Were You There?

The Thin Places
The Rev. Janice Robinson
April 1, 2007

This is a major feast day in the Church, not quite Christmas or Easter, but it is important nonetheless. The liturgical colors are festive and vibrant, red. We know the story so well. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. The crowds lining the streets, as he rode in, hailed him as one who “comes in the name of the Lord”. Palm branches were thrown in his path along with people’s cloaks. There was nothing too good for him, that day.

Yet, even as he entered into the holy city, Jesus was aware that this Passover was to be different. His time had come, he had, like the suffering servant in Isaiah, “set his face like flint” in the direction of Jerusalem. He had steeled himself for what would soon take place, his arrest, torture, and death. Jesus could look at the people and realize that no matter how much they may have wanted to follow him and be like him, they were very afraid, and that fear and uncertainty would cause them to yell for his death in six short days.

This week, as we retrace our Lord’s journey, we will stop at those places where he spent his last days and hours. We may be surprised to see ourselves there, and the ways in which we are present. Like Jesus, we know what is to happen but we are there, caught up in the things that happened.

First stop is the Upper Room, a place of gathering. For this special religious observance, Jesus chose a place in town in the midst of things and yet removed. It was large enough for them to gather as a community to share the Passover meal. This most important time of re-membering, placed themselves with the people who had come out of Egypt, led by a man sent by God to lead them out of bondage, bondage to fear.

With Jesus, God too seemed to be re-enacting the time in Egypt when death passed over Israel. God’s Son had come to lead Israel, through her fear shown in her actions of betrayal, abandonment, arrest, torture, and death. This time Jesus was the ‘Paschal Lamb’ who was to be sacrificed.

Sitting at the table with is friends, Jesus tries to help them hear what they don’t want to hear, he is about to die, and they will have a hand in it, indirectly. The suffering those actions must have caused pained his heart as much as the agony of the cross caused his body. Fear is a tough task master, requiring that we pull on blinders to prevent us from seeing the whole. Perhaps if we can’t see it, it doesn’t exist, or at least it will go away.

In the gathering place of the Upper Room, Jesus is challenged again by Satan, through Peter. Peter is uneasy with the evening. He senses that something is different, and he wants to shake this feeling. Perhaps he is trying to put on a face of courage, but sounds more like braggadocio. Jesus tries to help him understand that this is a time of testing, and that he is praying for Peter and all of the other disciples, that their faith may withstand the testing it will undergo imminently.

Peter, all too ready to try to reassure Jesus that he will stand up and meet any challenge,”Lord I am ready to go with you to prison and to death!” How much we want to be able to stand tall in our faith, and some how I think that we know that we are afraid that we may be called on it. We try to sound as if we are not afraid, which is not what Our Lord has asked; just that even when we are afraid, trust that He will be with us, and will help us to endure the trials we face. Jesus says, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day until you have denied three times that you know me.”

Our journey next takes us up on the Mount of Olives to the garden there, Gethsemane. This is a quiet, dark place of vulnerability. It is a place where Jesus had often gone to pray. The light sounds of the birds as they settled down for the evening, the gentle breeze stirring after the heat of the day makes this an inviting place to be. His friends have followed him here and they sat down at apart from him. They are so tired after all of their walking, and having just finished a meal, they are ready for rest. Their eyes are heavy. Their friend and teacher was caught up in the grips of dread, and fear. He knows how vulnerable he is, and shortly thereafter his fear is realized in his betrayal by a friend.

Judas, a young man who has grown weary of the weight of the Roman presence and oppression in the land that God gave to Israel. He wants to be free. He is willing to do whatever is needed to make this happen. He has been waiting for his Rabbi to organize them to strike a blow at the Roman army. He isn’t going to do it, so he tales matters into his own hands. With a kiss, a greeting between friends and one meant to disarm Jesus, Judas hopes to provoke his Rabbi to move in the way that he believes is needed. His fear that freedom won’t come in any manner except through fighting, has moved him to take a step he will regret so profoundly he commits suicide.

How often have we, fearing that God will not help us in the way that we believe is the best, become impatient and determined to take matters into our own hands. Our impatience has caused pain whether we have seen it or not. We have placed our own selves and our egos squarely in the middle of the matter, and then tried to manipulate the outcome for fear it won’t happen the way we decided it ought to be.

Caiaphas’ house is large and standing in the courtyard one can actually overhear what is going on inside of it. Fear ran thick that night. People were gathered anxiously awaiting the outcome of this confrontation. Peter was there too, but hoping against hope his friend would be alright. His heart was beating so fast and so hard he could hardly think. He wanted to help, but he was only one man and he might well be arrested too. After all Caiaphas was the leader who would go against him.

