Palm Sunday , March 24, 2013 (full size gallery)
Lent wrapped up this week. It has been unseasonably cold even though spring began this week on March 20. We had 7 venture to Richmond on Thurday to a quiet day let by Bishop Susan Goff entitled "Come to the Water". "Holy Scripture is filled with imagery of refreshing waters that restore parched lands and parched souls. In the holy season of Lent, we will pause to rest beside still waters, to find refreshment in running waters, and to wade into turbulent waters-all in order to draw closer to God."
Palm Sunday continued the weather of the week, cool in the low 40’s. It was overcast with the sun trying to break through. It was the Liturgy of the Palms before the service and then the Liturgy of the Passion which is the extended Holy Week reading, this year from the Gospel of Luke.
We dedicated a new frontal, burse and veil put today by Eunice. She "researched fabrics and materials, and then created our new frontal, burse and veil for a fraction of the cost of ordering these pieces. Thanks be to God for Eunice’s stewardship of time and talent. And our thanks to the ECW, who provided funds for the purchase of the needed materials." We also recognized Johnny on his birthday.
We also voted today on the disposition of the $2,000 won from the John Hinds award. There were 8 charities on the list for $1,000 of the money, including Toilets for Haiti, Mustard Seed Grants, Fredericksburg Area Food Bank, Pathways to Housing, Micah Ecumenical Ministries, Project Hope, Episcopal Relief and Development and Doctors without Borders. The congregation voted for the top two which were Toilets for Haiti and Mustard Seed Grants. Catherine designated $750 for the VTS Missionary Society at her request. $250 will to go Catholic Charities at the request of Henry Wiencek, the author of the Smithsonian article that Catherine quoted in her sermon.
The passion narrative was the focus of this service with the scripture taken from Luke. The readings were designed with just a few characters – narrator, Jesus, Pilate, centurion. Alan Gayle turned in a moving performance of Jesus with his costume, realistic movements and speech. Catherine and Alan Gayle worked before the service on the role.
Another addition was the choir anthems during the reading. The choir augmented by Paige and Catherine sang in parts on "O Sorrow Deep" and added to the readings with "Go to Dark Gethsemane (H 171), "Ah Holy Jesus, (H 158), "My Song is Love Unknown (H 458). The congregation added "Beneath the Cross of Jesus" (H 458). The Choir also sang the beautiful piece by Dr. Bill Roberts at VTS ("Let the same mind be in you") for the Philippians 2:5-11 reading.
We had a somewhat disappointing attendance of 38 but we have 3 services this week – Tenebrae on Wed, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday with a community dinner on Sat. plus the sunrise service and normal Easter service at St. Peter’s. The bulletin is here . Due to the length of the Passion reading there was no sermon. The readings are here.
It is called "Holy Week" for a reason. It is the holiest week of the year, the yearly remembrance of the death and resurrection of Christ and probing for its meaning.
This year David Lose, a Lutheran minister, provides a succinct and unique view:
"We are close, now, to the end. For the last five weeks we have traced Jesus steps toward the cross and this Sunday we reach the sobering and even brutal conclusion to Luke’s account of our Lord’s Passion. And I have to admit that each year as we again approach this point, the climax and conclusion of Jesus’ earthly life, I feel welling up inside of me one simple, pathetic cry: Why?
"Why? It’s the question that helps us articulate our deep desire to find meaning in meaningless events, to understand – and thereby not feel quite so overwhelmed by – events beyond our control. And it is just this question that haunts me each year at just this time. Why must Jesus die like this? Why must it end this way? Why the mockery and abuse, why the nails and cross, why, in the end, such an agonizing and shameful death? Why?
"Faithful Christians throughout the Church’s long history have struggled to address just this question, and their various answers have been described as “theories of atonement.” Emphasizing one part of the Biblical witness or another, these theories attempt to address the “why” question by describing Christ’s death as a substitution for our own, or of Christ satisfying God’s requirement for holiness, or of Christ paying the penalty for sin, or of the example Christ’s death sets for us, or even of the victory Christ wins over death and the devil. And yet while eacg of these theories highlights some aspect of the truth of our Lord’s death, none of them ultimately satisfies. Our questions persist.
