Through
our worship in this Lenten season, we are re-tracing the footsteps of
Jesus. The backdrop for these sermons in this series is my recent trip to
the Holy Land. From January 29 - February 7, I travelled with a group of
young United Methodist clergy from around our conference, all of us age 35 or
under, and our bishop, on a spiritual pilgrimage where we walked where Jesus
walked. My hope for each of us is that we will step out with a holy
boldness and courage to follow in the life-changing way of Jesus.
First,
we followed the footsteps of Jesus in the wilderness. We remembered that
even when we walk through barren and difficult and dry places in our lives,
Jesus has already been there, and indeed he still walks with us in those
places.
Then,
we followed the footsteps of Jesus at the sea.
We remembered that Jesus is walking the shores of our lives, calling us
continually to follow him, to feed his sheep, and to fish for more friends and
followers to join us in the boat.
Today,
we follow the footsteps of Jesus in the city.
The footsteps of Jesus in the city are hard, partly because we can
recognize our own footsteps in the story and realize that we have a part to
play in his death. Today, we are
challenged - to look to our own hearts, examine our own motives, to become less
like those who, whether out of anger, fear, or sport cried out for blood, and
more like the one whose humble footsteps led him all the way to the cross.
Suddenly,
while Jesus was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, came with a mob
carrying swords and clubs. They had been
sent by the chief priests, legal experts, and elders. His betrayer had given them a sign, “Arrest
the man I kiss, and take him away under guard.”
As soon as he
got there, Judas said to Jesus, “Rabbi!”
Then he kissed him. Then they
came and grabbed Jesus and arrested him.
One of the bystanders drew a sword and struck the high priest’s slave
and cut off his ear. Jesus responded,
“Have you come with swords and clubs to arrest me, like an outlaw? Day after day, I was with you, teaching in
the temple, but you didn’t arrest me.
But let the scriptures be fulfilled.”
And all of disciples left him and ran away. One man, a disciple, was wearing nothing a
linen cloth. They grabbed him, but he
left the linen cloth behind and ran away naked.
They led Jesus
away to the high priest, and all the chief priests, elders, and legal experts
gathered. Peter followed from a
distance, right into the high priest’s courtyard. He was sitting with the guards, warming
himself by the fire. The chief priests
and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for testimony against Jesus in order to
put him to death, but they couldn’t find any.
Many brought false testimony against him, but they contradicted each
other. Some stood to offer false witness
against him, saying, “We heard him saying, ‘I will destroy this temple,
constructed by humans, and within three days I will build another, one not made
by humans.’” But their testimonies
didn’t agree even on this point.
Then the high
priest stood up in the middle of the gathering and examined Jesus. “Aren’t you going to respond to the testimony
these people have brought against you?”
But Jesus was silent and didn’t answer.
Again, the high priest asked, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the
blessed one?”
Jesus said, “I
am. And you will see the Human One
sitting on the right side of the Almighty and coming on the heavenly
clouds.” Then the high priest tore his
clothes and said, “Why do we need any more witnesses? You’ve heard his insult against God. What do you think?”
Then they
condemned him. “He deserves to die!”
Some began to
spit on him. Some covered his face and
hit him, saying, “Prophesy!” Then the
guards took him and beat him.
It
was the night of what we call the Last Supper.
Jesus has just shared the Passover meal with his disciples in the Upper
Room. They sang a hymn, and went out
into the garden. This was no short
walk. Rather, they walked down from
Mount Zion into the Kidron Valley, and then partway up the Mount of Olives to
the Garden of Gethsemane. Gethsemane is
a word that means “olive press,” and appropriately enough, Jesus pressed
himself down and poured himself out in prayer in the garden.
While
he was praying, he was arrested, betrayed into the hands of the religious
authorities by one of his closest friends.
And so, back down into the Kidron Valley, and up Mount Zion again, to
the home of Caiphas, the high priest, where low and behold, the ruling
religious council, the Sanhredrin, had been called to order in the middle of
the night.
Over
the site of Caiphas’ house, the Church of St. Peter has been built, because we
remember that Peter denied knowing Jesus three times in the courtyard of this
house. At Caiphas’ home, at this secret
meeting of angry religious folks in the middle of the night, gripe after gripe
was brought up against Jesus - no formal charges, really, just that some of these
folks hated Jesus and wanted to get rid of him.
Have
you ever thought about where Jesus spent the night before the crucifixion? After his arrest and condemnation before the
Jewish council, but before he was taken to the Roman governor, Pilate? I never had really given it much
thought. But, under the Church of St.
