As I was driving down the road one day, I noticed a new church that had been built. They had an attractive church sign that had four words describing their church. Each of these four words began with the letter, “R.”
Relevant.
Relaxed. Relational. Real.
It was that last “R” word which really got
my attention. “Real.” It’s what people are looking for these
days. We want a heavy does of
reality. We see it in TV shows in which
we get to peer into the lives of real people.
We have U Tube on the internet and we get to see the crazy things that
real people do.
One of the criticisms that people have of
the church is that it’s irrelevant and out of touch with the real world. Too much “pie in the sky” kind of thinking, I
guess you could say. A lot of people see
the church as so heavenly focused that they aren’t any earthly good.
Sunday after Sunday, we come to church and
we hear bible stories that many of us have probably heard over a hundred times. Sometimes, the more we hear these stories,
the more we lose sight of just how real they are.
This morning, we have just heard read for
us the longest scripture reading of the year and it always occurs on this
Sunday – Passion/Palm Sunday – the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem as well
as his suffering, and death on a cross.
Of the four Gospels, Luke is best known
for his historical detail. He begins his
Gospel by letting us know that he has undertaken to set down an orderly account
of the events of Jesus.
And here, in this long passage of scripture,
we are given a close up view of the final days of Jesus’ life. In his wonderful ability as a writer, Luke
draws us into the events of Jesus’ passion, Jesus’ suffering.
A colt carries a longed for Messiah into
Jerusalem. A final meal ending in a
heated discussion. A lonely prayer in a
garden. A sword is drawn and an arrest
is made. A man cries after denying his
closest friend. False accusations. The release of a murderer. A man forced to carry a cross. Words of forgiveness spoken from the lips of
a dying man. Some women standing at a
distance. A body placed in a tomb.
Welcome to Holy Week. Welcome to Passion/Palm Sunday.
Can it get any more real than this?
Every Sunday morning when we gather for
worship, I try to remind myself that I will be preaching to real people, who
have real lives, who deal with real problems, and who celebrate real joys. We come here to be reminded, even if it’s
only in small doses, that God is real, and that God wants to speak a real word
to us.
In one of his books, the great preacher, Frederick
Buechner, gives us a glimpse into what is going on behind the scenes on a
typical Sunday morning at church.
Buechner writes:
“So
the sermon hymn comes to a close with a somewhat unsteady amen, and the
organist gestures the choir to sit down. Fresh from breakfast with his wife and
children and a quick run through of the Sunday papers, the preacher climbs the
steps to the pulpit with his sermon in his hand. He hikes his black robe up at
the knee so he will not trip over it on the way up. His mouth is a little dry.
He has cut himself shaving. He feels as if he has swallowed an anchor. If it
weren’t for the honor of the thing, he would just as soon be somewhere else.
In the front pews the old ladies turn up their hearing aids, and a young
lady slips her six year old a Lifesaver and a Magic Marker. A college sophomore
home for vacation, who is there because he was dragged there, slumps forward
with his chin in his hand. The vice-president of a bank who twice that week has
seriously contemplated suicide places his hymnal in the rack. A pregnant girl
feels the life stir inside her. A high-school math teacher, who for twenty
years has managed to keep his homosexuality a secret for the most part even
from himself, creases his order of service down the center with his thumbnail
and tucks it under his knee . . .
The preacher pulls the little cord that turns on the lectern light and
deals out his note cards like a riverboat gambler. The stakes have never been
higher.”
Annie Dillard, in her book, “Teaching a
Stone to Talk,” gives us this perspective on just how real our faith is when
she writes,
"Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless
tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? On the whole, I do not find
Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort
of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does not one believe a word
of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry
sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear
ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should be wearing crash
helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should
lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake some day and take offense,
or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return.”
Annie Dillard is reminding us of the
explosive reality of our faith. If you
were to pick a Sunday to forget to wear a crash helmet to church, you wouldn’t
want to choose this Sunday or any other day in Holy Week.
