape from Shawshank. It is the theory that we like something simply because a previous experience exposed us to it. Familiarity may breed contempt, as the old saying goes, but it can also turn a film into a cult classic. 

They identify a second reason for repetition as nostalgia. It can be nice to remember the past merely because it is past. Clay Routledge refers to the historical dimension of nostalgia and the autobiographical dimension of nostalgia. We may have a fondness of the way things were. However, on the personal side exposure to songs we liked in our youth makes us feel loved and worthy. It simply makes us feel good.

A third reason is therapeutic. One can take a journey now because one took a similar journey earlier in one’s life. If one has been a pastor in a certain area for 40 years, for example, the pastor may want to make sure to visit each of the churches at some point near retirement. It can be a therapeutic journey. One can re-read a book or re-see a movie, not just because of repetition, but also because of a need to reconcile oneself with one’s past. It becomes a pilgrimage or sentimental journey. Applied to movies and books, repetition means they cannot surprise us. We know how they end. We know how we will feel when they end. Something new may be exciting in its discovery, but it may also prove to be a waste of time and disappoint us.

Their fourth reason for repetition is existential. Russell and Levy put it this way.

 

The dynamic linkages between one’s past, present, and future experiences through the re-consumption of an object allow existential understanding. Reengaging with the same object, even just once, allows a reworking of experiences as consumers consider their own particular enjoyments and understandings of choices they have made.

 

This is not mere nostalgia or therapy. It is pop culture as palimpsest—an old memory, overlaid with new perspective.  

On the other side of this, however, are the films that are really, good but so difficult to watch that most of us will only want to see them once. The brutal first sequence of Saving Private Ryan with its realistic portrayal of D-Day, or the senseless violence and inhumanity of Schindler's List, for example, are hard to watch once, let alone multiple times. The viewer does not want to go through that emotional pain again -- even if both films are cinematic masterpieces. We tend to see Saving Private Ryan on TV only during Memorial and Veterans days and Schindler's List rarely because programmers seem to realize that they are difficult to revisit. (Some other films that fall into this category are the post-apocalyptic father-son drama The Road, Nicolas Cage drinking himself to death in Leaving Las Vegas or the haunting fight over a home in House of Sand and Fog. Kate Winslet may be the queen of "one and done" films, with movies like Revolutionary Road, Little Children, and The Reader to her credit.) You will not see any of these flicks very often on TV or in your local DVD vending machine, either, even though critics acclaim them as among the best.  

The most difficult of these "once is enough" films, however, is Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Time magazine made it the number 1 ridiculously violent film, although looking at the rest of the list, this judgment seems politically or anti-Christian motivated. The film portrays the brutality of Jesus’ crucifixion with so much blood and pain that critic Roger Ebert, who might have seen more movies than any person has ever seen, called it the most violent film he had ever watched. Slate critic David Edelstein reviewed it as "The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre." It is arguably one of the most difficult films to watch in the history of cinema, and yet, not only did it gross more than $370 million during its theater run, it also sold 4.1 million copies of the DVD on its release date. Some movies may be difficult to watch more than once. Yet, they may also remind us of some important truths that we are afraid to confront. 

Repetition is an interesting phenomenon. Yet, combined with that, why is once enough for other experiences? What might we be trying to avoid?

The passion narrative in all four gospels is a difficult read. Yet, I have done it every year since the mid-1970s. The story reveals truths about God and humanity that I find difficult to face.

The need to have a connected narrative of the last hours of the life of Jesus seems clear. How could the Jewish Messiah die? The four gospels have a closeness in presentation not present elsewhere in their accounts. This shows that the basic “word of the cross” (I Corinthians 1:18) was a story known well in the early church. The point is to make it clear that Jesus did nothing to deserve death. We again see the limits of Jesus, as even his disciples abandon him. No one in power seems willing to defend him.

The struggle of Jesus during the passion narrative was for us.  It was for us that he risked this journey to Jerusalem.  It was for us that he ate that last meal with the disciples.  It was for us that he agonized in prayer.  It was for us that he suffered upon a cross.  Let us learn this story well.  We will see our sin.  We will see our own struggles in a new way.

As we move through the narrative, what has struck me is the silence of God. Most of us have had times in our lives when we would have liked God to speak or to act. God left us to our struggles. If you have had such an experience and you still follow Jesus, you have had your way dealing with the silence of God. The cross is not unique, however, in being a deafening expression of the silence of God.

The cross is a tragic event in the long and tragic history of humanity. I am not sure how we can look at that history and not long for God to do something to end the suffering. Yet, God remains silent. In the passion narrative, we hear about violence, betrayal, sin, and death.  Will Rogers said, “You can’t say civilization don’t advance.  In every war they kill you a new way.”  We have learned the truth of that statement in this century.  General Try Sutrisno of Indonesia justified the killing of dozens of civilian protesters in November 13, 1991 by saying, “In the end, they had to be shot.  These ill-bred people have to be shot . . . and we will shoot them.”  Yes, the violence we see in this story is all too familiar to us.

We see violence in this story, as Jewish and Roman leaders condemn a just man to his death. You would think that we would have progressed beyond such violence. A look at the headlines of newspapers and magazines will tell you that is not the case.

The terrible events behind this week ask each of us: Are we prepared to follow God through all the events of our lives, or just the events that meet with our approval?  This is a story of betrayal, injustice, cruelty, and death.  We shall be tackling tough issues such as the violence within Holy Scripture, the dark side of human nature, and what a loving God does with our unloving ways.

An innocent man is about to be murdered here.  In the New Testament, God is preparing another only son for a cross.  How could a loving God do such a thing?  Dare we speak of such horrifying reality in church?  These are terrible texts. We may read them and want the story to stop. These texts remind us of our helplessness. It would be nice if we could embrace the story of Jesus but skip this part and read of Easter. Yet, we dare not do so. This part of the story tells us far too much about God and about us. A religion is no good if it will only speak on bright, sunny days, but has nothing to say for the late-night sweats, the 3:00 am nightmares.  A faith that is relevant only for the orderly and calm moments of our lives is little faith at all.  Fairy tales do for young children -- they help us to see our worst fears acted out, to name our unnamed terrors.  Oddly, this is redemptive.  More than just accurately describing our terrors, the Bible depicts a God who embraces our misbegotten cruelty.  The terrible events behind this week ask each of us: Are we prepared to follow God through all the events of our lives, or just the events that meet with our approval?  The demon death stalks Jesus every step of his way.  His very acts of life marked him for death.  Nevertheless, the good news is that he did not flinch from the murderous mob.  He did not sidestep the terror.  He came among us.  He marched with us up to death -- the Place of the Skull.  He embraced the terror, all the terrible, horrifying, painful ambiguity of human existence, and said, "Brothers and Sisters, I love you still."

Further, these weak, sinful disciples would become leaders of the church.  What is astounding is that God has purposefully chosen the struggling, sinful, all too weak church of today to proclaim the gospel to the world.  

One important conversation had taken place before this passage. Jesus picked twelve men—twelve ordinary, imperfect, unimpressive men—and bet his life upon them. They were fearful, envious, forgetful, rash, doubtful, arrogant, self-seeking, and slow to understand. They were young and uneducated. They were not wealthy, nor were they from prominent families. They had little to offer. He was not surprised when one betrayed him. He was not surprised when everyone deserted him in his greatest hour of need. He went to his death before even one understood his purpose, and no one stood by his side.

Jesus knew his disciples’ weaknesses all too well. However, he did not see their defects as roadblocks to success. Instead, he chose those men to be the ones to complete the work he came to accomplish. He gave them a great responsibility. He let them carry on the message for which he gave his life. Nevertheless, he did not leave them unprepared, unequipped, or uninspired. He clearly communicated that he viewed them as people of value and purpose, and he poured himself fully into loving them and serving them in such a way that eleven of the twelve would end up giving their own lives to serve others and spread his message. 

In classic Roman and Greek literature, ordinary folk were almost invisible, unfit subjects for drama, ordinary people appearing in Greek tragedies only as baboons. However, the New Testament has a richer depiction of what it means to be a person. The story takes place entirely among everyday men and women of the common people; anything of the sort could be thought in antique terms only as farce or comedy. Yet why is it neither of these? Why does it arouse in us the most serious and most significant sympathy? Because it portrays something which neither the poets nor the historian of antiquity set out to portray: the birth of a spiritual movement in the depths of the common people. All this applies not only to Peter's denial but also to every other occurrence which is related in the New Testament. Every one of them is concerned with the same question, the same conflict with which every human being is basically confronted, and which therefore remains infinite and eternally pending.^[2]

The Lord's Prayer contains this phrase: "Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil."  Why should we pray this prayer?  The story of the last week of Jesus' life gives some insight into the answer.  Our capacity for sin is obvious.  We have no right to sit in judgment of others.  Testing in life can come in many ways.  There are no guarantees what will happen as that testing comes.  Will you preserve yourself through the test? Will you fall?  

Everything depends on what you do to keep yourself from falling.  Jesus warned the disciples of the coming test. They fall asleep.  As readers, we have no right to excuse this behavior due to the meal they ate, the wine they drank, or the lateness of the hour. Because of their failure to pray, they failed the test.  They desert Jesus in this hour of greatest need.  Peter especially failed the test.  He followed the soldiers who were taking Jesus at a distance.  When they bring Jesus inside the high priest's house, Peter waits outside.  In that time, he denies Jesus three times.  He had failed the test.  Yet, there is hope.  He is a forgiven man.  No matter how good we think we are such failure can happen to any of us.  The good news is that even our failure does not have the last word!  Rather, God is the one who has the last word.  The story of Peter and the disciples does not end in defeat, but in victory.  They did not become wonderful.  They received forgiveness.  

G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown says that people are not any good until they realize how bad they are or might be. They need to recognize how little right they have to all their snobbery, sneering, and talking about criminals as if they were apes in a forest thousands of miles away. They need to squeeze out of their souls every drop of the oil of the Pharisee. Brown states fact.  When people tap into the fathomless wells of rage and hatred in the normal human heart, the results are fearful.  "There but for the grace of God go I."  Only restraining and renewing grace enables anyone to keep the sixth commandment.

At the end of Albert Camus' The Plague, at the end of the terrible, devastating plague in Algiers, the city slowly begins to recover. It looks as if the plague is over, and the world is at last getting back to normal. In the last moment of the book, a rat scurries into a gutter. I have always thought it meant that this brush with evil is over. Nevertheless, always, just below the surface of things, evil awaits its time. The plague can begin again at any time.

In his last days, Jesus became an isolated man.  He was in Galilee, with crowds of people around him.  Many wanted to follow him.  He sat down with tax collectors and sinners and ate with them.  People invited him to parties. People liked to have him around.  Yet, he disagreed with some important people.  He disagreed with the Pharisees and Scribes about the role of the Law.  They believed it revealed the will of God.  He simply disregarded it.  The Law was not even important enough to debate, as far as Jesus was concerned.  In addition, some people believed politics was everything.  They wanted to overthrow the Roman government.  They believed the Messiah must help them gain political liberation.  However, what they considered so important, Jesus disregarded.  Jesus had a way of disturbing people.  He did unexpected things.  

One of the most unexpected things Jesus did was to go to Jerusalem.  When he arrived, he went to the Temple.  He performed what many people consider a prophetic act to destroy the temple.  He at least wanted a radical reform of what happened there.  Now, even those who believed in the importance of Temple sacrifice were against him.  

The Sunday that begins Holy Week has two parts.

Palm/Passion Sunday and the Service of the Palms

The Service of the Palms is the first part of the service.

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 (Year ABC) is an individual thanksgiving. This psalm provides the conclusion to the Hallel portion of the psalter that began with Psalm 113.  It is a powerful testimony to the direct help of God and joyful surrender to God who can overcome all afflictions.  Death is a formidable power, which wants to take control; but the Lord will not let it happen.  The day of rescue is a day for joy. The Talmud says worship leaders read it antiphonally in the liturgy.  Proselytes are part of the service.  Jewish tradition relates it to the feast of tabernacles, while many moderns relate it to the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple, since neither Ezra 6:15-16, Nehemiah 8 (although some think verses 13-18 suggest use of the psalm in this post-exilic celebration of the festival of booths, where the people were to gather branches and construct booths on their roofs and courtyards), nor I Maccabees 4:54ff refer to it.  Worship leaders recited these psalms at the great Jewish feasts, including the Passover.  See Ezra 3:4, Zechariah 14:16 and Exodus 23:14 for the observances of festivals. The reference to the nations and the battle imagery of verses 10-16 suggests a victory song. Dahood sees a king giving thanks for deliverance from death and military victory.  He also sees associations with the ancient hymn of Exodus 15, thus being pre-exilic.

The abiding goodness of the Lord is the theme of the psalm. He holds the Lord in highest esteem, as one whose qualities worshippers ought to desire. Jewish piety had the thought of the goodness of the Lord underlying the summons to praise and offer thanks in prayer.^[3] One can understand hesed as covenant loyalty, faithful love, graciousness, and kindness. The Lord honors covenants made with us human beings, even when we breach them. The poet alludes to an entrance ritual whereby the righteous gain admittance to the temple, as in Psalm 15 and 24. The king may be at the gates of victory/saving justice.[4] The king wants the gatekeepers to let him enter after his military victory and his brush with death. Verses 22-29 become the testimony of the congregation. It becomes a confession of faith in the Lord. The deliverance beat the odds, rescuing and honoring the unlikely. Thus, a metaphor of the reversal of expectations. Someone once rejected has become prominent and irreplaceable. If the king, he had been near defeat and death, but the Lord granted him victory and success. It could refer to Israel as the one rejected by the great empires. Later Judaism applied this verse to the Messiah as well. This was the interpretation adopted by the church: Matthew 21:42, Acts 4:11, and I Peter 2:7. [5] In either case, the rejected has now the keystone, linking with the architectural images of the previous verses. From NT times, Christians have seen connections between Psalm 18:22-23 and the initial rejection and suffering of Jesus, followed by his subsequent vindication when God raised him from the dead. Ephesians 2:19-22 calls Jesus Christ ἀκρογωνιαίου (v. 20: the corner, cornerstone, capstone, or keystone). A popular hymn from the 600s and translated from the Latin by John Mason Neale (1818-1866) begins with the notion that God has made Christ the sure foundation, head, and cornerstone, the chosen one, and precious, binding all the church in one. Returning to the psalm, the assembled worshippers recognize the action of the Lord and find it marvelous. The Lord making this day and this moment one of victory, the call is to rejoice in the Lord who made the day possible. The worshippers pronounce a blessing upon the the king, who comes in the name of the Lord. Later Judaism understood the expression in a messianic way. All four gospels cite this verse (Matthew 21:9, Mark 11:8-9, Luke 19:37-38, John 12:13). The poet ended the psalm as he began it, giving thanks to the Lord, who is good whose covenant loyalty endures.

The Gospel Lesson for Palm Sunday is Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28-40, and John 12:12-16. The day of the week this event occurred is significant only as a reminder that it occurred on a workday rather than a holy day. The story is filled with images evoking both Old Testament themes and secular, semi-militaristic rituals of the Roman Empire. The text reveals an abandon appropriate to the full release of tenacious hopes and ancient trust in the God who will redeem the people.  The text is a Christophany, a manifestation of the Christ. The story highlights the identify of Jesus. The first part of the story involves the sending of the colt. Jesus and his disciples have reached the Mount of Olives, where Zechariah 14 recalls that the coronation march for the divine warrior‑king begins at the Mount of Olives.  In Jewish tradition, this is the place where the triumphal entry of the new messianic ruler of the city will start.  Before Jesus enters the city, he sends his disciples ahead of him on a special mission. A story designed to stimulate wonderment at the knowledge of Jesus, he directs the disciples to the colt (Matthew adds donkey and the text suggests Jesus will ride both!) he will use. While the donkey was the bearer of royalty in the Old Testament, by New Testament times those who could afford it replace it with the horse.  In Mark, the disciples' mission to get the colt goes exactly as Jesus had foretold.  The animal is unbroken, tied where he said it would be, and someone confronts the disciples only with questions to which Jesus has given them answers in advance. Matthew has less interest in all this. Matthew will add that this is a fulfillment of prophecy from Isaiah 62:11 and Zechariah 9:9 (the divine warrior‑king mounts up and rides into the city‑‑just as Jesus himself now prepares to do). The point understood by Matthew is that the messianic King's humility extends beyond the simple beast of burden scorned by the Roman overlords of Judea, reaching even to the innocent, immature offspring of such an unassuming beast. True kingship, the King of Kings quietly proclaims, is humility.[6] The second story is about the entry. The large crowd gathering, spreading out their cloaks, and cutting off branches, symbolizes the portrayal of Jesus as the Savior of the common and ordinary people. The actions next taken by the disciples and the people are symbolic of the authority of Jesus. In 1 Kings 1, which is, in fact, much like the scene of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, David instructs Nathan the prophet on how to ensure Solomon’s right to succeed him, even though David’s eldest son Adonijah had already assumed that right. David instructs Nathan to take Solomon to the Gihon spring below the city near the Mount of Olives, place him on David’s own mule, anoint him together with Zadok the priest, blow the trumpet and say, “Long live King Solomon.” Then they were to follow him up to the city and seat him on the throne (1 Kings 1:32-40). Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem looks very much like an official coronation ceremony for a Davidic monarch. In II Kings 9:13, the people perform a similar gesture just before they proclaim Jehu king. The text clearly intends to draw a parallel between the actions of the messianic warrior‑king Zechariah prophesies and the actions of Jesus, the still‑secret, messianic, Prince‑of‑Peace king. Scholars have also noted that these details would have given a visual message familiar to Gentile readers as well.  There are elements here that are equally at home among the traditional victory processions of Greco‑Roman warrior‑kings.  The large citizen escort, accompanying hymns or chants, symbolic acquiescence in the new ruler's authority, and a concluding temple ritual: All were part of pagan‑political events familiar to the Greco‑Roman world. The crowds shout for salvation and deliverance, with Matthew specifying their desire for the Son of David to save them, but Mark has a reference to the rule of their ancestor David. The epithet is applied also to Jerimoth, II Chronicles 11:18, Solomon II Chronicles 1:1, 13:6, 35:3; Proverbs 1:1, the Teacher of Ecclesiastes (1:1), as well as the Joseph (Matthew 1:20) and Nathan (Luke 3:31). Then, in the words of Psalm 118:25-26, Matthew and Mark emphasize that Jesus is a worthy fulfillment of the expectations regarding the descendants of David. Many Christians will find it difficult to recall some traditional hymns for this moment. A hymn by Jeanette Threlfall, (1821-1880) opens with “Hosanna, loud hosanna,” referring to little children singing through the court and temple. The anthem is lovely, as they sing to Jesus, who blessed them. It refers to arriving from Olivet, with the victor palm branch waving as the Lord of earth and heaven rode in a humble state. The third verse of “Hosanna loud hosanna” refers to singing the final phrase as that ancient song we sing, for Christ is our redeemer, Lord of heaven and our king. It concludes with urging us to praise Christ with heart, life, and voice, for in his blissful presence we can eternally rejoice.  Further, an ancient hymn from the 600s by Theodulph of Orleans and translated by John Mason Neale in the 1800s refers to the lips of children singing sweet hosannas to the King of Israel and the royal Son of David, who comes in the name of the Lord, the King and Blessed One. 

The conclusion is almost comical in Mark, as Jesus goes to the temple, looks around, decides it is late, and returns to the Mount of Olivet. 

In Matthew, this activity generates a disturbance in the city as some ask who this is, which the Gospel writer wants all readers to ask, and the answer from among the crowds is that he is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee. For the Gospel writer, Jesus is that … and far more. 

A processional entry of a personage like Jesus into the capital city would also recall the Roman triumph of a victorious general surrounded by his conquering troops. The troops would sing songs in praise of their leader, just as do the disciples. Like the returning hero, Jesus heads for the temple of his God. However, there are also notable differences that the first-century listener would notice. Unlike the returning hero, Jesus wears no crown. Jesus’ crown comes later. Yet, we can see here in this welcome a fulfillment of the heavenly situation of the will of God being done on earth, as it is heaven.^[7]

Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, in their book The Last Week, say that on that this day in Jerusalem would have witnessed two processions, not one — the Pilate Procession and the Jesus Procession. The Pilate procession for the Roman governor and his accompanying military force coming into the city from the west provided that military deterrent during the festival. According to the contemporary historian Josephus, when Pilate first brought Roman troops to Jerusalem from Caesarea some time earlier, he committed an unprecedented violation of Jewish sensibilities by allowing the troops to bring their military standards and busts of the emperor into Jerusalem by night and set them up in the temple. A massive protest demonstration in Caesarea’s stadium forced the removal of the standards, but only after the Jews used tactics of nonviolent mass resistance, lying down and baring their necks when Pilate’s soldiers, swords in hand, surrounded and attempted to disperse them. Josephus also speaks of protests that broke out on another occasion when Pilate appropriated temple funds to build an aqueduct for Jerusalem. On this occasion, Pilate had Roman soldiers, dressed as Jewish civilians armed with hidden clubs, mingle with the shouting crowd, and attack the people at a prearranged signal. The soldiers killed or hurt many. The Jesus procession was on the east side of the city. Jesus sent his disciples to get a colt, which we assume was a small donkey. When the disciples secured the colt, Jesus rides it down the steep road from the Mount of Olives to the Golden Gate of the city, with a crowd of his supporters shouting “Hosanna!” — a Hebrew word that mixes praise to God with a prayer that God will save his people and do it soon. They spread their cloaks on the colt and cut branches from the surrounding fields — actions that they did only in the presence of royalty. Borg and Crossan see the Palm Sunday parade as a kind of pre-planned political protest, and a look at the context seems to back that up. The symbolism of a ruler riding on a donkey would not be lost on those putting their cloaks in the road, for they would have remembered the words of the prophet Zechariah: an image of a king coming into Jerusalem with shouts of joy from the people. He is “triumphant” and “victorious” — words that Romans and other imperial leaders would have embraced — but he is “humble” and rides on a donkey instead of a war horse (Zechariah 9:9). In fact, continues the prophet, “He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem.” This king is not a conquering hero who uses weapons of mass destruction, but one who will break the power of military might with humility, justice, and a “peace” for all the nations (Zechariah 9:10). Jesus’ parade is thus an intentional parable and statement of contrast. If Pilate’s procession embodied power, violence and the glory of the empire that ruled the world, Jesus’ procession embodied the kind of rule that God was ushering in through Jesus’ ministry of healing, his message of good news and his sacrificial death on a Roman cross. Pilate and the empire he represented were the most powerful force in the region on that Sunday. Jesus provided a puzzling contrast. In one sense, and in numerous ways, the church on Palm Sunday is asking people to join the right parade.

Luke offers a unique perspective.

Luke adds to the praise offered on this day that the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works which they had seen. Testifying to the great acts of God is something that Israel traditionally did as part of their covenant renewal ceremonies. Moses, before he begins to give the law in Deuteronomy, spends several chapters describing what great deeds God has done for the nation. Similarly, Joshua, Samuel and Solomon also list God’s deeds of power prior to charging the nation to renew their covenant with Yahweh (Joshua 23-24; I Samuel 12; I Kings 8). The covenant that God established with David’s house, however, was an eternal promise of adoption, whereby the king of the covenant people would be considered the adopted son of God (II Samuel 7:14). Thus, the relationship between the people and the Davidic royal house involved renewal of three covenants, those between God and the people, between God and the king and between the people and the king. Pharisees want Jesus to order the disciples to stop their celebration, and Jesus says that if his disciples were silent, the stones would shout.

Christians have a strange reference point for the great deeds of the Lord. The world is full of dangerous monsters that we would like someone to slay. The Romans were powerful oppressors. At least Israel could point to deliverance from Egypt. Yet, Christians go back to the way God was present Jesus. He does not slay the monster his Jewish brothers and sisters wanted slayed. He was a king, yes, but what a strange king he was. He appears as a king without armies, without legal power, and without earthly power. He lived as a man of love, forgiveness, grace, and peace. Yet, in the last week of his life, he handed himself over to religious and political authorities. He did not seek the power, wealth, and prestige of position in this world. He chose the peculiar path to which his Father called him. The destiny of his life was not a throne, but a cross. This path the church proclaims as the great deeds of the Lord. How strange indeed. Do we dare trust the one who followed this path?

His journey to the cross shows just how far God will go to show us the love God has for us. One of the metaphors the New Testament uses to explain this derives from the business world. Think of our lives as on loan from God. Think of our sin as the way that we refuse to re-pay the loan. We are in default. Yet, the Son takes our sins on himself, and satisfies the debt through his love for God and love for others that each of us owes and can never pay. Jesus pays it all, to make peace between God and us.

Luke concludes with: ³⁹ Some of the Pharisees from the multitude said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” ⁴⁰ He answered them, “I tell you that if these were silent, the stones would cry out.” Jesus’ concluding statement to the Pharisees echoes Habakkuk 2:11. Luke ends his account with a clear indication that Jesus intended the crowd to understand this royal symbolism. The Pharisees obviously know what the symbolism implies because they urge Jesus to silence the crowd. Should the Romans come to understand the symbolism of the occasion, the whole crowd could be in danger, in addition to Jesus himself. Here at the last, Jesus wanted to show himself to Israel as their true king - more like David than like Herod, but a king, in truth, beyond any they had known before. However, in the days to come he would once again refuse any claim to earthly kingship, and follow instead, the peculiar path of his own destiny that led, not to the throne, but to the cross.

The text raises the question whether this is a portrait of an earthly king, one from whom Jesus has come to release creation. In fact, the way Luke selects the elements in his portrayal of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem suggests that Luke understands Jesus to be standing in a distinctly different line from these earthly kings. The cumulative effect of these changes is to deny that we are to consider Jesus’ kingdom in any way was a secular, militaristic kingdom. Jesus comes as a pilgrim whom the crowd hails as a king. He is preparing for his destiny.  Though entering as king, it is clear he is not a political ruler. Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem depicted here in Luke 19:28-40, is richly evocative of Old Testament passages related to kingship in ancient Israel. There are at least five separate images from the Old Testament echoed here which call to mind the coronation of Israelite kings and the divine covenant between God and the royal representative of the Israelite people.

“Lionheart.” King Richard I of England earned that name because of his courage in battle. He was a fearsome warrior and led a crusading army to the Holy Land to try to recapture Jerusalem. He very nearly succeeded. But there were divisions in the ranks, and the Third Crusade fell apart. The French and the Germans didn’t get along with the English. King Richard left for home, and it was then his adventure really began. Passing through Germany in disguise, his identity was uncovered. The German Emperor Henry VI threw him into prison. Henry declared he would not let Richard go until the people of England had raised the staggering sum of 150,000 marks. At today’s price of silver, that would be around $17 million. It was a king’s ransom. When the king is in prison, the people pay the price. All over England, money was collected to buy King Richard out of prison. Taxes were increased by 25%. Gold and silver treasures from cathedrals and abbeys were melted down. Finally, there was enough. King Richard went free, and his return home has been celebrated as the final scene of every Robin Hood movie ever made. For Richard the Lionheart, the people pay the king’s ransom. For Jesus, they do not. Quite the opposite. When he needs someone to step up and help him, no one does. Not even Peter, his closest friend.

This is not the conquering king, riding into the city in triumph. This is a Suffering Servant king, after the pattern of the “servant songs” of Isaiah: one who “sets his face like flint,” then lays down his life for his subjects. Every other king dispatches soldiers into battle — to fight for his honor, and the honor of the nation. This king enters the battlefield — the city of Jerusalem — alone and unarmed, riding an animal of peace. Every other king plays the high-stakes game of thrones. This one is disarmingly simple and direct. He says what he means, and he means what he says. Every other king seeks to argue from a position of strength. This one seems to deliberately seek out a posture of weakness. Every other king upholds and personally embodies the law. France’s mightiest king — Louis XIV, the Sun King — had a catchphrase: “L’état c’est moi.” “I am the State.” This king submits to the law, allowing himself to be crushed by it. A peculiar sort of king indeed, this Jesus of Nazareth. No wonder Pilate’s baffled when Jesus finally stands before him, uttering barely a word in his own defense!

 

 

Palm/Passion Sunday and the Service of the Word

The second part of this day of worship is a service of the word. 

