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 16th, Holy Saturday:  Job 14:1-14 or Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24; Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16; Matthew 27:57-66 or John 19:38-42; and 1 Peter 4:1-8.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is the last day of Lent.  On Good Friday, Jesus died on the cross, His corpse was removed and placed rather unceremoniously in a nearby tomb, and it was left there.  The story of Jesus of Nazareth seemed to have reached its end in the darkness of that tomb.  The next day was the sabbath within the celebration of Passover.  According to Mosaic Law, all work ceased.  It was a day of rest.  The body continued to lay lifeless in the darkness of the tomb.

This is the only Gospel account of Jesus being passive, and there could be significant meaning in this.  Jesus may have “emptied himself” of the signs of His divinity as it says in Philippians, but not of divinity itself.  It’s as if a king were to walk among his people dressed as a commoner as told in fables and Hollywood, but he still remains the king.  God, in and through Jesus, experiences the reality of death and separation. 
On Holy Saturday, as Jesus lies dead in the tomb, God knows what lifelessness is.  As Jesus lies in the tomb, God knows the pain and sorrow of separation.  In the book “The Crucified God,” Jurgen Moltmann argues that such things do not infringe upon the omnipotence of God when God chooses to allow such things.  When God chooses to enter our world as one of us and empties Himself of the privileges of divinity, this plays out throughout the life of Jesus, which includes the death of Jesus on the cross, which includes the passivity of lying dead in the dark tomb. 

We cannot know the thoughts and feelings of God.  It would be presumptuous to even dare to imagine we could, but we can play forward what God reveals of Himself in and through Jesus.  The reality of Jesus’ human nature need not end in the tomb.  God, in and through Jesus, has experienced human life, and therefore, it may not be beyond the pale to posit that God, in and through Jesus, also has experienced death. 
And this is where Lent ends, in the passivity of Jesus’ dark tomb.

As Christians in 2022, it is impossible to separate Lent from Easter, but if we try, we can foster a better sense of the power of the cross and the tomb, and from this place of despair we can then share more joyfully in the wonder and hope and triumph that is the unexpected Easter.  I pray that our Lenten journeys have been meaningful and also challenging.  I hope in the words of today’s last Bible selection of Lent that these 46 days (40 days of Lent plus six Lenten Sundays) have prepared us “so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God.” 

And where Lent ends, Easter begins.  Please know that whoever you and wherever you may be on your spiritual journey, you are invited to join us as we announce and celebrate the empty tomb tomorrow first at our Sunrise Service at 6AM and then in church at our regular time.  Let us proclaim together as church that Christ is risen.  Christ is risen indeed.  Alleluia.  Amen.
​
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 April 15th, Good Friday:  Psalm 22; Isaiah 52:13—53:12; John 18:1—19:42; and Hebrews 10:16-25.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today’s readings are much longer than usual, but today is a most unusual day.  This is the day when the church remembers Jesus’ tortured death on the cross.  It is hoped that on such a day we would choose to devote more time to our faith.  It is for this reason that the church building will be open from noon until 3PM today for private prayer and meditation.  We read in the Gospels that Jesus was crucified at 9AM, the skies grew dark at noon, and Jesus died at 3PM.  I encourage you to use our sanctuary as part of your Good Friday practice.  Place has meaning.  To feel the quiet and calm of the place can only help us feel closer to Christ.  And for over 300 years people of faith have come to this place to express and uplift their souls.  I don’t know how, but it feels like they’ve added something of themselves to this House of God.

I believe we need places of sanctuary, especially now in our world.  There are so many news stories that just weigh so heavily upon the soul.  In today’s Gospel selection, Jesus tells Pilate, “‘Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  To which Pilate responds from the weariness of a constantly challenged soul:  “‘What is truth?’”  I don’t hear this as a deeply philosophical question.  I think it’s more the ennui of a politician who must present different realities to different parties.  It’s almost like Pilate is saying, “I’ve told so many lies to so many people so often that I don’t even know what the truth is any longer.” 

Pulling Pilate’s example into our world, I wonder how it is possible for Russian leaders to order crimes against humanity to be committed en masse by forces under their control and then to stand up and testify that these heinous actions could not possibly be committed by our forces.  They see them as unjustifiable savagery, and yet have no compunction to continue to act in that way.  How do they reconcile their denials of these atrocities as inhumane while simultaneously knowing that they were and will continue to be committed?  Don’t they realize that they themselves are inhumane?  Don’t they hear their own words?  Or have they taught themselves that what they say does not matter.  It must be morally exhausting to play this game day in and day out, and I think such hollowed-out people are represented in Pilate’s question, “‘What is truth?’”

