Note: After Easter, we won't have OT readings. So, I will work with the texts other than the gospel ones. I will note at times linkages to Easter.

Acts 5:27-32-

1) My sense is that the exaltation theme, a link between Easter, Ascension, and sitting at the right hand of the Father was an important view of the victory of Jesus.

2) Like Jesus, the disciples are brought to trial. Unlike Jesus, they talk a good deal more.

3) Notice the irony of the priest's desire not to bring the blood on the council.

4) To follow god and not people is bold and admirable, but it can also be mistaken arrogance.

5) Again irony, Jesus is indeed made to be sin, the cursed one, but through the cross and resurrection now a leader.

6) Savior appears for the first time in Acts here. recall the emperor was a savior as well.

7) Notice the emphasis is on the spirit and on forgiveness for Israel.

 

 

 

Rev. 1:4-8- Note well that this letter is a circular one to seven real churches in what is now Turkey. One should exercise care in leaping to current evangelical dogma that it is directed toward then unknown American churches with clear predictive accuracy.

1) Obviously, the major Easter link is the wonderful phrase, the first-born of the dead.

2) Again exaltation is apparent.

3) We have the image of the return as well. This is a  link to Daniel 7:13 with the coming on the clouds.

4) Note the blurring of time into the Eternal Now of the one who was, who is, who is to come.this is perhaps a play  on the name of Ex. 3:14.

5) Jesus is given a political designation , even though he was killed by the empire. This is a part of exaltation theology. Jesus represents, if you will, a higher power.

6) Textual issues are here on loose v. washed us from sins.

7_ Piercing refers to John's story of the cross but also refers to Zech. 12:10

8) Look at how the Exodus  19 kingdom of priests is for the churches here.

Maundy 2010

shadow of doubt--shadow of death again. (This time the Destroyer would enter the abode of the Incarnate Message of God (Good Friday note)

Passover-zakar-remember-brings to present life-makes the past come alive. Passover is usually celebrated as a family meal in Jewish circles. Every family follows a liturgy, and the family becomes a little church that evening. We have a taste of its question and answer format again this evening.

 

No fast food sacrament this-sacraments as examples of God's hospitality-old ways reinterpreted This was a goodbye family meal that anticipated family meals of the future. The elements encapsulate the life of Jesus, and in consuming them, we claim that life in our own. We see others as part of the family. We stand within the family prayer of Jesus Christ. We are adopted into the family history of Jesus. Matzoh, the quick Passover bread on the run. We ingest that collective memory. this is a sacrament of connections, horizontally to each other and vertically to heaven. In the free nation, wed live in chains to drugs, to ambition, to an image of ourselves. Communion offers a way out, a path toward freedom. It is a prescription for a passover of the cold hold of death, a sit offers a way into the eternal memory and life of God. (Kaddish prayer from Pennington's Eucharist).Afikomen, some think that toward the end of the meal, when the last piece of unleavened bread, the matzoh, is eaten Jesus reinterpreted the Passover bread as he did with the one of the blessings of wine, perhaps it was when the people say dayenu, it is enough.. Maybe at the Urchatz, the ritual washing of hands, Jesus took on the role of washing feet as well. the bread and wine unite us with the elements of creation but also in our role of transforming the elements of creation, wheat and grape juice into bread and wine by our techniques.

 

How and why do we forget? We repress painful memory. Memories do fade in time.
We dismiss what we see as unimportant. How much of a sense did the disciples have that this was a very special Passover meal?  We get occupied with other events. Did Jesus wonder if he would be forgotten, just another number on the list of executions? Would his work be erased like footprints in the sand? At Passover the destroyer passed over the houses of the Israelites. Was Jesus fasting? At the Last Supper, Jesus realized that the Destroyer was aiming straight for him. Somehow his death would be a gateway to new life in this world and the world to come.