"We may take, I imagine, some small comfort in knowing that we are not alone in our confusion, that we are not the only ones who question. Throughout all the Gospel accounts, Jesus regularly predicts his passion, and just as regularly his disciples do not understand him, or misinterpret him, or, finally, reject his predictions as simply too awful to believe. And so when the unimaginable, though not entirely unexpected, happens, and Jesus is handed over, judged, and crucified, the disciples, also, are left reeling, also left asking, “Why?”
And perhaps this confusion isn’t really the disciples’ fault in the end or, truth be told, ours.
"For while Jesus may have predicted his passion, he never went into great detail to explain its meaning; he never, that is, got around to explaining why.
"And yet…and yet, Jesus does address another, and I think perhaps more important, question. For, as Jesus says to his disciples at the very outset of Luke’s description of the passion, “when the hour came,” he took his place at table with his disciples to share one last meal with them. And at that meal he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given . . . for you.”
"Did you hear that? Those last two words? “For you.” For those disciples, including, as the Evangelist records, Judas who betrays him, Peter who denies him, and the rest who desert him. And if for these, then also for us! And knowing this, I believe, makes all the difference.
"So while Jesus doesn’t answer the question “why?” he does answer – and answer definitively – the deeper question of “for whom?” That is, though Jesus may not explain the full meaning of his death, he leaves no doubt as to its significance for you and for me, as above and beyond all our confusion and questions, we hear in these two words the shocking, unimaginable, and utterly unexpected promise that everything Christ suffers – all the humiliation and shame, all the defeat and agony – he suffers for us, that we might have life and light and hope in his name!
"And this we know because Luke makes it abundantly, even painfully clear that Jesus gives himself over to death willingly. As Luke writes near the end of the Passion account, “Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last.”
"Do you see what I mean? Jesus’ life is not ripped away as in some horrible accident, nor is it torn from him as in some senseless tragedy. Rather, he commends his Spirit to the Father, giving his life of his own accord. As the resurrected Christ will say when he meets two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus, “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” And then he will open the Scriptures that their hearts may burn with the knowledge that Jesus gave himself, fully and freely, for us and for all the world, because that is why he came: to declare the Lord’s favor to all.
"The hard part of this Passion Sunday and story is that we may never be able to answer that persistent and perplexing question of why. But we can answer another, perhaps more important question, “for whom.” Why more important? Because if pressed, I must say that I also cannot explain “why” my parents care so much for me, why my wife loves me, or why my friends put up with me. And yet I do know that their care, love, and forbearance is “for me,” and knowing this makes all the difference.
"So also with the mystery of Christ’s passion and death. For though we can surely never fully comprehend the “why” of God’s unfathomable commitment to us, when we see the form of Christ on the cross we can never doubt God’s profound love for us. And knowing this makes all the difference!"
Luke’s Passion
Each of the 3 years of the Lectionary focuses on one of the Gospel readings. This year it is Luke and this article by Arland J. Hultgren focuses on the disctinctiveness traits of Luke, the doctor who followed Paul:
"As background for further consideration, there are a few distinctive things about Luke’s Passion Narrative that stand out. Only those that pertain to the “shorter” reading of 23:1-49 will be listed here (they are relevant to the longer reading too). They include the following:
(1) On Thursday evening, after his arrest, Jesus is brought to the high priest’s house (22:54) and is apparently kept in the compound as a prisoner over night. The Jewish Interrogation (22:54-71) is set on Friday morning (22:66) rather than on Thursday evening, as in the other Synoptic Gospels (Mark 14:53 and Matthew 26:57). Following the interrogation, Jesus is brought that same morning before Pontius Pilate (23:1) where the shorter reading begins.