In the Gospel account, it was only hours earlier that Jesus had stated emphatically, “‘[Father] [s]anctify them in truth.  Your word is truth.’” (17:17)  Again, this is not meant to be a philosophical debate.  John is here presenting us with a fundamental choice.  Is our truth self-serving and basically untrustworthy as in the example of Pilate’s question, or is our truth the abiding Word of God?  If it is the Word of God, we should be able to see in the cross Jesus’ complete commitment to that truth.  Jesus will not resort even to the self-defense as violence represented by the harm inflicted on Malchus.  Jesus’ dedication to the truth of the gospel is complete, even to the point of His hanging on the cross.  What a contrast to Pilate and all those whom Pilate represents.

On this Good Friday, hopefully we will find the time to look up at Jesus from the foot of the cross, and to there be able to let Jesus know that His truth matters.  We may not be able to be as fully committed to the truth as Jesus, but in our crucified Saviour we have an ideal to follow, an example to help make us better people.  The cross is not an isolated event in Jesus’ life.  It is the completion of Jesus’ life.  It is the last and finest of Jesus’ gospel proclamations.  As we arrive at the end of our Lenten journey, it is the time to ponder Jesus’ truth and our response to it.  May we give Jesus the time today to think about what His truth means.
​
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 April 14th, Maundy Thursday:  Exodus 12:1-14; Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19; John 13:1-17, 31b-35; and 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is Maundy Thursday.  The name comes from the Latin word for commandment, and the commandment comes from today’s Gospel where we read:  “‘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.’” 

A little background:  In the three earlier Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus institutes the sacrament of Holy Communion at the Last Supper.  This is why in this evening’s liturgy we will share in Communion.  However, John takes a different tack when it comes to this matter.  Unlike the other three Gospels, the Johannine Jesus does not offer the words of institution at the Last Supper and say, “Do this in remembrance of me.”  Rather, in John, the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 is linked with Communion imagery as Jesus pronounces, “‘I am the bread of life.’” (6:48)  He then proceeds to reveal, “‘… and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh …  Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.’” (6:51, 56) 

John chooses to take the Communion language out of the closed Upper Room and share it more broadly among 5,000 men.  This happened not at Jesus’ last Passover, but at His second Passover (cf. 2:13; 6:4).  And unlike the other Gospel accounts of the miraculous feeding, John makes sure to let us know that Jesus gave thanks over the bread and then Jesus Himself distributes the bread among all who are gathered.  There is no intermediary between Jesus and recipient.  It is Jesus who shares Himself with those gathered, and those gathered are not Jesus’ most stalwart followers.  Among the 5,000 are many who do not understand Jesus. 

John infers that this large mass of men is ready to go to battle with Jesus at their head.  They assume that Jesus is the Messiah, but that this is a Davidic-type leader ready for war.  John writes:  “When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king …” (6:15)  Thus, John presents his Communion language among a vastly larger crowd than those in the Upper Room, and among people who are not necessarily wedded to Jesus’ message and ministry.  The sacrament, therefore, is not presented as needing to be protected, but as the strong presence of Christ that can reach out to others and draw them in.

With the Communion language presented in this way, John is now free to present a new Last Supper priority.  The new priority is Jesus’ new commandment to love one another, and not in some general way, but to love “as I have loved you.”  Then Jesus takes on the garb of a servant and performs the humble task of washing the feet of His disciples to give visual evidence of what He means.  A rather long and rather uninteresting dialogue takes place between Jesus and Peter as this happens, but I would love to be privy to the conversation, spoken or silently through eye contact, between Jesus and Judas. Jesus, according to John, already knows that Judas will betray Him, and yet Jesus kneels down and washes Judas’ feet.  What a powerful testimony to the meaning of “as I have loved you”! 

