Luke 19:29-36 When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.” Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road.
Luke 22:14-18 When the hour came, he took his place at the table, and the apostles with him. He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
Luke 23:1-5 Then the assembly rose as a body and brought Jesus before Pilate. They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king.” Then Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He answered, “You say so.” Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no basis for an accusation against this man.” But they were insistent and said, “He stirs up the people by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place.”
Luke 23:44-46 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Having said this, he breathed his last.
Today is the first day of Holy Week and a whole lot is going to be crammed into a few short days. It is much too much to try to read it all in one reading. We are using Luke’s gospel this year and the readings I just read aloud cover four full chapters worth of events.
We are, these days, somewhat attuned to hearing the news in quick sound-bites and so I chose four bits from those four chapters in an attempt to compress them into one shorter presentation.
We began with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem with palm fronds waving like flags and laid out before Jesus as if he were indeed a king.
Then we move to Jesus trying to explain that this will be his last meal with his followers, at what we today call the Last Supper, as well as the institution of the Eucharistic meal we will share here a little later.
The drama intensifies with Jesus arrested and hauled before Pilate for judgment. I’ll be talking more about this segment in a minute.
And the last, of our readings is, of course, the death of Jesus on the cross. This is Holy Week.
Attempting to create a coherent timeline for the events of this week is almost impossible because the four gospels present events in differing order. For example, last week we discussed the anointing of Jesus by Mary, which Luke, whose version we read last week, placed in the time when Jesus was moving toward Jerusalem but had not yet arrived. But both Mark and Matthew place this event sometime in the space between Palm Sunday and Holy Thursday.
I don’t believe that any of the gospel accounts actually claim that all these events occurred in the span of one week. That is an artifact of the early church trying to create a single narrative out of bits and pieces of stories. Whether it was one week or two or three is irrelevant. What matters is that each event moves us closer to the cross.
What matters the most are the happenings encapsulated in the four brief readings with which I began today. At some point, Jesus entered Jerusalem, surrounded by his followers and being hailed as their king. However, while they praised Jesus and sang psalms of rejoicing, others were huddled together plotting his downfall and death, busily poisoning the minds of those around them.
By Holy Thursday, or the day of the Last Supper, when Jesus gathered his disciples to eat one last meal with him, the plans of the plotters were in place. There he foretold his betrayal by one of them there present. There he gave them last minute instructions on what he expected from them once he would be gone from them. And there he gave them and all of us down through the centuries, his greatest gift of himself – his broken and poured out self.
And there, after the meal was over, he was indeed, betrayed, and arrested and hauled away to appear before those who felt it was their right to judge him. The ones who feared he would disrupt their power status. The ones who told lies about him. The ones who did their work in secret so that it looked as if it were all the idea of the Roman state and nothing to do with them.
And from there he was taken out and nailed to a wooden cross and left to die. It’s a gut-wrenching story, but not a new one, nor is it actually unique. We’ve known this story all our lives – this story as it happened to Jesus.
But we also see this story every day of our lives down through the centuries to here and now. The story of what happens when the poor rise up against those who see themselves as divinely ordained to rule the world. The story of what happens when the voiceless find a voice and insist on speaking out for themselves.
The version of the story we are currently most familiar with is happening in Ukraine where people are being brutally murdered every day for the crime of wanting to remain a free people. This one is on our news every night. And as much as this is a war of bombs and bullets it is also a war of lies and denial of the truth.
But there are other countries as well whose endless wars are bloody and tragic. Our news media covered them for awhile but then grew bored and moved on to other stories so we don’t hear about them anymore. But whether we see it or not, the carnage continues. Countries like Syria whose endless civil war is probably the most bloody in recent centuries.
Or Mexico, whose conflict our political machines label as just “local drug wars,” when in reality they are just as much acts of political repression as Jesus’ murder on the cross. They are lies and they are violence.
Wars are built on lies and narratives that declare that certain peoples are not worthy of living. It’s the oldest story around.
We look at the Romans who did the actual killing of Jesus and see them as monsters, yet there are monsters aplenty in this world today. And people crying out for justice every day - today. And people dying every day - today.