(2) The charges against Jesus in 23:3-5 are distinctive to Luke. They are more political than in the other gospels, and therefore of more interest to Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. The charges are threefold: Jesus perverts the nation, forbids taxes to Caesar, and claims to be a king.
(3) As in the other gospels, Pilate declares Jesus innocent of the charges brought against him. But what is unusual is that he does so three times (23:4, 14, 22), as in the Gospel of John (18:38; 19:4, 6).
(4) The scene of Jesus before Herod (Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee, 4 B.C. to A.D. 39) in 23:6-12 is found only in Luke’s Gospel. Significantly, Herod also finds Jesus innocent of any crime (23:15).
(5) The scene provided in 23:27-32 is also distinctive to Luke’s Gospel. Jesus has a large following on the way to his crucifixion. That following includes women from the area (“the daughters of Jerusalem”). But there are more that show up later on. Early in his gospel Luke (alone among the evangelists) told of women accompanying Jesus during his ministry in Galilee and providing for him out of their resources (8:1-3). The same women from Galilee are present at the crucifixion (23:49).
(6) In addition to the declarations by Pilate and Herod of the innocence of Jesus, there are more. One of the two thieves declares him innocent (23:41), and so does the centurion at the cross (23:47). Moreover, Joseph of Arimathea, “though a member of the council” that brought accusations against Jesus, “had not agreed with their plan and action” (23:50-51), which implies that he too thought that Jesus was innocent of the charges against him.
In all of this and more, Luke tells a story of an innocent man who was accused by the leaders of his own people for leading Israel astray and being seditious against the Roman government, and who was consequently put to death by the Roman authorities. As we read the story, it becomes clear that there was a miscarriage of justice.
In spite of the blatant injustice committed by those in power, Luke is explicit concerning a larger drama that was transpiring. Quoting Jesus’ own words, all took place to fulfill the Scriptures (18:31-33; 22:37; 24:26-27, 44, 46). Jesus had a vocation to fulfill, which Luke spelled out back in 9:51, still quite early in his earthly ministry: “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” His being taken up refers to his resurrection and ascension, which would take place in Jerusalem.
Essentially the grand story of Luke’s Gospel is that which is summarized in a speech by the apostle Peter, as reported by Luke in Acts 10:36-43. It is the story of one who was anointed by the Spirit and power, who went about doing good and healing those in need, was killed, was raised on the third day, and appeared to his witnesses. In regard to the significance of his death and resurrection, those events were the means by which Jesus would “enter into his glory” (Luke 24:26) and there assume a role that extends his ministry beyond the confines of Galilee and Judea.
All this can be expanded upon. In Luke’s Gospel Jesus carries on an extensive ministry of preaching and healing. He is a sympathetic figure to those in need. That is particularly highlighted in the Passion Narrative. There he expresses sympathy for the women (“the daughters of Jerusalem”) who were following him to the site of the crucifixion (23:27-30). In addition, Jesus expresses sympathy for the thief on the cross who asks to be remembered by Jesus in his kingdom. Jesus says to him: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (23:43).
Another feature of the ministry of the earthly Jesus in Luke’s Gospel is that he forgives sins. Instances can be seen at 5:20-24; 7:47-49; 19:7-10. Those acts were restricted to particular cases. But everything changed with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Because of Jesus’ suffering and entering into glory, and his being enthroned as Lord, the forgiveness of sins is available from him to “all nations” (24:47). That is the message that the apostles and missionaries of the early church had for the world. As Peter put it in the Book of Acts, “everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (10:43).
The compassion of Jesus and the forgiveness of sins in his name (on his behalf) are two of the themes that have drawn people to him in both is earthly ministry and in the centuries that have come and gone. Those themes are still powerful. They are also so very central to Christian faith. Christians may disagree on many issues. But the image of the compassionate Christ and the good news of the forgiveness of sins are at the heart of the matter for all believers.