Peter, built on the site of the house of the high priest, is a cave, a dungeon,
a pit. It is likely the place Jesus
spent his last night before the crucifixion.
We
went down into this pit. Stairs have
been built into it, but at the time of Jesus, there were no stairs. Through a hole in the ceiling, those being
placed down there would have been lowered down with ropes, and brought back up
the same way. And so I want you to
imagine Jesus - with ropes being placed under his arms after he has been
arrested, and condemned, spit on, hit, mocked, and beaten - being lowered down
into that deep, dark, pit. No way
out. Alone, and abandoned.
We
know that Jesus knew the Hebrew Scriptures.
His teaching throughout his life referenced them extensively. Later that day on the cross, he would quote
parts of several Psalms. Down in that
pit, our group gathered, and we read the words of Psalm 88 - words I had read
so many times before, but never really heard until I heard them in that space.
Read
Psalm 88.
Can
you feel the abandonment and despair in those words? But, that feeling was nothing, compared with
what was to come when daybreak came and Jesus was lifted out of the pit:
At daybreak,
the chief priests - with the elders, legal experts, and the whole Sanhedrin -
formed a plan. They bound Jesus, led him
away, and turned him over to Pilate. Pilate questioned him, “Are you the king
of the Jews?”
Jesus replied,
“That’s what you say.” The chief priests
were accusing him of many things.
Pilate asked
him again, “Aren’t you going to answer?
What about all these accusations?”
But Jesus gave no more answers, so that Pilate marveled.
During the
festival, Pilate released one prisoner to them, whomever they requested. A man named Barabbas was locked up with the
rebels who had committed murder during an uprising. The crowd pushed forward and asked Pilate to
release someone, as he regularly did.
Pilate answered them, “Do you want me to release to you the king of the
Jews?” Pilate knew that the chief
priests had handed him over because of jealousy. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to
have him release Barabbas to them instead.
Pilate replied, “Then what do you want me to do with the one you call
king of the Jews?”
They shouted
back, “Crucify him!”
Pilate said to
them, “Why? What wrong has he done?”
They shouted
even louder, “Crucify him!”
Pilate wanted
to satisfy the crowd, so he released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus whipped, then handed him over to
be crucified.
The soldiers
led Jesus away into the courtyard of the palace known as the governor’s
headquarters, and they called together the whole company of soldiers. They dressed him up in a purple robe and
twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on him. They saluted him, “Hey! King of the
Jews!” Again and again they struck his
head with a stick. They spit on him and
knelt before him to honor him. When they
finished mocking him, they stripped him of the purple robe and put his own clothes
back on him. Then they led him out to
crucify him.
We
had been down in the dungeon under the house of Caiphas, the high priest, for
probably only ten minutes or so. We
ascended the stairs and walked out in the bright sunshine, and perhaps only
then I realized how dark it had been down there. Not so much physically dark but spiritually
dark, as we felt the abandonment Jesus must have felt - abandoned by his
friends, abandoned by his family, abandoned even by God, condemned to death by
good, righteous, religious folks.
I
blinked at the rude and intrusive sunshine.
Now, I happen to love sunshine.
Always have. Ashley and I
vacation at the beach, not the mountains - we love sunshine. Yet, on that particular morning, the sunshine
was so bright it was almost rude. How
dare the sun shine - I wasn’t ready for sunshine yet, because the darkness of
the pit, that emotional anguish, was still clung close around me. The brightness of the sunshine seemed so -
unaware - of where we had just been.
And
it wasn’t only the sunshine. The rest of
the world was just going about its normal business as well. The sounds of traffic on city streets was all
around. Laundry was flapping in the warm
breeze. People were on their way to
work, or home, or lunch with friends.
The squeals of children’s play drifted up from the schoolyard in the
valley below us. It was just an ordinary
day.
I
wondered if it was also similar for Jesus when he came out of the darkness of
that pit of despair. If, on what would
turn out to be the day of his crucifixion, was it simply another ordinary day
for everyone around him - children going to school, people on their way to work
or to have a meal with friends? I
wondered if, while Jesus’ world was crashing down around him, if the rest of the
world just went on with business-as-usual?
Ever
been there? Where, emotionally or
spiritually, you are down in some dark place, some lonely place, some hopeless
place, some painful place, and all around you it seems like everyone is just
oblivious to you and your predicament - just hustling and bustling about in the
sunshine of an ordinary day?
If
you have, the good news for you today is that we have a friend in low places;
Jesus has been there too.