In the earlier Gospels, it is the Lord’s Table that we are called upon to do in remembrance of Jesus.  In John’s Gospel, it is the new commandment to love others as Jesus loves.  This is how Jesus’ disciples will be recognized.  We should treat Holy Communion as a sacred gift.  It should be treated with the greatest respect and awe.  I know that when I say the words of institution during this evening’s worship on the very night of the institution that I am humbled to be able to share in the sacrament and to share it with others.  However, for as much reverence as we devote to Communion, and rightly so, John is reminding us that we should be equally reverent when it comes to the other Last Supper institution – the institution of Jesus’ new commandment to love one another as He loves us.  Both are equal vehicles for sharing in the presence and power of Christ.

On this Maundy Thursday, I invite you to join us in the beautiful and moving liturgy of this night’s worship.  The Hatfield and Sunderland congregations will share in a combined Service at the Sunderland church starting at 7PM.  You are invited to join us in person.  If you choose to be a part of the community 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.

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 13th:  Psalm 70; Isaiah 50:4-9a; John 13:21-32; and Hebrews 12:1-3.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Yesterday we spoke of the cross through the lens of regeneration.  Today’s Hebrews’ passage continues to walk us along this path.  There we read:  “Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith … Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.”  Hebrews is clear that Jesus went to the cross in the fullness of our shared human nature.  In this way, Jesus has suffered so that not even the worst of human atrocities prevents Him from walking with us wherever we are on life’s journey.  Wherever we go, Jesus is beside us. 
​
Hebrews, however, pushes the analogy further.  Jesus is like the healthier friend as you take a hike together.  When it feels like it’s time to say, “We’ve gone far enough,” Jesus is the one who is a few paces ahead encouraging us to keep at it.  Jesus is the one who is close enough but still in front of us who is able to help us push forward “so that [we] may not grow weary or lose heart.”  The cross is not Jesus pointing His finger at us and saying, “See what you sinners have forced me to do.”  The cross is regeneration; it is Jesus reaching out His hand and saying, “I love you enough to do this, let me be “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”

Consider, as well, the Johannine Jesus’ words as Judas leaves the shared table to betray Jesus into the hands of His enemies.  The Johannine Jesus looks upon the closing act of His life’s ministry from a perspective that is unique, that is not found in the three Synoptic Gospels.  Jesus proclaims to the eleven disciples remaining:  “‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.’”  The Johannine Jesus does not see the cross as a failure of His ministry, but as its necessary and glorious culmination. 

Jesus embodies the prophecy of the Suffering Servant in today’s Isaiah reading who faces every hate-filled insult and injury by trusting in the victory assured by the closeness of God:  “The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near.  Who will contend with me?  Let us stand up together.  Who are my adversaries?  Let them confront me.  It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?  All of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.” 

This is the divine closeness that Hebrews tells us is our promise, as well.  This is the regeneration offered by the cross; and as such, as regenerated believers, we are to pay-it-forward.  We are to be there to help and support others on their journey of faith.  In this way, we benefit from and become a part of the famous promise shared through these words in Hebrews:  “We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.”  This is such a profound time of year.  I hope and pray that our Lenten journey is helping us to better appreciate the cross and its continuing significance in our lives and in those of others.  Lent is a sacred time.  Holy Week is the holiest time of Lent.  And tomorrow we reach the holiest days of Holy Week.  May we be open and receptive to Jesus’ outstretched hand as He calls us forward into the great mysteries that are just ahead of us.
​
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 April 12th:  Psalm 71:1-14; Isaiah 49:1-7; John 12:20-36; and 1 Corinthians 1:18-31.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Jesus offers and sacrifices everything that He has and everything that He is for us, but this does not mean that Jesus does it all for us.  The cross is, as we have read in Hebrews, the uniquely perfect sacrifice, but this perfect act of selfless, unconditional love demands a response.  I have heard it expressed as the cross being both redemption and regeneration.  I find this helpful.

It was once explained to me through this simple analogy.  A terrible and cold winter storm comes on quickly.  A father and son are out on the waters fishing in a rowboat.  As the weather deteriorates and it gets colder with the wind blowing and ice pelting, the father covers the son with a tarp to protect him from the elements.  A second set of father and son are also out on the waters fishing, and also in a rowboat.  This father has the son help him row to shore.  When both boats come ashore, the son who was protected became gravely ill from the cold and suffered frostbite.  The son who assisted his father in rowing to shore was protected from these maladies because he exerted himself by sharing the responsibilities of working to get to safety.