Psalm 31:9-16 (All Years) is a personal lament, bearing some resemblance to the confessions of Jeremiah and to Jonah 2. The poem is an anthology psalm, drawing on verses from other psalms and Jeremiah. It calls on the Lord for help and affirms the trust of the poet in the Lord. A person has suffered from a prolonged illness, persecuted by enemies, and been shunned by friends. The poet seeks God in the face of the threat of a violent death. It expresses quiet trust in the unfailing care of God, even if the poet takes a difficult journey toward it. The poet wonders if his life has meaning or value. This portion of the psalm begins with the poet unburdening himself, laying out his hurt before the Lord to alleviate his suffering. The crisis he faces is causing pain in psyche and body. His life has been little more than sorrow and sighing. As in Psalm 6:3, he is physically wasting away, either by illness or as a metaphor for the distress of the poet. His shame increases as enemies, neighbors, and friends react to his distress by distancing themselves from him. Scorn is a concern of Psalm 22:6, where the poet is a reproach to others and despised by others, as well as Job 19:19, where his friends abhor him, and Jeremiah 23:40, where the Lord will bring shame and reproach to Jerusalem. It can seem precarious to trust in the Lord, especially when the culture shames us. Shame suggests that who you are does not measure up to the standards of those who shame you. You have not just done something the other dislikes, but who you are is not sufficient to be included in their group. Such moments disclose our priorities. Have we made an idol out of the group so that acceptance by the group becomes our all-consuming concern? He faints and is not useful for anything. As in Jeremiah 20:10, he feels the terror all around, which could be the result of paranoia, but it is also quite possible such plots are real, given the harsh era in which he lived. The poet shifts to reflecting on the way of the Lord in a form that contrasts sharply with the distress we have just considered, as he proclaims his trust (batah) in the Lord. This affirmation contrasts with his enemies, who pay regard to worthless idols (verse 6). Such trust makes people feel safe and secure, as they place themselves confidently into God’s caring hands, relying assuredly on him in threatening times. Hope in the prayers of the psalms is always in the Lord, and thus rests on faith in the Lord. He wants deliverance from enemies and persecutors.^[8] Regardless of the shame and exclusion he has experienced, the Lord is his God, and that is enough. His destiny, future, fate, and every moment of his life are in the refuge God ahs provided. What happens in his life depends on the Lord. He entrusts his precarious life in the trustworthy, providential care of the Lord. He asks deliverance from his enemies/persecutors. Reminiscent of Numbers 6:24-26 and Psalm 4:6, he wants the face of the Lord to shine upon him, since he is a servant of the Lord, and save him by the loyal, covenant-love, unfailing love, faithfulness, faithful care (hesed) of the Lord. 

Isaiah 50:4-9a (All Years) describes the servant of the Lord as one who accomplishes his mission by speech, suggesting his prophetic role. This passage presents the cost of the commitment by this Servant. It will also stress the suffering of the Servant, as well as the obedience of the Servant despite the suffering. The prophet endures suffering for the sake of the specific mission the Lord has given him. All suffering is not of such a nature. Some suffering one needs do all one can to avoid, resist, or escape. Thus, a situation of domestic violence is one from which one needs to escape, for failure to do so only emboldens the abuser. Even on a national scale, displaying oneself as a weak nation will only embolden the aggressive nation. However, the people of the Lord need to reflect upon the reality that anyone can expect opposition and criticism if one remains dedicated to a mission to which the Lord has called. In this case, the people of the Lord in every generation and culture have a prophetic role which will lead to opposition and suffering. Receiving a divine summons, divine power will be present to fulfill the divinely given mission. This prophet will teach with words, but he will also teach with his life. If that is true of the people of the Lord, the life of Jesus bears witness to its truth as well. One who enters the school of Christ will not have done so in vain. The servant is a teacher, always listening to what the Lord God (‘adonai Yahweh) teaches him. The purpose of this word is to sustain the weary, a favorite theme in Isaiah. Those whom the Lord calls from the ends of the earth will not grow weary (5:27). The Lord invited the people of God who are weary to rest, but they would not do so (28:12). Hezekiah admits his eyes grow weary in looking upward (38:14). The Lord does no grow weary (40:28). Youths will grow weary but those who wait upon the Lord will not (40:30-31). Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30 lifted the burdens of the weary. One who seeks to teach others must be willing to receive instruction, a quality of every good teacher in every culture and historical period. In this case, if one desires to teach others of God one must first learn from God. Yet, this teacher experiences opposition. The Servant gives his back: where his enemies can freely strike without hope of protecting himself. The Servant offers his cheeks: allowing his enemies to pluck out his beard, a badge of maturity and virility. The Servant does not even turn his face to avoid the ultimate sign of distaste and disrespect -- a spit in the face. In all of this, see the allusions by the writers of the gospel to this passage with reference to the time of the torment of Jesus, as in Matthew 16:21; 26:67; 27:26, 30; Mark 10:34; 14:65; 15:15, 19; Luke 18:32-33; 22:63-65. Yet, the servant remains firm because he is confident the Lord God will help him. He has refused the disgrace and shame people have heaped upon him and remained firm when he could have surrendered to anxiety, fear, or anger. He displays quiet strength, the source of which is the confidence that the Lord has instructed him what to say. In a comparable way, Ezekiel, also a prophet in the exile, endured opposition, and persecution, received the assurance that the Lord made his face hard against the faces of his opponents and his forehead hard against their foreheads. In fact, the Lord has made Ezekiel like the hardest stone, harder than flint, so he ought not to fear them or have dismay at their looks, since they are the ones who have rebelled against the Lord (Ezekiel 3:8-9). People do not have the power.to shame him because he has received his strength from the Lord to be a witness, and in doing so, the Lord will uphold his honor. Ancient Israel was what the sociologists call an "honor-shame society." In modern societies, honor and shame refer to psychological states. It refers to the internal moral character of a person or to the actions that reflect that character. In ancient societies, however, some of which continue to exist in remotes part of the world today, honor and shame are social values determinative of the identity and social status of a person. Honor is a claim a person has to self-worth and social acknowledgement of that claim. Honor is the public reputation that constitutes personal identity. Shame is the concern a person has for reputation. Shame is a positive value by which one seeks to maintain or protect honor. Failure to maintain honor, or if peers do not acknowledge the claim to personal self-worth, one has shame, dishonor, or disgrace. A person with no concern for honor or reputation is shameless. Thus, in ancient Israel, honor and shame have both individual and collective dimensions. The individual makes a claim to honor that social peers affirm or deny in accord with present or past behavior. Yet, the individual shares any individual honor with the collective honor of family, class, state, or other group to which one belongs. The honor and shame group behavior exhibits reverberate upon the individuals who are part of the group.^[9] If this servant is shamed, his entire clan will be shamed with him. If he does not remain firm, he will bring dishonor upon himself and upon the Lord. This section concludes with important judicial language. The Lord vindicates or acquits the prophet, showing that the servant-prophet is righteous and has endured suffered as an innocent. The image is that of a next of kin who stands at his side during legal proceedings. The Servant challenges his opponents (or is willing to accept their challenge) to a court battle. The Servant will not allow anyone to thwart him from his God-given task due to the disgrace that such horrific opposition would usually engender in a tight-knit community; nor will he have to face the shame of defeat due to failure to complete his God-given task. With God, he can withstand those withering attacks. If the Lord acquits him, then no one else can bring a charge of guilt. The rhetoric recurs in Romans 8:33-34, where Paul asserts that God justifies, and therefore no one can condemn. Nothing can overturn the decision of God to set free by legal acquittal. With the Lord God standing in this court of judgment as the Servant's next of kin, how can there be any doubt about which way the judgment of a righteous court will go? The servant-prophet can count on the Lord God to testify for them in the only court that matters.

Christian minds have long seen this Servant Song as evoking the passion of Jesus. The Lord's decision, at the crucial turning point in Luke's gospel, to "set his face to go to Jerusalem" -- knowing what sort of opposition he is likely to encounter there -- may have been the moment when he first assumed a face like flint. Later, when Jesus stands before Pilate, giving only the tersest of answers to his questions, he is by his very silence declaring himself to be the equal -- no, more than the equal -- of the scheming procurator. Pilate's subsequent failure to break the Galilean's resolve backfires, bringing shame not upon his bedraggled prisoner, but upon him. As with Isaiah's Suffering Servant, Jesus' deliverance, too, is near. As humiliating and shaming as his experience in Pilate's courtyard and on the cross may be, that will soon be forgotten on Easter morning. His triumph over his persecutors will be complete.

Regardless of his situation, the writer has assurance of the divine presence. Horatio G. Spafford (1873) wrote a favorite hymn of mine that sings of situations of peace and sorrow. Yet, whatever my lot, the Lord has taught him to say that it is well with his soul. Even if Satan attacks and trials come, his assurance is that Christ has regarded his helpless condition and shed his blood for his soul. Therefore, it is well with my soul. 

Philippians 2:5-11 (All Years) has Paul setting before his readers the example of Christ Jesus for the church in Philippi as to how they ought to treat each other. In inviting them to consider a life worthy of the gospel (1:27), Paul is going to suggest that regardless of any human examples one may find, what Christ did is for Christians is the supreme example of how we are to treat each other. What Paul will say here is of great interest in Christian reflection upon Christology. Yet, we need to remember that the purpose of this section is to support his previous exhortation to the community. Considering what Christ Jesus has done, Paul says, they as readers are to act out their partnership in relation to each other. He knows their relation to Christ will be the strongest appeal he can make when he offers his exhortation to proper Christian behavior and discipleship. Paul writes this letter from prison, using himself as an example of patient dependence upon God. He now shows that Christ subjected himself to the limits of a human life to become Savior. Christ becomes an example of how Christians are to submit to each other. Christ willingly submits to the will of God.

In the process of providing the supreme example of humility, however, Paul will write some of the most important statements regarding who Christ is. The hymn becomes a common confession of the faith of those gathered for worship. It shows that early in the life of the church was a felt need to express through a fixed text that which unites them before God.^[10] The image of Christ portrayed in the hymn of verses 6-11 is one of willing submission to the will of God. This text offers what may very well be one of the oldest Christological reflections in the entire New Testament. If this is indeed the case, the theology behind this hymn represents not only Paul’s own thoughts, but also the Christological convictions of the first generation of believers. The hymn is the basis for the theological tradition making a distinction between two phases of the history of Jesus in terms of a state of humiliation and a state of exaltation, based on the preexistence of Christ.^[11] Paul either appeals to an early hymn from Antioch, of which we have examples in Colossians 1:15-20, II Timothy 2:11-13, and Ephesians 5:14, or he constructs his own hymn along the lines of the exalted prose of I Corinthians 13.^[12]  Christian teaching regarding Jesus, Christology, often thinks of two phases of the history of Jesus, referring to the exaltation and glorification of life with the Father, and the humility of his life with humanity. Paul will use a word that has become important to Christian teaching. In Greek, the word is “kenosis.” It will carry a double meaning that is difficult to communicate with any one word in English.

As Paul begins, he urges his readers to allow humility and obedience to shape their lives. He wants them to keep maturing in the faith by setting before them the example of Jesus. He is appealing to what they already know about themselves in Christ. He is urging them to put aside all competition and internal strife. Paul appeals to Christ as the pattern for the behavior of the community. If they listen to Paul, they will have a common, shared approach to each other. Christ will be the heart of that commonality. The basis for his encouragement is their relationship as believers to Christ rather than Torah.^[13] Therefore, those who differ can still have unity of spirit that makes them want to put others in the group first and look beyond their personal interests.

Paul describes the first part of the life of Christ, the path of his humiliation. The nature of that humiliation provides a place of debate. The incarnating mission of Christ becomes a pattern for the incarnating mission of local congregations. Paul helps the Philippians remember that Jesus Christ began his life in a unique way. He was in the form (μορφῇ) of God, which, although its background is humanity created in the image and likeness of God, here it refers to the equality of the Son in relation to the Father. The temptation may have been present in the Son to be independent of the Father, but as Adam, created in the image and likeness of God, chose that course, the Son did not. Adam chose independence from God in hope of being like God, having the right to judge matters of right and wrong. By contrast, the Son relinquished divinity for the sake of humanity. The Son refused special privileges, but rather, seized an opportunity for special and sacrificial service. Human destiny is fellowship with God, but taking this destiny into our own hands means with withdraw from that destiny. Our destiny becomes a temptation for us. When we grasp at our destiny as if it were our prey, which we can do through both religious cultivation of our life with the divine or by emancipation from all religious ties, we will miss our destiny. We can achieve our destiny only through acknowledging our distinction from God, accepting our finitude, and accepting ourselves as creatures of God.^[14] The Son resisted the temptation to remain within the divine fellowship he already had with Father and Spirit. Rather than remain in that fellowship, the Son emptied (ἐκένωσεν) himself.

Paul stresses that the Son stripped himself of his divine privileges and status and took on the responsibilities, limitations, and status of a human being, indeed of a servant among human beings, the lowest of the low. ^[15] In other words, we should read this passage in a social way, considering the given social order in Philippi. Just as Paul is not asking the Philippians to give up their Roman citizenship and the identity which comes with that to truly be a citizen of the heavenly commonwealth, so he is not suggesting that the Son gave up his heavenly identity to be a human being. What he gave up was his privileges and status to self-sacrificially serve others and even die for them. The Philippians are also to take on the mindset of Christ and so not view their social status and privileges as they have in the past, which should lead to different and more self-sacrificial behavior. Rather than remain in the fellowship with the Father and the Spirit, the Son emptied (ἐκένωσεν) using a term that has received attention in the attempt to clarify what is took place in this transaction. Further, he took the form (μορφὴν) of a slave, was born in human likeness (ὁμοιώματι), and was found in human form (σχήματι) or appearance. The transaction undoubtedly means he emptied himself throughout the course of his life in service to others, Paul thus underlining the exhortation to not look to one’s own interests but to the interests of others (v. 4). A dramatic picture of this is the foot-washing episode in John 13:5-17 (Origen, Cyprian). The historical path of the life of Jesus was that of self-emptying. He showed the love of God for humanity by becoming one with humanity. Paul places in explicit contrast the form of God and the form of a servant. He places in stark contrast the form and equality with God to the form of a slave and the likeness of humanity. Thus, he is also referring to the transaction of self-emptying as the path of the pre-existent Son entering earthly existence, showing how the fully divine Son became the historical Jesus of Nazareth. Such a kenotic Christology communicates the self-emptying that the Son voluntarily offered on the cross. It begins with the Son, in living and eternal relationship with the Father and Spirit, who set aside his divinity to become human. Kenosis at this level reveals the distinction of the Son from the Father and subordination of the Son to the Father. The divine Son completely identifies with sinful humanity. Equality with God was the not his goal, so he took on a form not originally his own and adopted that form to the extreme as the Son identified with humanity. This act of divine self-emptying was the path for the divine to enter the world of humanity without becoming unlike the divine. In fact, to say it philosophically, the self-emptying of the Son becomes the path for the self-actualizing of the deity of the Trinitarian God in relation to the world and comes into being through this self-actualizing.^[16] In such self-offering and self-humiliation, the Son remains divine, showing that God does not become a stranger to God by this process of self-emptying in Jesus of Nazareth. To say it personally and devotionally, the Trinitarian God shows humanity what God is like by showing up in the one who lived his life as a servant, Jesus of Nazareth. The Son sets aside the equality of divine life with Father and Spirit, but through his obedience during his earthly life remains the Son. The fullness and completeness of his obedience reveals Jesus as the pre-existent Son. Yet, we also see the course of the earthly life of the Son as one of self-emptying as he lives in obedience to God. The human life of Jesus contrasts with Adam, who disobeyed God and hid from God. He forfeited his fellowship with God, while Jesus during his life remained in fellowship with the Father and the Spirit. Adam wanted to be like God by turning from God and choosing a path for himself. Jesus emptied himself in his obedience and thus remained in the likeness of God as the Son. The course of the life of Jesus is one of self-emptying and humbling that led to the cross. Thus, the hymn embraces both the path of the pre-existent Son and the path of the earthly life of Jesus. The result is that such self-emptying, such kenosis, is a genuine expression of divinity. If you want to see what God is like, look here, at the kenotic life of the Son. Kenosis becomes the free expression of the will to love. It reveals the core of divine reality, that God is love. The form of a servant concealed divine glory. Kenosis fulfills Isaiah 52-53 as the servant willingly undergoes suffering and humiliation for the sake of others. The divine essence offers itself freely for the reconciliation and redemption of the world. His death “for us” is in solidarity with the Father and in solidarity with humanity. We can see divine majesty in the cross. Jesus was Lord most meaningfully in the depth of his life as a servant of the Lord and in serving others. Thus, self-emptying here is not a decision to stop being divine, but a decision know what it really meant to be divine. Rather than exploiting or taking advantage of his divinity, the Son became human in and as Jesus of Nazareth, regarded his equality with God as committing him to the course he took: of becoming human, of becoming Israel’s anointed representative, of dying under the weight of the world’s evil. This is what it meant to be equal with God. As you look at the incarnate son of God dying on the cross the most powerful thought you should think is: this is the true meaning of who God is. He is the God of self-giving love.[17] The allusion to Isaiah 53:12 seems clear, where the suffering servant pours out his life to the point of death. Yet, he also humbled himself by setting aside his divine equality to adopt the human form of existence. Such self-emptying becomes an expression of divinity. His equality with the Father was not the only possibility for the Son. In actualizing this other possibility, the Son shows the true essence of divinity. Such self-emptying is the free expression of the will to love. It shows that God is love. The Son accepted a form in which the world would not recognize, and in which concealed divine glory. The suffering servant of Isaiah 52-3 undergoes suffering and humiliation for the sake of others. Yet, he also charted the course for the new human being in humbling (ἐταπείνωσεν) himself and becoming obedient (ὑπήκοος) to the point of death. As the Son lived in obedience to the Father, he set himself apart from humanity and in the process showed what human beings can become. He states in poetic form here what he argued in Romans 512ff, that the course of the life of Jesus of Nazareth was one of obedience, which set him in sharp contrast with Adam. His obedience as a human being reverses the effect of the disobedience of Adam. The humble and obedient Son sheds light upon the original situation of Adam and therefore our human nature and our destiny in relation to God.

Paul adds to the hymn a typical theme of his that the obedience of the Son extended to death on a cross. He did not just die a normal death. He died one of the most terrible deaths imaginable — death on a cross. The course of the pre-existent Son and the course of Jesus of Nazareth unite in the self-humbling involved in the cross.^[18] A careful reading of the hymn makes it clear that Christ emptied self, served, and died — without promise of reward. The extraordinary fact of Christ’s act was that at the cross the future was closed. The door was locked; his obedient service came at the bitter end.^[19] The grave of Christ was a cave, not a tunnel. Christ acted in our behalf without view of gain. That is precisely what God has exalted and vindicated: self-denying service for others to the point of death with no claim of return, no eye upon a reward.^[20] Paul sees in the cross an action of God in Christ.^[21] The life of Christ, in the special sense that his death was “for us,” is a journey to this death. Yes, he lived in solidarity with others. More importantly, he lived in solidarity with God.^[22] We see divine majesty in the cross. Jesus was never greater as Lord than in this depth of servanthood that led to the cross.^[23] Paul has offered to his readers an astoundingly humble and obedient act of Incarnation and crucifixion as supreme examples of the kind of behavior he is advocating.^[24]

The Christological tradition closely followed this hymn. It understood the Incarnation of the Son as his course toward the humiliation on the cross. The Incarnation of the Logos is completed on the cross. Jesus is born to face his passion. He has fulfilled his mission once his Father abandoned him on the cross. One cannot speak of a theology of the Incarnation without it leading to a theology of the cross. God became the kind of human being we do not want to be as the outcast, accursed, and crucified. Yes, behold this man. It becomes a confession of faith that recognizes the humanity of God in the dehumanized Jesus on the cross. Behold, here is your God, hanging upon the cross. The Incarnation is the humiliation of God, where God is fully at one within God and fully at one with the dehumanized other. This death corresponds to the divine nature in contradiction of the abandonment that occurred on the cross. Yes, Jesus is the image of the invisible God, but this means that God is like this, the one who is with the dehumanized other. God is glorious in this self-surrender. God is powerful in this form of helplessness. God is fully God in this dehumanized form of humanity. Everything Christianity has to say about God is found in this, the Christ event. The Christ event is an event in God as well. God has acted and has gone on to suffer. In this event, God is love with all the being of God. The being of the divine encompasses the human being. The event of the cross in the being of God is both trinitarian and personal. Christian theology begins with the person of Christ and understands the relationship of the death of the Son to the Father and the Spirit. The entire doctrine of the kenosis, the self-emptying of God, attempted to understand the divine being in process. The divine being enters into the suffering of the Son and in so doing is and remains completely divine. As such, theology must be able to question the traditional theory of the immutability of God and the impassibility of the divine nature. The cross forces us to reflect upon death occurring in God.^[25]

Paul then describes the path of the exaltation of the Son in his resurrection and ascension. Christian communal life is one that anticipates the future, eschatological exaltation of Jesus Christ with all human beings and of all creation. By implication, then, we need to ask ourselves if we are properly exalting Christ today in anticipation of this promised future. The Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it this way: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” His exaltation confirms that he lived in obedience to the mission God gave him. It confirms that he was the obedient Son of the Father.[26] This ancient hymn views the resurrection and ascension as a single event of exaltation.[27] Only his resurrection from the dead gave the Crucified the dignity of Lord.[28] The result of this exaltation is that all creation will properly honor the one crucified and thereby shamed. He fulfills the meaning of name, Yahweh saves. The risen Lord has the authority to rule. The risen Lord is now preparing the way for that rule.[29] Confessing Jesus Christ as Lord honors the glory of the Father and enhances the confession of the one God. [30] Thus, as the hymn (1870) put it:

 

At the Name of Jesus, every knee shall bow,
Every tongue confess Him King of glory now;
’Tis the Father’s pleasure we should call Him Lord,
Who from the beginning was the mighty Word.

 

As another hymn (1916) phrased it:

 

Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim,
Till all the world adore His sacred Name.

 

A praise song poetically recounts the course of the ancient hymn.

Lord, I lift Your name on high 
Lord, I love to sing Your praises 
I'm so glad You're in my life 
I'm so glad You came to save us 

You came from heaven to earth 
To show the way 
From the earth to the cross 
My debt to pay 
From the cross to the grave 
From the grave to the sky 
Lord, I lift Your name on high

 

The Son emptied himself (kenosis) of divinity to become one of us, to show us the path of obedience to God, while yet remaining divine. The implication is that as Adam experienced temptation and disobeyed, the temptation of the Son was to remain within the divine fellowship he already had with Father and Spirit. Yet, out of love for humanity, he became one with us. He willingly endured the shame of the cross to remain obedient to God. He was in solidarity with the Father, even as he gave his life in solidarity with us. This example of Jesus leads to our reflection upon discipleship, for we need to willingly put aside our rights and serve each other. This path of discipleship does not seek honor the way human beings do. Rather, one receives honor as a gift from God through the promise of eternal life with God. 

The point Paul is making is not just a statement about who God is. Rather, his point is that if God is like that, then you are to be of the same mind and attitude in your life. If the Son had this kind of kenotic love, then we are to be of the same mind and have the same love, namely, a kenotic mind and love. That is the discipleship challenge Paul offers us. What might such a life look like? It will invite us to look at life differently. 

To receive blessing, be a blessing to others.

To receive love, give love.

To receive honor, first be humble.

To live truly, die to yourself.

To gain the unseen, let go of the seen.

To receive, first give.

To save your life, lose it.

To lead, be a servant.

To be first, be last.

 

Grasping at things and people is a natural human trait. We think we gain some significance to our lives if we can bring certain things and relationships in our sphere of influence. This is true. We express our worth and dignity by engaging the world around us. It becomes sinful when we grasp and cling to things and relationships in a way that asserts our superiority over others. One of the difficult life lessons we need to learn is that our worth and dignity does not have to be at the expense of others. 

One way of imagining maturity in life is to think of approaching life with an open hand toward others. Grasping and clinging represent a basic anxiety and lack of trust. We cannot genuinely care for others while at the same time grasping and clinging to the things that we think give our lives meaning and significance. Yet, one day, we will leave the things at which we grasp as we enter eternity. Humility and generosity represent an honest appraisal of this human life. When we approach life with an open hand, we willingly empty ourselves of personal claims and become open to others. When we reject grasping at life, we free ourselves to accompany others in their journey through life, rejoicing with them, suffering with them, and bearing their burdens. Grasping at life can be a lonely way of life. Emptying ourselves of such claims, we approach life with greater humility and love. I have a suspicion that Jesus himself emptied himself of his unique position with God, willingly bearing the burdens and sins of others, even to the point of a cross. God honors this life of emptiness, humility, and love. 

I offer a prayer.

Today, in a world in which it seems as if violence is so close to overwhelming us, we are grateful that Jesus Christ was victorious through love, and not through violence. He soothes our deepest terror and points the way to the peace for which we long. Help us learn the meaning and power of glory through Christ. Even though one with the Father in eternity, he took the form of a servant, sharing human life and struggles. Just as Jesus experienced deepest distress in this last week of his life, we know that we have no exemption from the stresses and trials of a human life. Yet, we have the delight of your presence, as any darkness we may experience will yield to the light. Hold tenderly in your arms all who are weary, embattled, and shattered, until, strength, spent, they become empty, open vessels of your Spirit. Then, they can experience the light of your resurrection.

A RECOLLECTION OF JESUS

Let us remember Jesus:

Who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor and dwelt among us.

Who was content to be subject to his parents, the child of a poor man's home.

Who lived for nearly thirty years the common life, earning his living with his own hands and declining no humble tasks .

Whom the common people heard gladly, for he understood their ways. Let us remember Jesus

Who was mighty in deed, healing the sick and the disordered, using for others the powers he would not invoke for himself .

Who refused to force men's allegiance.

Who was Master and Lord to his disciples, yet was among them ag their companion and as one who served.

Whose meat was to do the will of the Father who gent him. Let us remember Jesus:

Who loved people yet retired from them to pray, rose a great while before day, watched through a night, stayed in the wilderness, went up into a mountain, sought a garden.

Who, when he would help a tempted disciple, prayed for him.

Who prayed for the forgiveness of those who rejected him, and for the perfecting of those who received him.

Who observed good customs, but defied conventions which did not serve the purposes of God.

Who hated sin because he knew the cost of pride and selfishness, of cruelty, and Impurity, to man, and still more to his Father in heaven.

Let us remember Jesus

Who believed in people to the last and never despaired of them.

Who through all disappointment never lost heart.

Who disregarded his own comfort and inconvenience, and thought first of others' needs, and, though he suffered long, was always kind. Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again, and when he suffered, threatened not.

Who humbled himself and carried obedience to the point of death, even death on the cross, wherefore God has highly exalted him. 

May this mind be in us which was in Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

            The Gospel Lesson is Matthew 26:14-27:66 (Year A), Mark 14:1-15:47 (Year B), and Luke (Year C). I will give a reflection upon the passion narratives in these gospels and highlight distinctive elements of each. We will see the similarity, with Mark providing the basic structure of the Passion Narrative for Matthew and Luke, but both Matthew and Luke have distinctive features that deserve theological consideration.

            Mark 14:1-2 (Year B) & Luke 22:1-2 (Year C) is the introduction to the passion narrative in Mark, containing the account of the plot by the priests. They gather two days before Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. They want to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him, but not during the festival because there might be a riot.

Mark 14:3-9 (Year B), with parallels in Luke 7:36-50 and John 12:1-8, is the story of the anointing at Bethany. Jesus is in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper and sat in table fellowship with him. Jesus demonstrates his full acceptance of this ritually unclean person as a potential disciple. An unnamed woman enters the home with an alabaster jar of costly ointment, pouring the oil upon the head of Jesus as a sign of his royalty. The anointing of the head is puzzling when we compare with Luke 7:36-50 and John 12:1-8, where the woman anoints the feet of Jesus. Given the interest of Mark in fitting the anointing story into his context of the passion narrative, it seems more likely the other two accounts more accurately reflect what happened. Why did Jesus let her do it?  A woman enters the home, opens a jar of costly perfume, and pours it on the head of Jesus.  In those days, people gathered perfumes from all over the world, importing them and using them on special occasions.  Often, they were a symbol of hope for something beyond the world.  Yet, this was so much!  300 days wages were involved. Some in attendance were angry and asked why she wasted the ointment, which could have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor. They scolded her as well. The primary interest in this story is the saying of Jesus to let her alone, for she has done a good service to him. They will always be able to show kindness to the poor, but today, she has shown a kindness to Jesus, who will not always be present as the man, Jesus of Nazareth. At this point, she recognized the uniqueness of this moment with Jesus of Nazareth. She seized the moment, not making a universal claim regarding universal principles. Jesus does not either. He seizes this moment to stress its significance. Mark as placed the incident where he has, as part of the passion narrative, to stress that she has anointed his body for burial, expanding upon the significance of the event. Mark emphasizes this further by saying that wherever the good news is proclaimed, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her. This nameless woman has done something that Jesus says his followers need to tell and re-tell throughout history. This woman performs an exuberant, extravagant act.  Of course, the irony is that Jesus is also preparing to perform an extravagant act.  Whereas the woman has wasted a large amount of precious ointment, Jesus is preparing to waste his precious life. The woman who anoints Jesus is the one who understands who Jesus is. Any of us can recognize the need of a moment for practicality. However, some moments beg for extravagance. Love is extravagant.  People also sing, dance, and write poetry, when in love.  That is the way love is.  It is excessive.  To someone in love, who has just bought an expensive jar of perfume, or a nice ring, the practical question, "What good did it do?" simply does not make any sense.  Extravagance is simply the way one expresses love. 