We
went down under some buildings which looked pretty old in their own right to a
place where you could see the original floor of the courtyard of the governor’s
headquarters, or the Fortress Antonia.
Etched in the stone pavers were the markings of some sort of game - no
doubt some well-known game the soldiers would play to pass the time and keep
themselves amused as they stood watch for hours on end.
As
the soldiers took him out into the courtyard to have a little fun with him, a
new game was developing, one called “Hail the King.” Everyone wanted to play. Everyone wanted to win.
“They
say this nutjob says he’s the king of the Jews!” “Oh, is that right? Well, that gives me an idea. You can’t be a king without a proper
robe!” So someone went and got a purple
robe, and they hung it over Jesus’ bloodied back, but they weren’t done.
“Well,
hang on a second, where is this king’s crown?”
Someone ran and cut some thorny branches from a plant in the yard,
twisted it into a rude crown, and jammed it down on his head so that the thorns
pierced the skin around his temples and the blood began to flow, but still they
weren’t done.
“A
king needs a scepter, a sign of his authority and wealth, and power, and I’ve
got just the thing for this king,” one of the others said as he took a cattail
reed and thrust it into Jesus’ hand. A
few minutes ago just another prisoner, but now, a proper king of fools. They gathered around him in mock acclaim,
bowing down and saluting him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They struck him, and spit on him. What a fun game - everyone got a good laugh.
Does
this scene break your heart? To think of
the suffering of Jesus our Lord being turned into a game and something that
gave everyone a good laugh - does that break your heart? It should.
But even more heartbreaking are times when we continue to play games
while the body of Christ and the cause of Christ suffer, or worse: that the
games we play are inflicting the pain.
There
was plenty of game-playing going on that day, and Jesus was the gamepiece in
all of them. Soldiers playing “Hail the
King,” the governor playing to public opinion rather than what he knew was
right, religious folks, stirring up dissent among the crowd after yet another
secret meeting at someone’s home to get rid of someone they didn’t like -
games, games, games - and Jesus feels the pain.
Friends,
the body of Christ is suffering, and if you are playing the games that are
causing the pain, then his precious blood is on your hands. It’s enough to bring Jesus to tears.
As Jesus came
to the city and observed it, he wept over it.
He said, “If only you knew on this of all days the things that lead to
peace. But now they are hidden from your
eyes.”
The
Palm Sunday tradition is that Jesus processed from the Mount of Olives down
into the Kidron Valley and then up into the city of Jerusalem. He rode a donkey, a sign of his humility and
that all those who follow him are called to lives of humble service. Partway down the Mount is the Church of Dominus
Flevit, meaning, “The Lord has wept,” and on this site, the tradition of Jesus
shedding tears for Jerusalem is remembered.
From
this site, the city of Jerusalem is in full display just across the
valley. There is one window in the
chapel, over the altar, and it perfectly frames the city. You are far enough away that you can more or
less see all of it, yet close enough that you feel like you could reach out
your hand and touch it. Here, tradition
remembers that Jesus wept, because they didn’t know of the things that lead to
peace.
Too
much chaos, too much violence, too much hatred and strife, too much
game-playing. You know, things haven’t
really changed that much in 2000 years.
It seems that the more things change, the more things remain the same. So long as we are people given to these
things, like ancient Jerusalem, the things that lead to peace will remain
hidden from our eyes, and our lives will never be the instruments of healing
for this broken world God desires.
Friends,
God needs us to do better. God has called us to better. Being a follower of Jesus teaches us in the
way of things that lead to peace, and then putting those things into practice
as peace-makers. We are to be both
students and teachers of peace.
This
week, our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters have elected a new pope, who has
chosen for himself the name, “Francis.”
I hope and pray that his choice of name is a solid sign that the global
church is about to take a crash course on peace, and I will thank our Roman
Catholic brothers and sisters - and their new pontiff - for leading us in the
way. My prayer is that Pope Francis will
lead us and teach us and guide us, as Jesus has and will continue to lead him,
in the way of things that make for peace.
If his life up to this point is any indication, we should expect nothing
less, and based on the name he’s chosen, he’s pretty much sealed the deal.
What
could be if we made the prayer of St. Francis our prayer (UMH 481):
Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light:
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as
to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal
life.
There
is enough violence, enough hatred, enough strife, enough chaos, enough
game-playing in the world; Jesus weeps when we who claim to be his followers
simply add to it. The footsteps of Jesus
in the wilderness, at the sea, and in the city guide us in the way of
peace. He is faithful; may our feet find
his way.
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