Holy Week Encounters with God
Matthew 21:1-11; Matthew 27:27-40; 45-50
April 9, 2017--Belmont UMC
Ken Edwards, preaching
We have been focused on Encounters with God during this Lenten Season. Throughout the Season we have read rich stories from the Gospel of John. Today begins our journey during Holy Week. Several weeks ago I came up with the sermon title of Holy Week Encounters and after the fact the title caused me to remember a Holy Week encounter from a number of years ago.
In several churches I have served there has been the tradition of having a Tenebrae Service on Good Friday evening. The word Tenebrae is a Latin word that means “darkness or shadows.” The service involves reading large portions of the crucifixion story and extinguishing candles during the readings until the sanctuary is in complete darkness. One year, in another church, I had asked a young friend if he would process the cross out after the last reading. The cross was not overly heavy but it was large and a bit unmanageable and I needed someone who was strong enough to do without difficulty. The young man was glad to help me.
I recall that Friday night well. The altar table was set with large pillar candles. The cross, a large and somewhat crude, wooden cross, stood empty behind the table. The readers were in the back of the sanctuary so the focus of peoples’ attention was on the table and the cross. After each of the 12 readings was completed the reader would walk to the front and extinguish a candle and walk away. Other lights in the sanctuary were dimmed on cue as well. There was a thunderstorm that night and as it grew darker in the sanctuary, lightning flashed through the stained glass windows and the static electricity sizzled through the old sound system. One couldn’t plan better special effects.
After my young friend finished the last reading, much like the reading Pastor Sandy shared just now, he walked to the front, extinguished the last candle, lifted the cross on his shoulder and walked out to the lawn where the cross was placed again, draped in black cloths. A crown of thorns was placed over it. The storm had passed and worshippers filed by the cross as they quietly made their way to their cars.
My young friend came over to me and he held onto my arm and said, “I will need to talk with you about this next week. I volunteered to help you because I like helping you, but something very unsettling happened to me tonight.”
The next week after Easter my young friend came by to talk with me and he said something like this. “On Friday the cross felt heavier than I recalled it feeling during the rehearsal. And all weekend I couldn’t shake the feeling of that weight. It was not physical weight but it felt like the weight of the world, the weight of sadness, the weight of cruelty, the weight of everything that is wrong with the world. I felt this horrible, ugly weight and I wondered about the weight that Jesus must have felt and stumbled under as he carried the cross.”
“But then, and this may be because of Easter, the weight began to feel differently to me. It felt like the fullness of love, God’s love, breaking into our world. It felt like freeing grace.”
The experience of Holy Week stayed with him and carried him deeper into his faith. Remember that if the pastor ever asks you to volunteer for Holy Week because it could wind up meaning something richer and deeper than you had bargained for.
There are lots of people in the Gospels having encounters with God during this week between Jesus’ Palm Sunday parade down the Mount of Olives and into Jerusalem and the crucifixion on Friday.
There are the unnamed persons who made arrangements for Jesus to have a colt to ride into the city and have a room for him to celebrate the Passover with his disciples.
There are the disciples themselves, who seem confused and fearful during this week. (It was a confusing and fearful week.) When Jesus said, “One of you will betray me,” they instinctively wondered, “Could it be me?” because the possibility of betrayal was in all of their hearts.
And what about Peter, whose faith turns to fear when he cannot find the courage to acknowledge being associate with the arrested Rabbi.
Even those who get implicated in Jesus’ death, the crowds, the high priest, and Pilate, all seem a little unsettled by the presence of Jesus. An encounter with him is having an effect on them whether they understand it or not.
There was Simon, the Cyrene, an innocent bystander, forced to carry the cross of Jesus. He had probably come to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. There are many legendary stories about Simon, but the writer of the Gospel of Mark drops this subtle hint, calling him the father of Rufus and Alexander. The assumption is that the people of the early Christian community would know these two sons. Did carrying the cross change the heart of Simon?
The women were the ones who followed Jesus all the way to the crucifixion.
There was Mary Magdalene, whom Jesus had healed. She loved him out of deep gratitude. What an unbearable thing it must have been for her to watch him crucified!
And then there was Salome, the mother of James of John. When we see her earlier in the Gospel, she seems a bit like a stage mom, trying to push her sons into the spotlight. She asked Jesus if her sons could sit at his right and his left when he came into the kingdom. As she followed Jesus to Jerusalem and observed the events there all of her self-interest began to melt away.
Mary, Jesus’ mother was there. Mary is sometimes called “the first disciple,” especially during Advent, because she was the first to obediently follow God’s call.
But during Holy Week it is difficult to imagine calling her anything but a mother. From the cross Jesus sees her and the disciple whom he loved standing next to her. Jesus says, “Woman, here is your son.” And to the disciple, he says, “Here is your mother.” And from that time on this disciple took Mary into his home and cared for her.
There was Joseph of Arimathea, an elected official with great wealth, a member of the ruling Sanhedrin. He followed Jesus secretly, but he showed great courage in coming to Pilate and requested the body of Jesus to give it a proper burial.
These are some of the people who have Encounters with God during this meaningful week. How about you? How about me?
Do we see ourselves in the people who encounter Jesus during this week?
In Peter’s fear? In the disciples’ wonder about betrayal? In Mary Magdalene’s devotion? Do we fill our own self-interest melting away as we enter Holy Week? With Simon, do we feel the weight of the cross?
Will we allow ourselves to feel the weight of this week?
Will we allow the weight of the cross to be transformed into the fullness of grace and love and forgiveness?
Will we take the risk of encountering Jesus—the risk that God’s love might change us forever, might call us to a whole new life or to new areas of service?
Where will we encounter Jesus this week?
1