It seems like religion brings this kind of extravagance, this giving beyond what one might consider customary or proper.  The buildings people worship in are far bigger and more extravagant than they had to be to have a meeting.  People compose beautiful music and perform it; they paint beautiful pictures, and use many other creative gifts, all for the sake of worship.  Some of the most beautiful buildings in the world are precisely for this purpose, for the extravagant worship of God. There is one thing like it.  Love.  Love is extravagant.  People also sing, dance, and write poetry, when in love.  That is the way love is.  It is excessive.  To someone in love, who has just bought an expensive jar of perfume, or a nice ring, the practical question, "What good did it do?" simply does not make any sense.  Extravagance is simply the way one expresses love. 

All of this is contrary to the way many of us are. Many of us are a modest people.  We have sayings like, "Everything in moderation."  Love is simply fine if one does it in moderation.  Yet would it really be love?  Worship of God and religion are simply fine if one does it in moderation.  Yet would such moderation be true worship?   You see, extravagance in love is what one expects.  It is what you do when you as a lover have a need to return love.  The same is true of worship.  God loves us in an extravagant way. We desire to return that love in the same way. To the practical person, worship must seem like a fantasy, an escape from the real world.  Is what we do here real? For centuries, Christians have painted, sculpted, danced, and sung in their worship. In our worship, we are responding to the beauty of the Lord by directing our desire to make beautiful things into the service of God. Cathedrals direct our attention to eternity despite the plodding along of time.[31] Yet, as this passage reminds us, one extravagant act by Jesus is something to which the church always looks back. You see Jesus is preparing to perform the most excessive, extravagant act of all, the giving of his precious life.  

Paulinus was bishop of Italy while the Goths conquered it.  A widow came to him and said Goths had taken her son away.  He disguised himself and then went to the Goth army camp.  He offered to exchange places with the widow's son.  Of course, they did not have to, but they did it.  The son went free.  The bishop became a slave and worked in the vegetable garden.  Yet, the general noticed something different about him.  He finally went to the bishop and said, "You are no vegetable gardener."  He confessed he was a bishop in the church.  It could have meant his death.  Instead, the act moved the general so much that he released all the other believers whom he had taken away. Jesus gave his life, to release us and give us our freedom.

            Mark 14:12-21, Matthew 26:17-19, Luke 22:7-13 recounts the preparation for the Passover. Mark has the longer version, on the first day of Unleavened Bread, and the sacrifice of the Passover lamb, the disciples ask, Luke identifying them as Peter and John, where they will make the preparations for the meal. Jesus informs them, in vague instructions, that going into the city they will find a man carrying a jar of water. They will follow him to his home, and they will ask if the teacher, Matthew adding that the time (καιρός) of the teacher is near (ἐγγύς), can use his guest room for the meal with his disciples. The man shows him a large room upstairs, and they can eat the meal at his home. The disciples do as Jesus said and they prepared the meal. Matthew has a shorter version which tends to lessen the emphasis upon the special knowledge of Jesus in making these arrangements. The entire situation could have an explanation apart from the special knowledge of Jesus, in that Jesus made secret preparations to keep Judas from knowing where the meal would take place.

Mark 14:22-26, Matthew 26:26-30, Luke 22:14-23, I Corinthians 11:23-26 shows the received tradition of the institution of the Supper of the Lord. Paul received (παρέλαβον) this tradition from the Lord, and therefore not from his Jewish tradition or another apostle, thereby heightening the importance of what he is about to say, what he handed on (παρέδωκα) to them. Therefore, the believers in Corinth ought to listen attentively and reflect carefully on the implications of Paul’s remarks. This tradition, stemming from the evening before the death of Jesus, forms the basis of the Christian celebration of the Lord’s Supper and therefore of Christian worship in general. In this sense, “institution” by Jesus himself is basic to the celebration. It ought to be practiced in a way that reminds us of the communal and inclusive nature of the church. The received tradition says that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, same word for “delivered.” By Thursday night, the Passover meal, Jesus knew his time on earth was at a close.  He shared a final meal with his disciples.  The purpose of the story is to relate what Jesus said and did in the interests of faith and worship in these last hours.^[32] Thus, the observation that the account does not mention bitter herbs and other important elements of the Passover meal suggests that the tradition quickly transposed the last supper of Jesus with his disciples into a meal for use in worship by Christian practice and theological interpretation. Historically, they celebrate a Passover meal. However, Jesus re-interprets its symbolism with the words of institution. Jesus anticipated sharing a meal with his friends in the heavenly kingdom, giving a unique interpretation of a portion of the Passover meal. The story lets the example of Jesus speak for itself.^[33] Remarkably, the Lord, who experienced betrayal this night, provided for others when he gave his disciples bread and cup, in the context of a prayer of thanksgiving. This meal was for others. In fact, as symbols of the self-giving of Jesus in this moment, food and drink are particularly appropriate. Food and drink do not exist for themselves but for other living creatures. They surrender their own existence to enter the lives of others. Food and drink offer themselves so that others may live.^[34] A Christian theology of prayer stresses thanksgiving because of the recollection that Jesus blessed or gave thanks over the bread and the cup.^[35] In referring to the (in Paul the loaf of) bread as his body, the bread is no longer simply what it was before. ^[36] Yet debatable: to symbolize, represent, is like, conveys, means the same as, is the same as, is identical with, and so on. Paul will stress that like the bread he broke on that night, his body is “for you,” meaning “for” the recipients and present to them,^[37] emphasizing the sacrifice of the life of Jesus was for others. Paul and Luke will emphasize that Jesus gave a command for the continuation of this act in remembrance of Jesus. In emphasizing the wine as his blood of the covenant, Paul and Luke emphasizing “new,” he says that his disciples are not establishing a new people of God, ^[38] separating them from the rest of the Jewish people by their confession of Jesus.^[39] Matthew will add this this pouring out of his life is for the forgiveness of sin. If the body and blood for us refer to the life of Jesus offered in his death, the decisive event in the Supper is not this recollection, but present participation in the fruit of this sacrifice. The offering of my body and blood has for you the effect that as you eat this bread, I give my life to you as yours, and that as you drink of this cup you may live with joy and now with sorrow, as innocent and not condemned. As I have given my life for you, it belongs to you. You may live and not die. You may rejoice and not mourn.^[40] Paul adds that as often as they drink in this way, indicating this act has already become a regular part of their communal life, they are to do so in remembrance of Jesus. “Remembrance,” by which Paul connects with both bread and cup, links the Supper with the atoning death of Christ, not simply as recollection with the remote past, but a presentation and re-presentation of the paschal mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus and therefore the self-representing of Jesus Christ by the Spirit.^[41] Jesus gives symbolical expression to the forgiveness of sins that he links to the acceptance of his message as granted by it, since the table fellowship that Jesus practiced removes everything that separates from God. As the disciples partake of the bread, they participate in the death of Jesus, and as they partake of the cup as the climax of the meal the focus shifts to the redemptive sacrifice and anticipates the return of the Son of Man. Each occasion of the Supper of the Lord is the Messianic banquet of the revealed reign of God, the fullest form of the fellowship of Christians with the Lord now revealed to them, and an anticipation of final revelation of the inaugurated in the resurrection.^[42] When we look at the meals of Jesus in the gospels, when we particularly note the miraculous feeding in Mark 8:1-10=Matthew 15:32-39, and note his reference in parables to the banquet, we can see the importance of the eschatological fellowship of the reign of God. As Paul puts it, as often as we eat this bread and drink from the cup, we proclaim, reminding us that the supper was always part of Christian proclamation, [43]  the death of the Lord until he comes, that is, until all eyes see what believers already experience here and now with this eating and drinking.^[44] We have in these meals the central symbolical action of Jesus in which he focuses and depicts the message of the nearness of the reign of God and its salvation. The primary issue in table fellowship as a depiction of the salvation of the rule of God is fellowship with God and the mutual fellowship of all who share in the meal.^[45] Here is the beginning of the reflection on the death of Jesus within the framework of the Near East sacrificial system that plays a basic role in the interpretation of the death of Jesus. The sacrifice of Jesus begins this night.  He offered himself to his followers and to the world as the savior.  That death opened a relationship with God that has spread throughout every generation and every culture.  Our sins do not have to separate us forever from God.  In fact, we know that God is not gleefully rejecting us because of our sins.  This sacrifice gives us the most vital information we need concerning God.  Yet, we become accustomed to it, that we assume the truth of it.  God wants us to have a friendship with God. Jesus is going to his death as pioneer who opens the way of life for all. 

The Eucharist is the very heart of Christian worship because it is so rich and far-reaching in its significance. It evades thought and emotion. It relies on simple contact, humble and childlike receptiveness, and sense-quenching soul. It mixes the extremes of mystery and homeliness. It takes our common earthly experience of suffering, love abandonment, death, and makes them inexpressibly holy and fruitful. It takes the food of our natural life and transforms that into a channel of Divine Life.^[46]

Let us look at what happens.

Mark 14:10-11, Matthew 26:14-16, Luke 22:3-6, is the story of the treachery of Judas Iscariot.[47] Without the hardened heart of the Pharaoh, there would never have been the solidifying of the Hebrew people and their deliverance.  Without the unexplained, underhanded actions of Judas, the arrest and the ensuing Passion of Jesus, events would not have reflected the fulfillment of OT prophecies and the deliverance of all peoples in Christ would not have happened. Luke seeks to explain it by saying that Satan entered Judas. The story of opposition to Jesus reaches its climax as Satan uses one of his own disciples. It portrays what the gospel tradition always portrays an unbelievable act of betray by Judas, one of the twelve. In this case, he goes to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. They were pleased and promised to give him money. He begins looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus. Mark is explaining how the chief priests were able to arrest him secretly (verse 2). He is also hinting the motive of Judas is money (as in John 12:6). Mark will give special attention to developing the Passover/Passion connection, making deliverance a common theme that ties these events together. Jesus encourages forgiveness among the disciples. He expresses concern that authorities will bring his followers before the courts unjustly (Matthew 10:17-20). The woman who anoints Jesus is the only one who understands what is taking place.  The contrast between her actions and those of Judas and the authorities is further heightened.  

Mark 14:17-21, Matthew 26:20-25, Luke 22:21-23 identify the one who betrays Jesus. Jesus was so isolated that one of his own disciples would betray him for reasons difficult to verify or understand, but it might include greed. Judas is known as the betrayer. As they take their places for the meal, and as they were eating, Jesus says one of them will betray him. The words of Jesus are not judgmental, but they do force Judas to take responsibility for his actions.  The Son of Man goes as it is written, but woe is upon the one who betrays him. It would have been better for him not to have been born. When Judas asks if it is him, Jesus simply says you have said so. Then, Judas is seen testifying to the innocence of Jesus, as well as bringing judgment upon the religious leaders.  By taking his own life, Judas concurs with Jesus’ own statement that it would be better for the betrayer to have never been born.  Judas acts as his own judge and jury. When Jesus declares that one will betray him, in Mark and Matthew Judas asks if it is him, while in Luke the disciples ask each other. Judas has celebrated the Passover meal with Jesus, reminding us that participation in the meal is no guarantee that we will not betray Jesus. In Bach's "Saint Matthew Passion" Judas asks the question, "Is it I?"  In the traditional music, Judas asks this question alone.  In Bach's version, it is whole chorus, representing all of us, who asks, "Is it I." He betrayed him in a personal way, arriving in the Garden with overwhelming force and identifying by embracing him and kissing him on the cheek. Betrayal is part of human history. American history includes Benedict Arnold, Aldrich Ames, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and Robert Hanssen. The betrayal of Julius Caesar by his friend Brutus is still shocking to students of history. We could include others, like Alfred Redl, an Austrian military officer who, during World War I, sold sensitive information about the Austrian army to Czarist Russia. Or, Harold Cole, a British soldier who betrayed the French resistance and is considered one of the worst traitors of World War II. In literature, One of the dirtiest double-crossers is Iago from Othello. In The Count of Monte Cristo, Fernand Mondego falsely accuses his best friend Edmond of treason before having him imprisoned for 14 years. He also steals Edmond’s fiancée, Mercédès, and marries her. Then, there’s Peter Pettigrew, a.k.a. Wormtail, of the Harry Potter books. In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Edmund, the youngest Pevensie brother, betrays his siblings and all of Narnia for a bag of Turkish Delight. And what was Fredo thinking when he betrayed his brother, Michael Corleone, almost getting him killed?

Karl Barth has an extensive discussion of the determination of the rejected human being. He will use Judas as an example.^[48] Rejected individuals are those who isolate themselves from God by resisting their election as it has taken place in Jesus Christ. God is for them. They are against God. God is gracious to them. They are ungrateful to God. God receives them. They withdraw from God. God forgives them their sins. They repeat them as though God had not forgiven them. God releases them from the guilt and punishment of their defection. However, they go on living as the prisoner of Satan. God determines them for blessedness and for the service of God. They choose the joylessness of an existence that accords with their own pride and aims at their own honor. Rejected people exist in their own way alongside the elect. We do not fully understand the answer to the question concerning the determination of the elect if we refuse to consider the situation of these others, the rejected. What is the will of God for them? What is the purpose, the goal and content, the planned outworking and fulfillment, the meaning and order of their existence as itself an object of the divine predetermination? The rejection of humanity is the rejection borne eternally and by Jesus Christ in the power of divine self-giving. God rejects the rejection. Because this is so, the rejected human being is other than the elect. Only as such do they share as rejected people in the grace of creation and providence. They also stand in the sphere of the eternal covenant of divine grace. The election and kingdom of Jesus Christ surround them, and as such the superiority of the love of God confronts them. This love may burn and consume them as rejected people, as is fitting, but even so, it is still to them the Almighty, holy and compassionate love of God. This very love debars them from any independent life of their own alongside or apart from the life of the elect. There they stand, people who are hostile to God, ungrateful to God, withdrawing from God, repeating sins already forgiven, and therefore enslaved and cursed. We can take their existence seriously only as God takes it seriously. We do not take it seriously if we understand it other than as a shadow that yields, dissolves, and dissipates. The shadow is itself sinister, threatening, dangerous, and deadly enough. Yet, it is this within the limit set for it by God. It is more important, urgent and serious to see its divinely imposed limit than the horror that is peculiar to it within this limit. This is its divinely imposed limit, and therefore its shadow-quality, that rejected people exist in the person of Jesus Christ only in such a way that Christ assumes them into the being of Christ as the elect and beloved of God. Only in such sort that as they are accepted and received by God, they are transformed, being put to death as the rejected and raised to their proper life as the elect, holy, justified, and blessed. Because Jesus Christ takes their place, He takes from them the right and possibility of their own independent being and He gives them their own being. With Jesus Christ, the rejected can be such only in the past. They cannot be rejected any more. Between them and an independent existence of their own as rejected, there stands the death that Jesus Christ has suffered in their place, and the resurrection by which Jesus Christ has opened up for them their own place as elect. Their distinctive determination is rooted in their distinctive nature. They do not have it apart from or alongside, but with that of the elect. It indicates the meaning and purpose of the determination of the elect. It is the necessary reverse side of this determination, which we must not overlook or forget. In its ultimate range, it points to the very spot at which the proper and positive determination of the elect begins.

First, in the reality of the existence peculiar to them, it is the determination of the rejected to manifest the recipients of the Gospel whose proclamation is the determination of the elect. The rejected has not simply vanished or been destroyed. Thanks to the divine wisdom and patience, they can take differed forms within the appointed limit. In this capacity, they represent the world and the individual as far as they are in need of the divine election. 

Second, in the distinctive character of their existence, the rejected has the determination constantly to manifest that which is denied and overcome by the Gospel. The rejected are the people whose only witness is to themselves and their false choice as those isolated over against God, the people who at the deepest level and in the deepest sense has nothing at all to say. They are the ones who live in a false service as well as in a false liberty. They are the people who are deceived because they deceive themselves. 

Third, the rejected have the determination, in the distinctive limitation of their existence, to manifest the purpose of the Gospel. The rejected have no future. As those who will to be their own master, they can only achieve their own destruction. However, the purpose of the divine election of grace is to grant to those who have no future, a future in covenant with God. It is with this in view that the Gospel speaks. It is with this purpose that God turns to humanity, and that God addresses the Word of God to humanity. 

Judas Iscariot is the supreme example in the New Testament of the rejected portion of humanity. The savage and sinful handing over of Jesus by Judas, in itself without justification, corresponds objectively to the handing over of Jesus into the hands of humanity that is the meaning and content of the apostolic ministry, by which the Church on earth is established and maintained. The latter handing over rectifies the mischief done by the former. Jesus is glorified as He was once blasphemed. Yet, the New Testament does not speak only of a wrathful delivery of Jesus. It also speaks of a divine handing over. Everything positive that Christ does for humanity, so that it is a reality for humanity in Christ, and effective by faith in Christ, is rooted and grounded in the fact that Christ first gave Himself for humanity, or as in Romans 8, God handed him over for humanity. This was for us. Paul strongly emphasized this. This handing over is the eternal will of God. It did not happen by chance. It has nothing whatever to do with human tragedy or the like. It had to happen, as the will of God, and not the will of fate. From this position, which Paul so strongly advocates, we will now look back to the observations that we made regarding the other use of handing over. To begin with, it is obvious that no worse fate overtakes the Jews and Gentiles handed over by God in the wrath of God, or those Christians whose delivery to Satan is occasionally mentioned, than that which God caused to the divine self in the handing over of the Son. However, the more profoundly and comprehensively we attempt to formulate the sin and guilt of Judas, the more his will and deed approach what neither he himself willed and did, nor the people of Israel, nor the Gentiles at whose head he finally appears. Rather, the more his will and deed approach what God willed and did in this matter as the divine handing over that here took place. In the divine handing over, we find the humiliation to which God willed to give the divine self, intervening for humanity and against the rule of Satan in the world of humanity, to cleanse them from the sin against Christ of which they are guilty. We now see Judas who, at their head, incurs the guilt. The paradox in the figure of Judas is that, although his action as the executor of the New Testament is so sinful, yet as such, in all its sinfulness, it is still the action of that executor. The divine and human handing over cannot be distinguished in what Judas did, as in the genuine apostolic tradition, where the human is related to the divine handing over as to its content and subject. In the case of Judas, the apostle who perverted his apostleship and served Satan, the two coincide. As the human handing over takes place, the divine takes place directly, and the divine takes place directly as the human takes place. In Judas, live again all the great rejected of the Old Testament who already had to testify that this elect people are in truth rejected. Israel is elect in and from its rejection. Israel is elect only in the form of the divine promise given to it in the beginning and never taken away. Israel is elect finally only in the person of the One for whose sake this people could and must have its special existence. It declares that Jesus Christ died also for rejected Israel. What the result will be is in the hand of God. If we cannot answer this question, we have still to maintain that even rejected Israel is always in the open and at the same time so very unequally determined situation of the proclamation, and that the question of its future can never be put except in the situation. However, to say this is to say all that we need to say about the general question of the divine will and intention for the rejected, the non-elect. The answer can only be as follows. God wills that they too should hear the Gospel, and with it the promise of their election. God wills that the elect should proclaim this Gospel to them. God wills that they should appropriate and live by the hope that the Gospel gives them. God wills that the rejected should believe, and that as a believer they should become a rejected humanity elected. The rejected as such has no independent existence in the presence of God. God does not determine them merely as rejected. They are determined to hear and say that they are a rejected humanity elected, from their rejection, people in whom Judas lived, but was also slain, as in the case of Paul. They are rejected who as such are summoned to faith. They are rejected who based on the election of Jesus Christ, and looking to the fact that Christ delivered Himself up for them, believe in their election.

In Luke 22:24-30 (Mark 10:41-45), Jesus was so isolated that his disciples argued over which of them were the greatest, Luke placing this argument among the disciples in a setting different from that of Mark. The image Luke may have had in mind is that of the Hellenistic banquet accompanied by appropriate discourse, as happens often in the philosophical tradition. The discourse would have begun with the identification that someone would betray him. Then, the initiating cause of the discourse is a feud among the disciples. Moving from infidelity, Jesus now deals with struggle for position. As in Mark 10:24-27, a dispute arises as to which of them was the greatest. He tells them the political arrangements in the world have a system of lords and benefactors, but among them, the greatest is to become like the youngest and the leader like one who serves. The one who serves will serve one who is greater. Jesus is among them as one who serves. Luke adds, appropriate to his setting, that Jesus commends them for having stood by him through various trials. As the Father has conferred upon Jesus a kingdom, so he confers a kingdom upon them, so that they will sit at his table and judge the twelve tribes of Israel. The language is like apocalyptic writings of the time. Jesus promises reward from God for the kind of fidelity Jesus wants.

Jesus was so isolated that his closest associates deserted (σκανδαλισθήσεσθε) him through cowardice, especially Peter (Mark 14:27-31, Matthew 26:31-35, Luke 22:31-34, John 13:36-38 with the story of the denial by Peter in Mark 14:66-72, Matthew 26:69-75, Luke 22:54-62 and John 18:15-18, 25-27). In Mark and Matthew, the prediction that all his disciples will desert him fulfills Zechariah 13:7, a puzzling reference, since the shepherd whom the Lord strikes is evil, and the sheep of the flock who scatter are his associates. The prophet is so abhorred by the shepherd that he wishes physical harm upon him. Here, Jesus is the righteous shepherd who will be unjustly treated as a criminal and condemned to death, and then his disciples flee. However, the rest of that prophecy is that to verse 9 refers to the redemption and hope for those who flee, foreshadowing that their desertion is not the last word over their lives. After the Father, through the Spirit, raises Jesus from the dead, the risen Lord will go ahead of them to Galilee, returning to the place of most of the ministry of Jesus and to the place of their calling by Jesus. They will desert Jesus, but Jesus will desert them, even in his death. In Luke, Jesus warns Simon that Satan the accuser has demanded to be allowed to sift Peter like wheat, but Jesus has prayed for him that his faith may not fail, so that when he turns back, he can strengthen his brothers and sisters. In Luke, the Satanic plot that began with Judas will overtake Peter as well. He connects the story of the betrayal by Judas and the story of the denial by Peter with the influence of Satan. The passage prepares us for the leadership and missionary role Peter will have in Acts. Peter objects that he will not desert Jesus, but Jesus says that before the cock crows, he will deny him three times. Instead of Peter humbly accepting the insight of Jesus into who he was, Peter objects in Mark and Matthew that he will willingly die with Jesus, and in Luke that he is willing to go to prison and death, and in Mark and Matthew, and all the disciples agree. They were delusional in that they did not know themselves well, their weakness, nor the nature of humanity. It is difficult to see the truth regarding ourselves and it is natural to believe a lie about who we are.[49] Although the disciples abandon Jesus, Jesus would not abandon them but reassemble them as his flock. Luke is offering a pedagogy of hope based on the initial failure of the most famous followers of Jesus had a second chance for them.  The promise to followers of Jesus is this. Mark and his readers, like other early Christians, held Jesus’ disciples and Peter in esteem as saintly witnesses, especially since the martyrdom of Peter. Nevertheless, such faithful witness to Jesus did not come easily or under the disciples’ own impetus.  When the disciples of Jesus who had walked with him most intimately, who indeed had already begun their following of him, faced the issue of accompanying him to the cross, they abandoned him and denied him.  In a sense, As a transitional scene, it prepares us for what follows at Gethsemane. The arrest of Jesus at Gethsemane involved failure by his disciples, eventually specified in terms of flight, denial, and betrayal.  How could one reconcile such failure with God’s plan for Jesus?

The disciples do not look like diligent students or followers of Jesus as the tradition presents them. Their weakness is not an unforgiveable sin. Yet, their example is a reminder of our weakness. Despite claims to the contrary, no one really knows how he or she will respond in a crisis. And although Jesus knew how his disciples would react, it is impossible for any of us to know with absolute certainty whether one will abandon or deny Jesus when facing a comparable moment of testing. The simple act of betrayal, of handing over those closest to us to suffering, is a potential within us all. All of us have the capacity for betraying our closest friends, our best self, and God.^[50] We need to remember that it is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend (William Blake). 

 

Yet each man kills the thing he loves

By each let this be heard

Some do it with a bitter look

Some with a flattering word

The coward does it with a kiss

The brave man with a sword!^[51]

 

Every moment is a possibility for living as a faithful witness or to fall away from it. Neither moment will last forever. We will make further decisions that will determine the direction of our character and discipleship. If we fail, the possibility is always present for redemption. Our self-deluded thinking, that somehow, we are better looking than we really are, more charming and intelligent than we really are, this tendency to overestimate ourselves in certain areas of our lives, does not make us beyond the reach of God. Our weakness does not make us unserviceable to the rule of God, to reflect the glory of God, or distance us from the warmth of the love of God. Thus, while Jesus is on trial for his life, the accusers of Jesus disintegrate into a vengeful and riotous mob. The story involves the test of Peter. For Luke, all three denials occur in the courtyard of the High Priest. Peter’s denial of Jesus is his darkest moment as a disciple. The reference to Jesus as the Galilean may suggest a potential revolutionary. However, an accuser attempts to identify Peter with Jesus, and he denies it. Another identifies him with Jesus of Nazareth, and he denied it. When this occurs a third time, Peter curses and makes an oath that he did not know the man. Peter withdraws from any association with Jesus. Peter’s third and final denial is the most damning.  To invoke a curse on himself meant Peter invites destruction upon himself if his statement is not true.  Thus, in this third denial, Peter does not just intentionally offend Jesus; he intentionally offends God. The approach of dawn, though for Peter the night’s end does not mean daybreak.  It means heartbreak.  Peter’s own Gethsemane occurs at the edge of the high priest’s courtyard in the chilly morning light. He remembers the prediction of Jesus and he wept. inevitably, during the persecution, many Christians were not that brave, and both I Clement 5 and Tacitus suggest that in the persecution by Nero in which Peter died some Christians denounced others to the Romans.  Was all hope lost for those who failed and denied Christ?  A Peter who had once denied and later borne witness could constitute an encouragement that repentance and a second chance were possible.  For that reason, it may have been important to underline the seriousness of what Peter had done.  Before his arrest Jesus had warned his disciples, “Keep on praying lest you enter into trial” precisely because they were not sufficiently strong. The story reflects a pedagogy of hope based on the initial failure of the most famous followers of Jesus had a second chance for them.

In Luke 22:35-38, we find sayings concerning the two swords. Jesus gives advice considering the coming crisis, changing what he said in 10:4, where he sent them on a mission without purse, bag, or sandals, and they lacked nothing. The situation has changed, so now they must take purse or bag, and one who has no sword must sell a cloak and buy one. Isaiah 53:12 must find its fulfillment in him, that he will be counted among criminals, Jesus now adopting the role of the suffering servant. In response, the disciples note the presence of two swords and Jesus, with irony, responds that it is enough.  The disciples do not understand the crisis.  Opposition to Jesus creates that crisis. Clearly, the disciples have totally misunderstood, enhancing the tragedy.