Redemption left standing by itself is the boy beneath the tarp.  Redemption inspiring regeneration is the boy who helps to row.  Regeneration is found in Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3.  It is the idea of born anew.  To witness the ineffable love of Jesus on the cross is supposed to generate a reaction.  It begins with a deep sympathy for Jesus’ suffering, which hopefully draws us closer to the Saviour, but then it should proceed on to a personal transformation.  This is regeneration.  It is our reaction to Jesus’ sacrifice.  The cross is not an isolated moment of death.  The cross is the culmination of Jesus’ ministry and gospel; it is the culmination of Jesus’ life.  When we are moved by the cross, we are in fact being moved by Jesus’ gospel.  We are reborn to live as Jesus lived.

This combination is found in today’s Gospel.  Jesus professes, “‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’”  But the theology of the cross does not end with what Jesus does.  He continues, “‘Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.’”  Jesus does all that is possible, and in that utter devotion to us Jesus trusts that we will be inspired to follow. 

The life of Paul fulfills this duality of the cross.  Paul concentrates his writings on the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Paul is immersed in a passion for the crucified Saviour, and that passion translates into a life of devoted ministry.  As he explains at the opening of his letter to the church at Corinth:  “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  This is regeneration.

In these last days of Lent, let us give ourselves the time to feel the enormity of Jesus’ brutal execution, but let us also be inspired by such a love to live renewed in the cross as the “power of God.”
​
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 April 11th:  Psalm 36:5-11; Isaiah 42:1-9; John 12:1-11; and Hebrews 9:11-15.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

The account of the anointing at Bethany intrigues me.  There are many interactions between today’s Gospel account and the anointing stories in the Synoptics that cause scholars to wonder what is going on.  Whatever happened, it was deemed an important event that was a meaningful part of Jesus’ final week of life, and awkward or not it could not be ignored.  The Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, the trial and crucifixion are much more well known, but the anointing at Bethany should not be overlooked as an important Holy Week event.

In my NRSV Bible, 12:2 states that the anointing took place at the home of Lazarus in Bethany, but the original Greek does not say this.  It only offers that “Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was.”  In Mark and Matthew, the anointing takes place at the home of Simon the leper.  It does not say that Simon was once a leper.  It says, “Simon the leper.”  This implies that Simon was suffering from this disease, and according to Mosaic Law this would have defined Simon as ritually unclean. 

Additionally, anyone who came into contact with Simon would be judged unclean.  Unclean means excluded from the people of God and also from the presence of God Himself.  And yet, this is where Jesus dines only days before Passover.  It is a beautifully symbolic gesture that speaks of inclusion rather than exclusion.  It is a profound introduction to what will happen on Golgotha when Jesus becomes one who is unclean as He hangs upon the tree. (Deuteronomy 21:23)  The cross is the costly proclamation of inclusion.  Jesus suffers and dies as an outcast so that God can reveal that no one is an outcast.

In the Lucan account, the woman who anoints Jesus’ feet is offered in a completely different context.  The text begins at Luke 7:36.  Here the woman is defined as a sinner, (7:37)  and Jesus explains that since her sins were forgiven, therefore, “she has shown great love.” (7:47)  This occurs in the home of a Pharisee, a strict adherent to the Mosaic Law.  In this setting Jesus explains that the gift of forgiveness precedes and actually enables the woman’s ability to love.  Place this in the context of the cross, and we hear the profound message that its unmerited forgiveness offered to all demands our loving response.  Forgiveness is granted so that love may be offered.

In another twist of the story, the oldest Gospel, Mark, tells us that “some” were displeased by the woman’s gesture, and in Luke it is the disciples as a group who are upset, but by the time the last Gospel is written, John’s, it is narrowed down to Judas Iscariot.  John adds further that Judas was angered by the woman’s generosity because he held the common purse of Jesus and the Twelve, and Judas would steal from it.  In the Synoptics, the reason for the displeasure is that the money could have been used to help the poor.  Only in John do we read that Judas alone protested and that his motive was greed.  Again, however, in my NRSV Bible, John 12:6 is in parentheses because this unique Johannine allegation is judged a later emendation not original to the text.

This may point to the later Gospel’s efforts to deflect attention from the original telling in which the opposition to the extravagance was the misappropriated but laudable objection that the money could have been spent to help the poor.  John may be trying to protect Jesus’ closest followers for not understanding the unique importance of Jesus, but the truth may be that John, the latest Gospel, is searching for someone safe to blame.  Maybe it’s difficult to get it right all the time in our faith, and maybe John thinks it easier to simply blame the villain disciple rather than the disciples who just got this one wrong.

