at the First Congregational Church of Stoughton

United Church of Christ

On the church calendar, today is both Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday. Two names for the same day. With one, we celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and with the other, our focus turns to the betrayal, arrest, suffering and crucifixion of Jesus. Today also begins Holy Week in which the Church commemorates the Last Supper and the first Eucharist on Holy Thursday and Christ's death on the cross on Good Friday.

We start with an upbeat gospel recounting Jesus riding into Jerusalem for the Passover festival. But we quickly progress to the stark reading of Jesus’ passion, bearable only because we already know there’s a happy ending.

Jesus could have gone to Jerusalem, done some teaching in the Temple, quietly observed Passover, and then headed back to Galilee, but he didn’t. Instead, he provoked the authorities when he cleansed the Temple and then skillfully evaded their questioning and attempts to trip him up. Why?
Jesus said to his disciples, “Follow me.” He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6) John the Baptist tells us to “prepare the way of the Lord” and make his paths straight. (Mark 1:3) But in what ways is Jesus “the way?”

Jesus is the way to many things, including an abundant life and forgiveness.

This coming Thursday, the universal Christian Church commemorates the Last Supper, when, in an upper room, Jesus shared the Passover meal with his disciples, one of whom would betray him and another would deny him. In the Passover meal, the bread and wine represent a gift from a fruitful earth. The head of the family blesses God, breaks the bread, and passes it around to share. Then the head of the family takes a cup of wine, blesses God again, everyone drinks, and the meal begins.

Jesus took a cup, and, “after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, ‘This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’” (Matthew 26:27-28; Mark 14:23-24) They all drank from the cup of the new covenant, even the betrayer. All were welcome at Jesus’ table; all were family, just as all are welcome to our table here. And it’s not just at this table that we can remember Jesus, but at every table when we eat. Wherever we are, we can celebrate the abundance of life and God’s forgiveness through Jesus.
Jesus is also the way to turn back to God, to new life. An image for separating from God is becoming lost. We know that with God, all things are possible. Without God, that’s not the case. Through Jesus, God walks with us for the precise purpose of reconciliation, for being found, for a returning to God. That’s exactly why God came to us though Jesus, to call us back, to show us the way. And that way leads to an eternal life in God, in Jesus.
The way for Jesus leads through Jerusalem, the place of confrontation, death, and resurrection.

After the meal, Jesus went to Gethsemane to pray. Left alone, deeply grieved, he experienced a human moment of doubt, and asked God to “remove this cup” from him. In a very minor way, I can relate to that. When I went in for my first angioplasty and I was on that cold hard table, my doctor asked me if I was ready. Well, I was very highly sedated and I wasn’t going anywhere, but I said, “Can we go out into the hallway, have a cigarette, and talk about that?” And I don’t smoke! He said, “No, we really have to do this now.” So I was, in fact, ready. I just wasn’t, that’s all.

So here’s Jesus, right up against it, praying to God to let this moment go by when he knew it couldn’t. He’d come this far, the wheels were turning, and he knew what was coming next. He was betrayed and arrested; denied and deserted; found guilty under cover of darkness; and crucified.

Now Mark takes us painstakingly through the night and into the next morning, Friday. It was nine o’clock when they crucified him. It was noon when the darkness came, and it was three in the afternoon when Jesus “gave a loud cry and breathed his last.” (Mark 15:37) Jesus died on a cross which, in Mark’s time, had become a symbol of “the way” of entering new life by dying to an old life. It was a symbol of transformation, something which Jesus experienced utterly alone. And of all people, it was not a disciple or a follower of Jesus, but a Roman centurion – the enemy – who realized and declared that “truly, this was God’s Son!” (Mark 15:39)

As disciples of Jesus, this is a path we all walk as well. We all will face moments of trial, quite often many of them. We will be tested. We might even be deserted and denied, perhaps by the very ones we love and trust. We might think that sometimes we too are utterly alone. Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (Mark 13:31) Jesus teaches and Jesus shows us the way, the way to hope, meaning, and new life. Jesus is “God with us.”

That is the journey to the cross, the path of personal transformation. And that is the promise of Easter.

Amen.