            The beginning of the story of the desertion and betrayal of Jesus occurs as Jesus creates a brief space at Gethsemane for prayer (Mark 14:32-50, Matthew 26:36-56, Luke 22:39-53). Jesus prayed alone in Gethsemane.  Jesus faced his impending death with some fear.  He shared with his disciples the message of the coming rule of God.  He proclaimed that message in story and action with the people of his day.  Now, as he neared the end of his life, he knew he had so much more to say.  Few of his people responded to him.  His work was not finished. Early Christians had a tradition that before he died Jesus struggled in prayer about his fate. He would do so isolated from his friends, who were so tired, from the combination of the wine and the lateness of the hour, that they did not stay up with him to pray. Hebrews 5:7-10^[52] is an independent witness, referring as it does to the human life of Jesus, his offering of prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one able to save him from death. God heard his prayer because of his reverent submission. Even as the Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered, thereby fulfilling his destiny or divine purpose throughout the course of his life. Luke focuses upon the relationship of Jesus with the Father, rather than the incomprehension of the disciples on which Mark focuses. A well-known copy of the manuscript of Luke, but one which has weak textual evidence, in Luke 22:43-44 has an angel from heaven appearing to Jesus and giving him strength, which led to further intensity of prayer, so much so that he sweat great drops of blood that fell to the ground. The submission of Jesus to the Father is in sharp contrast to the failure of the disciples to heed the counsel of Jesus to pray. In fact, the notion of the divine will that impresses itself upon us as a power that acts upon us is a notion we may find here.^[53] Jesus expresses the desire that this hour and this cup would pass. Like all living things, we have needs, such as food, clothing, shelter, health, and so on. Our desires set us apart from other living things, and we rightly are suspicious of what we desire. Desires can arise from unhealthy aspects of the culture or from the worst part of ourselves.  However, his prayer is that he will submit to the will of the Father, a hint of what Jesus taught in the Lord’s Prayer: Thy will be done (Matthew 6:12, Luke 11:4). Within the framework of Jewish thought, the presentation of Jesus in Gethsemane could have caused problems.  The Maccabean martyrs were righteous people who had died violent deaths at the hands of unjust authorities, but they had faced their fate with the resolve to give a “noble example of how to die a good death willingly and generously.”  Jesus would not compare favorably with such a model Jesus withstanding temptation becomes an example to all in the face of their temptations. When the disciples are asleep, Jesus tells them to stay awake and pray that may not succumb to the time of trail, as in the Lord’s Prayer concerning deliverance from the time of trial (Matthew 6:13, Luke 11:4). The disciples become an object lesson in what happens when one fails to stay awake as Jesus mentioned in sayings and parables with his injunction to watch rather than sleep (Mark 13:34-37=Matthew 25:13 and 24:42). ^[54] A man who leaves his home leaves his slaves in charge and tells them to be on the watch. Jesus then urges his hearers to keep awake, for the master of the house will come suddenly and at an unexpected time. Although Jesus urges the disciples to pray, they do not do so. Jesus’ withstanding temptation becomes an example to all in the face of their temptations. Jesus achieves a submission to the will of the Father through prayer and seeks the companionship with his disciples because he wants them to follow him, inculcating what he taught them in the Lord’s Prayer. The guards arrested him with the help of Judas.  In Matthew, Judas offers the kiss of friendship, and Jesus addresses him as a friend. Although the disciples had swords, Matthew saying one of them cut off the ear of a slave of the high priest, Jesus tells them to put their swords away, for those who take the path of life by the sword will perish by the sword. In Luke, he picks up the ear and restores the ear to the soldier. Even in his arrest, he has compassion and forgiveness. The story hints at the acceptability of self-defense, but Jesus adheres in this situation to his teaching on nonviolence and preferring to suffer injustice. Reaching for the sword can only provoke a violence response in which they will fall victim.  One cannot defend Jesus in this way. Jesus came down on the side of protection of life.^[55] Rather than the disciples using the sword, he could ask the Father to send legions of angels to correct this injustice. The reality is that the Father refuses to do so in every case, for the path the Father has chosen is not the conquest of all resistance to the will of the Father. In Luke, Jesus asks those who are arresting him if he is a bandit that they would use force to arrest him. He was in the Temple daily and they did not arrest him. However, their hour is now, as they align with the power of darkness. As told by Luke, Jesus is very much in charge of the situation, even though authorities must arrest him. The plan of the Father is to find its fulfillment. Jesus appears here as ready to meet the fate that stands before him. Thus, the path of the Father is the path of the cross. The Father refuses to impose the divine will by force. People can never agree in their prayers about where one is to find the evil they want God to destroy. The Father is seeking the response of faith, a response that must be as free as love. Jesus asserts that what is happening now in his passion is the fulfillment of scripture. Jesus is ready to meet the fate stands before him. His disciples abandoned him. As the disciples forsook Jesus, we should note their blindness to the way Jesus has chosen for himself, a way he must follow to the end. They misunderstand the way they must follow and serve Jesus. They are in error concerning their own power and capacity to follow Jesus. They deny in practice when they ought to have made good on their previous professions of their desire to follow him. Of course, they do not follow him. They quarrel, fall asleep, run away, disown, and betray him.^[56]

            Mark 14:51-52 contains a puzzling incident, referring to a young man, a would-be disciple, wearing nothing but a linen cloth, but the soldiers caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and escaped disgracefully in his nakedness, culminating the example of the failure of the disciples.

            In Mark and Matthew 27:3-10 we find the story of the death of Judas, also recorded in Acts 1:18-20 and Papias. Judas declares he has betrayed an innocent man and throws the money he had received at their feet. Judas hangs himself, just as Ahithophel did after he betrayed David in II Sam. 17:23. The fate of Judas in his remorse stands in harsh contrast to that of Peter in his remorse.  The one who wants to make amends may do so. Matthew combines Jeremiah 32:6-15, where the prophet purchases a field from his cousin for 17 pieces of silver, with Zechariah 11:12-13, which has the prophet receiving his wages for 30 pieces of silver and putting it in the treasury, suggesting the story arose out of reflection upon the texts. It suggests how legend arose within the New Testament period.

We see our sinfulness in them.  We are too much like them.  We become so petty, even as we seek to follow Jesus.  We can allow our own little desires and wishes to get in the way of what is most important in life.

So, why do we betray Jesus? It may be for reasons displayed on this night. We may develop our unique reason. Is betrayal in our blood? The story of Holy Week is one upon which he need to give some time for meditation and reflection on how, while life will always bring its tests, we can remain faithful and true witnesses.

All the disciples abandoned Jesus.  Two disciples betrayed him.  Judas boldly went to the religious leaders, threw the money down, while Peter went out and wept silently.  With Judas, the act was premeditated, calculated, even paid for.  Peter's was a cowardly, spontaneous burst of emotion that profited him nothing.  Judas was overcome with guilt and envisioned a Jesus who was wrathful, judgmental who would declare him to be cursed since he betrayed an innocent person.  Judas blocked out Jesus' forgiving nature.  He cut himself off from the healing capabilities of God's grace and, in agonizing fit of self-judgment, hanged himself.  Peter must have heard himself say he would be willing to die with Jesus. He replayed the denials.  Yet, he also could remember the words of Jesus that on Peter Jesus would build the church.  He received a new name.  Whatever Peter had just done, Jesus had assured him of a future.  Judas never bothered to check the back door of grace. 

Luke 22:63-65 has the soldiers who arrested Jesus also mock him and urge to prophecy concerning who slapped him. While his disciples abandon him, his captors ridicule him.

Jesus went before the religious and political leaders.  They judged him worthy of death. Jesus stands before High Priest Caiaphas (Mark 14:53-65, Matthew 26:57-68, Luke 22:66-71, John 18:12-14, 19-24). Scholars raise historical questions that I will deal with in footnotes. My reason is that I want to continue presenting the passion narrative in a way that helps the reader encounter the theological and spiritual truth contained in it. As readers today, we need to exercise some care. Of course, the Passion narrative will present Jesus as one innocent of the charges brought against him, thereby heightening our sense of the injustice of this moment. This trial has led to continuing hatred of the Jewish people. The Jewish people continue in world history. The Roman Empire does not, so the atrocities it committed against Jesus and his followers do not receive the same attention. The point here is responsibility for the death of Jesus rather than guilt for it.^[57]

The veiled attack by Jesus on the temple would have been reason enough for a trial. The background of this trial is the word and deed of Jesus against the Temple. The cleansing of the Temple precincts from commerce is an action all four gospels recount. The word and action of Jesus in this regard has some ambiguity. In that act, he wants purified worship at the temple. Yet, Mark 11:17=Matthew 21:13, while referring to the temple becoming a house of prayer, also wants it to be one for all the nations. Jesus has also prophesied that God will destroy the temple in Mark 13=Matthew 24. The attitude of Jesus toward the Temple is nothing like that of the Essenes, who had a whole program for matters of priestly descent, sacrifice, those allowed admittance, and so on.  He was not from Jerusalem or the priestly class, and so he had no stake in the continued building of the Temple and its material survival as a way of life.  The Gospel writers understood the hostility of Jesus toward the Temple, when he manifested it, to be like that of the ancient prophets, for they cite Jeremiah 7:11 and Zechariah 14:21.  Jesus engaged in a prophetic dramatic action against improprieties in the Temple and uttered a prophetic threat that the coming of the rule of God would involve destruction and rebuilding of the sanctuary. We need to read this trial considering the word and action of Jesus. The cleansing of the temple and the prophetic words involving the destruction of the temple would lead to hostility from religious leaders in Jerusalem. It seems likely that an anti-Temple interpretation of the words and actions of Jesus would lead to the desire by Jewish authorities that he dies. They become the moving agents behind the proceedings against Jesus. Thus, it seems likely that the accusation made in the proceedings occurred something like the way Mark records it. Further, Theissen’s sociological analysis, drawing from incidents in the thirty-five years after Jesus’ death, points to a particular hostility between country people who idealized the Temple and the Sadducean priestly aristocracy.  Did Jesus’ Galilean origins bring him into that conflict?  Based on figures supplied by Josephus, Theissen estimates that some 20 percent of Jerusalem’s population depended on the Temple for livelihood, and therefore, like the priests, would have been upset with threats to it.  Josephus demonstrates serious reaction to a pronouncement of woe upon the Temple in the example of Jesus son of Ananias.  Overall, the attitude of Jesus toward the Temple/sanctuary may very well have been among the religious legal reasons offered to the Sanhedrin in making a case for a death sentence. The High Priest wants Jesus to make an oath before the living God stating clearly to those who sit in judgment if he is the Messiah (Χριστὸς) [58] and in Mark the Son of the Blessed One, in Matthew the Son of God (Υἱὸςτοῦ Θεοῦ). Luke refers to both Messiah and Son of God. We know that the followers of Jesus proclaimed Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and the Son of God after his resurrection. We also know the references to Jesus as the Jewish Messiah are rare in the Gospel story, and when they do occur, Jesus has an ambiguous response to the title. It also seems clear that the Romans crucified Jesus with the mocking title of “King of the Jews.” It seems clear that the ambiguity of the response of Jesus led his enemies to conclude that Jesus was a spiritual danger to the Jewish people.^[59] The only sure point is that Jewish authorities handed Jesus over to the Romans for judgment as a messianic pretender and therefore as a rebel. In any case, this judgment was clearly a pretext behind which Jewish authorities hid their real reasons of why he had become unacceptable to them.^[60] Jesus refers to Daniel 7:13, saying on he will Son of Man (Υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου) is seated at the right of Power coming in the clouds of heaven, with Matthew adding emphasizing that this will happen from this moment. The answer Jesus gives to the High Priest is ambivalent as far as it replies to the question of messiahship with a statement about the coming of the Son of Man. Those who condemn him will know him as Lord of the universe and coming judge. Veiled in Jesus, the outcast from Nazareth, one who renounces violence and willingly accepts execution, is appointed Lord of the entire world. The phrasing here reflects the thinking of the Christian community of the 60s, but the mindset derives from Jesus in that he considered the significance of his personal role in the coming rule of God. He put together the apocalyptic notion of the Son of Man with that of the Suffering Servant in a unique way. The Gospel writes believed Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, and the Son of Man, who was about to ascend to the right hand of the Father.  The remarkable thing about the gospel narratives is that their authors do not make Jesus speak more directly and explicitly about the things they themselves believe. The focus of the questions is the relation of Jesus to the Father, and thus are Christological questions. The surprise is the absence of political motivation for the trial. 

The passage raises the question of the Messiah. To the sparsity of the fewer than thirty references in three hundred years, we need to add the fact that although Josephus describes all sorts of historical figures, such as prophets, would-be kings, priests, agitators, in the first century, he never calls one of them a Messiah.  If we take at face value later rabbinic references, they tell us that Rabbi Aquiba hailed Simon ben Kosiba as the Messiah in 130 AD, but before him in these centuries there seems to be no identifiable Jew hailed a kingly Messiah other than Jesus of Nazareth.  There was not a single national expectation of the Messiah. 

We also find the title “Son of Man.” In apocalyptic Jewish circles, whose voice we find echoed in the non-canonical literature of the second and first centuries BC and first century AD, there may have developed a strong image of a heavenly Son of Man through reflection on Daniel 7:37. We cannot widely attest to the title outside those circles and hence leaving relatively sparse traces, but an image that could well have appealed to Jesus and his early Christian followers because of their own strong apocalyptic bent.  In apocalyptic Jewish circles of the first century AD the portrayal in Daniel 7 had given rise to the picture of a messianic human figure of heavenly preexistent origin who is glorified by Go and made a judge.  Vermes points to the targumic evidence that rabbis used “son of man” as a circumlocution for “I”.  The position of Bultmann, Hahn, Todt, and Fuller, namely, that Jesus did use the title of a future figure who would come to judge but that this figure was not Jesus himself, has lost much of its following.  Granted Jesus’ conception of the role he himself was playing in making present the rule of God, his anticipation of another unidentified human-like figure to conclude the work seems unlikely.

The High Priest declaring that Jesus committed blasphemy (βλασφημίαν) suggests he thought Jesus was expressing human arrogance. ^[61] From the attested meanings of the Greek word, the only likely charge involving blaspheme would have been that Jesus arrogantly claimed for himself status or privileges that belonged properly to the God of Israel alone and in that sense implicitly demeaned God. The claim to be the Son of Man would be blasphemous. Yet, even if one sees the answer Jesus gives as an affirmative answer, it is difficult to see why the High Priest should have found it to be blasphemous. It may well be that the messianic claim of Jesus seemed blasphemous because he regarded it as false, construing it as a blasphemous presumption. Yet, it is hard to answer the question of how he arrived at this conclusion.^[62] Another possibility is that Jewish leaders could conclude that Jesus was a false prophet, which would also lead the accusation of blasphemy. The fact that Jesus acted like a prophet and thus caused some to think he was one could have caused others to think he was a false prophet. The reaction to Jesus at court is a response to the threat Jesus posed to his earthly judges for their abuse of the Jewish court system. If so, Deuteronomy 17:12 comes into play, where if anyone disobeys the priest, the person must die. This view suggests that the threat of judgment by the Son of Man, even without identification of Jesus as the Son of Man, would have been enough for a death sentence as an insult to the court, based on Deuteronomy 17:12.^[63] Only Matthew records the verdict of the court, which said Jesus was deserving of death. Religious leaders who kill in the name of God is not new. It has been going on from the beginning of human history. A satirical piece in the Onion after 9/11/2001 included stories titled, “Terrorists surprised to find selves in hell.” Another title was, “We expected eternal paradise for this” and “God angrily clarifies ‘don’t kill’ rule.” "Somehow, people keep coming up with the idea that I want them to kill their neighbor," God tells the Onion during a press conference near the World Trade Center. "Well, I don't. And to be honest, I'm really getting sick and tired of it." The story ends with an angry message from God: "How many times do I have to say it? Don't kill each other anymore -- ever!" Then, "witnesses" say, "God's shoulders began to shake, and he wept."^[64] They shamed him by spitting upon him and striking him, ridiculing him as a prophet and Messiah. In Deuteronomy 13: 5-6, the probability is that Jewish religious leaders suspected Jesus of being a deceiver who was leading people astray from traditional divine revelation, and therefore deserving of death. They did not enact judicial murder out of personal dislike of Jesus. They acted in good faith in regarding Jesus as a deceiver who was seducing the people into apostasy from the God of Israel along the lines expressed here. Justin still has awareness of this decisive accusation in Dialogue with Tryphyo, 69.7 and 108.1.^[65]

The Roman Governor Pilate would betray his office by preferring political corrected of the crown to discharging the duty he had to dispense justice. The High Priest delivers Jesus to Pilate (Mark 15:1, Matthew 27:1-2, Luke 23:1, John 18:28). The story of Jesus in his last hours of life show that he had a why to live for, and thus could endure any how (Victor Frankel). The city elders worked with the priests to bring Jesus to Pilate. In Mark 15:2-14, Matthew 27:11-23, Luke 23:2-5, 13-24, and John 18:29-38a, 39-40, we find the story of Jesus before Pilate and the choice of Barabbas. Pilate asks Jesus if he is king of the Jews (Βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων), a title that corresponds to the title given by the magi in Matthew 2. There is no basis in the gospel story that Jesus thought of himself as king. Jesus is evasive in his response. Jesus is silent before his accusers, so much so that the governor is amazed. Jesus becomes a victim. Luke stresses that the city elders and priests accuse of Jesus of perverting the nation, forbidding them to pay taxes, and saying he is Messiah, a king. While Pilate finds no basis for the accusation, the elders and chief priests, Jesus is stirring up people in Galilee and now in Jerusalem.

Luke 23:6-12 is a story about Jesus before Herod. As Pilate heard Jesus was a Galilean, he sent him to Herod, who was in Jerusalem. Herod was glad to see him, because he wanted Jesus to perform a sign. He questioned Jesus at length, but Jesus gave no answer. The dhief priests and scribes continued to accuse Jesus. The soldiers treated him with contempt, mocked him, put an elegant robe on him, and sent him back to Pilate. The humiliation of Jesus by Pilate and Herod reconciles the two, Luke showing that political leaders do not understand the situation that confronts them. In Luke 23:13-16, Pilate understands the return of Jesus as a declaration of the innocence of Jesus. He does not deserve death. He will flog him and release him. The beating ordered by Pilate does not make much sense, although it may be a warning to Jesus not to bother the authorities in the future. 

The text (Mark 15:2-14, Matthew 27:11-23, Luke 23:13-24, John 18:29-38a, 39-40) refers to a release of a prisoner for the crowd, to which Josephus, in Antiquities 20:208-09, 215, has such an incident of release of a prisoner, as does the Mishnah in Pesahim 8:6a. Jesus, whose surname was Barabbas, was a notorious criminal. Pilate places him and Jesus who is called Messiah (Χριστόν) before the crowd. Matthew will heighten the tension in the choice between Jesus son of Abba and Jesus son of Mary and Joseph. Matthew adds an exchange between Pilate and his wife in which his wife says she had suffered due to a dream, and she warned him to have nothing to do with that innocent man. The incident gives a ray of hope that will quickly disappear. The priests and elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas, and therefore, for Jesus to be killed. When Pilate asks the crowd what they want him to do with Jesus, they declare they want him crucified. In asking them what Jesus had done, Pilate recognizes the basis for the antagonism Jewish authorities had toward Jesus. In Mark 15:14, Matthew 27:24-26, Luke 23:25, John 19:16, Pilate hands Jesus over for crucifixion. Matthew adds that Pilate declares him innocent, and the people respond that the blood of this innocent man bet upon them and their children. Matthew has in mind that the Jewish people were judged by God in 70 AD with the destruction of the Temple for what they did not Jesus in 30 AD. Later Christian generations made this statement apply to Jews throughout history, an interpretation that has caused great pain in their relationship. We cannot speak of a guilt of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus, despite verse 25. Even if in the debates about the release of a condemned person the crowd did utter this terrible curse, is God going to hold the crowd and the whole people to it?^[66] Christian charges of deicide against the Jewish people as a seal of its definitive rejection by God ought never to have arisen. The churches have rightly distanced themselves from them, even if too late, but with an expression of shame at the long and painful history of Christian relations to the Jewish people. Charges of this kind have poisoned such relations.^[67] Under orchestrated pressure, Pilate yielded to the will of the Jewish authorities rather than have public trouble over an issue in which he had little interest. When Pilate finally delivers his sentence, he comes across as a weak, cowardly man. In Mark 15:16-20 and Matthew 27:27-31, the soldiers mock Jesus by stripping him naked, putting a scarlet robe on him, constructed a crown of thorns for his head (Zechariah 6:11), placed a reed in his right hand, and knelt before him and mocked him by hailing him as king of the Jews (Βασιλεῦ τῶν Ἰουδαίων). There is no evidence Jesus aspired to be king. They heaped shame upon him, took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him, and led him away for crucifixion.

Jesus was falsely accused of fake capital crimes that resulted in a very real, awful, capital crime committed against him, a crime that changed the world — forever. When people withhold testimony, when others give false testimony, and when no one brings corroborating evidence, authorities have committed the crime. This was no injustice. This was a crime. Yet, this crime is precisely what God used to continuing bringing the rule of God into the world through the witness of those who continued to live in fellowship with Jesus.

In Mark 15:21-32, Matthew 27:32-44, Luke 23:26-43, John 19:16b-27, Jesus is crucified and mocked. It begins with Simon from Cyrene, whom they compel to carry the cross of Jesus, although John 19:17 says Jesus carried his own cross. Luke says he carried the cross behind Jesus. Luke adds that along the way the women lament what has happened to Jesus. Jesus urges these daughters of Jerusalem not to weep for him, for themselves and for their children. In a saying with apocalyptic overtones from Hosea 10:8, he says the days are coming when they will say that the barren, the wombs that never gave birth, and the breasts that never fed a baby are blessed. They will beg for the mountains to fall upon them and cover them. In an enigmatic saying, Jesus says that if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry. It has something to do with the fall of Jerusalem. The point of the whole saying is that the powers of evil that crucify Jesus now will affect the women and their offspring later. Returning to what the three gospels have in common, they came to Golgotha. This material offers the theological context of the crucifixion by using Scripture to interpret the crucifixion of Jesus. It is remarkably brief regarding the logistics of the crucifixion. Instead, there is a focus on how the death of Jesus fulfills the Scriptures of Israel. Crucifixion was a common and shameful form of execution in the first century. It was an agonizing and extended death, compounded by the sneering, mocking and scoffing of onlookers. Because of this, the challenge facing the gospel writers was to make clear to their readers the distinctive significance of Jesus' crucifixion -- one that was, in no way, the death of a common criminal. Luke makes full use of the roles of the various characters in the story in order to accomplish this goal.  In particular, note the structure of three mocking, repeated references to the Scriptures, selected Christological titles, the mysterious phenomena that accompany the death of Jesus (vv. 44-49), the ironic truths of the taunts hurled at Jesus, and Jesus' three pronouncements from the cross in 33-46. One offers Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall, which Matthew assumes was given in mockery rather than mercy by referring to Psalm 69:21, that places in parallel poison for food and vinegar to drink, but when he tasted it, he would not drink. They crucified him. This was done with an upright pole remaining in the place of crucifixion, and the nails driven between wrists and one in the ankles. The practice began with the Persians, Hellenistic world, and Carthaginians.  With Rome, it was primarily a punishment applied to the lower classes, slaves, and foreigners.  As Roman armies began to interfere in Judea, crucifixion of Jews became a matter of policy, e.g., the governor of Syria crucified 2000 Jews in 4 BC.  In the first century, Jesus is the first Jew whom we know the Romans to have crucified.  Otherwise, Josephus records no crucifixions of Jews during the first part of the Roman prefecture in Judea, AD 6-40, though there are many in 44-60. The cross may have been 7 feet high. They divided his clothes among themselves by casting lots, suggesting complete nudity on the cross. Over his head, they placed sign: King of the Jews. Since the Romans intended crucifixion to be so horrible and shaming, it would be reasonable to assume they made the crime public and did so in a public place for all to see. Two others who were criminals were crucified, with Jesus in the middle, their presence fulfilling Isaiah 53:12, that the suffering servant was counted among the transgressors, but also highlighting the indignity and shame to which crucifixion subjected the innocent Jesus. 

In Luke, the first pronouncement from the cross is that Jesus to the Father to forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. Scholars have debated the authenticity of Jesus' prayer from the cross in verse 34a with inconclusive results. Some of the earliest and most geographically diverse manuscripts omit it. Yet, other ancient authorities include it. The NRSV compromises by enclosing the sentence in double brackets. The NIV provides a footnote expressing the prayer's doubtful heritage. Although it is unclear whether Jesus is praying for the Romans, the Jewish leaders or both, it is fair to say that the prayer is consistent with both Luke's characterization of Jesus and Luke's style. Jesus prays repeatedly to God the "Father" in Luke, and his emphasis on forgiveness would make it likely that Jesus would ask for forgiveness for all who were involved in his death. In what way did they not know what they were doing? They thought they were executing a criminal, a blasphemer, a rebel. They did not know he was Messiah, the Chosen, and King of the Jews. Theologically, they represent us all. In fact, in the narrative of Luke, the truth is on their lips, but not in their hearts. Robert C. Tannehill says this prayer and the final one in verse 46 ("Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.") serve to "bracket" the Crucifixion. Both prayers address God as "Father." In one, Jesus addresses the horizontal dimension of life - his opponents. In the other, Jesus addresses the vertical dimension of human existence - his relationship with God. Being able to forgive the people who have unjustly accused you, mocked you, treated you with contempt, tortured you and crucified you, is an amazing moment. Such forgiveness knows that one best overcomes evil by good. People who believe that God is the ultimate judge of each of us, the God who knows what is in each of our hearts, can show compassion and forgiveness. When Jesus forgave his tormentors, he released them from their sins and turned them over to God. We can do the same with the people who hurt us. The people who crucified Jesus did not know what they were doing. Although they attempted to anger him, Jesus responded with forgiveness. Although they mocked him with a sign that said, "King of the Jews," the sign spoke the truth. He was the promised “coming king” of the Jewish people. Yet, he was in such a way that he was also the king of the people of God, whether Jew or Gentile. He was the promised Messiah. Although they challenged him to save himself, he saved the criminal next to him.

In the crowd mocking him, they refer to his prophecy that the temple would be destroyed but he would build it in three days. They urge him to save himself if he is the Son of God (Υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ), while Luke has if he is the Messiah of God. The chief priests, scribes, and elders of the city, now mocking him with the title King of Israel (ΒασιλεὺςἸσραήλ). They further mock him by saying he declared himself to be the Son of God. They challenge Jesus to do for himself what he maintains he could do for them. They do not think he can actually save himself. The ironic truth of the taunts is that those who mock him declare his messianic identity and the saving significance of his death. Luke adds that in fulfillment of Psalm 22:18 they divided his clothing and in fulfillment of Psalm 22:7 they scoffed at him. Luke adds that the soldiers mocked him, fulfilling Psalm 69:7ff. Death exposed his finitude and his punishment as a sinner. He suffered in our place as sinners. He suffered a fate he did not deserve, even while those who killed him deserved such a death.^[68] The criminals taunted him as well. 

Matthew sees Jesus here as the righteous sufferer mocked by the world.  With his entire life, he has done precisely what scorn is heaped on him for: he has trusted in God, thus keeping the first commandment.  That he does so even more fully in his death those who mock him do not understand.  They refuse to trust in God; therefore, they demand proof from God, and demand to have it now, that is, when they find it necessary.  Therefore, they are blind to the fact that in this very place and at this very moment, when they think God is absent, he is present. 

Luke adds another pronouncement of Jesus from the cross concerning the two criminals crucified with him. This passage sums up the theology of Luke concerning the cross. ³⁹ One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him, for Luke, a fourth source of mocking Jesus, and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? [Christological title] Save yourself and us!” He challenges Jesus to do for himself what he maintains he could do for them. He does not think Jesus can save himself. The ironic truth of the taunt is that the one who mocks him declares his messianic identity and the saving significance of his death. With his entire life, he has done precisely what scorn onlookers heaped on him for: he has trusted in God, thus keeping the first commandment.  That he does so even more fully in his death those who mock him do not understand.  They refuse to trust in God; therefore, they demand proof from God, and demand to have it now, that is, when they find it necessary.  Therefore, they are blind to the fact that in this very place and at this very moment, when they think God is absent, he is present. ⁴⁰ But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? ⁴¹ And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” The criminal proclaims the innocence of Jesus. Even a criminal recognizes the saving effect of the death of Jesus. In one sense, the repentant criminal on the cross delivers the first Christian sermon. The outcast criminal understands things that neither the family of Jesus nor the disciples had understood. While everyone else abandoned Jesus, the criminal gives witness. ⁴² Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He believes Jesus is the Messiah. His request echoes the cries of those in need and those dying in ages past. In Genesis 40:14, Joseph asks the cupbearer to think of him when it goes well with him and show Joseph kindness by mentioning him to Pharaoh. In I Samuel 1:11, Hannah vowed that if the Lord would remember her in her affliction of being childless, she would dedicate her son to the Lord. In Nehemiah 5:19, Nehemiah as God to remember him because of all the good he has done. Job 14:13 has Job asking the Lord to remember him in accord with the lovingkindness of the Lord when he is in Sheol. Psalm 25:7 asks the Lord to remember him in accord with the lovingkindness and goodness of the Lord.  Jeremiah 15:15 has Jeremiah asking the Lord to remember him. ⁴³ He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me. No, this is not “fair.” Jesus does not treat the thief fairly. This story is a reminder to us all that salvation is by grace. This thief has done nothing to inherit the promise of Jesus here. You can I can do nothing to earn this promise. Pause and consider the power of these words. This is not only an offer of forgiveness, but also of friendship. Thus, at the precise moment Jesus is saving the entire world, he takes the time to save the one person. Jesus never sacrificed the one for the many, or the many for the one. He always kept the One and the Many together in his life ... and death. Thus, the criminal will be with Jesus in Paradise. The word occurs only here in the gospels. Jesus' conversation with the penitent thief will become one of the distinctive features of Luke's crucifixion story. Verses 28-30, in which Jesus tells his disciples that his Father appointed a kingdom for him, and he will reign, probably inspire verse 43. 

The unique feature of the account of the crucifixion continues with his version of the final words of Jesus. Luke 23:44-49 does refer to 3 PM and the darkness at noon, as do Mark and Matthew, and the curtain of the temple tearing in two, symbolizing the immediate access to God that the death of Jesus brings, Jesus serenely dies, commending his spirit to the Father. In Luke 9:44, Jesus says the Son of Man will be handed over to people. Now, he is in the hands of the Father. The centurion is the last to declare Jesus' innocence. Of the Gospels, only Luke says that the people regretted what happened. What Jesus accomplished by his death is the salvation of humanity. Jesus addresses God as Father, as he did in the Lord’s Prayer, this time asking the Father to forgive those who crucified and mocked him, for they do not know what they were doing. He also asks his Father to forgive the Romans and Jews who collaborated in this crucifixion. In what way did they not know what they were doing? They thought they were executing a criminal, a blasphemer, a rebel. They did not know he was Messiah, the Chosen, and King of the Jews. Theologically, they represent us all. In fact, in the narrative of Luke, the truth is on their lips, but not in their hearts. His last words from the cross are for his Father to receive his spirit. If you think about, these two prayers address his relationship with his opponents, for whom he wanted divine forgiveness, and his relationship with God, with whom he had abiding fellowship.