The anointing happened, but the details have been managed in different ways for different purposes.  What strikes me is that the historical Jesus right up until the time of His death was challenging the status quo and seeking to redefine what it means to be right with God.  And even as the Bible was being composed, Jesus’ example, His lived gospel, remained a challenge, one that needed to be visited and revisited.  Why should we think that Jesus has stopped confronting us with His new revelation?  Even in these last days of Lent, this Holy Week, we should be humble enough to realize that to follow Jesus is a lifelong journey, but one worth every step we take.
​
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 April 9th:  Leviticus 23:1-8; Psalm 31:9-16; and Luke 22:1-13.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Tomorrow is Palm Sunday and Palm Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week.  At tomorrow’s worship Service, palms will be blessed and shared among those present.  We hope that the palms are taken home and displayed so as to remind those who see them of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  The crowds greeted Jesus with shouts of “Hosanna!’, which means “Pray, save us!” in Hebrew.  They acclaim Jesus as the “Son of David,” in other words, the long-awaited Messiah.  The crowds are ecstatic as Jesus enters David’s city. 

They are expecting revolution not revelation.  They are not looking to Jesus for what He stands for and preaches.  They are instead rejoicing in the imagery and expectations that they themselves would foist upon Jesus.  They are demanding a military leader who will conquer the Romans and reestablish the earthly empire of David.  They realize that this cannot be accomplished by a man on a donkey, but they see in Jesus the anointed of God, the Messiah, and as such they expect not only victory but vengeance.  God will fight for Israel, and the people are ecstatic. 

There is no way that the crowds could link this expectation to Jesus if they ever truly listened to His gospel or paid attention to how He lived.  Even the disciples, on three separate occasions, could not fathom Jesus’ warning of impending betrayal and death.  This is how powerful the people’s expectations were.  They overwhelmed whatever Jesus said or did.  They insisted that Jesus be the Messiah they wanted not the Messiah Jesus was revealing.

In less than a week, the crowds’ cries of “Hosanna!” will morph into demands of “Crucify, crucify him” because they were forced to realize that Jesus was not what they wanted Him to be.  He was accused of threatening to destroy the Temple rather than to protect it and restore the unity between it and God’s kingdom on earth.  And so they turned violently against Jesus.  This is the story of Holy Week.  And through the life of the church, Holy Week is not only history.  It is bringing this climactic last week of Jesus’ life to life.  We try to share in the mystery that transcends time and still speaks and affects us today as people of faith.

Think about today’s Gospel where we read:  “So they went and found everything as [Jesus] had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.”  This is not a one-time occurrence.  This is the beginning of a mystery that we still celebrate and share in today as church.  These are timeless events because Jesus is timeless, and our faith is what allows us to touch and share in them.

It is in this spirit that I invite you to join us as church, the called People of God.  We invite you to share as part of our community on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, and then to wait for the glorious news of Easter’s empty tomb.  We would love to see you in person, but if this is not possible or is not your choice, please send an email to randyc1897@gmail.com for the login to our worship Services.  Let’s give of our time and let Holy Week be holy.
​
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 April 8th:  Psalm 31:9-16; Isaiah 54:9-10; and Hebrews 2:10-18.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is the sixth Lenten Friday, the last one before Good Friday.  In a liturgical season dedicated to the cross, Lenten Fridays are even more focused.  Today we are asked to read from Hebrews.  This is an amazing Epistle and one with a rather unique Christology, which is the study of Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah and Saviour, and as the Son of God.  Hebrews’ Christology emphasizes the humanity that God accepts in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  It is this humanity that allows Jesus to be the unique and perfect intermediary between God and creation.  In Jesus, God experiences our lives, and we share in the perfect revelation of God through Jesus.

The Incarnation, the full human nature that God accepts in Jesus, is not a notion limited to Christmas.  It defines the entire life of Jesus of Nazareth, and a part of His life is His death.  The Incarnation is just as powerfully a part of Jesus at His birth as it is on His cross.  The fear Jesus experienced in the Garden of Gethsemane, the anguish He felt as His followers deserted and even betrayed Him, the pain He endured on the torturous cross, the humiliation He suffered as people mocked Him as He died slowly and publicly, and even the sense of doubt as Jesus yelled, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” are all experienced and remembered for eternity by God.

