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 April 2nd: Exodus 12:21-27; Psalm 126; and John 11:45-57. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
The Exodus passage is the biblical background for the Jewish Feast of Passover. The Jews were enslaved in Egypt. Yahweh worked to set them free by convincing the Pharaoh that this would be the most prudent course of action. At first, Pharaoh dismissed the idea. This is where the familiar story of the ten plagues enters even into popular culture. Pharaoh vacillates in his decision making as the plagues add up. He promises to let the people go, and then he retracts the promise. The tenth and final plague is the death of every first born male in Egypt. The children of Israel are spared this mayhem by dabbing the blood of a Passover lamb on their doorposts. The way it is told in the Bible is that Yahweh prevents “the destroyer” from entering those homes. Instead, “the destroyer” will pass-over the homes of the Jewish families and wreak death on only the Egyptians. This theme of the Passover Lamb is embraced by John in his Gospel. From the very beginning of the Gospel, John depicts Jesus as identified by John the Baptist as “the Lamb of God.” (1:29) And you may notice that John the Baptist, only in the Gospel of John, never baptizes Jesus. When we turn to the end of the Gospel, we hear another anomaly. The Synoptics (Matthew, Mark and Luke) tell us that Jesus shared in the Passover meal with His disciples on the night before His crucifixion, which we call commonly the Last Supper. In John, however, Jesus is already in Pilate’s custody on “the day of Preparation for the Passover and it was about noon.” (19:14) Pilate hands Jesus over for crucifixion early in the afternoon of this same day. Thus, John intentionally has Jesus, the Lamb of God, sacrificed on the cross at the same time that the Passover lambs were being sacrificed in the Jerusalem Temple, seemingly a day prior to the account in the Synoptics. This idea of the Passover Lamb being sacrificed to avert “the destroyer,” and Jesus as the Lamb of God is reflected in today’s Gospel passage where it is written: “But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.’ He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God.” Jesus is the one who will be sacrificed so that all others may live. This is the mystery of Lent. Tomorrow is a Communion Sunday, a Sunday at which we are invited to join Jesus at table and to share in the sacred banquet. We enter into communion with Christ and with each other through this holy sacrament. We share in the Lamb of God. John emphasizes that Jesus does not die for “the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God.” Communion, likewise, is not limited to the ones who are judged worthy of belonging. It is shared as an invitation to bring others back to the table. In other words, all are welcome at our Communion Table just as Jesus, the Lamb of God, died for all people in order to bring all people together. Communion does not need to be protected any more than Jesus the Lamb of God needed to be protected. Jesus was strong enough to face down everything, including torture and death. We don’t need to protect Communion; we need to share it in the hopes of bringing the “dispersed children of God” back to the table to be in communion with Jesus. If you would like to join us at worship tomorrow, please know that you are more than welcome to come among us and share in our most precious gift. If you are unable, or would prefer, to join us online, please send an email to randyc1897@gmail.com for the login. 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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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 April 1st: Psalm 126; Isaiah 43:8-15; and Philippians 2:25—3:1. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Today is our fifth Lenten Friday. We are only two weeks from Good Friday, the day of Jesus’ humiliation, torture and public execution on the cross. Lenten Fridays anticipate this sacred, humbling act of God’s perfect love for all of us – and it really is for all of us. Let’s think about that. When Luke tells the story of Good Friday in chapter 23, he includes one verse that no other Evangelist does, and some biblical editors even wished that Luke had not. If you go to your Bibles and look at vs 34, you may see it printed within double brackets like this [[ ]]. If so, there should also be a footnote that informs the reader that vs 34 is not found in some ancient sources. Bibles today reach back to original, ancient sources as much as they can, and all of these ancient sources do not agree all the time. Many of these discrepancies are minor, but some are extremely telling. Vs. 34 is the latter. Vs. 34 is included in my NRSV of the Bible, which means that the committee of scholars has judged that it most likely was part of the original text of the Gospel, but that there is enough evidence accepted by enough scholars that this decision could not be made without reservation, and thus the double brackets. I agree that it should be included in the text because an argument can be made for why an ancient biblical scribe would have made the choice to omit vs. 34 when he was copying the text: it can be scandalous in a practical sense. If Jesus is to forgive even the ones who have hammered nails into His sacred flesh, then what does this mean for the followers of a crucified Saviour? This is a radical, absolute, unbending notion of forgiveness. It is a forgiveness without merit for we are told: “The soldiers also mocked [Jesus] …” (Luke 23:36) This is a preemptive forgiveness that comes from the innermost depths of Jesus’ being. It’s who Jesus is. A scribe who may have been more self-righteous than his position merited may have chosen to simply skip vs. 34 because such a forgiveness left a bad taste in his mouth. Since an argument can be made for why a scribe would exclude it, and since it is such a problematic and difficult text to deal with, it makes sense to see why it would be removed from the original text and why it would not have been added to the original text. This is why I believe that Luke intended for us to know that Jesus was impractically forgiving – not only forgiving to those who think they deserve forgiveness or even to those who ask but don’t think they deserve it (cf. Luke 18:9-14) but to everyone, even to the soldiers who were still mocking Jesus when He prays, “‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” The transition may seem course, but today is April Fool’s Day. It originated around a calendar change. April 1st was once considered the beginning of the New Year and was based on the newness of Spring. When the New Year was moved to January, some hung on stubbornly to the old way of calling April 1st New Year. These were the April Fools. April Fools maintained their way of thinking no matter what. Jesus on the cross reveals the hidden, inexplicable, ineffable nature of the divine. To the human mind it is not practical, to the point that some anonymous scribe removed vs. 34 from the sacred text because he could not understand or appreciate it. Some will insist on maintaining the human perspective of deserved forgiveness rather than embrace the costly example of the cross’ teaching on divine forgiveness. None of us is worthy of a crucified God, which makes all of us to one degree or another dependent upon the forgiveness Jesus preaches so perfectly and so costly on the cross. This we need to embrace for ourselves and to live in our relationships with others. We can’t hold on to our practical way of thinking no matter what when it costs Jesus the cross to show us otherwise. It says in Isaiah, in a different context, but still applicable here on this Lenten Friday: “You are my witnesses, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.” We are Christ’s witnesses and Christ is God’s perfect witness. It is our calling to share, in word and action, everything Jesus taught and lived with others, even the difficult lessons of an impractical forgiveness. 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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