When we read the events of this Holy Week, we cannot just shudder and turn away, denouncing the violence. We must listen carefully and pay attention to what they really say and realize they are not just “bible stories” as if that is some special category which has no connection to our lives today, but are, instead, stories of human suffering worldwide – then and now. And then we must pray – and work -- for Easter to arrive – for all people, everywhere,
Amen.
We are, these days, somewhat attuned to hearing the news in quick sound-bites and so I chose four bits from those four chapters in an attempt to compress them into one shorter presentation.
We began with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem with palm fronds waving like flags and laid out before Jesus as if he were indeed a king.
Then we move to Jesus trying to explain that this will be his last meal with his followers, at what we today call the Last Supper, as well as the institution of the Eucharistic meal we will share here a little later.
The drama intensifies with Jesus arrested and hauled before Pilate for judgment. I’ll be talking more about this segment in a minute.
And the last, of our readings is, of course, the death of Jesus on the cross. This is Holy Week.
Attempting to create a coherent timeline for the events of this week is almost impossible because the four gospels present events in differing order. For example, last week we discussed the anointing of Jesus by Mary, which Luke, whose version we read last week, placed in the time when Jesus was moving toward Jerusalem but had not yet arrived. But both Mark and Matthew place this event sometime in the space between Palm Sunday and Holy Thursday.
I don’t believe that any of the gospel accounts actually claim that all these events occurred in the span of one week. That is an artifact of the early church trying to create a single narrative out of bits and pieces of stories. Whether it was one week or two or three is irrelevant. What matters is that each event moves us closer to the cross.
What matters the most are the happenings encapsulated in the four brief readings with which I began today. At some point, Jesus entered Jerusalem, surrounded by his followers and being hailed as their king. However, while they praised Jesus and sang psalms of rejoicing, others were huddled together plotting his downfall and death, busily poisoning the minds of those around them.
By Holy Thursday, or the day of the Last Supper, when Jesus gathered his disciples to eat one last meal with him, the plans of the plotters were in place. There he foretold his betrayal by one of them there present. There he gave them last minute instructions on what he expected from them once he would be gone from them. And there he gave them and all of us down through the centuries, his greatest gift of himself – his broken and poured out self.
And there, after the meal was over, he was indeed, betrayed, and arrested and hauled away to appear before those who felt it was their right to judge him. The ones who feared he would disrupt their power status. The ones who told lies about him. The ones who did their work in secret so that it looked as if it were all the idea of the Roman state and nothing to do with them.
And from there he was taken out and nailed to a wooden cross and left to die. It’s a gut-wrenching story, but not a new one, nor is it actually unique. We’ve known this story all our lives – this story as it happened to Jesus.
But we also see this story every day of our lives down through the centuries to here and now. The story of what happens when the poor rise up against those who see themselves as divinely ordained to rule the world. The story of what happens when the voiceless find a voice and insist on speaking out for themselves.
The version of the story we are currently most familiar with is happening in Ukraine where people are being brutally murdered every day for the crime of wanting to remain a free people. This one is on our news every night. And as much as this is a war of bombs and bullets it is also a war of lies and denial of the truth.
But there are other countries as well whose endless wars are bloody and tragic. Our news media covered them for awhile but then grew bored and moved on to other stories so we don’t hear about them anymore. But whether we see it or not, the carnage continues. Countries like Syria whose endless civil war is probably the most bloody in recent centuries.
Or Mexico, whose conflict our political machines label as just “local drug wars,” when in reality they are just as much acts of political repression as Jesus’ murder on the cross. They are lies and they are violence.
Wars are built on lies and narratives that declare that certain peoples are not worthy of living. It’s the oldest story around.
We look at the Romans who did the actual killing of Jesus and see them as monsters, yet there are monsters aplenty in this world today. And people crying out for justice every day - today. And people dying every day - today.
When we read the events of this Holy Week, we cannot just shudder and turn away, denouncing the violence. We must listen carefully and pay attention to what they really say and realize they are not just “bible stories” as if that is some special category which has no connection to our lives today, but are, instead, stories of human suffering worldwide – then and now. And then we must pray – and work -- for Easter to arrive – for all people, everywhere,
Amen.
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