Weakness
Sermon given at Ecumenical
Good Friday Service, River of Life UMC, Beloit.
Scriptures:
Psalm 22:1-18, 25-31 (read
responsively as a Congregation)
John 19:16-22, 31-37, 38-42
also responsive reading Litany of the
Seven Last Words following the sermon.
(Intro self, Licensed Minister at
United Church of Beloit)
These Ecumenical services help us to
enjoy different orders of worship, different speakers, worship
styles. And we get to spend time together with folks from other
churches and be reminded that we are all indeed ONE body of Christ!
Today of course is Good Friday. This
past Sunday, we waved our palms shouting hosanna to the king!
Thursday evening ws the last supper, where Jesus washed feet and
began the tradition of Communion. Then his arrest, and the shouts of
Hosanna, became cries of Crucify him! Today we share powerful
scriptures about the crucifixion. Right now, let's consider the
Psalm.
Psalm 22 was composed by David, the
great king of Israel, about 1000 years before the time of Christ.
The Psalms have been referred to as the Jewish hymnal and the
Christian prayer book. They were composed to be sung in worship. Ps
22 is a lament...a passionate expression of grief or anguish. In the
Jewish tradition this Psalm is read at Purim, {poohr-eem} the holiday
devoted to the story told in the Book of Esther of the persecution of
the Jewish people by Haman. Jesus and his followers were Jewish, so
would have known their scriptures well! Many of the things Jesus
said during the 3 years of his ministry on Earth were quotes or
references to the Hebrew scriptures, what we call the Old Testament.
This Psalm, when read through our modern eyes, knowing the story of
the crucifixion, is certainly a foreshadowing or prophecy of what
Jesus suffered. Jesus said the first line of this Psalm while on the
cross, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” this was the
only time in the Gospels that Jesus referred to God as anything but
“My Father in heaven” or “Abba”.
How could Jesus feel so utterly
separated from God? He was God, he was
with God in the beginning, according to
John chapter 1. Jesus said in John chapter 14, speaking to his
disciples mere hours before his arrest, “Believe
me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”
How, HOW, could Jesus feel so utterly separate from God?
He
who was without sin, took on the sins of the world. The sin of every
human being. Every single thing that keeps a person separate from
God, for that is the definition of sin...Jesus took on during the
beatings, the flogging, the crown of thorns, the crucifixion. The One
who was fully human, fully divine, who endured the worst that
humankind could dole out, was perhaps never more fully human, than on
that cross, covered in our disgrace.
How
could he do this? Could there have been another way? Could Jesus have
saved himself, could he have commanded an army of angels to come down
from heaven? Of course. But Jesus came to show that God's power and
might are not the same as humans envision. Jesus preached, “The
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” God's power, God's perfect kingdom
is not like an earthly kingdom. God's Kingdom, a kingdom of “Shalom”,
the Hebrew word meaning peace, wholeness,
and
well-being, protection for all of God's creation. Shalom is when all
is right with the world. When humans are in good relationship with
God and with each other, as we were created for! In the earthly
world, peace
is usually obtained & kept by military power. But the peace Jesus
offered is a different. It is a peace obtained, not by a show of
force but by what seems to be utter weakness — Jesus died on a
cross like a criminal and outcast.
How
could this be?
Note
that the latter part of our Psalm talks about God triumphant over the
anguish. Not just personally for the psalmist, but for the Great
Congregation....the people of God! That all will worship and bow
down, for dominion...the kingdom of Earth.. belongs to God. That all
will serve and be told about the Lord and proclaim his deliverance,
saying “he has done it!”
How
could this be?
Could
it be, that with God things are done a bit differently than to the
human mind? God's ways are higher than our ways, God's thoughts
higher than our thoughts. Could it be that God's power is
perfected...in weakness?
God came to earth...taking on human
form, becoming an infant...what is more vulnerable than a newborn
baby? Jesus was born, not in a palace, not to a family known for
wealth and power! No, he was born to an ordinary working class family
in a non-descript town. Over and over in his ministry, people had
trouble understanding what he was saying, even those closest to him!
Jesus, fully human and
fully divine, loved people even when they were being clods.
Brennan
Manning: Weakness
relates us profoundly to the people we serve; it allows us to feel
with them the human condition, the human struggle and darkness and
anguish that call out for salvation. Further, weakness relates us
profoundly and apostolically to God because it provides the arena in
which His power can move and reveal itself; His power is made
manifest in weakness.
Jesus
became completely weak...for us, to save us! The word in the Bible
that means 'to save” is Sozo. (sode'-zo) it means to be saved for
eternity, but it means more than that. Remember the languages of this
time had fewer words than our modern English, so each word had more
than one meaning, actually layers of meaning. So looking at the
layers of meaning of these words adds tremendously to our
understanding of the Bible. Sozo, this great word, means to be saved
for eternity. It also means to be protected or saved from danger, to
be healed, made well, to be restored to health and wholeness. Sozo
brings shalom!