For the Incarnation to be authentic and meaningful, Jesus could not be protected from the vilest things that humans do to one another.  Jesus is able to empathize with us in all aspects of life, the good and the bad.  And this is what Hebrews conveys when today we read:  “Therefore, [Jesus] had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.”  Since Jesus endured even the worst of our human nature, now the glorified Jesus “is able to help those who are being tested.” 

We are confronted with the brutality and savagery of people in a very direct way at present as we see pictures and hear stories out of Bucha, Ukraine.  These are prime time news, but other atrocities such as these also happen and go unnoticed by the general public.  We can wonder where God is at such moments.  The cross is the lived, historical revelation that Jesus knows such pain so that Jesus can be turned to for comfort when such pain strikes.  Jesus has endured human barbarity.  And because of the cross, Jesus can offer at-one-ment to those who continue to endure such barbarity.  We often hear of atonement, that Jesus forgives our sins, but many times the more powerful message is not atonement, but at-one-ment, that God in Jesus is at-one with us in any circumstance of life, including the most heinous. 

The world can be better by following the example of Jesus’ lived gospel which was proclaimed right up to and through Jesus’ death, but in the meanwhile we have Jesus’ at-one-ment, that when we are most desperate, when people are their most despicable to other people, we have a Saviour who is as close as our next breath and remains close even after our last breath, which is God’s fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy:  “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”

On this sixth Lenten Friday, may we think about cross and how it brings Jesus so close to us in our lives that not even life’s worst nightmares can separate us from His steadfast presence, and that the cross offers us a route of escape from the worst consequences of the vilest depths of human nature if we choose to take it by following the gospel’s example of turning against our natural inclinations and towards are equally powerful inclinations as made in the image of God.
​
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 April 7th:  Psalm 31:9-16; Isaiah 53:10-12; and Hebrews 2:1-9.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

John Meier wrote a two-volume study of the historical Jesus that is honest and refreshing.  He called it “A Marginal Jew:  Rethinking the Historical Jesus.”  It was published 35 years ago, but I think it remains current and still provocative.  Toward the end of Vol. 1, Meier attempts to plot a chronology of Jesus’ life.  This is far more difficult than it may sound because the historical Jesus was a minor figure on the world stage during His lifetime.  For the vast majority of that lifetime, Jesus was a nondescript carpenter in Nazareth.  There was no BC or AD when Jesus walked the earth.  These markers came along a half a millennium after the life of Jesus as a monk by the name of Dionysius Exiguus attempted to count back to the days of Jesus – and he was most likely off by several years.  Therefore, scholars must make inferences based on the occasional important historical events that overlap with the story of Jesus.

Meier has bone fides that I trust as a biblical scholar.  He argues that the Passover of Jesus’ final days was the one in 30AD.  On Thursday evening, April 6th, Jesus shared a solemn final meal with His disciples.  Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of April 6-7 and then handed over to the Roman governor Pilate in the morning of Friday, April 7th.  Pilate condemned Jesus quickly.  He was then scourged and crucified outside of Jerusalem, dying on the cross before evening of Friday, April 7, 30AD.  Today, according to this scholar’s reckoning, is, therefore, the 1,992nd anniversary of Jesus’ death.

The first believers in Jesus, this marginal Jew, were people who were also Jewish, and who looked upon Jesus as the long-awaited Jewish Messiah, which by definition made them marginal Jews, as well.  As we have mentioned several times this Lent, none of them ever expected a crucified Messiah.  They were forced to reconcile their faith in Jesus with the theology of God’s Saviour.  As they struggled with this dilemma, they were drawn immediately to the passages about the Suffering Servant found in the book of Isaiah. 

One of those passages is shared with us today:  “The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.  …  Because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”  These writings from the time of Israel’s Babylonian exile came to give meaning to the cross.  They offered context for those first believers who were bewildered by the crucifixion.  It helped to transform Jesus’ execution from scandal to sacred.

For remember, in the oldest Gospel account, everyone abandons Jesus on April 7th.  They all believed Him and His ministry to be finished on April 7th.  There are indications that His closest followers returned quickly to their previous lives in Galilee, the lives they led prior to meeting the Marginal Jew.  This abandonment, for me, adds to the authenticity of the empty grave experience.  The ones who had given up on Jesus become the ones who evangelize for Jesus.  Something extraordinary must have happened to generate such a radical change, and the Gospels tell us that the something extraordinary was Jesus’ resurrection.