Easter 2010

Police dramas have a medical examiner give the time of death of the body by various indicators. If a medical examiner came to the tomb of Jesus  at some point on Saturday, they could give the time of death that we usually place around 3PM on Good Friday. They would note the cold temperature, the rigor. I say this to remind us that Jesus was in the grave, not in a coma, not in suspended animation, but dead and gone, buried. So he was not merely brought back, not resuscitated, but resurrected, given new life in a new way. He is, quite literally, born again. Only God can bring life from death. Only God can make the tomb into a womb.

 

Why seek the living among the dead? In a way the women were the dead among the living, with their hopes shattered and acting out of brave duty. Now the dream was alive once more. God has done a new thing to have new life arise from the dead. An empty tomb is the womb of a new birth. The dream is no longer dead, interred, but alive and on the loose.

Easter stress the full rich possibilities of life here and now, not living bit by bit being chipped away but grabbing its precious gift. the past gets integrated in us,as a  living part of us, not thev dead hand of thepast.Lliving Easter life is a new full, surprising life. The words of Jesus acquired new life. They had forgotten the words about suffering and rising, but the words of the two men in dazzling clothes clicked the memory switch on. We live in Easter light when we see our lives in the light of Scripture.

 

In Easter we participate in God's new future, maybe better new advent. We can try to forecast the future but not the surprising ways of God. God moves toward us.Death does not win the war between life and death. Love reaches into the cold tomb and warms it with its massive heart. No wonder Luke has two witnesses at the empty tomb. Every year it looks as if the cold of winter takes over. Then, bit by bit, the earth comes to life again. Easter is a spring celebration, but it is the shock of the new, not expecting the predictable return of perennial flowers.

 

Isaiah imagines a new world, one beyond resurrection perhaps, where death will lose its hold on us. It imagines a world of delights and peace, certainly an easier life. People would live a long long time. We are starting to approach such a time, when we expect to live  as long as the biblical patriarchs. This is not a return to Eden, but a new Eden, with its vulnerability to evil and death banished.

 

Ministers often regard the Easter bunny as an intrusive story for children. I have some sympathy for the bunny. It imagines a sweeter world, shorn of the predator, and it points toward the sweetness of life itself. Easter candy emphasizes the sweetness of life. A while back, to emphasize that very point, we give out candy every week, not only on Easter to the children. God's love on Easter is seen in the dazzling light of new life.  We encounter, we engage, the love of God over even death itself in the risen Christ. God not only gives space and time for us in this world, but God has made space, made a place for us in his very presence in the world beyond death. It is our very selves, our very lives, that will persist and grow int eh light of heaven's love one day.

Good Friday 2010
In the early church, Good Friday was pictured as a battleground between Life and Death personified. With every lash of the whip, Death heard it a the rhythm of celebration. Every pounded nail echoed in Death's chamber as a victory march. When the soldiers played dice for the cloak of Jesus, death got dressed up in its best array of clothes to dance. the pierced side elicited a piercing cry of triumph from Death. God's own lay in the grave. Prior to Easter, death  won,in all its enormity. Jesus lay dead in abject failure, no mere death mask but burial. Over time, as we reflect on that awful day, we start to wonder if it was an abject loss. Could it be that God could use even death toward a divine purpose? Could some good emerge from that awful day? Could victory be wrung from it somehow, some way?

 

God's life with us intersected with new power at the Incarnation. Even in death, maybe especially on Good Friday, God's life could be found even in the abode of death. In the life of Jesus and the death of Jesus, god is in solidarity with creation. even in all of its fragility and vulnerability. On
Good Friday we see the loving face of God on the face and body of Jesus hanging on the cross. On Good Friday we see the stunning image of the crucified messiah, God in the grave. Hope interred but not put to rest. Good Friday subverts our view of power. From the foundation of the world, the Son was a chosen vehicle. Then God was determined, from the foundation of the world, to offer salvation, Karl Barth argued that the Son was also the rejected one. In giving space to creation, God gave love breathing space. In love, God could give up power over Creation to the worst impulses of human beings. God would turn that evil toward good and make it a gateway for a life of love and forgiveness.

