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 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 [email protected].  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 [email protected] 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.

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 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. 
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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.

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 [email protected] for the Zoom login.   
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.

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 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.   
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.

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 26th:  Psalm 71:1-14; Isaiah 49:1-7; and 1 Corinthians 1:18-31.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is Holy Tuesday.  Yesterday’s newspaper headlines shared stories about the terrorist attack in Moscow last week that killed and injured indiscriminately, the fear and depravation in Gaza accompanied by Israel’s apprehension of the existential threat that surrounds it.  The terrorist attack in Moscow was claimed by ISIS-forces responding to Russia’s attacks in Syria.  Hamas’ attacks are claimed by forces responding to Israel’s attacks, and Israel’s attacks are based on the October 7th Hamas attack.  This is the practical logic of the world.  It is the quid pro quo of violence for violence.  In this logic, do you see any endpoint, ever?  It is often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. 

We are caught in a net of our own making.  There are problems in the world, undoubtedly.  Some of them seem intractable.  However, the worldly logic of force rather than compromise, of force rather than dialogue, of force rather than forgiveness has only led to more force.  It takes on a life of its own.  Remember that the World War II Allied Commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who went on to become President, warned in his Farewell Address to the nation against “… the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”  He saw that force takes on a life of its own and a logic of its own, even when that logic becomes the definition of insanity, that we can force security on the world no matter how often and how destructively that logic fails.

  Or, as it is written in today’s 1 Corinthians passage:  “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing …”  The cross is insanity in a world that is perishing and that calls the insanity of cyclical violence practical.  My father once manufactured the control rods that are used in nuclear reactors.  They are inserted to absorb neutrons, which stops them from splitting more uranium atoms.  The control rods break the cycle of nuclear reactions.  Jesus’ entire life, culminating in the ultimate witness of the cross, is the control rod that is God’s attempt to break the insanity of the world’s cycle of violence.

When Paul writes to the community at Corinth, Jews and Greeks are the situation-appropriate euphemism for all humanity.  Accordingly, to all people the cross will appear at first as an anomaly.  Paul writes:  “For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” 

The crucified Christ is the power and wisdom of God that is nonetheless seen as the weakness and foolishness of God by the world entranced by the insanity of cyclical violence.  Lent is our blessed opportunity to see the cross as the control rod that breaks this insane cycle, that allows us to see past “human wisdom” and “human strength” so that what the world calls foolishness we can grasp as humanity’s hope. 
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.

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 25th:  Psalm 36:5-11; Isaiah 42:1-9; and Hebrews 9:11-15.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is the Monday of Holy Week.  Yesterday, Palm Sunday, Jesus entered into Jerusalem.  According to Mark’s Gospel (11:12), today is the day on which Jesus cleansed the Temple.  He disrupts the Temple commerce.  He yells, “‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it a den of robbers.’”  Jesus became enraged when He witnessed the corruption of religion by money.  It would be easier to limit this righteous anger to the Temple, but it is an open-ended condemnation of any pollution of religion in which the faith is used to mask the abuse of power and to cover greed with a holy shroud.

The cleansing of the Temple stands-out as the example of Jesus’ righteous anger.  It is an important testimony at the start of the week to Jesus’ fearlessness.  Jesus knows well that the Temple authorities are watching and that Fortress Antonia is situated above the Temple courtyard with its Roman soldiers.  He had just paraded into the holy city the day earlier in a counter-procession to that of Pilate, the Roman Governor.  Pilate entered with pomp and circumstance, surrounded by the conquering Roman army.  Jesus entered “humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey,” (Zechariah 9:9; cf. Mark 11:7) surrounded by the masses proclaiming the Messianic attestation of “Hosanna,” which means, “‘Save, we pray’” (Ps. 118:25).  Jesus is not frightened of the power situated in Jerusalem, and this is an important context established as the week begins.  It helps to clarify Jesus’ passive acceptance of what will unfold at the end of the week. 

This needs to be stated and restated because of the violence-loving culture that pervades the world.  Jesus’ fearlessness does not register as heroic.  The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, the son of a Lutheran clergyman, for example, was repulsed by Jesus’ example (and the Nazis glommed onto him as their “Superman”).  To march in formation with weapons at the ready in imitation of Pilate is understood.  Jesus’ passive resistance is confounding.  Holy Week asks us which procession into Jerusalem we would have gone to see.

Today’s Isaiah passage is one of the Suffering Servant epiphanies.  As the earliest Christians read Holy Scripture, which would be what we call today the Old Testament, they recognized Jesus immediately as the Suffering Servant.  In Isaiah we read today, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.  He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.  He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.”

