And Jesus went to blackThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 30th: Exodus 19:1-9a; Job 14:1-14 or Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24; Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16; 1 Peter 4:1-8; and Matthew 27:57-66 or John 19:38-42. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Today is Holy Saturday. Jesus lies dead in the tomb. This is where Lent ends. I think it is an unproductive Lenten practice to presume that Lent leads to Easter. Lent leads to the tomb. The agony in Gethsemane, the physical torture of the cross, the spiritual and emotional anguish of Jesus’ separation from God, these all require a terminus at the tomb. This is not to deny Easter. It is to treat Easter as the unexpected surprise that it is in the Bible. At the end of the Soprano series, as the mob boss Tony Soprano is murdered, the screen goes black. What would it mean for God to experience this through the life of Jesus? I have no idea. The earliest Christian testimonies to Easter such as the proclamations in Acts 2 speak of God’s initiative on Easter, not Jesus’. Resurrection terminology is an active verb: Jesus resurrects. Jesus is the actor. This is not the earliest Christian proclamation. It is rather, “God raised him up, having freed him the pains of death …” (Acts 2:24) Jesus is passive. Easter happens to Jesus. Jesus is freed from the pains of death by God’s intervention. This implies that until the moment of divine intervention Jesus has gone to black. It is at this point that the theological focus shifts because Jesus lies dead in the tomb. The unfathomable question is what this means to God in heaven. Does God, I only ask, experience the substantive separation from God’s own self in Jesus as Jesus lies dead in the tomb? Obviously, Jesus invests everything in His ministry of salvation and renewal as He even endures death to be at-one with us. Does God in heaven do the same? If Jesus felt abandoned at Gethsemane and Golgotha, what must that have felt like for God in heaven to hold back and not speak or intervene? I have no idea, but I wonder if this is a question that seeks to be asked. When Jesus dies and goes to black, what did that feel like in heaven? I have no idea, but I think the intentional time in the tomb makes this a valid question. It is not death and Easter; it is death and tomb and Easter. The tomb cannot be ignored. These are questions I cannot answer for myself. I wonder about this every Holy Saturday. However, and against my own advice offered above, to consider the weightiness of Jesus’ death magnifies the glory, wonder and fall-down-to-your-knees shock of Jesus’ empty tomb on Easter. If you are not planning to join another community’s Easter celebration, I invite you to join us for our Easter Sunrise Service at 2 Prospect Street in Hatfield at 6:30am. If the weather cooperates, we will watch the dawn brighten the sky and the sun rise over the horizon as we look to the East over the church steeple. We will gather again in church for our Easter Service at 9:30am. To join via Zoom send an email to randyc1897@gmail.com. This is my invitation to you. This is the last of this year’s Lenten blogs. If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to randyc1897@gmail.com for the Zoom logins. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. The cry was for realThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 29th: Psalm 22; Isaiah 52:13—53:12; Hebrews 10:16-25; and John 18:1—19:42. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Today is Good Friday. This is the day Jesus is tortured to death on the cross. This is Christianity’s most solemn of days. Part of our tradition is that Jesus quotes today’s Psalm as He hangs dying upon the cross. I have heard this quote explained away by the trajectory of Psalm 22 from abandonment to rescue. I have heard that Jesus’ cry was not only “‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” It was the hidden message of the Psalm’s entirety that Jesus implied. I think this is a pious attempt used to avoid the supposed scandal of Jesus’ confused desperation. This is not novel. In today’s Passion account from John’s Gospel, the earlier crucifixion accounts, such as the record of Psalm 22 in Mark’s Gospel, is somewhat sanitized of this embarrassment of a traumatized Jesus (cf. John 19:30). I understand this piety, but I think it is unfaithful to the text. Earlier in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane. It seems that He repeats the same prayer three times (14:39). This may be a sign of piety. Paul will later write, “Pray without ceasing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) Or it may be a subtle indication of something else. In the story of the Exodus, we learn that Yahweh forbids Moses to enter the Holy Land because of his lack of faith at the waters of Meribah. (Numbers 20:1-13) Moses was commanded to strike the rock to release a flow of water. It seems that the waters did not appear immediately after the first strike and so Moses struck a second time. Yahweh judged the second strike as a sign of insufficient faith. This is in the consciousness of the earliest believers. Is the thrice-repeated prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane a reflection of Jesus’ awkwardness as He experiences a separation from God that He had never felt before in His life. God was a constant, even if sometimes confusing (think of His time in the wilderness), presence for Jesus. Now, as death approaches, does God feel distant, even absent? Is this separation heard in the exacerbation of “‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” In the Garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus struggles to reach out in prayer, He still uses the familiar address of “‘Abba, Father,’” but on the cross that intimacy is gone. Jesus is, instead, left to formally quote a Scripture passage. It is quite possible that the verse quoted by Jesus from Psalm 22 was not meant to be the broader representation of the Psalm’s movement from abandonment to rescue. It may just be a cry of desperation. I share this not to undermine the theological nature of Jesus, but to respect the text’s honesty with Jesus’ struggle on the cross. The physical torture is obvious, but it feels almost impious to venture into the spiritual torture Jesus endured, even to the point of feeling bereft of God’s assurance. This confusion is the full humanity of Jesus bearing the weight of dying and death. The cross is an abhorrent reality for Jesus, and one that Jesus endures while remaining faithful to the end even if without the assurance that this is the will of God. To me this is the unimaginable torture of the Unique One. On this most solemn of all days, we need to find our way to respect its gravity, to ponder the audaciousness of a Crucified God in the phraseology of Jurgen Moltmann, and to respect such a sacrifice. If the sanctity of place is at all helpful with this, our church will be open for private meditation and prayer from noon until 3PM. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. For larger print text or to download, click the PDF file below.
