[Mcgregorpage] McGregorPage #600, Passion/Palm Sunday, 3/16/08

[rmcgregoralbq at aol.com]

Palm/Passion Sunday – March 16, 2008

Isaiah 50:4 9a
Psalm 31:9 16
Philippians 2:5 11
Matthew 21:1-11


The Marvel of the Cross

"Equality with God" Paul says.  John remembered that phrase, "For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the Sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God." (John 5:18)  Jesus chose not to exploit it, Paul says, but John reminds us that Jesus could not help but manifest it.  

What is it, this equality with God?  Is it the gift of being grounded outside the universe?  "The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near."  (Isaiah 50:7-8)   But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, 'You are my God.'"  (Psalm 31:14)  "Then Pilate said to him, 'Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?'  But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed."  (Matthew 27:13-14)

A part of the meaning of Jesus' equality with God was the fact that he stood on bedrock our feet don't touch.  The best of our footing is quicksand by comparison.  His ministry was a walk without waiver and without intimidation by this world.  

But Paul isn't pointing to the way Jesus was God, but the way God submitted to being Jesus.  We can marvel either direction, the God-likeness of Jesus or the Jesus-likeness of God --  Jesus standing up to the threatened horror of the cross, or God submitting to the humiliation and torture of the cross.  Let that marvelous way of thinking and acting be in us, he says.  

But the crucifixion is only marvelous if Jesus is, in some sense, God, because if Jesus were just a human being, then he was the most stubborn human being that ever lived.  Not only was he stubborn, but he was obsessive.  He didn't have to be in Jerusalem.  He didn't have to beard the lion in his den.  He chose to do it, and he got just what any ordinary human being could expect to get.  Nothing marvelous about that.  People cover themselves with gasoline and light a match because they want to make a statement.  Missionaries get caught and murdered by guerillas.  It is sad, but it is no marvel.

This execution was a marvel.  It was a marvel because of the way Jesus stood both outside and inside the action, subject to all the horror but none of the intimidation.  It was a marvel more because of the shudder at the end, not his, not just ours, but that of the earth.  "At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split.  The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.  After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many.  Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, 'Truly this man was God's Son!'"  (Matthew 27:51-54)

Consider the terror of realizing that you have just murdered God's Son, murdered God in some sense.  It is not just the horror of the human action, what about the horror of realizing that the ground of your being can be snuffed out!

“When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This it the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.” (Matthew 21:10-11) They didn’t know the half of it.

We are not ready to see the glory of God in the resurrection until we have meditated on the marvel of the cross.


May these thoughts strengthen you. 
 
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>From Roland McGregor, United Methodist Pastor 
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