Scripture can be found here: Mark 11:1-11 and Mark 15:1-39.
We have been circling the cross all throughout Lent. Beginning on the first Sunday when we found Jesus in the wilderness, we have been pondering its meanings and its mystery. We have understood Jesus’ death on the cross as wilderness journey, as Passover, or as ransom, as redemption. Did Jesus offer himself as a holy sacrifice, both priest and victim? Or did he achieve atonement through substitution? We have even pondered the notion that the cross was his moment of triumph—Christ the victor over sin and death.
And, following a conversation with our of our community, I want to add this: many of these images and understandings are very challenging to me. Some of them don’t necessarily describe what I believe. My goal has been to share with you the wide diversity of understandings—to let you know, there is more than one. And I will say this: our church—the Presbyterian Church USA—does not require that we all believe identically. We have the freedom of our consciences.
Today, we watch as the story of the cross unfolds, rapid-fire. In the crowds we witness the fickleness of human nature, loving Jesus at the beginning and reviling him at the end. We watch the mechanisms of imperial administration, trying to figure out what to do with this very inconvenient and largely silent man who never claimed to be a king, and yet is convicted of insurrection and sedition and given the worst possible sentence. We watch as he is humiliated, and then, briefly, given aid; as he is humiliated again and finally, as he is nailed to the cross that he has known for a long time was the end of this journey.
What does it mean, this wondrous cross, on which the prince of glory died?
Can we understand a death without understanding the life?
As Jesus has traveled through Judea and beyond, his ministry has been one of unstoppable faithfulness. In him, we have witnessed the faithfulness of God to God’s people. We have witnessed it in his words about God’s kingdom, a Good News kingdom where all are fed. We have witnessed it as he cast out the demons that were tormenting people, because this is a kingdom where all are healed. We have witnessed it in his unhesitating availability to the leper class, the outcast, and in his delighted dining with those labeled sinners, because this is a kingdom where all are welcome. What does the cross mean, in the light of Jesus’ actions? What does his death mean, in the light of his life? One writer has said that Jesus’ life offers an explanation both simple and profound: “Jesus dies because powerful humans oppose both his healing mission and… the disruption that mission brings to established law and order.” Most of his detractors would be horrified to know it, but they stand in opposition the kingdom of God.[i]
Jesus refuses to back down. His mission and ministry are dedicated to bringing wholeness to God’s people, and, the gospel bears witness, this draws them to him. And even after he hears, first the rumblings, and then, the roar of disapproval from those whose power is threatened, Jesus continues on a path that can only take him to the cross, because Rome’s imperial power will not be ignored or denied.
That same writer concludes, “More than anything, Mark simply wants us to see the human capacity both for coming to Jesus and for killing him.”[ii] Or as another wise man put it: “The cross wasn’t God’s response to humanity’s sin. It was humanity’s response to God’s love.”[iii]
And still, God is faithful. God is faithful to us, and we see that faithfulness in Jesus, who knows that the message of God’s love must not be backed off from, or diluted, or undermined. He knows he must be willing to face death to defend it, to insist on it, to allow the fulness of its glory to be properly seen and understood. I like to think of this as the “Emmanuel” theory of Atonement, Emmanuel meaning, of course, “God is with us.”
Emmanuel. God is with us, a God of unstoppable faithfulness. From the moment of the conception of a baby who would be born to a poor couple, with questions swirling around them about his paternity… to the moment that baby emerged to be placed in a borrowed feedbox for his cradle… to the moment he presented himself to his cousin for baptism in the Jordan River… to the moment he first shared the Good News of God’s inbreaking kingdom, and began his ministry of teaching, feeding, and healing… to the moment he was nailed to the cross… to the moment he breathed his last on that cross… Jesus Christ embodied for humanity the love of God inscribed on one human life. In his faithfulness, Jesus accepted death rather than deny God’s unstoppable love, because God is with us. And the story is not over yet.
God is with us. Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] Ira Brent Driggers, “Second Sunday in Lent: Commentary on Mark 8:31-38,” February 28, 2021, Working Preacher, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-in-lent-2/commentary-on-mark-831-38-5.
[ii] Ira Brent Driggers, “Sunday of the Passion (Palm Sunday): Commentary on Mark 15:1-39 (40-47),” March 28, 2021, Working Preacher, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sunday-of-the-passion-palm-sunday-2/commentary-on-mark-151-47.
[iii] Dave Henson (Episcopal priest), @DavidRHenson, Twitter, March 13.