Jesus
was King of the Jews allright, but not in the way that was expected.
He was not a messiah king that the Jewish people expected, one who
would overthrow the oppression of the Roman Empire.
In the
remarkable book Simply Jesus, Author NT Wright says;
You
see, the reason Jesus wasn’t the sort of king people had wanted in
his own day is—to anticipate our conclusion—that he was the true
king, but they had become used to the ordinary, shabby, second-rate
sort. They were looking for a builder to construct the home they
thought they wanted, but he was the architect, coming with a new plan
that would give them everything they needed, but within quite a new
framework. They were looking for a singer to sing the song they had
been humming for a long time, but he was the composer, bringing them
a new song to which the old songs they knew would form, at best, the
background music.
How
could this be?
Jesus
was a king beyond all human comprehension! He was a king come to
bring about peace and wholeness and protection. He became weak,
vulnerable, in order to display God's perfect power! How? ok I am
gonna reveal the end here...not that the butler did it, but that
Jesus rose from that grave! Shh don't tell the others, we'll let them
be surprised, ok?
So...God's
power was on display! But....where IS this peace and prosperity and
protection? Why didn't it happen instantly? how come everythign
isn't a bed of roses? How come we still have weeds and thorns and
rocks?
Couldn't
God have made the world all perfect again? Why can't the poor be
housed and fed and clothed? Why are there still wars and genocide and
atrocities. God could snap those fingers and make it all right! Why
doesn't he? Could it be that the architect of this new framework has
something grander in mind?
Our
Psalm says, “Posterity will serve him..” We are among the
posterity! We will serve the Lord. Love inspires action...For God so
LOVED the world, he GAVE his only son.....We are to love and care for
others. Could it be that we –those who know Jesus as Lord are
indeed to help make this world better? That we are to help bring
about this kingdom?
Author Ann
Spangler writes:
If
God is King of the whole world, why is the world such a mess?
Couldn’t an all-powerful God do something about the poverty, crime,
and suffering that have been part of the world’s story from the
beginning? Wouldn’t an all-loving God want to? The question nags.
It’s hard to ignore. It demands our attention.... God.... decided
to take the long way round, quelling the world’s rebellion not by
brute force but by the power of divine love. That strategy requires
restraint. It takes patience. It means justice in a final sense has
to be delayed. It means evil is played out to the bitter end so that
love can draw as many people as possible into the kingdom.
To
say it another way, the weeds and the wheat are allowed to grow up
together until the world’s last day.
Richard
Foster phrases it this way:Human
beings are so important to God that the divine purposes are worked
out through the messiness and sprawl of human history. Apparently, it
is more important to God that human beings learn his ways in freedom
than it is to get things done efficiently.
We
are to learn God's ways and accomplish God's will! Yes God could make
the world perfect again. But in order for humans to be fully in
relationship with God and each other as we are created to be, we are
to learn God's ways and help achieve that Sozo, that perfect Shalom.
We can only do this through the power of the Holy Spirit working
within us. How can we? We who represent half dozen or so church in a
non-descript town in the midwest...How can WE help make God's Shalom
come to earth? We can reach out, allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to
stretch out a hand, and walk alongside someone in their loneliness,
their grief, their hunger, whatever. We do this in the Name of the
One who loved us so much, he gave his very life for each of us.
How
can we? You see as we live our lives...and we go through the hard
stuff, we learn compassion. Compassion means to to suffer with...as
Jesus did with his friends when Lazarus had died, Jesus wept. They
were standing outside of the tomb and Jesus joined them in their
grief. He took on their anguish.
We
learn compassion and we learn to care for one another, to walk with
our friends and strangers through this thing called life, living out
the LOVE that we have found in Jesus. When we comprehend that love,
how can we NOT reach out? That love, that came to earth, from a
throne in heaven, to become mortal, to live in a frail human body
with aches and hunger and fatigue. That love that came to earth to
live and to die...to die on a cross. That love calls us to reach out!
Author Brennan
Manning again:
The
greatest need for our time is for the church to become what it has
seldom been: the body of Christ with its face to the world, loving
others regardless of religion or culture, pouring itself out in a
life of service, offering hope to a frightened world, and presenting
itself as a real alternative to the existing arrangement.
We
who are here today represent several churches here in the Greater
Beloit area. Our city has not had it easy over the years. But we have
good people here with good values and a core of strength to get
through what we must. When we reach out to one another in love, we
will find that we are blessed beyond our expectations. Our community
needs us, our community needs our churches to show what love means.
Our world will be a better place when we do so!
Today,
as we contemplate the incomparable love that brought God to earth as
a baby who grew up to show us how to love and care for each other,
how to live and how to die-- today let us pray to better live out
that love. It was our sin that put Him there, it is our calling to
make that love shine again in this world.