In sharp contrast is Mark 15:33-41, Matthew 27:45-54, we find the last words of Jesus and his death. In Mark and Matthew, the land was in darkness at noon. At 3 PM, Jesus cried with a loud voice with the words of Psalm 22:1, Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani, or My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Among the bystanders, some thought he was calling for Elijah, another got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, and others wanted to see if Elijah will come to save him. He cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last. Jesus died of shock brought on my dehydration and loss of blood.[69] Of greater interest to us is the silence of the Father in the suffering of the Son. The nature of divine action can be difficult to express. The problem arises in part because of the silence of God while creation and human history is so full of suffering. The silence of God in the presence of so much evil and suffering always makes the denial of the lordship of God over creation a possibility. The absurdity of suffering and wickedness provide material enough for atheism when it comes to the postulate of a loving and wise Creator. The debatable quality of the affirmation of the reality of God is something any theology must maintain throughout its presentation. Yet, human beings show a capacity for wanting to hear a divine word in the presence of so much suffering. Such a divine word would need to come in a unique revelatory moment in history. If we cannot locate a divine word in history, then we must reckon with the divine silence over human life and history. The cross is a reminder that we may hear only silence.^[70]  The crucifixion alone writes a human “No” over the life of Jesus. Since he spoke of the nearness of God, the crucifixion offers a “No” from God. The silence of God is deafening in the crucifixion. In fact, a struggle all religions have is what they do with the silence of the divine while humanity suffers. Jesus is one more human being who suffers profoundly while hearing the silence of God. The silence of the Father as Jesus suffers upon the cross is deafening. It brings the deity of the Father and the power of the life-giving Spirit into question. The silence of the Father at this moment in the life of Jesus is a parable of the silence of the Father to all human suffering. In many ways, suffering reminds us that we are little more than small, trembling, and weak animals that decay and die. For me as a follower of Jesus, the whole story of Jesus, which includes resurrection and the gift of the Spirit, shows us that God brings good out of evil. If God has a reality that means anything, God must be able to do that. The various interpretations of the cross are all attempts to show how God brings good out of evil. They have their basis in resurrection. Yet, we must not go there too rapidly. We need to face the painful reality that the cross of Jesus discloses. If we carefully consider the cross of Jesus of Nazareth in its historical reality, we see a major objection to the reality of God. One who dedicated his life to his heavenly Father faces opposition, trial, torture, and a cruel end of his life. Given the way Jesus lived his life, the cruelest aspect of the end of his life was the silence of God. God appears to have forsaken him in that moment. Jesus affirms that God has abandoned him. The cross invites us to ponder a painful reality. Death could bring only silence, emptiness, nothingness, and loss.

It was a small event. Just another execution, a diversion for the people, entertainment for an afternoon. He died and nothing changed. It was a minute victory for Roman rulers. One suspected revolutionary was dead. It was a small victory for the religious establishment. One who blasphemed the Temple and one who was a false prophet is dead. Of course, it was a sizable tragedy for his followers. However, his death was barely a blip, quite forgettable, quite unremarkable, quite unexceptional. Certainly not what sociologists might describe as a generational defining moment. Of course, tragic deaths always leave scars that are profoundly personal. Sociologists will tell us that a defining moment or event can shape an entire generation. So, what of Jesus' generation? When Jesus died, his generation was not defined. When Jesus died, except for some women at the foot of the cross, no one mourned. No one knew this death was exceptional. There was no press report. No news briefing. No shocked nation. Few took notice of another Jew's execution. 

Jesus did change the course of history, that we now realize. But at the time, who knew? Who cared? The disciples did not know. They had fled and returned to their former occupations, hauling nets, collecting taxes, pounding nails, trying to forget, trying to blend in, trying to hide. Religious leaders did not know. Many rejoiced that an agitating rabble-rouser was eliminated. They were anxious to get on with Passover. The political leaders did not know. They just wanted to get rid of that troublemaker and keep peace in an unimportant Roman province. "Keep the peace" equaled "keep their jobs." The people did not know. They were thoroughly disillusioned. The soldiers did not know. They gambled for his clothes. The thief beside him did not know. He taunted Jesus as he hung dying on the cross. 

Do we know? Do we understand choosing the cross can be for us the defining moment of our spiritual lives? Have we encountered Christ in a way that affirms that Jesus was not just a good man, not just someone who showed us how to love one another, but as the Savior who died on this day, Good Friday, in a specific time and place, died for the sins of the world? 

Matthew will describe certain effects of the crucifixion which amount to phenomena that provide a theological interpretation of the import of the death of Jesus in the language of apocalyptic. The curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. In the imagery of the vision of the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37, the tombs opened, and many bodies of the deceased saints arose from their sleep. After the resurrection of Jesus, a considerable number of saints entered the city and appeared to many. Death has been robbed of its power. Matthew envisions continuity with the best of the Old Testament and Jewish expressions of faith into the newly formed Christian community.

Mark and Matthew relate the confession of faith by Gentile Roman soldiers as they witness the crucifixion, saw the earthquake, and were terrified, professing that truly this man was the Son of God (Θεοῦ Υἱὸς).

Mark 15:42-47, Matthew 27:55-61, Luke 23:50-56, John 19:38-42, recounts the burial of Jesus. Jewish authorities would have wanted the body down before the Sabbath. Many Galilean women who had provided for him were present but looking from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James (Mark identifies as the younger) and Joseph, Mark has Salome, and Matthew has the mother of the James and John. Mark says many other women travelled with the disciples to Jerusalem. Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea, a disciple of Jesus, went to Pilate and asked for the body, who ordered the soldiers to give the body to him. After taking the body from the cross, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, laid it in his own new tomb, and rolled a large stone to the door of the tomb and left. Mary Magdalene and the Mary the mother of James and Joseph saw where he laid the body (Mark) and sat opposite the tomb (Matthew). Luke just refers to women from Galilee as present to see where the body of Jesus was and returned to their lodging to prepare spices and ointments for the body. They are faithful Jews as they rested on the Sabbath.

Matthew 27:62-66 is the story, a piece of legend, of the guard at the grave. The next day, the Jewish Sabbath that began Friday at sunset and ended Saturday at sunset, which would be unlikely day for the the chief priests and Pharisees to gather before Pilate and refer to Jesus as an imposter who said that after three days he will rise again, so they urge Pilate to have soldiers secure the tomb, or else the disciples will steal the body and tell the people he has been raised from the dead, this deception will be worse than the performed by Jesus. Pilate gives them their guards and the soldiers secured the tomb by sealing it. The story creates enormous difficulties because it tries to do something that is impossible: to prove the resurrection of Jesus objectively to those who do not believe. An historical fact is that people charged Jesus’ disciples with having stolen the body.  This charge Matthew wants to refute.  Non-Christians considered how to account for the empty tomb. They suggested that the body had been stolen.  Christians asked themselves how these others could have fallen into such an erroneous assertion and suggested that there was a Jewish conspiracy against belief in the resurrection of Jesus.  This suggestion slowly turned into a rumor. The modern discussion of the resurrection of Jesus is on a similar plane. The attempt to prove the resurrection of Jesus will always fail. What is now historically beyond dispute, however, is not the empty tomb but the fact that a series of people were convinced that they had seen the risen Lord. The result was that a group of terrified fugitives became a host of messengers who, disregarding all danger to themselves, proclaimed this risen Lord with total conviction and within a few decades won people from throughout the known world to be his followers.

What does it mean that Jesus died for us?  You know the story.  Religious people abandoned him. Civil authorities abandoned him. The disciples abandoned him. God abandoned him, even while he yet believed in God. Why?  The cross becomes the symbol of divine love. God is not simply fond of humanity. God has come to meet us under the burden and weight of all our sin and suffering to be there. The cross is the price God paid by entering human life and history to give humanity the pledge of victory. Such an act is genuine love.^[71]

We will have no deep understanding of Christianity without reflecting upon the Cross. Yet, the cross and resurrection have a close bond in the gospel accounts. It seems consistent with the thought that one builds real hope on the far side of despair.^[72] Such joining of them is chronological in that occur close in time. Yet, the joining is also theological. Paul will not refer to death, cross, death on the cross, or word of the cross without implying resurrection. He will refer to resurrection, glory, or splendor of the Father in a way that includes the death in shame that precedes it.^[73]Throughout the story of the trial and crucifixion, we see humanity at its worst. Yet, from the standpoint of the word of resurrection, we see the excellence, glory, and beauty of the act of God. From the standpoint of resurrection, the cross removes any impediments that would hinder us from having anything but the enjoyment of such self-giving love now and forever. Our understanding of the atonement needs to prepare us to be ready for that intimacy.^[74] From the standpoint of resurrection, the cross is a splendid theater of the incomparable goodness of God. The glory of God shines forth from the cross. Of course, if we have eyes to see, we will see the glory of God in all things God has made. Yet, it shines brightly in the cross, at least from the standpoint of resurrection. We see the sin of humanity, but we also see God blotting out that sin and redeeming humanity.^[75]  

The Christian doctrine of sin arises out of reflection upon what the cross says about us. It frees us from delusion about our perfectible. We are still active in improving self and world, but we acknowledge that our expectations should be modest. In fact, modesty in expectations is a sign that we have awakened from the dream of perfection. We believe in redemption, but we do not believe in flawlessness. Thus, the point of this teaching is not total depravity, basic wickedness of humanity, or an incapacity for goodness in humanity. Rather, it teaches us that sin and evil are unnatural, a disorder, and a perversion. We are creations of a good God. What has perverted itself can also experience the miracle of redemption.^[76]

Sin shows itself in the fact that we are self-deceiving people who find it difficult to tell the truth about ourselves. In the cross, we see a mirror of who we are. On this day, God tells us the truth about ourselves, the whole truth. We deceive others God sent God’s only Son to us, to embrace us, to show us the way, and we responded with, “Crucify him!” Today is a day for honesty, honesty made possible through the crucified one who says, even from the cross, “I love you still.” We believe in our basic goodness. We do the best we can. We present a well-polished face to others. Such efforts to deceive others reflect what we have deluded ourselves into thinking we are.^[77] Our sin is more incurable because we do not view ourselves as sinners.^[78] Our inclination is toward hypocrisy, which is an empty image of righteousness. We will not have clear knowledge of self until we see the meaning of the cross.^[79] We learn something else as we ponder the cross. We come upon a great irony of self-deception. Self-deception often arises out of our desire to be good and moral people. People who take their moral commitments seriously are the one who are most prone to deceive themselves about their moral commitments.

If there were ever any doubt that God can make use of anything and any situation to accomplish God's intentions for the world, we can simply remember this story. In our times of suffering and passion, we need to learn faithfulness and trust during the silence of God. The story of Jesus is not over. Our story is not over either. The cross is never the end of the story. Thus, our experience of suffering gives us greater empathy for those who are sick. Our moral failure gives us more compassion for brothers and sisters who fail the moment of their test. Broken relationships make us grateful for the broader Christian community. God is not silent forever. However, God was silent here, in these hours. We need to let that sink into our experience and reflection.

The work of Jesus has not finished.  We can join him in completing the work he set out to do.  When we gather at the table of the Lord, we do so knowing our own sin and need for forgiveness.  We are not here because we are perfect.  We are here because we need the grace God offers here.  We need the relationship with God that Jesus has made possible.

Maundy Thursday

The readings for Maundy Thursday remain the same in all three years.

Psalm 116:12-19, a hymn of thanksgiving for recovery from serious illness, are the part of the psalm in which the poet becomes a transformed being. Instead of focusing upon personal weakness, the poet focuses upon faithfulness. He must face his recent suffering and impending death, but he relies upon the Lord for help and deliverance. He can rely upon the Lord because the Lord is gracious, righteous, and merciful. The poet places himself before the Lord as a servant, offering thanks to the Lord. He vows a public thanksgiving offering if the Lord will help him. The Lord has been good to him and he wants to express his gratitude. He will lift the cup of the saving help of the Lord and call upon the name of the Lord, this phrase becoming significant for Christian liturgy regarding Holy Communion. The cup is a libation celebrating the deliverance of the poet that often accompanies the thank offering, although it could be a simple metaphor as if offering a toast to the Lord that he will publicize the great deeds of the Lord. He will also pay his vows to the Lord in the presence of all the people in gratitude for the deliverance he has received. Such a thank offering is a token of this payment, fulfilling a vow made in the time of trouble that he can now pay. He then stresses that death is costly and therefore, the death of the faithful is grievous (yakar, some translations say “precious”) in the sight of the Lord. Death is costly because it breaks off all relationship between the Lord and the people. The psalmist gives voice to a sentiment that has become one of the most used phrases at funerals. The Lord does not wish those who adhere to the Lord to die. Therefore, the poet is assured that the Lord keep him alive. He identifies himself with an epithet of extreme humility as a servant of the Lord, even the child of your serving your serving girl. Here is the best the psalmist can offer in gratitude for the good the Lord has brought into his life. He will become the servant of the Lord for the rest of his life. The Lord has loosed his bonds, referring to his illness or to the constriction caused by the situation in which he finds himself. He comes back to the saving help the Lord has demonstrated in his life, offering to the Lord a thanksgiving sacrifice, calling on the name of the Lord, paying his vows to the Lord in the presence of the people, in the courts of the Temple in Jerusalem. He concludes with the affirmation to praise the Lord.

Exodus 12:1-14 is part of the Priestly account of the Passover (12:1-20, 28, 40-51, 13:1-2, 20). The festival is like the Canaanite New Year Spring Festival. It relates to the semi-nomadic life of the area. Yet, the specificity of the Hebrew rite at its most essential levels does not reduce to these festivals. Further, the P Document has united it with the plague tradition that was an early part of the story of the liberation from Egypt with the Passover. The larger narrative context for the institution of Passover is the struggle of Moses and Aaron to free the Hebrew people from Egyptian slavery (Exodus 1:8-22; 3:7-12; 6:28–7:7) and into the liberation represented by entry into the Promised Land. The climax of that struggle is a series of plagues inflicted on the Egyptian people, livestock, grain, land, and water, culminating in the 10th and most horrific plague, the death of Egypt’s firstborn children and livestock (11:4-5). The Passover is both the apotropaic (evil-averting) and commemorative ritual of that grim event. I will discuss both aspects. Passover recalls the way the Lord saved a particular people. Interestingly, Jewish exegesis focused upon how this account of the Passover was different from how Jews came to practice it in their homes. One could also suggest that too much emphasis upon Passover would lead to an overemphasis upon liberation as only political. Human beings also need liberation from evil and sin, and thus need a transformed human life. In the New Testament, both John and Paul connect the crucifixion with Passover themes. There was also the Quartodeciman controversy in the history of the church, in which the churches divided over the date to celebrate Easter. Some (Orthodox churches) wanted to connect it closely to the Jewish celebration of Passover; others wanted it celebrated on a different calendar so that Easter was always Sunday. Church rites through the Reformation continued to use the Passover as an allegory of Christian teaching on baptism, Eucharist, and the death and resurrection of Jesus.^[80]

The Lord gives direction to Moses the liberator and Aaron the leader of worship life, giving them instructions regarding the observance of the Passover. They receive these instructions while still in Egypt. The Jewish calendar will begin in March-April in the Gregorian calendar because of the event of the coming redemption of Israel, Abib in Hebrew, and Nisan in the ancient Babylonian calendar. Even today, the Jewish calendar begins the new year on this date, although that fact does not receive emphasis. The congregation of Israel suggests application to adult male heads of households, the core of Israel as a religious entity. A lamb from each household, or if a household is too small it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one, this act of sharing such a meal is to remind them of the costliness of this sacrifice. The lamb will come from the flock they have and be divided among the number of people who share the meal. As is standard for a sacrificial animal, it will be without blemish, a year-old male sheep or goat. Keeping it with them for four days verifies it is without blemish. The logic of sacrifice to deity demands one offers the best of what one has. The firstborn of the year from the flock was the healthiest, fittest, and strongest. A healthy year-old lamb, sheep, goat, or even calf in Deuteronomy 16:2 was a considerable investment of labor and resources on the part of the shepherd. The logic of sacrifice to deity would not settle for “sacrifice” of surplus or leftovers, but only a sacrifice that represented its cost to the one who sacrifices. The congregation will slaughter the animal at twilight. They will sprinkle some of the blood on the two doorposts and the lintel of the home. At this point, Passover becomes an apotropaic (evil-averting) ritual. Using a blood marker to ward off evil appears elsewhere in the Bible. Exodus 4:24-26 relates the strange incident of the Lord attacking the son of Moses, and Zipporah using the severed foreskin of the son to protect him. Blood was the life force of living creatures in Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:11, and 14. One was to return the blood to the deity from whence it came. They shall eat the roasted lamb that night, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. If any of the meat remains it shall be burned. This act avoids any possibility of profaning the elements of the sacrifice. In contrast to other sacrifices in which families were to share with the priests, the family is to consume the Passover sacrifice completely. They will eat it prepared for a journey. They are to eat it with loins girded, sandals on the feet, with staff in hand, and quickly. The Pesach or Passover, which does mean “pass over,” but also “to protect” and “to have compassion.” Even in times of danger and haste, there is a place for ritual. The Lord is careful to give specific instructions on how families are to celebrate the first Passover. The symbols of the common objects have divine significance. We now come to the painful reason for all of this. The first-born in Egypt, both human and animal, will die. We see the value of the firstborn here as well. It makes this event so devastating. For example, the depleted and scarce resources of most families made them focus on the thriving and surviving firstborn. The image is disturbing. It causes us to wonder who the Lord is and to what lengths the Lord will go. How do we understand one who has brought about one disaster after the other, wounding people, animals, and earth? The Israelites will also wonder who the Lord is. One cannot take the Lord for granted. We then learn that the Lord will judge the gods of Egypt in this plague. If we are reading the entire plague tradition contained in Exodus, this statement might surprise us. This severe judgment is not on Pharaoh or the people of Egypt. This severe judgment is upon the gods they worship. The exodus is a matter of theology, the defeat of the deities of Egypt by the newly revealed Yahweh of the Hebrew people. If a modern reporter were present, the news account would look vastly different from the account in the Bible. A newspaper account would describe the human resources involved. The biblical account focuses upon the divine battle that is taking place. The Lord will pass over homes with the blood sprinkled upon them. It is a day of remembrance for the Jewish people. It is a festival to the Lord. However, Tractate Pesachim in the Mishnah, ca. 200, reminded Israelites of the enormous suffering that they commemorated alongside Israel’s deliverance, and instructed Passover participants departing at the conclusion of the meal not to join in revelry.^[81] The festival or remembrance itself is a powerful way for the Jewish people to cultivate its relationship with the Lord. We are not to think of simply recalling the fact of a past event, but to actualize its liberating power in the present.^[82]

It is significant that God chooses to save Israel. Israel does not earn this salvation. The whole miracle is that such a tiny, insignificant people became the beneficiaries of a great miracle: liberation from slavery to the most powerful empire then on earth. For the rest of Israelite history, this special covenant between Israel and God was invoked to bind the 12 tribes together into a nation; and in these invocations of the covenant, God's saving act in the exodus is always mentioned as the primary action through which God demonstrated faithfulness to the Israelites and worthiness to be worshiped (Joshua 24:5-7; 1 Samuel 12:6-8; 1 Kings 8:44-54).

What do I do with my past? What do I do with this moment? I am creating a future self. What do I want him or her to be like? Will my future self be satisfied with what I do today? Why do we need reminders? Some memories require repetition. We make the commitment on our wedding day to love one another.  Yet, it is not enough.  We need to hear it repeatedly.  Memories of the heart require constant repetition. This might remind us of two common ways we think of connecting remembering with the past. We can remember that something happened. This would mark time (chronos). God created such marking of time in creation, so we are to value it. Yet, what we remember is an external fact. We have some horror of the “same old thing,” (C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters). Day after day, time marches on, regardless of the date. We will do anything to break the monotony. Yes, idle hands are the worship of the devil. Boredom provides a warehouse of raw materials for construction. When time holds no meaning for us, we can waste our time on trivial and self-destructive pursuits. When we experience time like this, we do not even realize that our time is passing away. We do not have to experience time like this. The Lord formed us to experience our brief chronological time with fullness and meaning (kairos). Passover is a day of remembrance in this sense. Passover “remembers” the divine act of liberation from slavery. Human flourishing, meaning, and significance derive from the divine presence breaking into “chronos” and making it “kairos.” We have an open mind and heart to the divine in this moment. “Kairos” is the moment of the visitation and intervention of the Lord. A “kairos” moment can offer such significance well beyond its chronological location. Thus, the Passover remembrance contains within it the desire to actualize the liberation brought by the divine presence in communal and personal life. The “kairos” of that event in the past becomes our “kairos” today. Such a time is no longer external to us. We have internalized the “kairos” of that event of that event in the past in such a way that it becomes our “kairos” of today.

We can discover a great beauty in the ironic tragedy by which Christ's crucifixion took place during the Jewish festival of Passover. The central feast of the Jewish faith, their affirmation of God's gracious choice for them over all others, their most holy reminder of God's saving power now forever coincides with the central feast of the Christian faith, with our affirmation of God's gracious choice for humanity, our most holy reminder of God's saving power. It is no wonder that the early church found the image of the Lamb of God an irresistible title for our Christ. The blood that saved the Israelites, celebrated during Passover, for us has forever given way to the blood that saved the world. The symbolism of the sacrificial victim, the presence of whose blood diverts the angel of death from the homes of the faithful, has forever become the mystical truth behind our dependence upon Christ and his willingness to forfeit his life to save ours.

I Corinthians 11:23-26, (along with Mark 14:22-26, Matthew 26:26-30, Luke 22:14-23) shows the received tradition of the institution of the Supper of the Lord. Paul received (παρέλαβον) this tradition from the Lord, and therefore not from his Jewish tradition or another apostle, thereby heightening the importance of what he is about to say, what he handed on (παρέδωκα) to them. Therefore, the believers in Corinth ought to listen attentively and reflect carefully on the implications of Paul’s remarks. This tradition, stemming from the evening before the death of Jesus, forms the basis of the Christian celebration of the Lord’s Supper and therefore of Christian worship in general. In this sense, “institution” by Jesus himself is basic to the celebration. It ought to be practiced in a way that reminds us of the communal and inclusive nature of the church. The received tradition says that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, same word for “delivered.” By Thursday night, the Passover meal, Jesus knew his time on earth was at a close.  He shared a final meal with his disciples.  The purpose of the story is to relate what Jesus said and did in the interests of faith and worship in these last hours.^[83] Thus, the observation that the account does not mention bitter herbs and other important elements of the Passover meal suggests that the tradition quickly transposed the last supper of Jesus with his disciples into a meal for use in worship by Christian practice and theological interpretation. Historically, they celebrate a Passover meal. However, Jesus re-interprets its symbolism with the words of institution. Jesus anticipated sharing a meal with his friends in the heavenly kingdom, giving a unique interpretation of a portion of the Passover meal. The story lets the example of Jesus speak for itself.^[84] Remarkably, the Lord, who experienced betrayal this night, provided for others when he gave his disciples bread and cup, in the context of a prayer of thanksgiving. This meal was for others. In fact, as symbols of the self-giving of Jesus in this moment, food and drink are particularly appropriate. Food and drink do not exist for themselves but for other living creatures. They surrender their own existence to enter the lives of others. Food and drink offer themselves so that others may live.^[85] A Christian theology of prayer stresses thanksgiving because of the recollection that Jesus blessed or gave thanks over the bread and the cup.^[86] In referring to the (in Paul the loaf of) bread as his body, the bread is no longer simply what it was before. ^[87] Yet debatable: to symbolize, represent, is like, conveys, means the same as, is the same as, is identical with, and so on. Paul will stress that like the bread he broke on that night, his body is “for you,” meaning “for” the recipients and present to them,^[88] emphasizing the sacrifice of the life of Jesus was for others. Paul and Luke will emphasize that Jesus gave a command for the continuation of this act in remembrance of Jesus. In emphasizing the wine as his blood of the covenant, Paul and Luke emphasizing “new,” he says that his disciples are not establishing a new people of God, ^[89] separating them from the rest of the Jewish people by their confession of Jesus.^[90] Matthew will add this this pouring out of his life is for the forgiveness of sin. If the body and blood for us refer to the life of Jesus offered in his death, the decisive event in the Supper is not this recollection, but present participation in the fruit of this sacrifice. The offering of my body and blood has for you the effect that as you eat this bread, I give my life to you as yours, and that as you drink of this cup you may live with joy and now with sorrow, as innocent and not condemned. As I have given my life for you, it belongs to you. You may live and not die. You may rejoice and not mourn.^[91] Paul adds that as often as they drink in this way, indicating this act has already become a regular part of their communal life, they are to do so in remembrance of Jesus. “Remembrance,” by which Paul connects with both bread and cup, links the Supper with the atoning death of Christ, not simply as recollection with the remote past, but a presentation and re-presentation of the paschal mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus and therefore the self-representing of Jesus Christ by the Spirit.^[92] Jesus gives symbolical expression to the forgiveness of sins that he links to the acceptance of his message as granted by it, since the table fellowship that Jesus practiced removes everything that separates from God. As the disciples partake of the bread, they participate in the death of Jesus, and as they partake of the cup as the climax of the meal the focus shifts to the redemptive sacrifice and anticipates the return of the Son of Man. Each occasion of the Supper of the Lord is the Messianic banquet of the revealed reign of God, the fullest form of the fellowship of Christians with the Lord now revealed to them, and an anticipation of final revelation of the inaugurated in the resurrection.^[93] When we look at the meals of Jesus in the gospels, when we particularly note the miraculous feeding in Mark 8:1-10=Matthew 15:32-39, and note his reference in parables to the banquet, we can see the importance of the eschatological fellowship of the reign of God. As Paul puts it, as often as we eat this bread and drink from the cup, we proclaim, reminding us that the supper was always part of Christian proclamation, [94]  the death of the Lord until he comes, that is, until all eyes see what believers already experience here and now with this eating and drinking.^[95] We have in these meals the central symbolical action of Jesus in which he focuses and depicts the message of the nearness of the reign of God and its salvation. The primary issue in table fellowship as a depiction of the salvation of the rule of God is fellowship with God and the mutual fellowship of all who share in the meal.^[96] Here is the beginning of the reflection on the death of Jesus within the framework of the Near East sacrificial system that plays a basic role in the interpretation of the death of Jesus. The sacrifice of Jesus begins this night.  He offered himself to his followers and to the world as the savior.  That death opened a relationship with God that has spread throughout every generation and every culture.  Our sins do not have to separate us forever from God.  In fact, we know that God is not gleefully rejecting us because of our sins.  This sacrifice gives us the most vital information we need concerning God.  Yet, we become accustomed to it, that we assume the truth of it.  God wants us to have a friendship with God. Jesus is going to his death as pioneer who opens the way of life for all. 

The Eucharist is the very heart of Christian worship because it is so rich and far-reaching in its significance. It evades thought and emotion. It relies on simple contact, humble and childlike receptiveness, and sense-quenching soul. It mixes the extremes of mystery and homeliness. It takes our common earthly experience of suffering, love abandonment, death, and makes them inexpressibly holy and fruitful. It takes the food of our natural life and transforms that into a channel of Divine Life.^[97]

John 13:1-15 is part of the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. It marks a shift in the gospel from the public ministry of Jesus to the farewell discourses to the disciples and the passion narrative. 

The washing of the feet of guests by the servants in a home has little significance for us modern readers. If anything, it seems like a strange and even disgusting custom. However, in the ancient world, it served its purpose. People walked on dusty, dirty, and smelly roads. If nothing else, washing the feet of guests helped the odor of the home. It was also an act of hospitality. The guest is welcome in this home.

Yet, even for us modern Christian readers, the visualization of Jesus stooping down at the feet of these disciples, one of whom would betray him, all of whom would desert him, with a towel and basin to wash their feet, is a powerful image. With the spirit of Peter, we might have the temptation to ask Jesus, “What are you doing, stooping before me? I need to stoop before you.” What makes the image so powerful?

I suspect the point of the story is not that every culture and every age should repeat this act, although communities can do this and receive great meaning. The point is the humility and service Jesus exhibited to those who ought to have served him.

The symbolism of the sacrificial death of Jesus coinciding with the Passover is one the reader ought not to miss.Jesus knew humanity well enough that (in contrast to 7:30 and 8:20 where his hour had not come) Jesus was fully aware that the way events around him were unfolding would lead to his sacrificial death. Yet, this knowledge did not dissuade him from his mission that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father, even as he had come from the Father. Having loved his own, a group larger than the disciples, who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The Greek word here is normally a temporal reference, referring to the end of an action. However, it could also refer to the goal or purpose of an action. In that case, the translation in the New English Bible as “the full extent of his love” becomes possible. For the first time, the life and death of Jesus are the expression of love. That love is total.

