lenten blog | March 30, 2026

Holy Monday

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:  Psalm 36:5-11; Isaiah 42:1-9; Hebrews 9:11-15; and John 12:1-11.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

At our last online Bible study gathering, we talked about the Suffering Servant passages in Deutero-Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55).  Scholarly arguments are inconclusive about who or what these passages refer to at that time.  Was it an actual person, an ideal, or even the people of Israel as a whole?  I am drawn to Deutero-Isaiah.  He is a breath of fresh air.  He doesn’t speak of sin and judgment as so many others prophets had and will.  He offers hope.  He doesn’t place that hope in king or temple, but rather in the sanctity of the people themselves.  He hopes for the conversion of the people so that once restored to their homeland they will be invested with royal and prophetic authority.  And since they have known the humiliation of defeat and exile, living as foreigners in a strange land, they will then create a new community of welcome for all people.  Unfortunately (but naturally), this is but a momentary breath.  Almost as soon as the people return to Jerusalem, they forget the words of Deutero-Isaiah.  They seek but fail to reestablish the Davidic monarchy, and they seek and succeed in restoring the Jerusalem Temple.

Scholars are unsure of who the Suffering Servant passages represented at that time, but it is quite clear that the earliest Christians saw Jesus, and Him crucified, as the ultimate reference.  Jesus challenged the power of the Roman Empire not by physical force, but by offering the alternative of the gospel.  When Christians looked back upon the crucifixion and that Jesus accepted this injustice rather than betray His gospel of peace, they saw the fulfillment of the Suffering Servant passages.  The crucifixion must have confused those earliest believers.  As they sought with time to understand its theology, they turned to the Hebrew Scripture’s examples of atonement sacrifices to God, and to the Suffering Servant:  “I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.  He will not cry out 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.”  When some distort the life and teaching of Jesus to bolster their supposedly righteous anger and violence, we need to remember that Christians have always seen Jesus as the Suffering Servant, the one who fostered justice worldwide and was so peaceable a man that he would not break a bruised reed or snuff out a dimly burning candle.

We should also combine this with Deutero-Isaiah’s hope that it would be the community of all the people who would usher in and advance God’s reign.  It would not be king or temple; it would be all the people.  Jesus’ death is not meant to stand alone.  It is meant to inspire us to act in accordance with so great a sacrifice.  During these days of Holy Week, with anger and violence aplenty in the world and somehow justified by Jesus’ name, may we follow Jesus’ lived example, lived even to the moment of His death, of justice through peaceable change.  Justice will not descend magically from heaven.  This will well up from the all the people who remember and are inspired by Christ’s lived example, lived even unto the cross.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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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.