April 10 2022 From Deep Unto Deep Luke 22:14-23:56
According to the Christian calendar, today begins the last week of Lent. These past forty days between Ash Wednesday and the Saturday before Easter are intended as a time for prayer, meditation, reflection, and repentance. Generally speaking, the serious nature of Lent makes it emotionally a rather dreary time. During Holy Week, the mood moves even more dreary.
Next Sunday morning, of course, we know what awaits us. But we are not there as yet. To get to Easter, we have to go through the events that led up to the resurrection. The point I want to make this morning is that this week we make the difficult journey through Maundy Thursday and to the High Holy Day of the Christian Faith, Good Friday. This week has the potential to drive our spiritual lives from deep unto deep.
Things seem to get off to a good start. We observe today, there was a parade. When Jesus and his traveling entourage arrived in Jerusalem the crowd welcomed our Lord as though he was a conquering hero. “Hosanna to the king of kings, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” The multitudes shouted and sang and threw palm branches in his path. The apostles and other close followers said to Jesus “Stay here in Galilee” they had pleaded. They warned Jesus of sworn enemies and sinister plots that lurked in the narrow alleys and broad boulevards of the capital city. That Sunday morning’s welcoming palm parade for those who had raised the alarm must have thought they were wrong. “These sophisticated big city folks love Jesus as much as we do.”
The good feeling did not last long. The apostles barely had time to return the borrowed donkey Jesus had ridden in the parade, when the Lord went to the great temple and began to irritate powerful people. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and set free the goats and sheep that were to be sold for sacrifice. He even released the pigeons from their cages. On Sunday they gave our Lord a parade, but by Tuesday and Wednesday Jesus repeatedly stood on a curb in the city market preaching sermons that mocked the authority of scribes and Pharisees.
When Jesus and his closest followers gathered for that Thursday night dinner, it was intended as a respite from the stress the week had become. Everyone else wanted to get away from it all, but Jesus insisted on discussing betrayal and dying. “One of you has already betrayed me and the rest will run way when the going gets tough.” Peter, ever the self-assured, objected, “Lord the rest of them may do that, but I will not. I will never fail you.” Jesus shook his head, “Peter, before the sun comes up tomorrow morning, you will deny me three times.”
It was intended to be an agreeable dinner party, but the mood was soured when Jesus brought up the coming betrayal of Judas and predicted Peter’s denial. After dinner, the group sang a hymn together. Jesus took a couple of his dearest friends to pray with him in the Garden of Gethsemane. The route from where they were having that last meal to the prayer garden was and still is a simple one. Take any gate on the south side of the ancient walled city of Jerusalem; follow the Jericho Road across the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives. The Garden of Gethsemane is partway up the steep hill.
Jesus’ experience in the quiet garden of prayer was marked by anguish. Those trusted apostles had the attention spans of small children. They lost interest and fell asleep. How disappointed Jesus was in them. “Could you not even stay awake with me?”
The master knew where this night was headed, and he was not looking forward to it. He prayed, “Lord, let this cup pass from me.” That’s a polite way to say, “God, I don’t want to do this. Judas Iscariot and Simon Peter have been good and loyal friends. I don’t want Judas to betray me. I don’t want Peter to deny he ever knew me. God of heaven and earth, I have thought about this very carefully and all things considered I don’t want to be arrested, beaten, tortured, and hung on a cross to die. Lord, let this cup pass from me.”
God did not answer Jesus’ prayer, at least not the way Jesus asked to have it answered. Less than 24 hours after praying “let this cup pass from me,” Jesus was dead and buried. We know the story did not end there. After the grave came the resurrection. That, however, doesn’t happen until next week.
This week ahead we call “Holy Week!” It is a series of disappointing, agonizing, terrible events.
Before we get to Easter we have to go through the master getting arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane;
Peter denying he even knew Jesus; the questioning in the basement torture chamber of Caiaphas, the high priest; the sham trial at the palace of Pontius Pilate; the disappointment when some of those who sang “Hosanna to the King of kings” demanded Jesus’ crucifixion. Before the glory of Easter, Jesus must carry his cross on the Way of Tears. He must be nailed to that cross on Golgotha. Before Easter, our Lord must be placed in the borrowed tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.
I sometimes wish we could skip over all the bad news of Holy Week and go right to the good news of Easter. However, we cannot do that. In order to get to the joy of resurrection and victory, there first must be death and defeat. Without the cross, the empty tomb makes no sense. Moving our spiritual lives from deep unto deep depends on grasping the significance of how the struggles of Holy Week are followed by the certainty of Resurrection Sunday. This journey takes us from the darkness of Holy Week to the light of Easter; from sadness to joy; from defeat to victory; from death to life.
In your spiritual life, you can be just as certain that inevitable disappointments and struggles will give way to God’s grace and love. Believe this: When you are in a pit of despair, don’t give up hope. God brings new life into the darkest moments of what otherwise may seem a hopeless situation. Believe that with confident certainty. Doing so makes a difference.
As my faith has grown I have come to understand that our own spiritually dark experiences are not unlike the Good Friday from the apostles’ perspective — an experience of disappointment, death, and despair. The King James Version does not state the meaning of Job 13:15 as clearly as it might. Perhaps it is better stated that “I have no hope, yet I have hope in God.”
When something happens to us that is similar to what happened to so many others who faced dark challenges, we cannot look inside ourselves and find the strength and hope and trust we need to get through it. We can however, find hope in God. We have no other place to turn. On this particular week of the church calendar we see this truth demonstrated very clearly. We also experience this truth often in our lives. When we see no particular reason to hope, we can put our hope in God. This is the intent of Palm Sunday, to keep our hope alive even when facing dark challenges.