 ² The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. One challenge many readers, scholarly as well as laity, is a theological one. Simply stated, if Jesus foresees his betrayal by Judas (John 6:70-71; 13:26-27), then did Judas have free will in his betrayal? If the crucifixion was necessary for the salvation of humanity, was the betrayal by Judas betrayal a part of the plan of God? Is not Judas a participant in God’s plan of salvation? When one ponders Judas, one wrestles with weighty theological topics. Furthermore, Judas manifests a practical challenge before all readers of John’s gospel. David Bartlett has preached on this practical challenge of Judas’ character.  According to Bartlett, Judas is a far more threatening figure than is Pilate or the Jewish leaders. As believers, we watch Judas go into the night. What should terrify us is that one of his chosen followers preferred darkness to light. He was physically close to Jesus. He basked in the light, and yet, he preferred darkness.^[98] Judas shares the same unclean feet as do the disciples. Judas simply embodies the uncleanness of all the disciples. The disciples embody obstinate Israel and therefore the obstinate world. When Jesus announced that one of them would betray him, all said, “Is it I?” The special cleansing mentioned in verse 18 is a condition of fellowship with Jesus. To understand this, we need to go back to verse 1, which stresses the love that embraced them as disciples. Jesus also knew the authority he had from the Father. At that moment, his loving disposition toward them led him to an action that was in response to the satanic indwelling of Judas. In this critical moment, Jesus washes the feet of the disciples.^[99]

And during supper ³ Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, ⁴ got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. ⁵ Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that he tied around him. This was a sign of hospitality in the ancient world and was usually the role of the servant of the house. The humility of Christ is what stuns us. The King of Kings chose the servant’s role as an object lesson. Remember that in those days, foot washing was no more a symbolic ceremony than was breaking the bread and pouring the wine. It was practical. Dusty, muddy, and manure-strewn roads made sandaled feet a mealtime killer. The first-century household slave would always get the foot-washing task as it was one of the most demeaning and filthy tasks in their culture.

Since Jesus and the disciples held the meeting in secret, there was no slave to do the work. To further the irony of the Messiah washing feet, our minds lay onto this story Luke tells us that the Upper Room discourse included the favorite spat of the apostles — “Which of us is the greatest?” (Luke 22:24). The feet are the part of us that stay in contact with the earth. Jesus cleanses us by purifying us from that part of our humanity that the world taints.  Granted, sin does not destroy the imago dei in each person; sin has marred that image in its expression within and to the world. Jesus cleanses the part of us that will continue to remain in contact with a soiled world, and that cleansing is enough for us to remain standing in the world, without corrupting the whole of us. 

 ⁶ He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” ⁷ Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later, referring to the post-resurrection insight from the Holy Spirit, you will understand.” ⁸ Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” ⁹ Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” This request likely reflects the practice of ritual washing in Judaism. ¹⁰ Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” ¹¹ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

¹² After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? ¹³ You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. ¹⁴ Therefore, if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Jesus is calling us to leave higher safety for a lower, broken, dark, death-like world, asking us to enter the sorrow that is the incarnation of Maundy Thursday.

The whole passage is about incarnating into a world of pain and brokenness on behalf of those in need. Into a world of darkness and death, followers of Jesus are to offer light and life. Jesus was commissioning the disciples to do this based on the command to imitate him (v. 15). He invited them to serve, but in ways that were unexpected by the person served.

This passage is the biblical basis for the sacramental practice of foot washing. Jesus washed the feet of the disciples as a sign of cleansing and of servanthood. Appar­ently, in the churches of Asia Minor, present—day Turkey, the practice continued as a sacrament. Some churches through the centuries washed the feet of persons who had just received baptism. However, it was most common in the monasteries, where the head of the monastery would wash the feet of the newly admitted monks. Normally, they did this on Maundy Thursday as part of the Lenten observance. No less of a theologian than Bernard of Clairvaux (1091—1153) urged the acceptance of this practice as a sacrament. It be­came part of the practice of royalty, who would invite the poor to a banquet, and then the king would bow before them and wash their feet. Through some of this kind of practice, there would often be great public display of the action. This misuse caused Martin Luther to reject the practice, and most Protestant churches have followed him. However, the Church of Brethren has continued the practice as a sign of clean­sing and servanthood. The practice is seeing a comeback in Protestant churches as part of the Maundy Thursday service. 

Prayer of Commitment

Servant Lord, in Scripture, you teach us how to love and serve, not just through words, but also through your life of servanthood. In the lives of other servants, you show us how to stand in a servant’s posture and live with love as our call. Thank you for all who live out your instruction, and in their actions show your teaching. 

Lord and Teacher, may we also follow your example, serving you and others by sharing your love. Show us how to wear a servant’s towel. Use us to meet the deep needs of those near and far. Help us not to be afraid of getting messy, but to risk our own time and energy for the sake of following your call. When others serve us, may we accept their gifts with grace.

We commit ourselves to your service and ask all these things in your name. Amen.

Good Friday

We now turn to Good Friday, which has the same texts for all years of the lectionary.

Psalm 22 is an individual lament. The date of this psalm is pre-exilic. The theme of Psalm 22 is anguish of mind and religious doubt. Matthew has used it as a messianic prophecy.  The mood is one of alternate fear and a desire to seek God in the first part and in the second part a contemplation of the providential rule of God.  The poetic images move our hearts, though we cannot know details. The psalm expresses the spiritual anguish brought on by religious conflict. The writer is in shock to the point of expressing itself in physical symptoms due to the lack of response from God and the scorn of non-believers. Throughout the psalm, the writer portrays himself as a faithful worshiper of Yahweh. This faithfulness is the ground of his appeal to God for help. For this reason, one cannot see the psalmist as one who has fully despaired. He genuinely believes that an appeal to the power and justice of God will be efficacious. It opens with a person in a crisis from a serious illness but ends in in his prayers receiving an answer as he brings the offerings he vowed to make and gives public acclaim to the Lord as he promised. 

If you want to know why the question of theodicy will never have a definitive answer for us, here is the fundamental reason. If you want to know why atheism will always be a valid response to our experience of life on this planet, meditate upon this psalm. Suppose you have an experience in which you want God to speak or to act so much that it hurts. Suppose you look at an historical event, such as the Holocaust, and ponder why God did not stop that. In other words, the silence of God becomes deafening. If God is silent during the horrors of personal life and human history, then the silence can say a great deal. Belief in God is an affirmation that life triumphs over death, that hope triumphs over despair, that light triumphs over darkness, and that love triumphs over apathy. Yet, what would happen if the silence of God amid tragedy means that death, despair, darkness, and apathy are the final word this universe has to say to humanity? 

To the leader: according to The Deer of the Dawn, a musical term that may indicate the melody to which the words were sung. A Psalm of David. The superscription of the Psalm is unique and unclear; it may refer to a musical setting for the psalm or to a now lost collection of psalms. According to the Masoretic Hebrew text (which is v. 1 in the Hebrew), the title is “The Deer of the Dawn.” According to the Greek translation of Symmachus, and the Aramaic Targum, however, the title reads “My help of the Dawn,” translating the Hebrew word ‘eyaluti as “my help,” which appears in verse 19, rather than ‘ayelet, or “deer,” which appears in the Hebrew verse 1. It is fascinating that this psalm, known for its despairing opening, should have such a hopeful name in these two traditions. One should keep in mind that since Mark quotes Jesus as citing the psalm in the Aramaic, he knew its title in Aramaic as well — a title that points to the belief that the help of the Lord will come to the faithful like the dawn. The verses in the psalm alternate between the complaint of the psalmist and the affirmation of the reasons he believes God will answer his complaint. 

Psalm 22: 1-21 are a prayer of supplication. Verses 1-11 ask God, who cared for the ancestors and the psalmist in the past, does not do so now. Verses 1-2 are a cry of despair, total aloneness, seeing only separation between himself and God. Doubt is an important experience in going deeper with God. The religion arising out of Judaism and Christianity encourages examination of one’s faith and life. Adherents need to be unafraid of doubt. Doubt may lead us to see what is truly reliable. The opposite of faith is certainty. Faith includes noticing the mess, emptiness, and discomfort but also the faith that light will return. The fact that Mark records Jesus as quoting from the opening line of this Psalm gives us an opportunity to reflect upon an important event in the spiritual life of most saints. How do you deal with your life with God when God is silent? You have come to a point in your life when you want clarity, you want God to speak and act, but God is silent. Jesus, in the closing hours of his life, had that experience. Through his parables, sayings, and stories of healing and casting out demons, he affirmed the presence and reality of God. Yet, in the last hours of his life, his heavenly Father encountered him with silence. As one of Jesus’ words from the cross, recounted in Aramaic by Matthew and Mark (Matthew 27: 46; Mark 15: 34), the first line of Psalm 22 has become the quintessential cry of despair for the Christian tradition. More of Psalm 22 than simply the first verse figures in the passion narratives, however. While only Matthew and Mark relate Jesus’ quotation, all four evangelists draw parallels from the psalm to Jesus’ execution in some way, which we will see as the Psalm progresses. However, this line has had the heaviest influence on Christian teaching. The fact that Christ, in his suffering, would utter this cry, has signified to Christian theologians throughout history that Christ was indeed fully human. The fact that he could feel the thoroughly human emotion of despair, despite his divine nature, is both a scandal and a miracle by which Christians affirm the dual nature of Christ. Even as the Son of the Father, he experienced the silence of God. In fact, in the closing hours of his life, the silencing of his Father is deafening. Jesus no doubt knew the entire psalm whose first line he is citing, and therefore we can understand his quote of the Psalm to the understood to possess not only the human emotion of despair, but also the paradoxically human emotion of hope despite despair that is evident in the rest of the psalm. In v. 1b-2, while experiencing the silence of God at a critical moment in his life. He wants God to help and hear. He wants God to speak and act. God is silent. He is not blaming God. He is not asking why God did or did not do something. He is asking what God is amid his suffering. In his suffering, there is little evidence that is God with him. The poet continues to trust that God will speak and act.

Suffering reaches to the depth of all living things. After living things come to life, they mature and die. In human beings, an important part of maturing is the struggle toward adult life, as we move through the various stages of life, facing the challenges problems present, learning lessons, and moving on to the next stage is an important part of our maturity. 

Yet, sometimes, more often than we care to admit, the problems surround us in a way that makes us feel overwhelmed. We want help. We extend a hand to someone, a friend, an organization for which we have worked, a church, and to God, and it seems as if no one is listening. No one, it seems, will be there. 

“Why” is a common question for people to ask. We keep pushing the boundaries and limits of reasoning. We want to know. It seems as if some of our questions reach a limit. A rational explanation, especially in suffering, does seem to address the question. Somehow, we think life ought to be easier than this.

True, some of the obstacles and challenges in life we have put there. We need to have the strength to make the personal changes we need to make. Yet, sometimes, life throws so much at us, more than we think we can bear. We can have the faith that God is here. We can have faith that God will give us strength. We can have faith that these obstacles and challenges will be part of forming us into the people God intended. Of course, sometimes, such faith is difficult to have.

A message concerning suffering can be tough, both for the listener and for the one who gives it. Both of us know we will find no answers. Fear of experiencing suffering can lead us to hold back and fail to take the risks that are part of a human life. It can lead you to retreat from people. Yet, the people you need to accompany you through life are there. The only genuinely meaningless suffering is when you let suffering make you retreat into loneliness and despair. Suffering becomes meaningful when you let it open you to people in such a way that you become a source of inspiration to others. Human life is full of risk. Do not let the risk hold you back from engaging life fully and confidently. Yes, suffering is part of it, but life has far more positive to offer if we engage it.

Verses 3-5 sense the vast difference between God and persons, as well as God's continued silence.  Typical of the lament, the poet appeals to the faithfulness of God as a confession of trust and a reason to hope. Abandonment is not the last word. Remembering Exodus 15:11, the poet affirms the beautiful image that God is holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. One reason the absence of God seems so unfair to the poet is knowing that God has rescued faithful ancestors in the past. Why is the poet not experiencing salvation from the hand of God? Verses 6-8 shows the real strain is on his faith, his mind overcome with sorrow and grief. He describes his desperate situation. He feels less than human, The author experiences the desertion of other people. They mock his attempt to commit his cause to the Lord. He receives scorn from those who think that God will not help him. The crowd at the execution of Jesus mocks him with these words (Psalm 22: 7-8 compared with Matthew 27: 43; Mark 15: 29-31; Luke 23: 35). Verses 9-11 shows that, though his faith is under attack, he finds renewed strength. He hopes that God who was with him since conception will not abandon him now. He can look upon his life and see the faith of his mother nurturing him. If no one else helps him in his time of trouble, he wants God to help him. We need to have confidence of the presence of God in our pain. Some of us need to offer a simple prayer: “Be as near to me as my troubles are.” Our prayer may not be so much to ask God to lighten our load as to give us a stronger back.^[100]

Psalm 22: 12-21 paint the opponents of the psalmist as animal predators. The mixing of metaphors and similes of diverse types is common in the psalms. Verses 12-13 shows the strong emotion that fear of enemies brings him. In referring to the bulls of Bashan surrounding him, he refers to the territory ruled by the Syrian city-states, such as Damascus, who were frequently enemies who threatened the northern border of Israel. The area was famous for its fat, strong cattle, which are predators here, who have their mouths open wide like a ravening and roaring lion, the icon of the Assyrian empire, whose rise to power spelled the end of the northern kingdom and contributed to the fall of Judah as well. Such images may be military images drawn from the history of the struggles of Israel with its neighbors. Here is a reminder that the obstacles we face are our lives. They shape our character and personality. They shape our destiny.^[101]Some of the bulls of Bashan that surround us and threaten us are the results of choices we have made. They represent internal battles with desires and wishes that distract us from doing what God has called us to do. Can the struggles, obstacles, and suffering that are part of a human life have any positive effect? I am not ignoring the genuine pain we experience. Yet, if we assume the significance of this space and time we inhabit, if we look honestly at our experience, do we not have to agree that some of our times of greatest personal growth have been through some of the struggles we have had? Suffering and pain increase our awareness of life. Suffering becomes meaningful to the extent that it calls for protection and healing in those attacked by pain. It can show to us our limits and potential. Suffering can become meaningful because of how others respond to this suffering and how the one who suffers responds to it.^[102] Verses 14-18 may refer to the result of distress, a graphic description of a mortal illness. This event has caused profound distress to the point of affecting him physically. It feels like death. The poet senses his body stop working and disintegrating. He sees himself die; his body so dried up that it turns to dust. The scorners are like dogs hunting prey. They gloat at his death and are eager to take his possessions, dividing his clothes among themselves by casting lots, recalling Isaiah 53:5, and all four gospels relate the fact that soldiers divided his clothes among the executioners of Jesus (Matthew 27: 35; Mark 15: 24; Luke 23: 34; John 19: 24).

Psalm 22:19-31 begins the movement from lamentation to hope. The turmoil of life, the struggles of life, may lay us low for a time, but upon further reflection, we can discover deeper levels of devotion. Giving time to reflect can make room for the ambiguity that is part of well-lived human life. The theme of the psalm is anguish of mind and religious doubt. Yet, one should not miss that the passage of hope that follows this extended passage of complaint is more than twice as many verses long. It is hard to hear the painful description of the plight of the psalmist without letting that become the most salient image of this psalm. Verses 19-21a, at this lowest point, he asks the Lord to help. Verses 21b-31 express praise for the ultimate deliverance the Lord brings, when the Lord will have heard and responded to the cry for help by the writer. These verses voice the fervent belief that the entire world will, step-by-step, turn to the Lord and worship the Lord. Notice the widening circles of praise. Verses 21b-24 is an extended declaration of the Lord’s sovereign grace and power to save. We note the transition from imperative to past tense. The Lord has already rescued the poet. He will gladly witness to the deliverance of the Lord. He invites a widening circle of people to unite with him in praise. The recovery of the psalmist is a sign of the power and mercy of the Lord, as example for all, and an occasion for praise. With his reintegration into the community, all Israel is invited to join him in praise. He begins with his kin, and then invites his fellow worshippers in the congregation to offer their praise, glorifying, and stand in awe, for the Lord has not ignored the suffering poet. Verses 25-31 become a psalm of thanksgiving. They continue the hopeful end of the psalm that begins as a powerful lament. The anguish and doubt of the lament give way to the hope we find at the end. Thanksgiving is a typical part of the lament. The darkness of the soul has vanished. The Lord has answered the prayer. The congregation receives an assurance of an answer. The Lord has granted glorious deliverance. The grace of the Lord is sovereign and has power to save. The widening circle extends to all the earth (goyim, the nations, heathen, or Gentiles). Psalm 86:9 reminds us that the Lord has made all the nations, so they shall bow down and glorify the Lord. Isaiah 56:1-8 promises that the eunuch and foreigner will not be separate from the people of the Lord. Rather, they will become ministers before the Lord and love the name of the Lord. Malachi 1:11 anticipates a time when the name of the Lord shall be great among the nations. the nations will realize the power of the Lord and worship the Lord. Not even death can stop the kingly rule of the Lord over all creation. He will fulfill his vow, like Leviticus 7:16, were people bring offerings that the male priests were to eat, and Numbers 15:3, where they were to make an offering before the Lord to fulfill a vow. Psalm 47:6-9 affirms that God is the king of all the earth and nations, so that the princes of the nations shall gather as the people of the God of Abraham, for even the shields of the earth belong to God. Zechariah 14:9 prophesies that the Lord will become king over all the earth. Revelation 11:15 has the voices in heaven singing that the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of the Lord and the Messiah, who will reign forever. Even the dead shall offer praise, saying in a poetic way that everyone in every time and in every place will praise the Lord. All human beings are dust-to-dust mortals, including those who are currently dying (and even those who are already dead). Moreover, all, both the vigorous and the dying, will bow down to Yahweh. See such passages as Isaiah 45:23 (cited by Romans 14:11 and alluded to in Philippians 2:10, affirms that every knee shall bend, and every tongue confess. Revelation 5:13 looks forward to a time when every creature in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, will sing praise, honor, and glory to God and the Lamb. the Psalm seems to conclude with the hope of the messianic universal rule of the Lord. Finally, the invitation to praise extends to generations unborn as they proclaim the power of the Lord to save. John 17:20 has a similar concern for those who will believe through the word of the apostles.

The poet invites us to embrace the ambiguity of a human life, the multi-layered reality in which human life consists of. Thus, this Psalm, beginning with so much anguish, ends with an ever-widening circle of praise to the Lord. We need to embrace both the threat of nothingness and the fullness of being both the abyss and the promise of life. Some hymns come to mind. “It is well with my soul” (1876) refers to sorrows like sea billows roll, and that the devil will try to ruin, and trials may come, it is well with my soul. “Jesus, lover of my soul” (Charles Wesley 1740) refers to the nearer waters rolling and the tempest still high, that one sinks, faints, and falls, and that the Lord is the one who raises the fallen, cheers the faint, heals the sick, and leads the blind.  

Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is the fourth servant poem, describing the Servant in victory. The first and second Servant poems have the Servant have a mission to the nations. The speaker identifies with the Servant. The Servant speaks for Israel as a group. We rightly ponder why God is silent amid suffering and evil (Psalm 22). However, this prophet invites us to ponder our role in inflicting suffering and evil upon the Servant. I stress that "we," the people of God, have our role in perpetuating violence against the Servant, and therefore with the continuation of suffering and evil. The text shows who God is, but it also shows who humanity is as well. The fact is, this poem is deliberately obscure and mysterious. Its expressions remain uncertain. In keeping with the mysterious style of the passage, one must do a disservice to the text and make it precise and sharply focused.^[103]

In a Christian reading of the Old Testament, this passage receives reading every Good Friday. Acts 8:32-33 has the evangelist Phillip applying the imagery of Isaiah 53:7-8 to Jesus. It causes the Christian to ponder again the suffering of Jesus for us and for our sins. What value can we receive out of reading and re-reading this passage? Soren Kierkegaard authored a book on repetition. He said that which one repeats what has been, otherwise one could not repeat. The fact that it has been makes the repetition into something new. Frankly, this is a difficult book. For most of us, if we were going to understand it, it would be through reading it repeatedly. Yet, if we receive new insights in each reading and gain in our understanding, have we repeated? Has not the book become something new to us? Do we truly repeat the reading? The same can be true in other categories of repetition. We develop habits, such as running and exercise. An addiction can reveal a bad habit, for its repetition becomes destructive. We may have rituals we repeat because they have become symbolic and expressive of certain values and beliefs. We choose the ritual precisely because of its symbolic meaning. Yet, its repetition can reveal something new. People tend to stick with the status quo, an act of repetition as well, because a new decision of thinking or acting can become exhausting. We stick with the boring job because looking for a new one requires too much from us. We grow accustomed to certain political views we no longer question or to certain stores at which we also shop. We may repeat because we like it. Repetition can breed affection. We repeat because we feel like we have come home to that which is comfortable and familiar. Repetition can reinforce something for which we feel nostalgic. We have some fondness for the way things were. Like an old song from our youth, it simply brings back some good memories of our past. Repetition can be therapeutic as one repeats the journey. You go back home. A pastor visits each of the churches of which he or she was pastor. Such a journey can bring healthy reconciliation with the journey one has travelled thus far. Re-reading certain books or re-viewing certain movies can have the same effect. In all of this, re-engaging with the past allows us to re-work the past as we ponder our present and anticipate a potential future. An old memory gains a new perspective.^[104]

            This passage is well worth repetition on our reading list for the year, especially Good Friday.

            The passage is a difficult and contested one. Fifteen verses have attracted enormous attention. The identity of the servant is of primary concern. Some argue that the servant symbolizes the Jewish people. If so, it describes the unjust tribulations of the nation at the hands of the Babylonians and later oppressors as a well as the salvific role of the nation in the world. It could also portray a pious minority with the Jewish people that suffers as a result of the sins committed by the nation. In II Isaiah, “servant” refers to the nation or an idealized representation of the nation in 42:1-9, 18-23, 49:1-13. Like 50:4-11, it could refer to an individual. In the Targum and midrashim, the servant is the Messiah. The significance for interpretation is that this notion is part of the Jewish tradition of interpretation. The interpretive issue here is whether II Isaiah addresses the messianic themes we find in Isaiah in this passage. Given that Jeremiah describes himself in similar ways in 10:18-24 and 11:19, II Isaiah could refer to that prophet. The Talmud (b. sot. 14a) records the opinion that it describes Moses. The call of Isaiah (6) has some impressive parallels with this servant. In addition, he ponders why Israel should be beaten and revolt more, with sick and faint head and heart, with wounds, welts, and open sores throughout the body (1:5-6). The Day of the Lord of armies will address the proud and arrogant (2:12-14). Further, a descendant of Jesse, the father of King David, will bring peace (11:1-10). The poet says the Lord will call on him, and he will answer, the Lord promising to be with him in trouble, delivering him and honoring him, satisfying him with long life and show him salvation from the Lord (Psalm 91:15-16). The suggestion that Jeremiah would serve as a model for the nation or for the pious remnant is a strong possibility. I can testify to the experience of studying the biblical texts in an historical way and moving from Jeremiah to later authors in the Babylonian exile, that this explanation makes the most sense. 

The idea that II Isaiah predicts the suffering of Jesus is unlikely. At the same time, the idea that the suffering of Jesus intersects with the servant of II Isaiah, just as the intersect with Jeremiah, is a reasonable one. Why, if in the course of its history God intended Israel to play the part of the Suffering Servant here to witness to its God among the nations, it could not see itself again in the picture of the crucified Messiah. Jewish messianic hope oriented itself to an overcoming of the experience of suffering.^[105] Jesus saw himself as the servant of the Lord along these lines.^[106]

In 52:13-15, the Lord speaks, beginning with the end of the poem, which is the exaltation and glorification of the servant before the world. One can comprehend all that happens here only from the perspective of its divine telos or purpose. Only from the event of the glorification does the crucial light fall upon what has preceded it. The text stands between the suffering that belongs to the past and the exaltation that one anticipates.[107] The fact that the Lord prosper and exalt the servant presents a sharp contrast with the Isrelites were astonished at him because of his suffering that has brought physical disfiguration beyond that any of any other person. Previous servant songs, in 42:6 and 49:6, have described the servant as a light to the nations, so in this song, the servant shall startle many nations. He does not win honor because of his affliction. The wrath of God has touched this person. He receives divine punishment for sin, as the theology went.  Job has a similar concern (Job 19:1-22). Job addresses his friends by saying that they torment him and crush him with words. They reproach and attack him. God has wronged him since he has done no wrong. He cries for help and receives no justice. God has blocked his path and he sees no path out of darkness. God has stripped him of honor. God tears him down and removes him from all hope. God treats him like an enemy to the point where the armies of God have laid siege to his life. God alienates him from his family and friends. Relatives and closes friends have forgotten him. They treat him like a foreigner and stranger. His servants do not listen to him. His breath is offensive to his wife. His family loathes him. Children scorn hm. His close friends detest him. He has lost weight to the point of sickliness he asks for pity from friends since the hand of God has struck him. Instead, his friends pursue him as God does. They have taken so much of his flesh and still they are not satisfied. However, the prophet says the Servant may not suffer for his own sins but may take on the sins of others.  The curse that lies upon others has become the curse God places on the Servant.

In 53:1-10a, an unidentified speaker expresses shock at the career of the servant. If they are Judeans, the servant is either a pious minority, the ideal Israel, or some individual within the Israelite community. Isaiah 53:1 declares the work of salvation is a mysterious and incredible one. It has the form of funeral dirge.[108] Verses 2-6 see an innocent servant, a fellow Israelite, rescuing other Israelites from suffering by bearing the suffering himself. He grew up like a scrub growth in the desert. The lack of beauty is the result of mistreatment. Someone who was the object of divine anger was dangerous to look upon. The servant suffered on behalf of the speakers, suggesting he vicariously suffered for the guilty so that they could escape punishment. Thus, although he bore their infirmities and diseases, they considered him as an object of divine wrath. The speakers were like the friends of Job, looking upon the suffering of Job and considering that God has struck him down. “We” have done this to the servant of the Lord. They did not realize that his wounds were for their transgressions, that God crushed him for their iniquities, but that through his punishment and bruises they received healing. All this is significant for a theological understanding of the death of Jesus. While the speakers were typical sheep who have gone astray and turned to their own way, the Lord has placed their iniquity upon the servant. The prophet points to the righteous one who suffers, offering salvation, liberation, and healing through that suffering. This passage had an enormous influence on primitive Christian ideas of the vicarious expiatory meaning of the death of Jesus “for many,” but in each case, we still must seek the material basis for this kind of understanding in the distinctive constellation of the event itself. Jesus died as one rejected by his people. In the Jewish tradition, one can find support for the understanding of his death as an expiation for his people only in this passage. The circumstances of the death of Jesus provided a reason to go back to this prophetic passage since his people despised and rejected Jesus while God justified him with his resurrection.^[109] Verses 7-10a refer to the perversion of justice in human courts as the servant remains silent, a lamb led to the slaughter. His silence is in sharp contrast to our wordiness, inviting us to ponder the alternating power and impotence of words. As important as witness can be, silence at the right moment can contain even more power. [110]With justice perverted, they lead him to his death, struck down for the transgression of the people of God. They bury him with the condemned criminals who do not receive an honorable burial. His tomb was with the rich. He received this judgment, even though he had done no violence and spoke truthfully. The question here is whether the prophet is referring to the poetic presence of the servant in Sheol or to the servant undergoing such judgment in his life. The will of the Lord was to crush him. These verses show the suffering of the Servant ending in death, whether by illness or violence.  Someone may have charged him with the crimes of the wicked.  Authorities bury him with them, showing the low regard with which others held him. 

Yet, in 53: 10b-12, the servant receives vindication in the paradox of resurrection. The Lord becomes the speaker. To go through all of this, the Servant has learned that he could endure any of the tragedies and horrors of a human life, as long as he remained clear on the reason or “why” of his life.^[111] Out of the anguish he has experienced the servant shall see light and find satisfaction by his "knowledge," meaning the will of the Lord, something like the renewal of Israel that Ezekiel 37 envisions. The recovery and wellbeing of the servant is significant. The dramatic movement of the poem is to move into the abyss and then out of it into wellbeing and triumph. Such a movement is adaptable for to the Christian message. The righteous servant shall make many righteous by bearing their iniquities. The prophet compares the death of the Servant to the victim of an atonement sacrifice, as the guilt offering. The Lord delivers the Servant from death and from the charge of guilt because he made himself a guilt-offering.  He takes on himself the guilt of others and accepts the treatment due the guilty. Servant bore the sin of fellow Israelites and made intercession for transgressors. However, the ambiguity of this context as the expiatory efficacy being either for all the Jewish people or for all humanity.[112] The prophet believes the Servant cannot end in the total defeat death brings. He will restore Israel as an enduring reality. The prophet envisions the Servant surviving and experiencing vindication and success.