 

Love reaches into death itself and into the grave. God will not be deterred even from death itself. The Lord and giver of life faces death.

The Pieta is a famous image from art. You have perhaps the most famous image with your bulletins this evening. look at that face. You see not only the face of mother Mary. It is looking into the broken hearted face of heaven itself on that day.Look at the broken lifeless body. The TV movie, Jesus, has a heartrending scene where Mary washes the face of her son on the linen sheet in the borrowed tomb.

Jesus would not be left to vultures. Instead some brave souls dressed the body hurriedly, for the Sabbath approached and carried him into a new borrowed grave.What was it like to bury Jesus? Then the cruel finality of rolling the stone across the opening.

 

It continues to be difficult to try to make sense of the death of Jesus on the cross. I do know that it shows us that divine love will reach all the way into the human condition. I do know Jesus represents human and divine love and shows that it can face self-sacrifice for the good of the loved ones, In our case, that means loved ones unknown to Jesus, we who live in a distant future from Nazareth. sacrifice is an offering. Sacrifice joins the giver and receiver. Love is the ability to sacrifice, to offer oneself, for the sake of the other. In the Eastern Orthodox liturgy it says that Jesus left nothing undone until we are brought to heaven. that selfsame love was offered to heaven itself as well.

Is. 65:17-25 First cut

 

Note that we have a huge number of texts available for the Easter vigil readings that one could apply to Easter Sunday as well. I'm not sure as yet how to handle those here.

1) Only God can bring life from death.

2) Now the suffering servant is vindicated. On Easter, it is an easy transition to the risen Jesus.

3) This is a good place to move away from predictive end times work and move into the decisive change God has made in the world through the resurrection. How does Easter set in motion a new world, here and for our futures?

4) We see in v. 25 a fulfillment of ch. 11:6-9.

5) Blessings, maybe of the original Eden, but going beyond them, overwhelm the cursed ground.the tree of life wins.

6) v. 24 is a remarkable view of communication that seems to be understood without needing to even be expressed.

 

Is. 25:6-9

1) This is a tricky passage for Easter and for the grieving. Easter starts death being swallowed up forever, but it certainly hasn't yet banished it from our lives. We need to exercise some restraint with brave words about Easter defeating death in the face of hospices.We  certainly wait for a time when the shroud is removed from human life, but it has not yet beaten our ancient foe. The denial of death is a potent force in our day. At the same time, how does the resurrection affect our view of death and the afterlife. What will our resurrected form be like. Certainly, if Jesus is the pioneer of resurrection, it cannot merely be a soul released from the chains of the body?

2) v. 8 does affect our tears on Easter but it certainly does not obviate them. Notice that it is replayed in Rev. take on the passage.

3) The swallowing is an interesting image in that Death was portrayed as swallowing up life, as a boa constrictor perhaps. Now death, the swallower, is being swallowed up.

 

Both Sides Now Palm Sunday 2010

Holy Week moves from Palm Sunday triumph to the cold of the Holy Saturday grave. The high point seems to fade fairly quickly, but the suffering is extended.  I wonder how long Jesus was caught up in the elation of the moment. The two sides of Hosanna are evident here. It was apparently a cheer of victory in the time of Jesus. We are in the midst of March madness where the cries of fans echo in living rooms, bars, and arenas for upsets in the making. The Canadian woman in the Olympics had just lost her precious mother to a heart attack and then heard the cheers of the crowd and shared their tears as she performed beautifully, freezing her grief for a few precious minutes of artistry on the ice.