A new commandment. A new sacrament?Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 28th: Exodus 12:1-4 [5-10] 11-14; Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; and John 13:1-17, 31b-35. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Today is Maundy Thursday. This evening we will gather as the church community for a worship Service. This is the night when Jesus would have gathered with His disciples for the Last Supper. According to the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, this is when Jesus instituted the sacrament of Holy Communion. Over the shared loaf of bread, Jesus pronounces “This is my body,” and over the shared cup, “This is my blood.” Then Jesus adds, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Christians have done just that for almost 2,000 years now, and it is an integral part of this evening’s worship. The tradition is clear that all the disciples were present at the Last Supper, which means that Judas, the one who is about to betray Jesus, was there. Judas received the bread and the wine as did the others. Judas participated in the communion of the followers of Jesus with Jesus. This is an example that the Sacrament of Communion is not meant to be reserved only for the ones judged worthy enough to share in it. Communion is food for the soul and sometimes that nourishment is needed especially by those who hunger, who lack spiritual nourishment. Communion may be offered in the hope that it may feed the soul and make a person stronger, healthier, better able to choose and do what is righteous. We believe that in the sacrament we receive Jesus. Jesus never hesitated in reaching out to those who were judged sinners. Jesus lived a ministry that actively sought out the ones excluded in the name of God. Why would we treat Communion any differently? This is why we practice Open Table, which means that if a person feels called to come forward to share in the holiness of the sacrament, then it is offered graciously whoever they are and wherever they may be on their spiritual journey. During this evening’s worship, we will also share in the readings of the Tenebrae Service. Tenebrae is derived from the word “darkness.” On Advent Sundays, we light the Advent Wreath. Each Sunday an additional candle is lit, culminating on Christmas Eve when the Christ Candle is lighted, symbolizing Jesus’ birth as the light of the world. During the Tenebrae worship, following each reading that tells of Jesus’ Passion and death, a candle is extinguished until the church is left in darkness. The light that came into the world when Jesus was born is doused as Jesus suffers and dies. Liturgy is a word derived from the Greek words for “work of the people.” Through the liturgy of Maundy Thursday, the people of God come together to work out the mystery of Jesus’ sacramental presence in Communion and also to mediate upon His absence through the infamy of the cross. Our time together in Christ helps to feed the soul, helps us to not think of these events as 2,000-year-old history, but as the ever-present mystery that is our faith. It is an emotional connection to Christ that the liturgy feeds as we move from the promise of Communion to the darkness at the end of Tenebrae. I mentioned above that the Synoptic Gospels record the institution of Communion at the Last Supper. John is different. His similar “living bread” dialogue is found in the context of the miraculous feeding of the crowd in chapter 6. There are no words of institution at John’s Last Supper. Instead, John includes the otherwise unrecorded account of Jesus washing the feet of His disciples. In this context, Jesus states for us in today’s Gospel passage: “‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’” That “new commandment” (Latin – mandatum) is the source of the name Maundy Thursday. Jesus’ new commandment is to love one another, crucially however, “as I have loved you,” which mean selflessly and proactively. John is the latest of the four canonical Gospels. He may well have known the tradition of the Last Supper and Communion. By choosing to locate his Communion dialogue in the midst of Jesus’ public ministry rather than at the end of His life, and to have it situated among the crowds rather than insulated among the disciples, is a conscious redirection of the tradition, one that builds upon the nuance of Judas’ receiving of Communion in the Synoptics. Furthermore, the example of washing the feet is to elevate service as a Christian sacrament. I use the term informally, but the two formal sacraments are heightened and specific and identifiable vehicles that bring Christ and Christian together. John may be saying the same about Christian service. John may be acting to correct an imbalance already appearing near the end of the first century where Jesus’ presence is felt to be more sacred in the sacraments of worship than in the sacrament of humble service, to the point that Christian identity is not limited to Baptism and Communion. Rather, the Johannine Jesus states, “‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’” Lent is quickly coming to its climax; Easter follows. This evening’s liturgy introduces us to the holiest part of Holy Week, which is the holiest week of all Lent, and it solemnly acknowledges the close of Jesus’ life, while it also points to how Jesus’ life continues in and through us as we are fed by Communion so that we may exercise our faith in Christian service. All are welcome to join us this evening at the Sunderland Church at 7:00pm. If you cannot be with us in person, please send an email to randyc1897@gmail.com for the Zoom login. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. A more complicated JudasThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 27th: Psalm 70; Isaiah 50:4-9a; Hebrews 12:1-3; and John 13:21-32. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Today is Holy Wednesday. At Bible study on Monday evening, we were discussing the events of Holy Week as found in Matthew’s Gospel. One of the issues we talked about was Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. It is different than the one shared in today’s Gospel passage. John tells us: “Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, ‘Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.’ The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. … After [Judas] received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him.” In this account, if we take the text at its word, then all of the disciples were confused by Jesus’ accusation of betrayal. This changes suddenly and dramatically when Satan enters Judas. This hints at a supernatural component that tilts the balance unfairly. Judas was as uncertain as were all the disciples when Jesus broached the charge of betrayal, but then “when Satan enters Judas” the plot is set in motion. I put little credence into devil stories because they play lightly with the heavy subject of moral responsibility. The moral dilemma is much clearer in Matthew’s Gospel as we discussed earlier this week at Bible study and therefore much more intriguing. Jesus is anointed at the house of Simon the leper in Matthew 26. All of the disciples are offended by this action. All the disciples, consistent with Jesus’ proclamation, complain that the money spent on this extravagance could better have been spent on helping the poor. On this occasion, however, Jesus rebukes all the disciples and accepts this personal extravagance that had been bestowed upon Him. Matthew links this act with the conjunction “then” (26:14) so that Judas agrees to betray Jesus because of this extravagance. The betrayal could not have been as simple as handing Jesus over at an opportune time. The Romans could easily have tracked Jesus who was quite a public figure in Jerusalem at this time, and their soldiers would have had little difficulty dealing with any confrontation. The betrayal must have been something more profound. When Judas confronts Jesus, his sarcastic greeting is “‘Rabbi,’” teacher. (26:49) At this point, teacher is an insufficient acknowledgement of Jesus, but it is as far as Judas could reach. Did Judas see Jesus as the teacher who promoted the poor and the downtrodden, and who castigated the powerful and their trappings? Did Judas feel betrayed by the teacher when Jesus accepted the anointing at Bethany as Him being something of more value than helping the poor? Was Judas prepared to betray Jesus to the religious authorities by testifying to Jesus’ blasphemy, that Jesus claimed to be more than teacher, because of the affront at Bethany? When Jesus was tried before the religious court, the trial falls into confusion because no capital charge will stick. Jesus could have walked away if He had said nothing because the case against Him was in tatters. Was this because Judas never showed up? Was Judas the star witness of blasphemy, a capital crime? Because he fails to show, does the case crumble? If so, why didn’t Judas show? Did Judas have second thoughts? Did Judas have reservations about turning on Jesus? If, like in John, Judas’ betrayal was not truly premeditated, that no one was planning concretely to betray Jesus and were all surprised by the revelation, but that Judas’ act was more a visceral reaction of anger against Jesus’ anointing at Bethany, a sudden turn that almost could feel like Satan intervened, then maybe Judas had a chance to think more carefully about his betrayal, and maybe Judas could not actually go through with it. Maybe that’s why the case against Jesus was in disarray. I don’t find much worth in stories of Satan because the human origin of our faults is much more convincing. Furthermore, what are we mortals to do in combat with the supernatural? It’s not a fair fight. However, when we look at the world we create and we tolerate, then if we made it, then we can remake it. Lent is our chance to remake ourselves, and maybe help to remake the world. In this Holy Week, Lent’s last week, let us see Lent as that Spring-like rebirth that give us the chance of change. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. |
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