This song is the best known of all the Servant Songs. We can properly discuss it the context of the work of God as the one who reconciles, and specifically in the context of the covenant as a presupposition of reconciliation. It is now the nations, understood as an eschatological event, who acknowledge that they have at last understood the meaning of the existence of Israel among them, especially its historical role as a mediator and the message that it has addressed to the nations. The background of this song is a time and situation of the last, deepest, and most hopeless abasement either of the people of the covenant or of its kingly or prophetic representative. In the last days, the nations will acknowledge the witness of this servant even in the historical form of its witness.[113] The figure in this song is a shadow of the one Lamb of God that has taken away the sin of the world. Yet, what takes place in Jesus is infinitely more than the shadow could project.[114] The history of Israel is at work in this prophetic office of the Servant who suffers.[115] This song has a quite different notion of honor than the world does. God honors what the world does not.[116]

Hebrews 10:16-25 begins by referring to the new and inward covenant the Lord promised through Jeremiah 31:33-34. He stresses that the words are the testimony of the Holy Spirit, so that we understand the words to come are not to be heard in a casual or dismissive way. What follows confirms the author’s previous point and furnishes a divine seal of approval for Jesus’ priesthood. With the coming of Christ and by his sacrifice, the era of the new covenant has begun. He uses the LXX of the text, where the Lord promises a covenant in which the Lord will place the law in their hearts and minds. To show that sanctification was always the will of God, the author chooses a promise to the alter the human heart. This covenant was written on stone and stored in the Ark but inscribed in the mind and deposited in the heart. Further, the Lord will not remember their sins. He argues that because of the alteration of the heart, we have no need of repeated offering for sin. God changes human hearts, certainly, and in that change, God not only forgives sin, but forgets as well. This covenant is a full and final forgiveness and the entire pardon of sins. It destroys every barrier for us and enables us to realize full communion with God. There is no need for further offerings of sacrifice; our sin has been unconditionally canceled. 

The doctrine expressed in the opening verses find ethical application in verses 19-25. It is an exhortation to faithfulness. The Greek of these verses is a compactly constructed sentence. He initially rehearses several themes previously discussed or alluded to in the letter, builds on the service of Jesus as “a great high priest,” and finally attempts to encourage his readers to persevere. Verses 19-21 form the premise of the exhortation, summarizing what the author has established.  He addresses his readers as friends, the first time since Chapter 3 that he does so. We have the confidence he mentioned in 9:24-26 and 10:10-12, boldness coming from their special status. Paul encourages believers to boast in their hope of sharing in the glory of God (Romans 5:2). God chose us to be holy and blameless before God in love (Ephesians 1:4). We have access to the Father through the Spirit (Ephesians 2:18). We have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in Christ (Ephesians 3:12). We are holy, blameless, and irreproachable before God through the death of Christ (Colossians 1:22). With this confidence in the grace of God, we can enter the sanctuary. Jesus dedicated and opened the heavenly sanctuary for our use. In contrast to any humanly constructed tabernacle, the sanctuary that Jesus entered and thus the one that believers can approach with boldness is the heavenly one, for which see 8:1-5a; 9:1, 11-12, 24). We can have this confidence because of the blood of Jesus, entering the heavenly sanctuary by the new and living way (John 14:6 refers to Jesus as the way, truth, and life). He opened the way through the curtain, reminding us of the torn curtain of the temple (Mark 15:38), doing this through his flesh in a way that affirms that we have a priest over the house of God. The blood of Jesus purifies us to stand in the presence of God. His flesh provides access to the presence of God. Jesus is both the sacrifice and the high priest. No longer do we need a priestly intermediary to represent us before God because Christ is our high priest. Since God has established the new inclusive covenant through Jesus with Jew and Gentile, and since God has forgiven sin once and for all, then human beings have no reason to continue to offer a sin-offering sacrifice. He is both victim and priest. He is both offering and officiant. No longer must we continually appease God with animal sacrifices. Christ has completed that task for us, and just as the blood of sin offerings sprinkled on the altar of sacrifice served to purify the sanctuary after each occasion of sin (Leviticus 4:7, 17-18), Christ’s blood has been “sprinkled” on us — adding a peculiarly sacrificial form of purification to that already effected for us by the waters of baptism. The believer no longer must worry about his or her relationship with the Almighty, because in heart and mind God has made them righteous. Hence, liturgical precision no longer shapes the spiritual energy of a believer. Rather, what shapes the believer is living in community and service. Moreover, no longer is the sanctuary a specific place of mystery, open only for the properly initiated that alone could go through the curtain into the inner sanctum. Now, every believer in whatever location enters God's presence because of Jesus' own blood sacrifice. Jesus' flesh becomes the curtain that is now eternally drawn. It is a matter of the heart, not of the hearth. The believer's proximity to God is actual, real, and efficacious, unlike the old way that was, to the author of Hebrews, a mere shadow of reality. 

Given these realities, the author therefore extends three exhortations. Since all this is true, the author will now weave into his exhortation the well-known Pauline triad of faith, hope, and love. 

First, we can approach God with genuine thinking and feeling. We can approach in full assurance of faith, sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, referring to the innate understanding of what is moral and to the simple fact of being a sentient being, which only brings self-condemnation. Such an ethical exhortation is consistent with the prophet Ezekiel, who promises that the Lord will sprinkle clean water upon the people, cleansing them from uncleanness and idols. The Lord will give them a new spirit, removing the heart of stone and giving them a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:25-26). The blood of Christ erases evil from the consciousness of the believer, thus leaving them with a conscience freed from evil. Such cleansing will wash our bodies with pure water. The symbol has its basis in the Old Testament. Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and feet before entering the tent of meeting, or they will die (Exodus 30:19-21). Moses washes Aaron and his sons (Leviticus 8:6). The Lord will sprinkle clean water upon them, cleansing them from uncleanness and idols (Ezekiel 36:25). The author is consistent with Paul, who urges us to cleanse ourselves from all defilement of body and spirit (II Corinthians 7:1). He is also consistent with Peter, who viewed baptism as an appeal to God for a good conscience (I Peter 3:21). In short, we have properly prepared mind and body, heart and flesh to enter the heavenly sanctuary, since God is transforming the profane into the holy. Baptism is a washing away of sin. The author is more demanding than Psalm 24.  Not only must those who enter the sanctuary have clean hands, but they must also have clean hearts. The author has a propensity to show that each Christian rite has superseded a previous Jewish rite. Therefore, behind the comment of the author may be the well-known Jewish ritual bath of cleansing in the mikveh (bath). To restore ritual cleanliness, a Jew would bathe. The bath was a repeated event. For the author of Hebrews, the cleansing for the Christian is eternal and complete. 

Second, in the context of the letter, their enthusiasm for the gospel and the faith is waning, so he encourages them to hold fast to the confession of their hope, without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Since Jesus is a faithful and merciful high priest, they can hold fast. God made both made and fulfilled divine promises to Jesus: “You are my Son; today I have begotten you” [1:5; 5:5] and “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek” [1:13; 5:6]). Therefore, God is also faithful to us (10:23; cf. 2:17-18; 4:14-15).

Third, they can focus their attention on how to provoke each other to love and virtuous deeds, doing so by showing up in their communal gatherings, thereby rejecting the path of forsaking or abandoning the community. If the community cares for each other, they will have less time to become discouraged. Even though Paul and his team experience persecution, God has not forsaken them (II Corinthians 4:9). Demas has deserted Paul (II Timothy 4:10). Everyone deserted Paul at his first defense (II Timothy 4:16). Thus, the author admits that such abandoning of the community is the habit of some. Whether this came about from political danger, social liability, or overconfidence in one's own sense of superiority is not part of this discussion. However, the author points the community towards the future and talks about the newness of life and the need to encourage one another in the faith. Some who had lost hope neglected congregational meetings. The author reminds the readers that he expects them to lead a full life of doing virtuous deeds, such as a life experiencing the love and fellowship of their community. It is not too far-fetched to consider that the provocation to honorable deeds implies that what was being provoked in the community was just the opposite. They are to encourage each other. Whatever the actual situation in the churches that first received and read this epistle, what is unquestionably at stake is the crucial importance of Jesus Christ and his priestly function of bridging the gap, sealing the covenant, and fulfilling the final sacrifice. Since God invites the believer into the proximity of divine glory, the author encourages the believer to express this new relationship not in division, but with loving and peaceful fellowship. He echoes many other passages in the New Testament by cinching his argument that the Day is approaching. Paul shared this concern when he encourages his readers that God will strengthen them to the end, so that they may be blameless on the day of the Lord (I Corinthians 1:8).

The author shows how the death of Jesus replaced the sacrificial system of Ancient Israel, and in fact, surpassed it, because unlike animal sacrifice, which did not serve to nullify sin, Jesus’ death does. In fact, the dominant theme in Hebrews is that through Jesus Christ, who has become the perfect high priest, the believer now has complete access to God, knowing how to worship God fully and authentically. The Jewish system of sacrifice and worship is now, according to the author, obsolete. Christ has superseded the worship patterns of the Levitical priests. God, the Almighty, is still transcendent and in many ways remote - but Jesus Christ has bridged the gap between Creator and creature.

John 18:1-19:42 is an account of the passion. The story of the death of Jesus has become a controversial part of his biography. At least in the world of scholars and pastors, and for some outside Christian circles, people have an opinion on the circumstances, causality or meaning of the death of Jesus. For Christians in the pews on Good Friday, this story is both familiar and jarring. One possibility in reading this passage is to focus upon unrecognized elements. John has some distinctive traits regarding the Passion that one can easily misunderstand. Christians following the lectionary hear this passage every Good Friday. For them, we can explore the story in a way that will give it some new life.

One easily misunderstood element of the Passion in John is the group labeled simply “the Jews.” It distinguishes John’s cast of characters from the synoptic gospels. While the synoptic authors usually define Jesus’ interlocutors more specifically — scribes, Pharisees, chief priests, elders, Herodians, etc. — John pits Jesus against “the Jews” and sometimes against “the world.” Indeed, the Passion Narrative in John will bring the Jews and the world together in the answer Jesus gives to Pilate: “If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews” (18:36). The Jews thus travel through John’s gospel as a corporate character, one that appears quite frequently in the passion narrative (about 20 times). Many scholars and pastors of the last generation have worried about the portrayal of the Jews, especially in the passion narrative. In some parts of the world, Christians learn about Jews primarily from their Bibles and not from human interaction. So, what can we do, in post-Holocaust Christianity, to encourage faithful interpretation of the text without promoting antipathy toward Jews and Judaism today?  

Most mainline denominations have officially encouraged sensitivity to the portrayal of Jews and Judaism on Good Friday. An exegete has many different options.^[117] First, you could balance the negative portrayal of Jews with other aspects of John’s gospel. Jesus as John presents him is fully Jewish, and almost every character (good or bad) in the gospel is a Jew. John portrays Judaism positively in several instances (4:9, 22; 11:19). John’s overall message of God’s embracing love should guide all interpretation of his account (1:7; 6:39; 10:16; 12:32). Second, one could provide a nuanced analysis of “the Jews” as a character in the story. Perhaps the part they play as a character in the story John tells is a simplification of the many Jewish authority groups that the synoptics separate into specific groups. Alternatively, perhaps they are a foil for Jesus; performing a symbolic function in a similar way as does “the world” as John tells the story of Jesus. Third, one could de-emphasize the historical question of why authorities crucified Jesus (“Was it the Jews’ fault or not?”). The point in all the accounts of the Passion is getting a response from us as readers now. John has a way of telling the Passion that invites us to see the new revelation God intends us to see in Jesus. 

John also offers a unique description of Pilate due to his prominent role in the Passion. As a character in the story, John tells us, administrative expediency guides Pilate more than anything else does. He wants only one simple question answered, “Are you a king?” However, he becomes more confused the more Jesus speaks. Moreover, John goes to such lengths to incriminate the Jews and defend Pilate (the Romans) that he describes Pilate as “afraid” (19:8) and continually trying to release Jesus. The Jews respond with an accusation whose historical accuracy cannot be defended; they accuse Pilate of not being a friend of the emperor (19:12), which he obviously was (as the Roman prefect). From extra-biblical sources (Josephus, Tacitus, Philo) we can infer that most Judeans and Samaritans viewed Pilate unfavorably during his tenure (A.D. 26-36). He exercised obstinacy and even wrath through the office of prefect, which combined military, financial and judicial authority over the subjugated region. It is difficult to reconcile this historical figure with the depiction by John of a fearful, temperate pawn who receives slanders from the crowd.

“Where do we read ourselves into the passion narrative?” Christians have grown accustomed to reading themselves into the protagonists of the New Testament, usually Jesus and Paul. Nevertheless, our lives are perhaps more like the other characters we meet in their stories. We can make the story of the Passion in John come alive if we read ourselves into the minor characters that we might overlook. For example, Nicodemus reappears in the passion narrative to help prepare the body for burial: “Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds” (19:39). When the disciples of Jesus had abandoned him, Nicodemus was there to help provide a proper burial. What do we know of Nicodemus from before? He was a Pharisee and leader of the Jews who came secretly to Jesus with questions about his signs and teachings (3:1-21). Later he speaks up amid a group of Pharisees to defend Jesus’ right to teach: “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” (7:51). We cannot conclude from this slight evidence that Nicodemus was completely committed to Jesus as Messiah. Rather, John portrays him as a curious seeker and an upright leader, unafraid to hear new ideas and stand up for the rights of the unjustly accused. When Jesus dies, Nicodemus is there to prepare him for a respectful burial. Though not called a disciple, Nicodemus sees a form of discipleship through to the end.

We could also read ourselves into the other characters that follow Jesus to the end: the women at the foot of the cross. “Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene” (19:25). John emphasizes their role more than the Synoptics do. They are “near the cross” in John but looking on “from a distance” in the synoptics (Matthew 27:55; Mark 15:40; Luke 23:49). Furthermore, one of them, Mary Magdalene, is the first witness to the appearance of the risen Lord as John tells the story. She receives an intimate and private revelation (20:11-18). Because of this, ancient and medieval Christianity called her the “apostle to the apostles” (apostola apostolorum). More than the other disciples, these women beheld the suffering of Jesus face to face. Through the text, we can wonder what caused these women to remain near the cross and watch Jesus die. Why was it important for all of the gospel writers to preserve their presence there? Did they fulfill their discipleship more than the others did? If to imitate Christ on Good Friday means to suffer, perhaps to follow Christ on Good Friday means to stand near the cross and witness. On Good Friday, we follow by standing still.

18:1-12 shows the betrayal and arrest of Jesus, occurring after the private discourse in 13-17, for which see as well Mt 26.47—56; Mk 14.43—52; Lk 22.47—53). In difference from the Synoptic account, we can note that only John mentions the presence of soldiers. He does not have the clearly marked Gethsemane scene we find in the Synoptic accounts. However, in 12: 27-28, we find Jesus struggling in his soul and wondering if he should pray that the Father save him from this hour of his suffering and death. Yet, he submits to the will of the Father, and then the voice from heaven affirms that the Father has already glorified Jesus and will do so again in the resurrection. Such a voice is also present in the Synoptic accounts of the baptism and the Mount of Transfiguration. Submission to the will of the Father is precisely what the prayer at Gethsemane intended as well. In other words, as often with John, popular scenes in the Synoptic account of the story of Jesus play out differently, but they are present. I should mention that Hebrews 5:7 also refers to the agony of Jesus in prayer. Thus, while true that we do not move from the meal scene to the Garden of Gethsemane, John has included the message of that Synoptic story at a different point in his story. Another difference with the Synoptic account is that he shows Jesus taking the initiative in the arrest. This passage shows the contest between light and darkness. Theologically, John stresses this contest throughout his account of the story of Jesus. 

Judas stands for us as an image, a warning, of how far astray it is possible for us to wander. Judas was with Jesus from the first, surely intended to follow him faithfully. Yet he betrayed his master. Thus, Judas stands for us as a warning. It is possible, the example of Judas reminds us, to become terribly self-deceived. John presents Judas, not only as the betrayer of Jesus, but also as the great self-deceiver. On one occasion in the ministry of Jesus (John 12:1-8), when a woman came in and wasted an expensive jar of ointment, pouring it on Jesus, as an act of affection, Judas condemned her for the waste, saying that the money ought to have been given to the poor. On that occasion, the gospel writer says that Judas was merely deceiving himself and attempting to deceive Jesus. He did not care about the poor, but only cared about the money. Judas, the great deceiver. His self-deception is a witness to human reality. We imagine ourselves better than we are. We have an empty image of goodness and imagine that we participate in it. “I think, therefore I am,” Descartes famously said. However, who is this “I”? Some moments this “I” seems jerked around by forces beyond the control of our will and reason. Among our chief problems is the “I” and the reasons it ascribes to itself for its behavior. Our deceit is deep. In that sense, to affirm “I am” is to affirm our profound self-deception. The human heart, your heart and mine, is deceitful and corrupt (Jeremiah 17:9). The irony and paradox of humanity is that the more we desire to be good and adhere to the truth, the more prone we are to deceive ourselves that we are expressions of such goodness and truth. In that sense, the cynics among us may be less prone to self-deception than the conscientious person. Yet, the cynic is not off the hook, for the cynic has the self-deception of standing in an imaginary good place from which to pronounce such cynicism. The point is, the people who move events toward the crucifixion of Jesus are not particularly evil. In fact, they seem motivated by a desire to be good. I have suggested this possibility with Judas. Jewish leaders adhere to their interpretation of scripture that lead them to the conclusion that Jesus must die. Pilate will be an example of a good man trying to maintain neutrality in a moment that demands a decision. Here is the good news. Granted, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,” but also “If we confess our sin, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I Jn 1:8-9).

John assures us that Jesus knows what is to happen to him. He asked Judas, the Roman soldiers, and the police from the chief priests and Pharisees, for whom they are looking. When they say they are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, he responds with the revelation of the divine name we find at the burning bush in Exodus, “I am he.” Judas and those with him heard this, stepped back, and fell to the ground, showing what must happen when darkness encounters light. When he asks a second time, he identifies himself a second time and encourages them to let his disciples go, referring to John 6:39 that he would not lost anyone whom the Father gave him. Simon Peter has a sword, draws it out, and strikes Malchus, the slave of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. Jesus has Peter place the sword back into sheath, for he must drink the cup that the Father has given him. The soldiers arrest Jesus. 

18:13-27 shows the interrogation of Jesus. In this passage, Jesus stands up to his questioners, while Peter backs down. Peter Denies Jesus (Mt 26.69—75; Mk 14.66—72; Lk 22.54—62) John appears to have a separate tradition concerning the denials by Peter from either that of Mark or Luke. Only John mentions the role of Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas and high priest that year. Contemporary texts show that people knew Annas for his greed, power, and wealth.

Simon Peter and another disciple, not necessarily the Beloved Disciple, followed Jesus. Peter will represent us all in our vulnerability when our professions of faith and loyalty are tested. The high priest knew that unnamed disciple and he went with Jesus into the courtyard while Peter stood outside the gate. He spoke to a woman and she invited Peter into the courtyard. The woman asked if he was a disciple of Jesus, and he said he was not, contrasting sharply with Jesus saying, “I am he.” Since it was cold, those present build a fire, and Peter stood with them to warm himself with them. 

The high priest questions Jesus regarding his disciples and his teaching. Jesus says he has spoken openly to the world, taught in the synagogues and in the Temple, where the Jews gather. He has said nothing in secret. He can ask others what he has said, suggesting the occasion is an information interrogation. Annas wants information for a later trial. One of the police slapped Jesus for responding in this way. Jesus says he has spoken rightly, so he wonders why he struck him. Annas bound him to Caiaphas the high priest. 

Returning to Simon Peter, others warming themselves around the fire with him asked him if he was one of the disciples of Jesus and he said he was not. A relative of Malchus asked Peter if he had seen him in the garden, and Peter denied it. At that moment, the cock crowed. 

18:28 – 19:16a shows the trial of Jesus before Pilate with the theme of the Kingship of Jesus. The story of Pilate as told by John may represent the story of a good man trying to stay neutral in a struggle that demands a total commitment. He is another representative of a reaction to Jesus in this Gospel that is neither faith nor rejection. These proceedings do not suggest, contrary to the idea presented by some scholars based on verses 3 and 12, that Pilate could have initiated the process. The initiation came from Jewish officials. 

Episode One is in verses 18:28-32. Jesus before Pilate (Mt 27.1—2, 11—14; Mk 15.1—5; Lk 23.1—5) In this passage, Jewish authorities ask Pilate to condemn Jesus, like Mark 15:2-5.  The Romans crucify Jesus the day before the Passover. Jewish tradition describes Pilate negatively. Pilate seems to treat what happened before as making accusations.  John is the only one of the gospels that tries to give a reason for the Jews bringing Jesus to Pilate. They take Jesus from Caiaphas to the praetorium, the old palace of Herod the Great, about 6 AM. To avoid defilement so that the could partake in the Passover, they did not enter. Pilate went to them. He stepped outside the protective walls of the "praetorium." Pilate had to meet with the priestly accusers of Jesus. The design of Pilate's politically correct presence in Jerusalem during the festival of Passover was to discourage the throngs of visitors to the city from rioting in the streets. Pilate asks what accusation they bring against Jesus, and they say he is a criminal, but Pilate tells them to judge him according to their law. This suggests that no formal trial has taken place. The Jewish leaders replied that Roman law does not permit them to put anyone to death. 

To read this story of John is to read about people who make a judgment about Jesus. The disciples have already fled, leaving Jesus alone. Jewish religious leaders have decided he has broken Jewish laws so thoroughly that he deserves death. Pilate is trying to do something to keep the Jewish crowds quiet. The crowds would rather have the bandit Barabbas freed than they would Jesus. 

As a public official, a political leader, an important Roman citizen, Pilate has no reason to wallow in the concerns of the bothersome, insignificant Jewish inhabitants of this land. His declaration, however, also serves to free him from appearing to be in alliance with the Jewish authorities who brought Jesus to him. This Jewish problem, Jews accusing another Jew, is not something in which Pilate wants involvement. 

In these judgments against Jesus, these groups represent us. We place ourselves in the seat of the judge. We view ourselves as competent to judge. Yet, our self-deception and sin blind us to the fact that we are in fact the ones judged.

Episode Two is in verses 18:33-38a, the first interrogation by Pilate of Jesus. 

As I Timothy 6:13 puts it, “Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession.” John provides some reflections on the nature of that “good confession.”  Jesus does not offer a defense. Jesus did not owe Pilate any defense. He offered only a confession. By offering this confession, he also showed the limits of political power.^[118]

An inscription at Caesarea, placed on a stone and dated from the time of Jesus, identifies “Pontius Pilatus” as prefect of Judea. He held this office from 26 to 36 AD. He was the representative of Roman military, financial, and judicial authority in Judea. Most Judeans and Samaritans viewed Pilate unfavorably, as the most tangible representative of an occupying authority. However, if individuals respected Roman authority and paid taxes, the Romans could be quite neutral in a region. Of course, one could also be in trouble if one gained popularity among the peasants. In Judea, this meant claims to kingship. The time of Passover, a remembrance of deliverance from bondage in Egypt, was a dangerous time for the Romans. Pilate was present, discouraging the crowds from rioting in the streets. Pilate does not want to insert himself into a Jewish dispute. His concern is only whether someone threatens Romans power in the area. 

The account of the arrest of Jesus by the Romans has focused, until now, upon the innocence of Jesus of the charge against him. In this episode, the emphasis shifts to how Pilate will respond to the truth. Jesus shifts the focus of Pilate’s questions from the realm of provincial political power to the idea of truth.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus has said little about the kingdom of God, although he does have concern that people might make him king. Pilate wants to keep the conversation in terms of power. Which one of us has the power here? Are you king of the Jews (Βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων)? In John 6:15, the people tried to make him a king, which is the basis for the question of Pilate. The question is consistent with the other gospels as well. From where do you get your power? While John has not mentioned the rule of God as proclaimed by Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels, he will now. John will take a theme of the Synoptic account and present it in a unique way. Thus, John expands on the concept of kingship here. If so, the kingship of Jesus is, to Pilate, political and is an act of treason against the power of Rome. Jesus challenges Pilate as to his personal knowledge of Jesus and the charges levelled against him by Jewish religious authorities. By suggesting that Pilate only knows what "others tell you about me," Jesus reminds Pilate that he has no "evidence" against Jesus except the hearsay evidence of priests. The question by Jesus is not one of further education but of clarification. By responding that he is not a Jew, Pilate does so with contempt. As a public official, a political leader, an important Roman citizen, Pilate has no reason to wallow in the concerns of the bothersome, insignificant Jewish inhabitants of this land. His declaration, however, also serves to free him from appearing to be in alliance with the Jewish authorities who brought Jesus to him. This Jewish problem, Jews accusing another Jew, is not something in which Pilate wants involvement. Pilate emphasizes that his own leaders have handed him over to him, so what has he done? By forcefully claiming a kingdom "not from this world," Jesus defines the nature of his messianic identity. As proof, Jesus points out that he has no soldiers, no armies, and no lawyers that are fighting for his freedom. Jewish leaders were waiting for a Davidic messiah another glorious warrior king who would free them from exile to a renewed position as the holy kingdom of Israel. This is not Jesus' identity or intent. Jesus told Peter to put away his sword. If we go to Matthew 26:53, he could have called upon the Father to deliver him had the point been a kingdom of this earth. For John, the kingship of Jesus is a theological category that redefines the understanding of power of the world. We saw that understanding at work with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, as the disciples spread palm branches along the way, proclaiming, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord – the king of Israel.” The point here, in contrast, is that any power Jesus comes from God, not military might or human institutions. Because of this, in the world, the kingdom is inconsiderable and from a human point of view and insignificant kingdom, a kingdom that is like leaven in the meal, or a treasure hidden in the field, or the gran of a mustard seed. His kingdom does not come in a way that says, “Look, here it is.” We need to see that even in John, the focus on the concealed or hidden nature of the king and kingdom. His disciples forsook him. In the end, he was alone. The servant of God entered the world in this way but pressed on toward revelation in the resurrection and ascension. In all of this, we have “the royal man.” ^[119] Pilate asks if he is a king. Pilate is powerful, with Roman armies backing him. He stands strong before Jesus of Nazareth. He knows the power of the sword and the power of Rome in this part of the world, propped up by violence. Jesus arrived in Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week with crowds proclaiming him king. Undoubtedly, the crowds desired the restoration of the past glory of the kingdom of David. They envisioned throwing off the oppression of Rome. The concern of Pilate is here. He wants to know if Jesus is the type of king that threatens Rome. Political and military power is the concern of Pilate.

Jesus wants to speak in terms of truth. In fact, his “job description,” if you please, the reason God made him and the purpose God has for him, is to testify to truth. Those who listen to the truth hear his voice. Those who are part of his kingdom listen to his voice. Pilate, the representative of power, will use force. The truth, Jesus, who earlier in this gospel said, “I am the Way, I am truth and life,” uses “voice.” Pilate wants to talk about the claim of Jesus to "kingship." Jesus instead talks about "truth." If John's gospel leans toward Hellenistic notions about "kingdoms," the words Jesus now speaks about "truth" are still overwhelmingly Hebraic in nature. In John 8:47, we read, “Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God." We find a similar sentiment in I John 4:6, “We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” "Truth" for Jesus is not merely something that one thinks about; one feels truth and acts it out in life.   In Hebraic culture, there is no such thing as a separate intellect. Hebrew thought inextricably binds mind, body and emotions together. The root meaning of the Hebrew emet, "truth," is "trustworthy" or "faithful." In Hebrew, "truth" is a term more descriptive of a person than any intellectual proposition.^[120] We should notice the metaphor of “voice” that Jesus employs in his response to the charge of kingship. In explicating whom it is that belongs to the truth, Jesus declares that the members of his kingdom are precisely those people who listen to his voice. In the gospel of John, the voice of Jesus plays a key role in the conversion and ultimate salvation of those who follow Jesus. The metaphor of voice probably subsumes Jesus’ role both as eschatological prophet and as the word of God. In 5:25-29, during a debate about the authority of Jesus, he explains that “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (v. 25). In 10:1-18, the parables of the sheepfold and the good shepherd, Jesus can lead the sheep because they hear and know his voice, but “they do not know the voice of strangers” (v. 5). The metaphor of voice guides the whole discourse (vv. 3, 4, 5, 16, 27). Finally, the first resurrection appearance in John’s gospel, the epiphany to Mary Magdalene at the tomb (20:11-18), centers on the voice of Jesus. Although Mary had already looked at Jesus, she did not recognize him until she heard his voice speaking her name (v. 16). Bringing these insights back to the dialogue with Pilate, we might encapsulate the confrontation in this way: Power (Pilate) uses force, but the truth (Jesus) uses a voice. Pilate wants to know “what” truth is, when what he needs is to know “who” truth is.