The chief priest, Caiaphas, was a very religious man, but he was also a closed man. He had been raised in the tradition and he had studied the Torah, and he knew what God had commanded Israel. He also had the safety of the whole people as his responsibility. He seized upon this trumped up situation to shut this young man up and prevent the young zealots from giving the Romans any excuse to come down on the community. “Better that one man should die than a whole nation.” Fear can make one sound so ‘noble’.

Caiaphas’ fear that people would fall away from the faith if he didn’t confront this young upstart, and halt his influence with the people, things would get out of hand. His fear prevented him from hearing what Jesus was actually saying. A case where fear has the person so self-focused that he becomes the issue, not God’s will.

Confrontation with the authority in the Jewish community, was not the only one that evening, for it was quickly followed by a confrontation with the power of Rome. Pilate had been a careful man. He was ambitious, and was looking for a way to get back to Rome, the center of the world, at least his world. He has to make sure that he kept order among this people, who could be so stubborn about things.

Fearful that he would not be able to keep the people under control, Pilate worked hard to stay on top of things to stave off an insurrection. That would not look good to Caesar, and he would not be able to go back to the glory of Rome. He saw the manipulation of the Jewish leadership, and tried to duck it, and force them to deal with this man who caused them such fear.

Herod seemed a likely bet, to be the person to take on this responsibility. After all he was a Jew too, although you wouldn’t think so given the way in which he lived and treated the people. He seemed to live for pleasure and let nothing interfere. Look at what he had done with John the Baptizer. So obsessed with his brother’s wife, he killed one of the prophets. His fear seemed to be in losing his possessions, his brother’s wife. And his chance to leave this “backwater” place to live in a place like Rome. He knew that the Romans didn’t like him, and that the Jews didn’t like him either. Jesus stops here, dragged there by Pilate’s guards, and he confronts the decadence of Herod’s life. Herod had heard a lot about Jesus and saw in him someone who could do “tricks”. He wanted to be amused, and not think about the struggle of his life, nor the challenge that John the Baptizer threw at him about living with his brother’s wife, nor about his own order to have John killed.

Not finding him amusing Herod sends Jesus back to Pilate, after all he was the authority here in this part of the world, according to Caesar; let Rome deal with him. Pilate searched for a way he could make the Jewish leadership take responsibility when he asked them to choose between Jesus and Barabbas, a known thief and killer. How outdone he must have been when the leadership had roused the crowd to such a frenzy that Pilate was forced to carry out the leaders wishes or face an insurrection. He saw the glory of Rome pass before his eyes. This place of power seems more a place of political expediency.

From Pilate’s place our journey winds its way through the streets of the city along the Via Dolorosa. The place of suffering. The sights and the sounds struck fear in the hearts of all who watched. The cobblestone streets, made it hard to walk, the streets were so narrow, and the heat made the air close and cloying, the crowds a knot of sweaty, frightened, human flesh all conspired to make it hard to breathe. On that day people lined the streets, wall to wall. It was hard to walk straight up or down the winding, hilly streets. In the middle of the crowd is a figure trying too carry a heavy load up hill. The Roman guard will not let anyone help him. They wanted to make an example of him, so they beat him for walking too slow with a heavy cross bar on his shoulders, although he had already been brutally beaten. Finally, he falls and it appears that he may not make it up the hill at all, so a stranger, Simon of Cyrene, is forced into labor.

He tried to say “No,” but the Roman guard was very persuasive, especially with their whips, and their swords. Simon didn’t know this man they were beating personally. He didn’t understand the crowd jeering this man either. He had heard about Jesus about whom it was being said, he had done such wonders and provided miraculous healing for people. His confusion was put aside, less he be beaten or killed. Simon carried the cross bar up the hill, and then went on his way, fearful that he might get mixed up into something he didn’t understand and in which he wanted no part.

Finally, we arrive with Jesus and the crowd, at Golgotha, the dying place. Crucifixion is a horrible way to die. The presence of crosses was not an unusual sight, as the Romans always seemed to find reasons to kill people. It was a method that brought fear to the hearts and minds of the people. There were, on that hill, two men who had been convicted of theft, who were also about to be killed.

While the thieves hung on the cross, they gazed upon the crucifixion of this innocent, and each responded, one to ask that he might be saved from death, while the second scolded the first and acknowledged that they deserved to be killed while this man, Jesus, was innocent. His simple request was that he be remembered in mercy. His fear could not prevent him from speaking truth and Jesus’ response to him was, “This day you will be with me in paradise.”

So when asked if you were there, your response should be “Yes.” We were there, starting in the Upper Room, in a gathering place, in community, then on to the garden where we learned to be vulnerable. That night we learned the truth about ourselves, confronted with not only our strengths, but with our brokenness too. Out of our confrontation with authority we learned about speaking truth to power.

We were tested, enticed to seek pleasure at all costs, and to avoid pain, but we also learned that if we wanted to follow our friend and teacher, suffering was unavoidable. For you see he climbed the hill of fear, and there died to release you and me from our bondage to fear.

Amen!