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St. George's Episcopal Church Roseburg, Oregon Palm Sunday of Lent 9 April 2006 Go To St. George's Home Page

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
The Passion Gospel According to St. Mark
The Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 74 th General Convention of the ECUSA

As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. Pilate asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" He answered him, "You say so." Then the chief priests accused him of many things. Pilate asked him again, "Have you no answer? See how many charges they bring against you." But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed. Now at the festival he used to release a prisoner for them, anyone for whom they asked. Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection. So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom. Then he answered them, "Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?" For he realized that it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead. Pilate spoke to them again, "Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?" They shouted back, "Crucify him!" Pilate asked them, "Why, what evil has he done?" But they shouted all the more, "Crucify him!" So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified. Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor's headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort. And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him. And they began saluting him, "Hail, King of the Jews!" They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him. After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull). And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take. It was nine o'clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, "The King of the Jews." And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, "Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!" In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe." Those who were crucified with him also taunted him. When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o'clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, "Listen, he is calling for Elijah." And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down." Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was God's Son!" There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem. When evening had come, and since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead for some time. When he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph. Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body was laid. (Mk 15:1-39, 15:40-47)

Who Were You At Golgotha?[1]
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop

     Passion Sunday asks us – begs us really – to forget all about Easter morning and the resurrection, and to dwell in the betrayal, cruelty, and horror that we commemorate this week. It asks us to forget that we will see the church filled once again with beautiful altar cloths and polished silver, and overflowing with the scent of beautiful Easter lilies. It begs us to forget the magnificent proclamation that we will sing next Sunday in “Jesus Christ is Risen Today.” Passion Sunday asks us to stop dead at the beginning of our walk through Holy Week, and remind ourselves that before the resurrection, the man we look up to as God incarnate, the perfect human who loved all of humanity with such purity and selflessness, died an excruciating and painful death at the hands of his fellow human beings.

     I am giving you nails as a reminder of what we are about this day. As I will hand them out, please pass them around so that each of you has a nail by the end of this homily. When you get your nail, hold it, look at it. Imagine that you are outside the walls of Jerusalem near the place where the city’s refuse was dumped. A place called Golgotha, the place of the skull. Imagine that you are a follower; someone who wandered with Jesus as he preached and taught. 

     To you, Jesus was something very special. A man in whose life and words and work you saw the very face of God. A man who taught us that the love of neighbor was an act of godliness. A man who listened and cared, a man who somehow always put the other person first. A man who was willing to really walk the walk and live the life of a man of God. A man who loved so purely and so completely that just being near him caused you to feel weak, to tremble, and gave you a lump in your throat. 

     Now, look! There he is, lying on the ground in front of us, with his arms and legs outstretched. A soldier is pounding nails one at a time through his wrists and ankles. Centuries of precise knowledge are at work here, each nail is placed at the exact spot where it will inflict the greatest amount of pain. With each blow, and with each cry of pain from our friend Jesus, we realize with brutal finality that “it is finished.” 

     Now, without any hesitation, he is raised up on that rough wood cross just above our heads. He is close enough that we can see the blood from his scourged back staining the splintered wood as his body sags under its own weight.

     There he is, hanging above our heads. He is in excruciating pain, slowly suffocating as the weight of his body overcomes the ability of his arms to hold him up. He is naked, alone, dying in disgrace. Abandoned by his followers, he was the victim of religion, society, and the state. 

     Who are you at Golgotha? Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Are you one of the disciples who first defended Jesus, but then ran away in fear? Are you like Peter, who denied even knowing him? Are you one of the women with the beloved disciple at Jesus’ feet? Do you identify with his mother? 

     I wonder if I would have been one of the priests who did everything possible to be sure that people understood the horrific consequences of blasphemy. I wonder if I would have been a soldier taking advantage of this man’s misfortune and gambling for his clothing. I wonder if I would have cried out “Take him away! Crucify him!” and then gone on about the daily business of living. Who are you? Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

     The gospels preserve the depth of contradictions in the attitudes toward Jesus. Pilate attempted to release Jesus, but then turned him over for crucifixion. The bandits crucified with him chose to deride him as they hung next to him dying as well. The centurion who oversaw the execution of Jesus was so moved by his death that he declared Jesus, truly God's son. . 

     As fickle as the people who knew Jesus were, one thing became clear to the early church. And that was that was a relationship between salvation and looking upon a crucified God. How very puzzling this is. The theologian, Jürgen Moltman in his book The Crucified God, says that the cross is “the really irreligious thing in Christian faith. It is the suffering of God in Christ, rejected and killed in the absence of God, which qualifies Christian Faith as faith, and as something different from the projection of [our own] desire.”[2] The cross is a symbol that speaks powerfully, and like every other symbol, it points to something beyond itself. The cross points to “the God who was crucified not between two candles on an altar, but between two thieves in the place of the skull, where outcasts belong.”[3]

     The cross doesn’t just invite thought; it demands a change of mind. It is a symbol that leads beyond our comfort zones into fellowship with the hurt, the abandoned, and the oppressed. At the same time, it also calls the oppressed, the lonely, and the hurting into fellowship with the crucified God who knows pain and suffering like no other. 