 

The crowd cheered, Hosanna. Hosanna means save us. So it is a plea as much as a cry of acclamation. Did the people know that they were quoting Ps. 118? We hear the irony in the shouts, for salvation will emerge along a different path than they imagined. The healer will be wounded. Yet, the wounded one would have this horror become an instrument for the healing of souls. The one who is our judge would himself be judged by the very political power he rejected in his mission. The conquering hero on a beast of burden would soon himself be burdened by the terrible weight of a cross. Jesus hears shouts of acclaim as the representative of political hopes, of national hopes. Soon he would hear shouts of crucify him. The same power opposed on Palm Sunday would be the instrument of his untimely death.From cheers and palm branches waving and paving the way into town, the street gets splattered with sweat and blood.

 

Holy Week reminds me of the wedding vows. The holy  can occupy space that encompasses what we go through. In the Incarnation, Jesus makes common cause with us, in all of our joys and sorrow, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. Loyalty allows us to stay with someone in the midst of the ups and downs of life that give us emotional whiplash. Love remains stable apart from the circumstances. Life does throw us highs and lows in the space of one week. If we charted our lives on a graph, it rarely stays level for long.  ( Lewis-god in the grave; god choosing the grave)

 

God gives a fixed central point, a point of stability, the eye of the hurricane, even amid the rough and tumble. When we are in ecstasy, it is easy to forget about God. God is with us and celebrates with us in Palm Sunday moments. When we are at our low points, God is with us. When God seems utterly absent, perhaps then we not only fall on our knees for God's help, but we are closer to God in those Good Friday, dying moments as well. We so want the good times to last forever, but in a fallen world they cannot. Even when hard times are relegated to memory, we can relive them in a moment. God's love can wrap the divine arms around both poles of experience. My working title for this sermon was "Both Sides Now," and old Judy Collins song.  I gave Margaret the title, yin and yang. In Chinese thought they have a symbol many of us now even recognize of yin and yang, a representation of the sun and moon, the two great lights of the sky, a joining of opposites.In its way Holy Week brings those sides together in a short space of time.

Palm/Passion Sunday OT selections First cut

Is. 50:4-9 Patricia Tull (Willey) in Remember the Former Things notes an oscillation between servant material and Zion material in this section.

1) Do we select readings for Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday, or both?  Obviously, this is a Passion Sunday reading, especially because of v. 6 and the sufferings of Jesus.

2) Mel Gibson probably loves the phrase "set my face like flint," given his near fetish over physical suffering in passion of the Christ.

3) How does God waken the ear from slumber? (v.4)

4) How can we sustain the weary with a word? When have you been encouraged, given new energy?

 

 

Ps. 31:9-16 Limburg  (WBC Psalms) notes that the pain is systemic. Everything hurts.

1) We are in extremis here. Even death would be preferable. Notice what a long, longtime this seems to be in 9-10. v. 12 seems to be an invisibility for the suffering.

2) The lament form often includes complaint followed by some sort of resolution. Trust emerges in v. 15.

3) v. 15 my times are in your hands

 

 

 

 

Ps. 118-this psalm works for almost any liturgy for Holy Week.

1) hesed=steadfast love, or loyalty, unbreakable bond. How else could you define it as give examples of it? 3 psalms share this verse 106, 107, 136.

2) mesar-distress= a tight spot, a constricted, claustrophobic space, the opposite of the sense of salvation being a broad, open, safe place.

3) on my side= for me. God is for me.

4) In an age of miracles in technology, it is not easy to take refuge in God. Still human power is not final, as defense or in the form of adversary. We can resist the enemy.

5) Even though surrounded, we find God's presence is steadfast.

6)  salvation and victory are both related to the word save that is similar to the name of Jesus.

7) We are in exodus territory here as a reminder of God's capacities. That memory can b e productive of hope, but it is also a hard event to live up to. Why isn;t it happening now for the one praying?

8) Save us=hosanna

9) v. 17 was loved by Luther.

10) In what ways would Jesus still be the rejected one in our times?

11) I shall not die but live takes on new meaning with Easter.

12) This is the day the Lord has made certainly fits different circumstances, just consider saying this on Good Friday or Easter.