The Point of the Story (Palm/Passion Sunday)

Sermon Reflections

Sermons on YouTube…

In a few minutes, we’ll read together the story of Jesus’ suffering and death as told by St. Mark. Now at first glance, this story of Jesus often sounds like the same kinds of stories we hear all the time – a good and innocent person is caught up and destroyed by an evil world of treachery, corruption and betrayal. We hear about those kinds of stories all the time, and throughout history people have often viewed the story of Jesus’ suffering in those ways.

And, indeed, we’re all sometimes tempted to interpret the meaning of the story of Jesus’ suffering in terms of our own world view and experiences. So, sometimes,  the story of Jesus’ suffering sounds like a great:

  • conspiracy story – the Jewish religious authorities conspire with the Romans to kill Jesus … it makes for a great conspiracy story, but that’s not actually the point of the story of Jesus’ suffering…
  • excessive use of power story – the Roman authorities exercise power arbitrarily and for their own political ends … it makes for a great story of political corruption, but that’s also not the point of the story of Jesus’ suffering …
  • story about how good people don’t do what they’re supposed to do – the   disciples, the first followers of Jesus, run away and do nothing… it makes for a great story about how bad things get when the “good people” do nothing, but even this is not the point of the story of Jesus’ suffering and death…

In fact, in the story of Jesus, everybody but Jesus comes off looking pretty bad! So if you want to wallow in how evil the world is, there’s plenty to be found in the story of Jesus.  But that’s not the point of the story. And if you want to pass out blame, there’s plenty of that to go around as well, but that’s not the point of the story of Jesus, either.

Yet while those elements are there, and do provide important things to think about, the story of Jesus is not what it first appears to be. For Jesus is, in the final analysis, NOT the victim of Jewish religious intolerance; nor of Roman oppression; nor even of a poor choice of disciples. In the end, Jesus knows what’s going to happen, and he gets himself into it for our sake. In Philippians, we read that Jesus “emptied himself” voluntarily; and as we read in last Sunday’s Gospel reading, Jesus somehow knew full well what was coming, and he stuck around anyway.

And if that is so, then the story of Jesus’ suffering and death is NOT the same old story we hear all the time. For if Jesus has accepted this willingly, in spite of the fact that he can get out of it at any time if he wants, then something else is going on here.

And the different thing that’s going on here is that in and through Jesus, God is facing and enduring the very worst of our human condition. In Jesus, God is entering into the same old human story, but changing it.

For in the human story:

  • conspiracy, power and betrayal always seem to win; but in the story of Jesus, their power is broken, even though they continue to function…
  • when good people act badly, there’s no hope; but in the story of Jesus, God redeems even hopeless situations…
  • life is eventually turned into death; but in the story of Jesus, death is in the process of being turned into life…

And so as we read the story of the Passion today, remember that this is NOT the same old human story, but God’s redemption of our human story. And don’t get caught up in asking who’s to blame, but instead consider what it means for us that Jesus accepted the pain of our human story freely of his own will, dying even for those who ran away, and praying even for those who wanted him dead.