     Somewhere in the crowd when Jesus died was an old man named Joseph who must have felt close to death himself, for he had had his own tomb recently hewn out of the rock. When Jesus died, Joseph did an extraordinary thing. He went to the governor of the Roman Empire, and asked for Jesus’ body. It was risky business asking the Roman government for anything, but it was especially risky to ask for the body of a man who had just been executed as a political prisoner, and about whom extraordinary mystical claims had been made. But Joseph took a chance and was granted the body of Jesus. With reverence and care he wrapped the body in a “clean linen cloth” and laid it in his own new tomb. This was an extravagant and generous act on the part of this stranger.

     Why did he do it? Because he was a disciple. He wasn’t one o the twelve apostles, but just somebody like you and me who recognized the godliness in Jesus. He was one of the followers of Jesus who really and truly understood the call of the Gospel. Joseph of Arimathea recognized the pain of Mary Magdalene and the others who wept at the foot of the cross that day. He felt compassion, and was moved to act with care and generosity. 

     And that is the call of the Gospel to us still: to reach beyond the walls of our own selves and to adopt humanity as our own family: to clothe the naked; to feed the hungry; to give drink to the thirsty; to shelter the homeless; to visit the sick; to bury the dead. We are to enter into solidarity with the victimized. That is the call from the cross to us today. Were you there when they pierced him in the side? Did you hear that call from the cross?

     The nails you have are tangible reminders of that crucifixion and its varied symbolic meanings. They are reminders of the pain endured at Golgotha and the pain still suffered in so many places of the world. How many crucifixions take place in our world today? How many of these have we explicitly condoned or tacitly accepted by our silence or indifference? The nails are reminders that we are called to minister to the wounded Christ wherever and whenever we find him in our world today. The cross calls us to a change of mind and heart. Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

     The nails and the cross were the instruments by which God experienced unimaginable physical pain, and the tormenting grief of rejection and condemnation by the world. Let these nails become for each of us symbols of the pain that we have in our lives. Let them remind us of our hurt and pain; feelings of rejection and abandonment; of loneliness and grief. Over the next week, let us hold onto these nails while we deeply examine our own lives. Let us prayerfully look into ourselves, confident that God will understand all fears and anxieties, physical and emotional pain, feelings of guilt, and thoughts of personal rejection because God experienced all of these things and more as Jesus suffered and died. 

     Because the cross is also a symbol of victory as well as a symbol of defeat, bring your nails back to church with you at 7 pm next Friday – Good Friday. A cross will be here, and I will invite you to come up and pound your nail into the cross. If you can’t come to the Good Friday service, I suggest that you bring them with you to the Easter Vigil or to one of the Easter Day services and put them in the offering plate. 

     By those symbolic acts, you can give your pain and personal suffering to the God who loves you and knows what it is to suffer. By that symbolic act, you can acknowledge that you were there when they crucified our Lord. By returning your pain to the God who can absorb all of the pain of the world, you acknowledge that on the day that Christ died you trembled and you were changed. 

     Leave your hurt at the cross where it belongs, and then go forth, telling God that you will live into the Gospel call.

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Isaiah 50:4-9a

The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens-- wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. 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?

Psalm 31:9-16

9 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress;
my eye wastes away from grief,
my soul and body also.

10 For my life is spent with sorrow,
and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my misery,
and my bones waste away.

11 I am the scorn of all my adversaries,
a horror to my neighbors,
an object of dread to my acquaintances;
those who see me in the street flee from me.

12 I have passed out of mind like one who is dead;
I have become like a broken vessel.

13 For I hear the whispering of many --
terror all around! --
as they scheme together against me,
as they plot to take my life.

14 But I trust in you, O LORD;
I say, “You are my God.”

15 My times are in your hand;
deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors.

16 Let your face shine upon your servant;
save me in your steadfast love.

Philippians 2:5-11

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, 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. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The Passion Gospel According to St. Matthew (Mk 15:1-39, 15:40-47)

 As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. Pilate asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" He answered him, "You say so." Then the chief priests accused him of many things. Pilate asked him again, "Have you no answer? See how many charges they bring against you." But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed. Now at the festival he used to release a prisoner for them, anyone for whom they asked. Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection. So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom. Then he answered them, "Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?" For he realized that it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead. Pilate spoke to them again, "Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?" They shouted back, "Crucify him!" Pilate asked them, "Why, what evil has he done?" But they shouted all the more, "Crucify him!" So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified. Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor's headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort. And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him. And they began saluting him, "Hail, King of the Jews!" They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him. After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull). And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take. It was nine o'clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, "The King of the Jews." And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, "Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!" In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe." Those who were crucified with him also taunted him. When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o'clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, "Listen, he is calling for Elijah." And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down." Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was God's Son!" There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem. When evening had come, and since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead for some time. When he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph. Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body was laid.

The Collect of the Day

Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

[1] This sermon was inspired by The Rev. Kim Baker, who preached in Austin, TX on March 29, 2002.
[2] Jürgen Moltman. The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), 37.
[3] Moltman, 40.

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