Truth in the Greco Roman understanding was purely a cognitive function, an intellectual proposition. For Pilate, rooted in Greek intellectualism and Roman pragmatism, truth was something one thought. Jesus declares himself born "to testify to the truth," and claims as his own those who "belong to the truth." Earlier in this Gospel, we find Jesus saying that he testifies to what he has seen and heard, even while people do not accept his testimony. Yet, one who accepts his testimony certifies that God is true. God has sent Jesus to speak divine words and God gives the Spirit without measure (John 3:32-34).^[121] Thus, finally facing Jesus, Pilate conducts his formal inquiry into "the truth" of what has been said and done. The statement by Jesus here is characteristic of the ideas and language of John. His definition of true kingship is essentially the sovereignty of truth. For example, in 8:45-47, Christ speaks truth, and in 8:31-2, where to dwell in his word is to know truth and experience liberation by it. Kingship is one that does not oppress or enslave but sets people free. According to 17:17, his word is truth. Of course, 14:6 says that Jesus is himself the truth. However, by placing the statement in the context of a trial scene, truth is present, and truth judges the people present. In 3:18-21, John closely relates truth and light. We must not lose sight of the irony here. People think they are judging Jesus, when judgment is upon those who do not see the truth in Jesus. The reason John has focused the issue of kingship in the Passion Narrative is that the question of authority to judge, which Pilate claims, is the divinely assigned prerogative of Christ.^[122] In both dialogues with Jesus (John 18 and 19), Pilate wants to keep the conversation in terms of power. Which one of us has the power here? In 18:37, he asks, “Are you a king?” From where do you get your power? However, Jesus wants to speak in terms of truth. “I came into the world for this, to bear witness to the truth …” Earthly political power is not the measure of this king and this kingdom. Rather, the measure is the universal desire human beings have for truth. The power of Jesus is his testimony to the truth. John already indicated this in John 1:14, where the Word is “full of grace and truth.” He also indicated this in John 14:6, where Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The world of ideas, the world beyond practical power struggles, is so foreign to Pilate that he must even ask for help, “What is truth?” (v. 38). The two dialogues between Jesus and Pilate in John 18 and 19 are thus a great example of the confrontation between truth and power. We are not dealing with a question of idly speculative interest. Nor is it an attempt to back up the certainty of faith and proclamation. The truth for which humanity longs is in the act of God in Jesus Christ for us. Truth is the disclosure and recognition of that which is as it appears to humanity, of that which humanity cannot live without. When we encounter that which is, we attain to truth in the sense of disclosure and recognition. Hearing his voice is to be of the truth. We must accept His voice as the voice that speaks of Christ as that which appears as such. Christian experience can be truth and of the truth, but not so in abstraction. It is true to the extent that it proceeds from the truth. Truth rests upon what we learn of Christ.^[123] The one who has really heard the voice cannot put the question of Pilate, “What is truth.” One cannot behave as though this had not happened, seeking and enquiring whether the light of the life of Jesus Christ that has shone upon the individual can really be light. One needs to respond as a child of that light. The individual hears the voice of Christ, and so the only question is how the individual will show that he or she is a hearer. One needs to show that one is hearer of the voice of Jesus Christ. One shows one is such by being obedient. One freed by the truth and for the truth might make only a partial or halting use of this freedom. One’s use might leave one much to be desired in the way of clarity and consistence.^[124]

Pilate shakes his head and wonders, "What is truth?" Yet, Jesus describes who truth is. He had early said he was the way, truth, and life. Truth is not an idea, principle or system, as worthy as such attempts by human beings may be. They are still only human attempts, error often dressing up itself nicely. One cannot expect to encounter truth as a phenomenon that we immediately and directly find illuminating, pleasing, acceptable, and welcome. Truth does not come easily and smoothly. It can come to us as alien, threatening, and uncomfortable as it draws near to us. It needs to pierce through the obscurity of human experience and change us by making us open to it. Things gained in an easy and self-evident way might be kindly and good, even true in its sphere, but it would not be the truth of God. The truth of God unmasks us as liars.^[125]

We honor truth when we say that we need to speak it, even if our voices shake. In Jesus, we have the self-revelation of God. Preachers and theologians do not have the task of providing easy answers to human questions, even one as important as truth. In fact, maybe the good teacher of Christianity will make us progressively aware of a mystery. God, in Jesus Christ, is the cause of our wonder.^[126] We humbly submit the formation of our views and concepts to the revelation of truth we have in Jesus. Yes, that is simple and mysterious at the same time. 

The irony of this text is that Jesus was not on trial. Throughout the passion narrative, in fact, the disciples, the religious leaders, Pilate, and the crowds are all on trial before God. Of course, so are we as we engage this story.

Episode Three is in verse 18:38b-40. Jesus Sentenced to Death (Mt 27.15—31; Mk 15.6—20; Lk 23.13—25) Jesus is silent regarding the question of Pilate regarding truth, but Pilate returns to the accusers of Jesus and tells them he finds no case against the man. Since the custom was to release someone imprisoned, he asks if they want him to release Jesus or the bandit Barabbas. By going out to meet with the priests, Pilate reluctantly agrees to hear the case concerning Jesus. He is now launching a formal inquiry into the charges brought against Jesus, Pilate dealing with it as swiftly as possible with a potentially disruptive situation.  Historians have no extra-biblical example of the amnesty opportunity presented here. Pilate has already pronounced Jesus innocent, so use of the title “king of the Jews” may be an attempt to get the Jews to renounce their desire for kingship. John constructs the confrontation scene between Jesus and the symbol of Roman authority to emphasize the kingship of Jesus and his divine qualification for judging the entire world.

Episode Four is in 19:1-3. Pilate has Jesus flogged and the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and placed it upon his head and dressed him in a purple robe, agreeing with Mark but different from the red robe Matthew describes. Scourging often occurred before crucifixion, for death by crucifixion could take many days. 

Episode Five is in 19:4-8. Pilate affirms he finds no case against Jesus, declaring the mocked and beaten Jesus, “Here is the man.” The Christian reader of this text sees here an unwitting testimony to who Jesus is. It has the form of confession, even if unknown by him. The chief priests and police shout from to be crucified. He invites the leaders to take him, but he finds nothing against the man. These Jewish leaders answered that he must die because he claimed to be the Son of God (Υἱὸν Θεοῦ). The claim to unity with the Father, and to a present inbreaking of the divine rule for those who receive his message, met with the response of an accusation of blasphemy.^[127] This charge, based on the idea that he assumed an authority not his, is false, for Jesus continually differentiated himself for his Father.^[128] John notes the fear of Pilate.

Episode Six is in 19:9-11. Pilate talks with Jesus about power. Pilate wants to know where is from, but Jesus is silent. Pilate warns Jesus that he has the power to release him or crucify him. The response of Jesus is that the only power he has is that which he has received from above, but those who have handed Jesus over to him have the greater sin. 

Episode Seven is in 19:12-16a. Pilate yields to the Jewish demand for the crucifixion of Jesus. John omits a trial before the Sanhedrin, probably because of this theological interest in kingship at this point. Jewish leaders say Pilate is no friend of the emperor, since one who claims to be a king is against the emperor. He placed Jesus in a place called the Stone Pavement (Gabbatha). It was noon on the day of Preparation for the Passover, when the slaughter of the Passover lamb began. He told the Jews gathered that here is their king, but they responded they wanted Jesus brought away from them, for they have no king but the emperor. As such, they become friends of the emperor rather than the people of God. He handed Jesus over for crucifixion. 

19:16b-30 shows the execution of Jesus on the cross.

Episode One is in 19:16b-22.  The Crucifixion of Jesus (Mt 27.32—56; Mk 15.21—41; Lk 23.26—49)  They take Jesus to Golgotha, Jesus carrying his cross, which contrasts with the synoptic account. John follows the typology of Isaac carrying his own wood to the altar for sacrifice. He also emphasizes that Jesus is master of his fate. He was crucified between two thieves, but on his cross was an inscription: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews (ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝΙΟΥΔΑΙΩΝ), written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. Jewish leads wanted to add that this man said he was such a king, but Pilate let his statement remain. Pilate becomes an unwilling witness to the authority of Christ. The cross itself becomes such a testimony, “lifting up” the Son of Man in this way. 

“There they crucified him…” Such simple words. The punishment of crucifixion struck fear in the hearts of the people of the Roman world. It was Rome's means of controlling the people. According to Roman custom, the penalty of crucifixion was always preceded by scourging; after this preliminary punishment, the condemned person had to carry the cross, or at least the transverse beam of it, to the place of execution, exposed to the jibes and insults of the people. On arrival at the place of execution the cross was uplifted. Soon the sufferer, entirely naked, was bound to it with cords. He was then, fastened with four nails to the wood of the cross. Finally, a placard called the titulus bearing the name of the condemned man and his sentence, was placed at the top of the cross. Slaves were crucified outside of Rome in a place called Sessorium, beyond the Esquiline Gate; their execution was entrusted to the carnifex servorum (the place of the hangman). Eventually this wretched locality became a forest of crosses, while the bodies of the victims were the pray of vultures and other rapacious birds. It often happened that the condemned man did not die of hunger or thirst, but lingered on the cross for several days. To shorten his punishment therefore, and lessen his terrible sufferings, his legs were sometimes broken. This custom, exceptional among the Romans, was common with the Jews. In this way it was possible to take down the corpse on the very evening of the execution. Among the Romans, though, the corpse could not be taken down, unless such removal had been specially authorized in the sentence of death. The corpse might also be buried if the sentence permitted. It is remarkable that all of this is behind the simple words, “There they crucified him.”

It would take some time, but Jesus is responsible for the abolishment of the cross as a means of capital punishment. In the early part of the fourth century Constantine continued to inflict the penalty of the cross on slaves guilty of, in the old Latin, delatio domini, i.e. of denouncing their masters. But later on, he abolished this infamous punishment, in memory and in honor of the Passion of the Christ. From then on, this punishment was very rarely inflicted and finally the practice faded into history. However, Christians remember that history every year as they recall the events of the last week of the life of Jesus. 

Episode Two is in 19:23-25a, where the soldiers divided the clothes of Jesus among them. Jesus had a seamless tunic, the clothing of the priest. John identifies Jesus as the High Priest for the people of God. In casting lots for his clothes they fulfill Psalm 22:18. 

Episode Three is in 19:25b-27. John may well want his readers to know that some followers of Jesus did not abandon him. Near the cross were his mother, has aunt, Mary the wife of Clopas, Mary Magdalene, the Beloved Disciple. He told Mary that the Beloved Disciple is her son, and he told the Beloved Disciple that Mary is her mother. The Beloved Disciple would care for Mary. Although one could refer to the simple provision for the mother of Jesus, one could also understand this conversation as a provision for future believers and for the church. Jesus provides for the future. As Eve was the mother of humanity, Mary is the mother of the newly forming people of God who have responded to the revelation of God in Jesus.

Episode Four is in 19:28-30. Knowing all was finished, he said he was thirsty, so a jar full of sour wine was near and the soldiers gave it to him on a sponge, put it on a hyssop branch, and held it to his mouth. After receiving it, he gave ups his spirit and said that it is finished.

Episode Four is in 19:28-30, as the soldiers pierce the side of Jesus. Jewish leaders did not want bodies left on the cross during Sabbath, so they asked Pilate asked to have the legs of the crucified men broken, adding to the cruelty of this crucifixion. The soldiers do so to the two crucified with Jesus, but when they came to Jesus they noted he was already dead. Piercing his died with a spear, blood and water came out, the water symbolizing living water and the waters of baptism, while blood coming from his body symbolizing the Eucharist. A note from the author says that the one who saw this testifies to its truth. These things happened in fulfillment of Psalm 34:20 that not a bone shall be broken and Zechariah 12:10 that they will look upon the one whom they have pierced. 

19:31-42 shows the removal and burial of the body of Jesus. The Burial of Jesus (Mt 27.57—61; Mk 15.42—47; Lk 23.50—56) Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple of Jesus because of his fear of the Jewish leadership, asked Pilate to let him take the body of Jesus away, which Pilate allowed. Nicodemus (John 3), also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing 100 pounds, fit for a kingly burial. They wrapped the body of Jesus with the spices in the linen. Only John mentions the place of the burial as a garden that was also in the place where he was crucified. At the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the tomb is 125 feet from Calvary. Since it was the day of Preparation, they laid Jesus there. 

Within the Gospel of John, we may get more help from something Jesus himself said about the Cross. Shortly before his final week, he spoke to his disciples about his coming "hour," by which he certainly meant all that would be involved in his Passion. He went on to tell them, "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." To that, John, the narrator, comments, "He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die" (John 12:32-33). That is Jesus' statement about his death. He offers no theological interpretations but says that his death will have a pulling effect. The cross will draw people to him. Surely, not all who feel drawn will respond, but something about his death and his subsequent victory over death will attract people. The attraction to Jesus is in part because he gave his life for others. The response to many throughout history has been to open their hearts to the crucified and proclaim him Lord. It may well be that the best way to view the cross is an invitation to a relationship that saves us, heals us, liberates us, and lifts us, bringing us peace with God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Inspired by Thompson, Derek. "On repeat: Why people watch movies and shows over and over." The Atlantic Monthly Website, theatlantic.com. September 10, 2014.

[2] Eric Auerbach wrote Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, (pp. 37-38).

[3] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 1, 432.

[4] If righteousness, it refers to right living by the standards the Lord has set forth in the covenant, which includes mercy for the needy and helpless, along with equal justice for all in legal matters

[5] Bratcher and Reyburn (A Handbook on Psalms, 993)

[6](see David R. Bauer, "Matthew," in the Asbury Bible Commentary [Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992]).

[7] Barth, Church Dogmatics, III.3 [51.2], 446.

[8] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 174.

[9] Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, R.A. Simkins.

[10] - Oscar Cullman, The Earliest Christian Confessions, ET 1949

[11] Panennberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 308.

[12] (See Gordon D. Fee, "Philippians 2:5-11, Hymn or Exalted Pauline Prose?" Bulletin for Biblical Research 2 [1992], 29-46.)

[13] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 68-9.

[14] Pannenberg, Systematic Theoogy Volume 2, 230.

[15] Ben Witherington III, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Eerdmans, 2011), 143-144.

[16] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 421.

[17] N.T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon (SPCK, 2004), 102–103.

[18] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 375-7.

[19] (Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Philippians, pp. 59–60).

[20] —Fred B. Craddock, Philippians (John Knox Press, 1985), 42.

[21] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 439.

[22] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 424.

[23] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1 [31.2] 516-8, II.1 [30.2], 397, IV.1 [59.1] 180, IV.2 [64.2] 150-1.

[24] According to Gordon D. Fee, "Philippians 2:5-11, Hymn or Exalted Pauline Prose?" Bulletin for Biblical Research (1992),

[25] (Moltmann 1973, 1974) 200-207. 

[26] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 452.

[27] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 354.

[28] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 283..

[29] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 312.

[30] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 266.

[31] (Father Timothy Healy, SJ, "In Defense of the Washington Cathedral," The Washington Post, April 17, 1983).

[32] Bultmann believes it is a cult legend formed in Hellenistic circles.  Taylor believes the vocabulary, style, and ideas are Jewish.  It is Palestinian in origin. For the Jesus Seminar, Christian elements overlay the story.

[33] The problem, comparing I Corinthians 11:23-25 with Mark 14:22-24 and Matthew 26:26-28, is divergence in crucial details. The wording is different. One cannot even be certain it was a Passover meal.

[34] Mark Searle Liturgy Made Simple (Collegeville, Minn.; The Liturgical Press, 1981). 

[35] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 208.

[36] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 295.

[37] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 418.

[38] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 433.

[39] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 465

[40] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2 [45.1] 214.

[41] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 306.

[42] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2 [47.1] 502.

[43] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 332.

[44] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2 [45.1] 214.

[45] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 283-6.

[46] Evelyn Underhill.

[47] Some scholars consider this story fiction, in that no one can verify whether the incident occurred.

[48] Barth Church Dogmatics II.2 [35.4] 449-506.

[49] Inspired by —Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (Random House, 2003), 55.

[50] Inspired by —Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey (Zondervan, 2006), 71.

[51] —Oscar Wilde, from “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” Full text: https://poets.org/poem/ballad-reading-gaol.

[52] In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8 Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; 9 and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, 10 having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

[53] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 381.

[54] Mark 13:34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35 Therefore, keep awake-- for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 36 or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 37 And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake."

[55] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [71.5] 632.

[56] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2 [35.3] 439.

[57] A fundamental issue is the concept of imperium.  In the life of Jesus, Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, was tetrarch from 4BC to AD 39 or king in popular parlance.  Title of procurator and praefectus.  The first part of this surmise has now been confirmed for Pilate by the discovery of an inscription in which he designates himself as praefectus Iudaeae.  Their power to capital sentences is in dispute.  All mention the Sanhedrin.  Our history thus far has portrayed a Gerousia or Sanhedrin in Jerusalem dominated by the chief priests, with other priests, wealthy nobles or elders, and Pharisees.  This assembly, administrative and judicial, had responsibility in religious and some secular matters.  Before AD 6 the ruler had dealt with and through this body, at times being reproached by it over matters of justice, at times ordering it to accomplish what he wanted.  Is there evidence that such a situation continued in the first century AD and thus in Jesus’ time.  The situation just described certainly matches the picture given by the NT of the Sanhedrin procedures relating to Jesus, Stephen, and Paul.  When we turn to Josephus, we find a similar picture of the Sanhedrin.  A minority of scholars would go to the Mishna, though the material comes from a later period.  In terms of the Sanhedrin membership and meeting place, the high priest convened Sanhedrin members who were available.  Josephus does not invite us to think of a fixed body regularly in session.  Still, were there members of the Sanhedrin in the sense of a list of known people who constituted it?  Rather than assigned members, we may have to think of the expected attendance of representatives of particular groups when a Sanhedrin was called.  In short, we cannot be sure where the Sanhedrin usually met at the time of Jesus’ death, but a place adjacent to rather than in the Temple may be more correct.  What was the dominant influence on a Sanhedrin?  In literature written before AD 100, when the Sanhedrin does sentence to death, there is little evidence of court-like procedures to protect the defendant.  Nevertheless, as a quasi-legislative and executive body with interests that we would call religious and political hopelessly intertwined, a Sanhedrin when called often acted according to what seemed prudent and expeditious.  The Gospels attribute the Sanhedrin action against Jesus largely to the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes.  Presumably, some of these scribes would have been Pharisees, learned in traditions that applied the written Law often in more lenient way.  Moving beyond these general issues, we encounter the contention that the Sanhedrin would have had to judge capital cases according to Pharisee rules.  The theory of Morton Smith explaining this difference has gained considerable following: When Josephus wrote the later work, he was anxious to gain from the Romans a recognition of and commitment to incipient rabbinic authority in Palestine.  This was the period after the destruction of Jerusalem during the Jewish Revolt when the rabbinic school at Jamnia was emerging as the major force in Palestinian Jewish life.  Since to some extent the Pharisees were the intellectual forerunners of the rabbis, and had gained some favor with the Romans, Josephus desired to portray the Pharisees as having bee most influential for some two centuries.  To return to our survey of Pharisee influence, even at the time of the Jewish Revolt in the late 60s, it is not clear that the Pharisees were a dominant voice, although they were active in political issues, especially in the person of Simon, son of Gamaliel I, who negotiated with the Romans for power.  Their dominance in Palestine came only with Yohanan been Zakkai and the movement to Jamnia from Jerusalem; it was the son of Simon, Gamaliel II who became head of the Jamnia academy government, of the thought to have been recognized by the Roman with the proviso that there be no support for subversion.  In terms of the trial of Jesus, we need to consider the main conflicts between the Gospel accounts and rabbinic law as found in the Mishna.  It is likely that the Jews were not allowed to execute criminals.  The procedure of the Jewish authorities in dealing with Jesus of Nazareth as described in the Gospels can scarcely be considered unusual; Josephus describes almost the same procedure thirty years later in dealing with Jesus son of Annanias.  In Sanhedrin 43a, ancient Jews thought that their ancestors were involved in an even responsible for the death of Jesus.  Celsus and Trypho both admit that Jews participated in the sentencing of Jesus.  The Gospels all record such involvement only 30 years after the death of Jesus.  Contrary to some modern scholars, one wonders how such a fiction could have been created.  When the Jewish, Christian, and pagan evidence is assembled, the involvement of Jews in the death of Jesus approaches certainty.  In a case concerning Galileans, Josephus reports that the procurator Tiberius Alexander crucified two sons of Judas, who had led an earlier revolt.  In the case of Jesus son of Ananias who cried out against Jerusalem and the sanctuary, Jospehus reports that the Jewish leaders arrested him and handed him over to the procurator Albinus.  The first case, which entailed no Jewish legal action against the crucified, exemplifies Roman treatment of political revolutionaries; the second case, which had strong Jewish involvement, exemplifies combined Jewish/Roman treatment of a religious figure who was a public concern.  It is no accident that the treatment of Jesus of Nazareth described in the Gospels resembles the second rather than the first.  Given the conclusion just reached, the issues of responsibility and guilt are inevitable.  Reading the Gospels will convince most that at the least, although troublesome, Jesus was a sincere religious figure who taught truth and helped many, and that therefore crucifying him was a great injustice.  Believers in the divinity of Jesus will have a magnified sense of injustice, which at times has been vocalized as deicide.  Since by their very nature the Gospels are meant to persuade, the Passion Narrative will arouse resentment toward the perpetrators of the injustice.  As for the Roman perpetrators, Rome ceased to function as a world power some fifteen hundred years ago, and so anger toward Pilate for having made a mockery of the vaunted Roman reverence for law and justice has no ongoing effects.  Unto this day, however, the Jews as a people and Judaism as a people and Judaism as a religion have survived; and so the observation that factually Jewish authorities and some of the Jerusalem crowds had a role in the execution of Jesus - and execution that Christians and many non-Christians regard as unjust - has had an enduring effect.  Note that religious people could have disliked Jesus.  In Jesus’ time, such opposition often led to violence.  There is plenty of evidence that Jews hated and killed one another over religious issues.  The issue is one of responsibility, not guilt.  The religious dispute with Jesus was an inner Jewish dispute.

[58] To the sparsity of the fewer than thirty references in three hundred years should be added the fact that although Josephus describes all sorts of historical figures, such as prophets, would-be kings, priests, agitators, in the first century, he never calls one of them a Messiah.  If we take at face value later rabbinic references, they tell us that Rabbi Aquiba hailed Simon ben Kosiba as the Messiah in 130 AD, but before him in these centuries there seems to be no identifiable Jew hailed a kingly Messiah other than Jesus of Nazareth.  There was not a single national expectation of the Messiah. 

[59] The basic historical question is: Was Jesus called the Messiah before his resurrection, and if so by whom and with what acceptance by him?  I shall mention a number of theories but in evaluating them we must take three points into account.  Two of these points are facts; the third is a very strong probability.  First fact: after the resurrection of Jesus the followers of Jesus called him the Messiah with astounding frequency.  Second fact: the scenes in the Gospels in which anyone addresses or acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah are very few. Complications mar the acceptance of that title by Jesus.  Third probability: the Romans crucified Jesus on a charge involving his being or claiming to be the King of the Jews. During the lifetime of Jesus, some of his followers thought him to be the Messiah, that is, the expected anointed king of the House of David who would rule over the people of God.  Jesus, confronted with this identification, responded ambivalently because associated with that role were features that he rejected, and also because God had yet to define the role that he would play in the kingdom beyond what he was already doing.  Such an indefinite and ambivalent answer could have constituted the basis on which his enemies gave him over to the Romans as would-be king. However, the title of Jesus as Son of God as applied to Jesus before his death is unlikely. It was insight received by his followers with his resurrection.

[60] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 313-4.

[61] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 363-4.

[62] Moltmann, in the The Way of Jesus Christ, p. 161-2

[63] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 2, 337, 341.

[64] --Religion News Service, "Satirical paper's serious message," The Washington Post, October 6, 2001, B9.

[65] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 2, 340

[66] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 341.

[67] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 343.

[68] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 374.

[69] As to the physical reasons for the death of Jesus, no evidence exists that the evangelists personally knew anything about that matter. One could carry out such discussion of it simply by employing the best of medical knowledge to determine how any crucified person is likely to have died.  The recent study by Zugibe, a medical examiner and pathologist, comes close to that goal.  He has challenged the asphyxia theory of LeBec, Barbet, and others by contending that the experiments on which they drew consisted of men hung with their hands directly over their heads.  He has conducted experiments with volunteers whose arms in simulated crucifixion spread out at an angle of 60 or 70 degrees to the trunk of the body, and no asphyxia resulted.  He contends that shock brought on by dehydration and loss of blood is the only plausible medical explanation for the death of the crucified Jesus.  Obviously, the various medical commentators have reached no certitude; and while experiments in actual crucifixion may be the only way to come to higher probability, we trust that this barbarism is now safely confined to the past. 

[70] (Rahner, Hearer of the Word: Laying the Foundation for a Philosophy of Religion 1994, 1941), Part III.

[71] Inspired by Paul Scherer, (“The Love that God Defines!” in The Word God Sent, [New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1965], pp. 225–233.)

[72] John Keats

[73] Gerard S. Sloyan.

[74] Dennis Kinlaw, Let's Start With Jesus. Thanks to Rev. Jeff Coleman, The Highlands UMC, Gainesville, Georgia, for passing this on to us.

[75] John Calvin, Commentary on John 13:31.

[76] – Walter Wink, “The Gladsome Doctrine of Sin,” The Living Pulpit, October–December 1999

[77] Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. 1, pp. 186–188

[78] – Augustine, The Confessions, Book 2

[79] John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book I, Chapter 2, pp. 37–38.)

[80] Another issue related to this is whether the "Feast of Unleavened Bread" was originally separate from the springtime holiday, such that redefining the spring holiday happened specifically because the Feast of Unleavened Bread was combined with it. Most biblical law, however, treats the Passover season as if it always contained both events: the sacrifice of the lamb in remembrance of God passing over the homes of the Israelites, and the eating of unleavened bread in remembrance of the flight from Egypt (Exodus 12:15-20; Deuteronomy 16:1-8; Ezekiel 45:21-25). Another tradition which may have a connection to the Passover story is the practice of putting a mezuzah, or prayer scroll, on the doorposts of one's home. Just as the lamb's blood marked the doorways into Israelite houses on the night God slew the firstborn of the Egyptians, mezuzahs now mark the doorways into Jewish homes as a sign that those inside worship the one God (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).

[81] (Pesach. 10.1-8; cf. J. H. Hayes, “Passover,” The Oxford Companion to the Bible [New York: Oxford University Press, 1993], 573).

[82] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991) Volume 3, 306.

[83] Bultmann believes it is a cult legend formed in Hellenistic circles.  Taylor believes the vocabulary, style, and ideas are Jewish.  It is Palestinian in origin. For the Jesus Seminar, Christian elements overlay the story.

[84] The problem, comparing I Corinthians 11:23-25 with Mark 14:22-24 and Matthew 26:26-28, is divergence in crucial details. The wording is different. One cannot even be certain it was a Passover meal.

[85] Mark Searle Liturgy Made Simple (Collegeville, Minn.; The Liturgical Press, 1981). 

[86] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 208.

[87] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 295.

[88] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 418.

[89] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 433.

[90] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 465

[91] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2 [45.1] 214.

[92] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 306.

[93] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2 [47.1] 502.

[94] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 332.

[95] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2 [45.1] 214.

[96] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 283-6.

[97] Evelyn Underhill.

[98] “Judas is a far more threatening figure than Pilate or the Jewish leaders to those of us Christians who read John’s gospel. ... What frightens us as we watch Judas go out into the night, what should terrify us had the story not grown so familiar, is that one of Jesus’ own circle, one whom he had chosen, preferred the darkness. What frightens us is this portrayal of one who was so close to Jesus as flesh to bone. He not only saw the light; he basked in the light, and still he chose the darkness.”

[99] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2 [35.4] 472-3

[100] Phillips Brooks

[101] Alfred D’Souza

[102] Paul Tillich (Systematic Theology, Part III, I, D3c)

[103] (von Rad, Biblical Interpretation in Preaching 1973, 1977) 86.

[104] The research of Cristel Antonia Russell and Sidney Levy is helpful here.

[105] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 2, 314.

[106] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 335.

[107] (von Rad, Biblical Interpretation in Preaching 1973, 1977) 87.

[108] (von Rad, Biblical Interpretation in Preaching 1973, 1977) 88.

[109] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 423, 425.

[110] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [70.1] 408.

[111] Victor Frankel Man's Search for Meaning

[112] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 425.

[113] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1 [57.2] 29-30.

[114] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1 [59.1] 172.

[115] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [69.2] 58.

[116] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.4 [56.3] 675.

[117] (see the excellent compendium: Reimund Bieringer et al., eds., Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001])

[118] Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.2 [64.3], 176.

[119] Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.2 [64.3], 167-68.

[120] (For more discussion on this difference, see Ian Pitt Watson, "God's Truth" The Princeton Seminary Bulletin, 7, 1986, 67 75.)

[121] 32He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. 33 Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. 34 He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. (John 3:32-34)

[122] Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1953, 1970, 435-37.

[123] Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.1 [59.2] 249.

[124] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [69.2], 77-78.

[125] Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.3 [70.1]375-78.

[126] --Kallistos Ware.

[127] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 337.

[128] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 263, 310.