On this possible actual anniversary of Jesus’ crucifixion and death, let us struggle still with its meaning for us and our lives.  Let us search for the ways in which it can be transformative for us.  1,992 years ago believers realized that all God’s promises had not been fulfilled, and yet there was Jesus.  The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, “As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus …”  There is much that needs to be done in Jesus’ name and through Jesus’ grace, but hopefully, especially at this holy time of the year, “we do see Jesus.”  We’re but ten days from the mystery of Easter, let’s not let these days pass by without our efforts to come closer to the cross so that we can also come closer to the empty tomb.
​
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 April 6th:  Psalm 20; Habakkuk 3:2-15; and Luke 18:31-34.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

I’m no fan of comic book hero movies.  I guess another one has just come out.  I have heard that there are metaphysical differences between Marvel and DC comic book heroes, and I’m surprised even that bit of news stuck in my memory.  I don’t enjoy fantasy very much.  I was attending a talk at my Masonic Lodge that shared some of our tenets through analogies to Star Wars.  When I mentioned to the brother in front of me that I had never seen a single Star Wars film, he turned around in disbelief.  Fantasy heroes are fun escapes, and from what I have heard they can be mythical lessons not that unsimiliar to those of the ancient Greek gods.

What I find uninteresting about comic book movies is that they misrepresent the idea of the heroic and heroes (my apologies to those fans who could spend hours explaining to me how wrong I am).  Take another example.  When GI Joe first came out as a doll – I’m sorry, an action figure, he was an ordinary looking American soldier.  He has been transformed into this Hulk-like super-soldier.  The original message behind GI Joe is the hero and heroic in the ordinary American soldier who conquered the blight of Nazism.  To morph GI Joe into an unrealistic, impossible fighting machine, again to my mind, denigrates the heroic found in the real men and women who selflessly sacrificed for a cause worthy of that sacrifice.

When say a Peter Parker gets into a fight with a bully, what’s so interesting about someone with superpowers defeating someone without them?  Isn’t this just super power envy?  “How cool that would be.”  But can it also have a negative impact along the lines of it takes superpowers to make an heroic difference, that ordinary is almost helpless and hopeless, that fate is for real, that we can’t make a difference and change the world?  I know it sounds like I’m a fun-sucker, but these are the things I think about when I see commercials for yet another comic book movie.  Escapism is fun, but it’s no answer to the world’s problems.

Heroes and the heroic are more aptly seen, for instance, in the ordinary folk in Russia who have dared to protest the war even at the cost of a possible 15 years in prison and the ruination of prospects to lead a productive life in this now despotic nation.  Heroes and the heroic inspire by their bravery even when they lose.  Take the impact of the ordinary Ukrainian soldier who cursed out a Russian worship rather than surrender his tiny island outpost.  His words have galvanized a nation that needs hope and is finding it in the strength of its ordinary people.

And now let’s think about Jesus.  Jesus is extraordinary, but as it says in Philippians, “Though he was in the form of God, [Jesus] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” (2:6-7)  The hero and heroic in Jesus is that in Him God has lived our ordinary life.  And how strange and unexpected all of this was for remember the People of God were awaiting a powerful Saviour, not one “taking the form of a slave.”  Take today’s passage from the prophet Habakkuk as but one example:  “In fury you trod the earth, in anger you trampled nations.  You came forth to save your people, to save your anointed.”

Is it any wonder then that when Jesus tries to explain to His closest followers that He must suffer and die that “They understood nothing about all these things; in fact, what he said was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.”  The disciples had a lifetime expectation of an otherworldly Saviour.  Jesus, on the other hand, empties Himself of the otherworldly, to be truly the hero and heroic in the worldliness of Jesus of Nazareth. 

The disciples could not grasp this prior to the crucifixion.  People of faith still today have trouble with Jesus as the one who saves us by showing us and helping us to be what is possible as the People of God.  Some tend to think of the cross, and it is in the Bible, as only this otherworldly intervention that redeems us, that pays the price of our salvation, but the cross is also a very human Jesus showing us heroically how we can work with God to save ourselves and creation.  The cross calls out the hero and heroic in each of us.  If we think of the cross as only what Jesus did, then we are locked into the confusion of the disciples as in today’s Gospel.  In these waning days of Lent, let us look to the cross as inspiration for how we are to live heroically.
​
If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.