Sermon on Palm Sunday: What is the meaning of the Passion?
As every year, at this time of year we hear the passion story. This year according to Mark, the oldest and simplest version, according to scholars. And there’s good in hearing the story again.
But I especially like the summary found in Paul’s epistle to the Philippians.
If you want the short version, there it is.
Look at Paul’s words again. He asks us to be like Jesus: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” he writes. Now that might be a tall order for someone that is God. Although each of us is formed in the image of God, Jesus himself is in the form of God, just as we are.
But there is something special there as Paul says:
“He did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” I love those words “he emptied himself.”
In using those words, I think Paul is saying Jesus was like a human being, like any one of us, without any special God-like will that makes him somehow better and superior to normal human beings.
Paul goes on to say that Jesus took “the form of a slave” —the worst thing imposed on a human being, forced into inferiority, with the least amount of will and hope. In that lowest of the low status Jesus nonetheless “humbled himself” and “became obedient to the point of death—even death on the cross.”
I should hardly need to remind you that crucifixion for the Romans was the worst and most punishing kind of execution, reserved for the lowest criminals, like Spartacus and his rebel slave army.
And from this position of suffering and degradation, Jesus rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the father to be ruler of all, and to welcome us into that heavenly realm. That is the story we have.
A God who is just as we are.
A God who has been human enough to have gone what we go through.
A God whom we betrayed and left to die.
Yet a God who loves us enough to forgive us, to find a way for us to overcome our flaws and faults and failures.
A God who stands with us in adversity, as the prophet Isaiah declares, who vindicates us despite persecution by our adversaries: “It is the Lord GOD who helps us.”
This is a strange mystical yet powerful story. Unbelievable, yet undeniable.
In the services of the week to come, we will hear portions of this story again, from different perspectives.
Meanwhile the trials and tribulations of this world march on, too rarely heeding the Christian call to reconciliation, justice, charity.
How can we bring the grace of Christ into this world?
How can we make his sacrifice meaningful?
If we don’t, his death has no meaning.
Written for the parish of St. James & St. George 2021 March 28
URL: <http://therev.brianpavlac.org/srms/20210328.html