The pace of the week is fast and
furious. Things unravel quickly after
our palm branches are thrown down on the dusty road. When it finally becomes obvious to us that
Jesus is not a sword bearer but is instead a cross bearer, we become
disappointed and even angry. Our Messiah
is supposed to overthrow the Romans, not be killed by them.
The real world is about strength,
domination, competition, and power. No
wonder Peter denied Jesus three times and Judas betrayed him with a kiss.
Someone needs to take matters into their hands
and make something happen. But instead,
we are left to watch Jesus take one punch after another. We watch him as he is lifted on a wooden
cross between two criminals. We see him
breathe his last. We watch him die.
These are the events that we experience in
Holy Week. One disappointment after
another.
Several years ago, I took my portable Holy
Communion kit to one of the homebound members of the church I was serving at
that time. It was during the Season of
Lent, and so I read a portion of this long scripture and half way through the
reading, she interrupted me and she said, “I
don’t want you to read that anymore. I
don’t like that part.”
Truth be told. I don’t like that part either. When push comes to shove, there’s a part of
me that wishes that Jesus would have lifted the sword at some point during that
week.
“Jesus,
you’re taking this whole thing too far.
It’s time to at least defend yourself for crying out loud. Look, there are two swords propped up
against that wall. What if we just go
ahead and…” “That’s enough!” he
says. And with those words, we find
ourselves following him to a garden where he prays.
It’s pretty clear that Jesus’ ways run
counter to the world as we know it. It
makes sense to defend yourself. Jesus
offers his life. He could have had it
all. Instead, he gave his all for others.
But not all is lost. Luke gives us a glimmer of hope toward the
end of our long Gospel reading.
Immediately after Jesus dies, of all people, a Roman centurion, takes
one last look up at Jesus hanging from the cross, and offers a prayer to the
God of Israel. And then he says, “Certainly, this man was innocent.”
From the most unlikely person, the Gospel
writer, Luke points us to the reality of our faith. Jesus is who he claims to be, the long
awaited Messiah who offers his life for the salvation of the world.
An Anglican Priest in England took a group
of people from his church on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. One of the people
in his group wasn’t a member of his parish and wasn’t even a Christian, but he
had always wanted to visit the Holy Land, so he went with them.
They visited the various sights like the
place where Jesus most likely delivered the Sermon on the Mount, the place
where Jesus turned water into wine, and where Jesus would have met the
disciples for the Last Supper.
After they visited the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher which is located on the sight where it is believed that Jesus had
been crucified and placed in a tomb, the person who was part of the pilgrimage
but not a believer came up to this Anglican Priest and asked him,
“Is
it really true that Jesus was a real person who taught and healed people? And
did the Romans really crucify him on a cross and place him in a tomb? Do you
believe that God really raised him from the dead and that he is alive today?
Did all of this really happen?
And the Anglican Priest said, “Why, yes, I do believe all of these things
really happened. Jesus was a real person who lived, and died and rose again.”
And this man said, “Then, I want to become a Christian.” This
man ended up being baptized and started to going to church.
Palm Sunday and Holy Week remind us that
our faith is for real.
A pastor was celebrating the Sacrament of
Holy Communion one Sunday at church. He
had probably served about 100 people by having people come forward, receive a
piece of bread, and dip it into the chalice.
One by one, they came forward to be fed the Sacrament.
When it was time to offer the benediction,
the pastor raised his arm to bless the people when he felt a drop of grape
juice running down from the palm of his hand and trickling down his arm.
Holy Communion was never more real for
that pastor than the day that he felt Jesus’ blood roll down his skin, for he
was reminded in that moment, that Jesus had died for him.
So find a crash helmet and grab a life
preserver.
Jesus might have you pray during a dark
hour. Or maybe someone will ask you if
are one of his disciples. And who knows,
you might be the one to carry Jesus’ cross.
Why?
Because you and I are real people, who are real sinners, and who are in
need of a real Savior.
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