God reveals that in the Suffering Servant justice will be brought forth, not by amassing an always more powerful army, because rather the Suffering Servant will not “lift up his voice,” will not quench even a “dimly burning wick.”  Justice will be brought forth not by power, but by the integrity of example, the world will “wait for his teaching.”  When Jesus accepts the mockery, abuse and torturous crucifixion later in this Holy Week without replying in kind, it is not because Jesus lacks righteous anger, it is not because Jesus is afraid.  It is because “he will bring forth justice to the nations” by another way.  At some point, before it is too late, I pray that we may recognize and honour Jesus’ other way and see the truly heroic in it. 
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.

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 23rd:  Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Jeremiah 33:10-16; and Mark 10:32-34, 46-52.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Being alone is not the same as being lonely, but a person can feel desperately alone in a crowd.  It is not the proximity of others that is determinative.  Isolation is the inability to connect with others.  Jesus is alone and isolated as he proceeds closer to Jerusalem.  On two prior occasions, Jesus had tried to prepare his followers by foretelling his suffering and death, and on both occasions he was met with incredulity.  His followers could not process what Jesus was trying to reveal to them.  They would not or could not let go of their own expectations of Jesus.  And yet, the inevitability of Jerusalem was getting closer and closer.  With each step forward along the road, Jerusalem loomed more imposing over Jesus, and the disciples’ intransience more disheartening.  Thus, “They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them [alone].”  (10:32)

The same Greek word is used here in vs. 32 to describe the amazement of the disciples as was employed to express their bewilderment at vs. 24 when Jesus had professed how hard it will be for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.  They are culturally unable to process the revelation of a crucified Messiah, and their bewilderment isolates them from Jesus and Jesus from them.  For the briefest of moments, Jesus had found solace in Peter’s testimony of “‘You are the Messiah.’” (8:29)  Then, that hope careened over the cliff of “‘Get behind me Satan!’” (8:33)  And Jesus continues to carry that wreckage with him as he climbs up the road to Jerusalem.

Even the more casual followers of Jesus sense that something is awry, and they are “afraid.” (10:32)  This group may simply be other Galileans taking the same pilgrimage route to Jerusalem for the Passover festival.  They may have an awareness of Jesus as a wonder worker and may entertain notions of a hoped-for powerful intervention by Jesus on behalf of the Jewish nation; and because of their determinedly traditional Messianic expectations, they are made afraid by this sense of foreboding that engulfs Jesus and the disciples.  And Jesus’ isolation grows deeper.

At this point in the text, Mark informs the reader that this amazed and fearful crowd passes through Jericho. (10:46)  Jericho is the last city before the traveling pilgrims enter the environs surrounding Jerusalem, which is but a day’s walk ahead.  A great deal of psychological drama had been taking place on the other side of Jericho.  It pulled us into the thoughts of Jesus, the disciples, and the crowd.  In that contemplative space, we are startled by Bartimaeus son of Timaeus.  Everyone in his or her own way is lost in his or her own thoughts.  Then blind Bartimaeus shatters this solitude, shouting, “‘‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’” (10:47)  Instinctively the crowd rebukes this intrusion and orders him silent.

I think it would have been understandable for Jesus to have not responded, to maybe not even have heard the plea as he was lost in the thoughts of his own troubles, but Jesus is Jesus.  He calls the blind man over.  Even when lost in the thoughts of his own desperate situation, Jesus makes time for blind Bartimaeus.  Jesus is contemplating giving everything he has as a ransom for the lives of others – others who cannot seem to understand, and yet Jesus still has the compassion to pause and heal Bartimaeus.

The healing is granted and Jesus tells Bartimaeus “Go.”  (10:52)  Just like so many others who had been healed by Jesus and simply went on their way, Jesus says to Bartimaeus, “Go.”  Here, though, something remarkable happens that maybe brought a bit of healing to Jesus the healer.  Bartimaeus stayed.  Bartimaeus followed Jesus “on the way.”  (10:52)

This may only refer to the road leading out of Jericho and on toward Jerusalem or “the way” may be a reference to the earliest iteration of Christianity (cf. Acts. 9:2; 18:25, 26; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22).  We often do not know who the people are who Jesus heals, but here we know his name, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, and that he is from Jericho.  This may well be an actual person familiar to the community of the Marcan church.  Bartimaeus may well have shared this firsthand account with the original people of this Gospel.  He had remained faithful to Jesus.  He became a part of “The Way.”  Bartimaeus saw Jesus’ psychological suffering and then most likely his physical suffering, and Bartimaeus knew that with all of this, Jesus still stopped to help him.  And Bartimaeus “followed him on the way.”

The Twelve could not assuage Jesus’ anxiety, but this blind beggar outside of Jericho saw what they could not, and I hope this gave Jesus hope.  I hope it made it just a little bit easier for the one prepared “to give his life as a ransom for many” as he was about to publicly, triumphantly and defiantly march into his enemy’s stronghold of Jerusalem.

We can imitate Bartimaeus’ insight and appreciation by walking with Jesus as the church community remembers again these fateful days of Holy Week that begin with tomorrow’s Palm Sunday Worship Service.  You are invited to join us whoever you are, and if you cannot or choose not to be with us in person, send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom login.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.